My review of Space: 1999

My latest review, of the 1970s science fiction show Space: 1999 has been published.  In retrospect, the show was not that great, but the presentation here is first rate.  Click here to read my review. 

Time After Time After Time…

In 1979, Warner Brothers quietly released a film that garnered respectable box office receipts and became one of my favorites: Time After Time.  The “what if” story by Karl Alexander and Nicholas Meyer was based on a straightforward conceit: What if H. G. Wells had actually built a time machine, and what if Jack the Ripper escaped to modern times in such a machine?  The summer movie featured Malcolm MacDowell (recovering from his portrayal of the titular character in Caligula) as Wells, David Warner as John Leslie Stevenson/Jack the Ripper, and Mary Steenburgen as bank clerk Amy Robbins.  Much of the film was shot on location in San Francisco – a city which would soon take a larger role in my life. 

How to categorize Time After Time?  Was it science-fiction?  Steampunk?  Romance?  Humor? Social commentary?  Action adventure?  All of the above, superbly mixed by fledgling director Meyers and brought to life by a cast for whom the chemistry – particularly between MacDowell and Steenburgen, who were married a year later – was real. 

With the combination of genres and the popularity of time travel stories, it should have been inevitable that a TV adaptation would be in the offing.  It’s taken 37 years, but ABC aired its pilot for Time After Time this past Sunday.

Sad to say, I was rather disappointed.  In every level, ABC’s version is markedly inferior to the 1979 movie. 

Most of the plot from the movie version is recycled for the pilot - some dialog is repeated verbatim.  No surprise there as Nicholas Meyer, who co-wrote and directed the film, is credited with the screenplay.  But much of the charm of the movie, which resulted from Wells’ frequent “fish out of water” moments, has been discarded here.  To be sure, in both versions Wells is awed by modern technology.  But in many ways he seems too contemporary in the reboot.  Even Wells’ English is curiously in sync with our time.  Particularly with Wells’ frequent use of the word “okay” – a term which simply did not exist for the British of the 19^th Century.

As television is often filmed on a very rushed schedule and it takes actors several episodes to settle into their characters (Leonard Nimoy’s turn as Spock is a prime example of this), it will take several more weeks to accurately assess the casting.  So far, Freddie Stroma is charming as the naïve younger Wells.  The other actors don’t yet bring much beyond physical beauty to their role.  It remains to be seen whether Josh Bowman can bring the menace and latent self-revulsion to the role of Jack the Ripper that David Warner did.  So far, he’s just a handsome young man with a set of knives.  Much of the characterization will require collaboration between the actors and writers. 

Even the special effects, which are so easily achievable compared to 1979, suffer in comparison.  Take, for example, the all-important time travel sequence.  In 1979, it was achieved by animation accompanied by recordings of events as Wells traveled forward through time: a newsboy shouting a headline about World War I, a bit of the Charleston, FDR’s “the only thing we have to fear”, Hitler shouting, World War II, the assassinations of the 1960s, etc.  The effects were hardly state of the art, even for 1979, but they conveyed to the viewer what Wells experienced during his journey.   The TV version?  The windows of H. G.’s time machine ice-up, and suddenly he’s in a new era.    

Pilots can often be unreliable indicators of how a show will evolve.  Neither of Star Trek’s two pilots look or feel much like the show it would become.  The Munsters, Star Trek, and All in the Family went through several changes between pilot and regular season.  Despite my initial disappointment, I will continue watching Time After Time, at least for this season.

When We Rise

We are living in a new Golden Age of television.  Anyone with an internet connection can watch nearly anything he wants, when he wants to.  Premium cable channels like HBO and Showtime led the way, Netflix and Amazon are offering increasingly provocative shows – in particular Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle which is about the most disturbing television I’ve ever watched.  Facing stronger competition, network TV programming, which was painfully homogenized and bland even 15 years ago, is competing by becoming more daring and embracing higher production values.   Compare even the most spectacular programming of the 1990s, such as the Star Trek franchise, with a typical program today.  There’s no doubt that today’s shows give screenwriters greater freedom and put the money on the screen to bring their vision to life.  It’s small wonder that film actors are increasingly moving to television.

