Space 1999

Well it has been some time but it is time to get back to blogging. As a start I am going to cover the late, great Gerry (and Sylvia) Anderson's foray in to live action sci-fi, the British TV series Space 1999. It tells the story of a Moon base before a catastrophic explosion blows the Moon out of earth's orbit and the adventures begin therein. Series 1 started with Martin Landau (Commander John Koenig) and Barbara Bain (Dr Helena Russell) as the two main protagonists together with Nick Tate, Barry Morse and Zienia Merton as their capable supporting staff.

What can you say about series one? Sorry, but apart from a few episodes it stank. Landau and Bain in particular are not charismatic actors and the plots were usually shot full of scientific holes and I always allow a lot of latitude when it comes to space opera. Best episode was possibly 'The Troubled Spirit' but even that was a flawed work. The series finale 'The Last Enemy' at least had Caroline Mortimer as a sometimes leather clad war general and this episode is worth a look for fans of space vixens despite its awful scientific mistakes, no atmosphere on the moon being no barrier to Moon base experiencing deafening explosions and rocket fire.

Season 1 was not a success. For series 2 the drab costumes had a minor makeover, for the women at least. Season 2 introduced the delightful Catherine Schell as the shape shifting alien Maya. I some ways the show became even more kitsch than series 1, budgetary constraints meant that Maya never really satisfactorily shape shifted and sad to say the whole series ended without resolution and without much fan fare. If I had to describe the series it would be that it was a noble failure where its ambition exceed its capabilities. Gerry produced MUCH better work using wooden puppets rather than using wooden actors. Here are some publicity shots of the much appreciated Catherine Schell

Anyway, on to the bad girl quotient for some of the episodes. The season two episodes 'The Exiles' featured two young people Cantor and Zova (Stacy Dorning) who it turns out were exiled for very good reasons until Koenig made the mistake of releasing them.

 'Seed of Destruction' had one minor scene featuring a woman with the hand laser.

The best women villaineses appeared within the incredibly kitsch episode "Devil's Planet".  Basically it is the story of a prison colony populated with whip wielding female guards and ruled over by a sadistic governess (I told you it was kitsch). The scenes of the guards hunting down would be escapees whilst wearing slinky red catsuits more than make up for the ludicrous plot. In its own way it is a classic.