Nowhere is this more evident than in television’s treatment of LGBT characters.  Until the late 1990s, when LGBT people appeared at all, they were stereotypes of one stripe or another: the effeminate queen, the nobly suffering person with AIDS, the bull-dyke, the tragi-comic transgender.  There was another seen from time to time: the young person – almost invariably male – discovering that he’s “different” and beginning to come out.  For me, the most memorable example was ABC’s  Consenting Adult, which stared Martin Sheen and Marlo Thomas as the parents of a young man, Jeff, played by Barry Tubb.  Based on a 1975 novel, the film aired in February 1985, about a month before I turned 18.  My mother and I watched together, and afterward I came out to her (I had already come out to my comparatively liberal grandmother a few months prior).  Doubtless there were numerous young men and women who came out to their parents or friends as a result of this and similar films.  Much of Consenting Adult was from the parents’ point of view, which was clever as it prepared many real-life parents for the emotional turmoil which could arise if a child came out – and let’s not kid ourselves, in those early terrifying years of AIDS, learning your son was gay was on the same level emotionally as learning your son had cancer – as Sheen’s character says in one scene. In its way, the film was groundbreaking – particularly one scene in which Jeff tells his mother what it’s like for him to desire another man.  But, as was often the case, Consenting Adult was talky, slow moving, and obviously filmed on a shoestring budget – even by the standards of 80s TV.

Today, gay characters are everywhere on TV.  One could limit oneself to shows with gay characters and still have a full viewing card.  Modern Family, How to Get Away with Murder, Riverdale, The Real O’Neals, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Mr. Robot, Sense8, Transparent, and many more have LGBT primary or supporting characters.

Last week, ABC aired When We Rise, an eight hour miniseries nominally based on Cleve Jones’ book of the same title.  Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, a brilliant writer, has masterfully woven a complex tapestry together, keeping the narrative flowing across the span of 45 years.  Each character has an individual arc, but not at the sacrifice of narrative flow or historical accuracy - as just about every character is based on a real person. The performances are uniformly excellent, but a few stand out: Austin P. McKenzie and Guy Pearce, who portray Cleve Jones at different stages of his life. As much as an ensemble series can have a core character, it’s Cleve.  We see him grow from teenager coming to terms with his sexuality, to liberated young gay man, to protégé activist, mentor, and elder statesman.  Also noteworthy are Emily Skegs and Mary-Louis Parker as Roma Guy, Michael K. Williams as an older Ken Jones, who struggles against discrimination and his own addictions, and Rafael de la Fuente’s gentle, soft-spoken Ricardo.  John Rubinstein only appears in one scene, but makes the most of his small role as Dr. Charles Socarides, a homophobic psychologist who learns his own son, Richard, is gay.  (As a sidenote, Richard Socarides is played by his own younger brother, Charles.)   The production is rich in symbolism, from the emergence of the rainbow flag as the banner of LGBT liberation, to Harvey Milk’s bullhorn.  Neither the actors nor the producers try to sanitize gay history by presenting characters as nobly suffering victims or blandly heroic activists.  Each of the primary characters is three dimensional and behaves in a manner consistent with the era.  The lesbians are wary of the gay men.  Many of the gay men are highly promiscuous. Several of the characters casually use drugs and one becomes an addict.  The production shows it all (within the bounds of network television): love scenes, street cruising, bathhouses; these were the reality of gay male life in the 1970s.    The closed minded and provincial will not respond positively to When We Rise.  Nor, I suspect, will some of the more assimilationist in the gay community who are content to go to the Human Rights Campaign’s black tie parties.  The ineffectual blandness of HRC comes under some welcome scrutiny here, as Cleve navigates the chasm between them and the more confrontational groups like ACT-UP – while keeping his own brand of activism intact.  

This is also the first made for TV effort about LGBT people I've seen that has real production value - it's like watching a big budget film, with the exception of some brief attempts to shoehorn the cast with real historical figures using CGI which don’t quite come off.  But for the most part, the viewer is transported into the characters’ lives and times.

ABC deserves credit for airing When We Rise, with a considerable and unapologetic publicity wind-up, and for granting the production the budget necessary to make it work.  ABC seems to be a leader among the big-3 networks in featuring gay characters, a trend I hope continues regardless of the political direction the country takes.  Despite today’s move toward streaming video, if When We Rise is issued on blu-ray I shall certainly support the production by buying a copy.

Why Ted Cruz is wrong about Kirk, and Trek

By now, every Star Trek fan from here to Vulcan has doubtless heard about Ted Cruz’s ill-advised attempt to recruit Star Trek fans to his faltering Presidential campaign.  When prompted by an interviewer to discuss his love of Trek and compare iterations of the franchise, Cruz opined that “Kirk is working class; Picard is an aristocrat.  Kirk is a passionate fighter for justice; Picard is a cerebral philosopher.  I think it is quite likely that Kirk is a Republican and Picard is a Democrat.”

Shatner, who seldom makes political pronouncements outside his advocacy for the environment, was swift to respond. 

All due respect to Mr. Shatner, it can be debated whether or not Trek was "political."  But Trek assuredly wasn't partisan - Trek had bigger fish to fry. 

First, the notion of applying contemporary political paradigms onto 23rd and 24th Century characters is ludicrous.  Second, to call Kirk “working class” and Picard an “aristocrat”, when they both came from farming families – and in a future when economic systems have drastically changed – is just plain silly.  It’s as if Cruz is trying to use Class Warfare as a reason to vote for him – as if the policies he espouses would ever help working people, as opposed to the 1% whose interests he really represents.

Over the past several decades, the public’s image of Captain Kirk has solidified into a phaser-toting, shoot from the hip space cowboy, even though the character seldom acted that way.   Nor was he written that way, at least in the beginning.  In the series’ second pilot, which marked Kirk’s first appearance, an old friend remembered the Captain during his time at Starfleet Academy as a “stack of books with legs” who challenged undergraduates to “think or sink.”

 Part of the reason for the retroactive re-branding of Kirk is doubtless because most people’s experiences of the Original Series have been incomplete, at best.  Not only have most casual viewers only seen a handful of episodes, the episodes as shown in syndication were increasingly truncated as time wore on.  As the FCC has allowed more commercial time over the decades, the running length of each episode was reduced from 50 minutes to as few as 40.  Ten minutes might not seem like a lot, but it represents 20% of each episode.  Paramount’s editors naturally geared their cuts toward anything that didn’t move the plot forward – which translated to subordinate plot lines, often involving secondary characters; also cut were character moments, usually involving Kirk trying to think his way through the problem of the week.

In series television, the creation and molding of characters is the result of collaboration between the writers (both staff writers, who stay with the show for a time; and guest writers, who may only write a single episode), and the actors, who get to know their characters after portraying them for a time – all with the guidance of the series’ “bible”.  What did Star Trek’s bible say about Kirk?

 “Kirk is about thirty-four, an Academy graduate, rank of Starship Captain. A shorthand sketch of him might be "A space-age Captain Horatio Hornblower", constantly on trial with himself, a strong, complex personality. 

With the Starship out of communication with Earth and Starfleet bases for long periods of time, a Starship captain has unusually broad powers over both the lives and welfare of his crew, as well as over Earth people and activities encountered during these voyages. He also has broad power as an Earth Ambassador to alien societies in his galaxy sector or on new worlds he may discover. Kirk feels these responsibilities strongly and is fully capable of letting the worry and frustration lead him into error. 

He is also capable of fatigue and inclined to push himself beyond human limits then condemn himself because he is not superhuman. The crew respects him, some almost to the point of adoration. At the same time, no senior officer aboard is fearful of using his own intelligence in questioning Kirk's orders and can themselves be strongly articulate up to the point where Kirk signifies his decision has been made. 

Important -- Although Kirk will often solicit information and estimates from Spock, never does the first officer act as Kirk's "brain". Our Captain is a veteran of hundreds of planet landings and space emergencies. He has a broad and highly mature perspective on command, fellow crewmen, and even on alien life customs, however strange or repugnant they seem when measured against Earth standards. 

Aboard ship, Captain Kirk has only a few opportunities for anything approaching friendship. One exception is Mister Spock, a strange friendship based upon logic, high mutual respect and Spock's strong Vulcan loyalty to a commander. Another is with ship's surgeon, Dr. McCoy, who has a legitimate professional need to constantly be aware of the state of the Captain's mind and emotions. But on a "shore leave", away from the confines of self-imposed discipline, Jim Kirk is likely to play pretty hard, almost compulsively so. It is not impossible he will let this drag him at one time or another into an unwise romantic liaison which he will have great difficulty disentangling. He is, in short, a strong man forced by the requirements of his ship and career into the often lonely role of command, even lonelier because Starship command is the most difficult and demanding task of his century.”

In other words, Captain Kirk was a highly complex character, with many internal contradictions – the type of person writers love to write for and actors love to portray.  Shatner once stated he found the role so challenging that the only way he felt he could portray Kirk week-after-week was to play Kirk as if he was playing an idealized version of Shatner.

Let’s take a look at how Kirk dealt with conflict and see if it matches with Cruz’ description:

   
In The Corbomite Maneuver, Kirk matches wits with Balok, the apparently hostile leader of the Fesarius, bluffs to prevent the Enterprise from being destroyed, comes to Balok’s aid after breaking free of the Fesarius’ tractor beam, and proposes friendly relations.  Kirk repeats the Corbomite bluff in The Deadly Years, allowing the Enterprise to escape from Romulan ships without firing a shot.

Kirk & crew toast the peace with Balok

In Arena, non-corporeal entities place Kirk and the lizard-like captain of the Gorn ship into hand-to-hand combat to the death with each other.  When Kirk emerges with the upper-hand, he refuses to kill the Gorn captain – and Kirk appears to have a revulsion to the death penalty throughout the series.

Kirk spares the Gorn captain

In The Return of the Archons, Kirk and the landing party discover the humanoids inhabiting Beta III are being governed by a repressive, computerized God.  Kirk matches wits with the computer, causing it to destroy itself and allowing the inhabitants to live according to their own consciences - the first of several instances where Kirk kills “God.”  He uses a similar strategy in The Apple.  (Kirk’s own feelings about God and religion are largely unexplored, beyond commenting to Spock and McCoy that the best place to find God is in one’s own heart.)

In The Devil in the Dark (reportedly Shatner’s favorite episode), Kirk prevents vengeful miners on Janus VI from killing the Horta, who had killed several miners after miners had destroyed her eggs.  Communicating with the creature via Spock’s telepathy, he negotiates a peaceful settlement.  (Some could also interpret the episode as having a “pro-life” message, but Kirk is never trying to impose his will on the mother Horta.)

In Metamorphosis, McCoy reminds Kirk he’s not just a starship captain, but a trained diplomat – leading Kirk to peacefully persuade the non-corporeal life form inhabiting the planetoid to come to the aid of a critically ill Federation commissioner.

In A Private Little War – the original series’ most obvious Vietnam allegory – Kirk agrees to arm a friendly faction on the planet Neural only so far as the Klingon’s have armed the other side, and declines to use the Enterprise’s weapons to rout the other side, in the hopes that a “balance of power” will lead to a negotiated peace.  This is somewhat analogous to America’s strategy in Vietnam before Lyndon Johnson escalated the war in 1964.

Kirk & McCoy contemplate "the 20th Century brush wars on the Asian continent"

In The Omega Glory, Kirk preaches that the inherent rights of sentient creatures must apply to all the people of Omega IV, not just the Yangs – a repudiation of the type of policy that would lead to the military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay in the wake of 9/11.

Kirk lectures Cloud William on the meaning of Freedom

In By Any Other Name, Kirk extends the hand of friendship to Rojan, the leader of hostile Kelvans from the Andromeda galaxy, even after Rojan killed a member of Kirk’s crew. 

Kirk persuades Rojan that peaceful coexistence is possible

In Day of the Dove, Kirk struggles to make peace with Klingons who’ve been beamed aboard his ship by an alien entity (somewhat symbolic of the military-industrial complex) that draws power from hostile emotions.  During the course of the episode, it’s implied that both Klingons and Federation members have been fed misinformation about each other – in an apparent attempt to stoke tensions.

Kirk and Kang - cooperating for peace

In The Motion Picture, Kirk is able to use his wits to persuade V’ger that humans created Voyager 6; that the Earth shouldn’t be destroyed, and that V’ger needed to evolve - all without firing a shot.

"V'ger, WE are the Creator."

In The Voyage Home, Kirk and crew literally “save the whales” by time travelling to 1980s San Francisco to bring two humpback whales to the 23^rd Century to respond to a destructive space probe – and repopulate the species.

Scotty, Gillian Taylor, and Kirk celebrate saving the whales

The list goes on and on.  There were, of course, moments when Kirk used weapons – or a well-placed punch – to make his point.  But these were nearly always the last resort – just as with Picard in The Next Generation.    

It’s interesting to me that both Kirk and Picard underwent a transformation from thoughtful leaders in their respective series to more action-oriented heroes as the films progressed.  This was not always to the benefit of character continuity.  Kirk, who had previously found ways to collaborate with Klingons even though he disliked them, displayed the rankest prejudice in The Undiscovered Country – somewhat understandable since a Klingon had murdered Kirk’s son David Marcus in The Search for Spock.  Shatner was disturbed enough by writer/director Nicholas Meyer’s “Let them die” line that he persuaded Meyer to allow him a “retraction” gesture as if to say “I didn’t really mean that.”  The gesture was filmed but cut from the movie, a directorial decision which has reportedly angered the actor ever since.

The deleted "retraction" gesture

When it comes to the Next Generation, Picard wasn’t always as cerebral as Cruz opined.  Next Generation fans who weren’t swept up in the action in First Contact were stunned to see Picard in “Captain Ahab” mode while seeking revenge against the Borg, machine gunning assimilated crewmembers and exploding in a rage late into the film.  Like Kirk, Picard was a man of conscience who refused to blindly follow orders.  Just as Kirk violated Starfleet orders in stealing the Enterprise to retrieve Spock’s body in The Search for Spock, Picard violated the orders of Admiral Daugherty in preventing the Sona from despoiling the Baku homeworld in Insurrection - which also carried some powerful analogies to the United States' treatment of Native Americans. 

There are certain historical figures in the Republican Party Kirk might have looked on with admiration, and in The SavageCurtain Kirk is charmed by an ersatz Abraham Lincoln – much to the embarrassment of his senior officers. 

Kirk introduces Lt. Uhura to Abraham Lincoln

But he would have also admired John Kennedy – whose delicate handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis was emulated by Kirk in several of the scenarios above.  The idea that Kirk would have favored the kind of pre-emptive war against Iraq that Cruz and his compatriots supported is anathema not only to Kirk’s character, but to the ethos of Star Trek in general.

*With the exception of Shatner's Twitter comment, all screencaps are courtesy of Trekcore.

Rest in Peace, Leonard Nimoy

Leonard Nimoy (l), with Mission: Impossible cast members. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Leonard Nimoy died this morning.

He is, of course, best known for his portrayal of Mr. (later Captain, later Ambassador) Spock on Star Trek.  Leonard Nimoy's nuanced performance made Spock into the most human character of any of Trek's incarnations. He was a symbol for anyone who was different. As a lonely child, Spock was my hero and role model.

But Nimoy also turned in memorable performances as the brilliant and amoral William Bell on TV's Fringe; the master of disguise Paris in Mission: Impossible; and as Vincent Van Gough's brother Theo in the one man stage play Vincent. Nimoy also directed several films, including the hit Three Men and a Baby, wrote poetry, and even owned a pet store. An Army veteran (he attained the rank of Sergeant), Nimoy worked as a taxicab driver during the lean years before Star Trek. In later life, he recalled one of his passengers was a young Senator named John F. Kennedy.


I am actually two degrees removed from Leonard Nimoy. My uncle, Jim Drake, was a Hollywood extra who appeared on numerous TV shows of the 1960s and 70s - including Star Trek. In the episode Turnabout Intruder, he played a security guard who placed Mr. Spock under arrest.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Nimoy. May your memory endure into the 23rd Century and beyond.

Review: The Bionic Woman, Season 2

As a child, I watched both The Six Million Dollar Man and its spinoff, The Bionic Woman. But quickly became more enthusiastic about the latter. While I was entertained by Steve Austin's derring-do, I cared about Jaime Sommers.

Click here to read the rest of my review

Get Lost

The TV show, that is. The complete series has been released on Blu-ray and it's nothing short of spectacular.

My review of Lost: The Complete Collection

Lost after Lost

I can’t help wondering what happened on the Island after Jack died. 

But first, a brief clarification: Everything that happened on the Island was real. Oceanic 815 crashed there on September 22, 2004, and there were survivors. Some, like Boone, Shannon, and Charlie, died during the course of the show. Some survived and were able to escape, including Michael, Walt, and the Oceanic 6. Some remained. But the important thing to remember is that everything that happened on the island, including the time-shifts and the hydrogen bomb explosion, was real – within the context of the Lost universe.

Everything that happened in the last season’s flash-sideways sequences was not real. It took place in an ethereal world, separated from linear time – think of the Nexus from Star Trek Generations. Some people call this purgatory. 

So, here’s my imaginary continuation of Lost events after the conclusion of the series. It is based solely on my imagination and is not reflecting of the writers, producers, or ABC.

Soon after Jack died, Hugo, Ben, and the recovering Desmond found his body. As they were preparing to move him for burial, Vincent the dog showed up, followed by Bernard and Rose. Vincent went to get them after Jack died. 

Hugo gave the eulogy: “He was like Spock, dudes. He sacrificed himself to save us and the Island.” After the group buried Jack and had a good cry,, Hugo decided it would be best to move the remaining inhabitants - including the Others who had fled to the woods – back to the Barracks. With the war over the Island’s fate over, Rose and Bernard decided to leave their hut in the woods and join them.

Eventually, the Island’s inhabitants congregated at the Barracks. Hugo announced that henceforth, the date that Jack sacrificed himself and saved Island would be known as Thanksgiving, and dedicated to Jack’s memory. Hugo also let it be known that he would be leaving the Island for a brief time, and while he was gone, Ben would be in charge. As part of his new rules, Hugo stated that if anyone wanted to leave the Island, they would have to go with him, but that they could never return. Of the entire group, only Desmond chose to leave with Hugo.

Hugo’s purpose in returning to the outside world was threefold: He wanted to see his parents, and assure them he was alright; he wanted to make sure the Ajira escapees had made it home safely; he wanted to dispose of his financial assets, as he had no use for them on the Island. 

Hugo and Desmond took the sailboat left near Hydra Island, and set sail for the outside world. Hugo was able to contact the remaining survivors and filled them in about how Jack died saving the Island. He told them the Island was now safe, and they could come anytime, but he’d understand if they never wanted to.  He gave them a secret radio frequency where he could be contacted on the Island.   

While on the outside, Hugo ceded control of his companies to Richard, with the instructions that he must use their financial assets to make sure the Island remained hidden, and that no future Dharma Initiatives take place. (With that in mind, Richard gained control of the Hanso foundation after the stock market crash of 2008 and disbanded it.) Hugo also gave a portion of his wealth to the remaining survivors. Upon meeting with them, he learned that Claire had been reunited with Aaron, both of whom returned to Australia with Claire’s mother. Kate, per Sun’s Will, was given custody of Ji-Yeon. She remained friends with Sawyer, but they never married. Sawyer opened a para-normal investigating service with Miles. Lapidus decided to kick-back and enjoy his retirement. 

Once back in the outside world, Desmond reunited with Penny, telling her of Charles’ death. Penny inherited control of Widmore industries. Reviewing documents, she was shocked to learn that Charles’ story that he returned to the Island after seeing Jacob and having a change of heart was a ruse. Though he had met with Jacob, Charles’ hidden intention was to regain control of the Island, and use its unique healing properties for profit. 

Before returning to the Island, Hugo met with his parents, and was devastated to learn that his mother was sick with cancer. Hugo told his parents he knew of a place that could cure her cancer. Though skeptical at first, they accompanied him back to the Island, where the three of them remained for the rest of their lives. 

Upon returning to the Island with his parents, Hugo saw what good care Ben had taken of the Island and its inhabitants: The Barracks had been restored, and what was left of the Dharma stations were being carefully dismantled under Ben’s supervision. With the Island now safe, Hugo decided to delegate day-to-day operations to Ben. Hugo dedicated himself to doing what he did best: Taking care of people. Unlike Jacob, who would only see his direct subordinate, Hugo had an open door policy and would talk to anyone, anytime. He declined to live in the shadow of the statue, and lived in the Barracks with the other Islanders. He prepared supper for the group every Sunday, and for the Island’s Thanksgiving, he cooked Shepherd’s Pie in memory of Jack. 

Hugo did not flaunt his power as leader, and was much beloved for his modest, low-key style. During his tenure, he only allowed himself to perform one miracle: he gave immortality to Vincent in reward for his loyalty to the survivors. During this time, Hugo worried about one matter: who would succeed him as leader. He confided his worries to Ben and Richard, and they assured him that he would know who the leader should be when the time came.

About 25 years later: Ji-Yeon and Aaron, now grown, returned to Island, accompanied by an older but very fit Richard. Despite living on different continents, Ji-Yeon and Aaron had seen each other at the remaining survivors’ annual reunion on Oahu. Eventually, they fell in love and married. Ji-Yeon and Aaron immediately felt a connection to the Island. They decided to stay, and when Ben’s health began to fail, Hugo made them his co-assistants. Unlike many married couples, they worked well together. Hugo’s own health began to fail eventually, and that is when he made Ji-Yeon and Aaron co-leaders.

On the outside world, the remaining survivors grew old and died peacefully.

Reflections on Space: 1999

Recently, I spotted a DVD set of the complete Space: 1999 series at my local library and borrowed it.

I was very into this series when I was a kid. It aired locally on WUAB Channel 43 when I was 8-10 years old. Indeed, I liked it better than Star Trek – mostly on the basis of Space: 1999’s superior visual effects and set design.
After its initial syndicated run, it seemed to disappear, and I didn’t see it again until the 1990s, when I spotted a marked down Laserdisc at a local mall. I bought it and was appalled at how bad the scripts were, how glacially paced the action was (and this was in the second season, which is generally faster than the first) and how poor the acting was – despite a rather prestigious cast. But, since the set at the library had many stories I hadn’t seen since Gerald Ford was President, I decided to give it another try.

For the uninitiated, Space: 1999 starts off in the year 1999 (astute viewers will immediately take notice that 1999 has come and gone, so the series now takes place in the past). The action is centered on Moonbase Alpha, which is located at the bottom of crater Plato on our moon. On September 13, 1999 (Friday the 13^th, of course) a massive nuclear explosion on the far side of the moon sends the moon hurtling out of Earth’s orbit and on a journey into the great unknown.

Mutual fans invariably compare Space: 1999 with the first Star Trek series – even though the two have very little in common. Trek is primarily a plot-driven character drama which happens to be set in outer space – and is optimistic in tone. Space: 1999 is very pessimistic - to the extent that Moonbase Alpha owes its existence to mankind’s growing difficulties dealing with nuclear waste, and the characters don’t have much to do except respond to situations.

The science of Space: 1999 is a mix of the realistic and laughable. Certainly the design of Moonbase Alpha itself is eminently logical (despite the 1970s design of the furniture and uniforms): placing it at the bottom of a crater means it’s likely close to any remaining ice; the base appears to have been constructed of interconnecting modules, which is how a real base would be built; the landing pads for the Eagles are appropriately far from the center of the base – which provides safety in the event of a crash or from contamination; the whole base is connected by a pneumatic Travel Tube subway system that's rather like a futurized version of London's Underground

Much of the science doesn’t hold up under any rationalization. An explosion on the far side of the moon would send the moon crashing into the Earth, not out of orbit. (Not to mention that nuclear waste doesn’t explode, it emits radiation.) The moon encounters a new planet nearly every episode, but given the great distance between solar systems, that’s not possible with sublight travel. Fans will point out that Moonbase Alpha encountered a Black Hole in an early episode, but that doesn’t account for a new alien of the week. Fans will also counter that Trek had its fair share of bad science, and that is true as far as the Transporter is concerned. Warp drive, however, has been theorized.

As with Trek, the cast and characters are multi-ethnic and multi national. Commander John Koenig (note that unlike Trek, which uses Naval ranks, Commander outranks Captain here), portrayed by Martin Landau, is an unusually hotheaded leader. Minor crises send him into an eye-popping, nearly psychotic rage, to the extent that one wonders how such a person could be appointed into a leadership position. If you thought Shatner overacted, wait till you see Landau. (Both actors, incidentally, wear toupees.) Barbara Bain (Koenig’s then-wife in real life) is the cool Dr. Helena Russell. Barry Morse portrayed Victor Bergman, the 60-ish science officer and father figure. Alan Carter, played by Nick Tate, is the can-do Australian pilot.

Space: 1999’s two seasons were radically different from each other. Season one was cerebral, somber, and talky. There was little chemistry between the two main characters, despite the fact that the actors playing them were married in real life. Season Two represented an attempt by the new producer, Fred Freiberger, to make the show more popular with American audiences: Barry Morse’s Victor Bergman, arguably the most balanced, likeable character from the first season, was unceremoniously dumped and Maya, a sexy alien shape-shifter was introduced as the new science officer; Maya had a prolonged flirtation with second-in-command Tony Verdeshi (also a new character), who spent his off-hours brewing beer, which was invariably undrinkable; The romance between Koenig (whose wife was killed in World War III) and Helena Russell (whose husband died in space) is emphasized; Episodes now end with a laugh, as in the original Star Trek; The score, which was broadly symphonic in the first season, was replaced with a jazzy pop-synth score in season two; Pacing was tightened, but there were scenes which still dragged and seemed padded.

Some of the visual effects hold up well, particularly establishing shots of the base and other planets, and flying shots of the Eagles. Many of the alien makeups and costumes look downright silly. Watching the DVDs, I noticed wires suspending the Eagles during takeoff and landing sequences. In fairness to the producers, they were probably not visible on 1970s broadcast television. But high definition TV is very unforgiving.

Despite their differences, Space: 1999 owes a lot to Trek. Even their computer voices are similar, although 1999’s computer sounds like she needs Prozac. At least two episodes are blatant rip-offs of Trek stories: Guardian of Piri is based on This Side of Paradise, with a dash of The Naked Time thrown in; The Rules of Luton is lifted wholesale from Arena. In both cases, the Trek version is superior in content and execution. Trek and 1999 also share a flaw made in the name of dramatic license: The Captain/Commander is always on the Away Team – but in a real life scenario the leader would never be allowed to be put under such risk. (On occasion, this puts Victor Bergman in command, where he is easily more capable and professional than Koenig.)
As it turns out, later Trek incarnations owe a bit to Space: 1999 as well. The Next Generation episode The Child (itself adapted from a script for the aborted Phase II series) is obviously influenced by Space: 1999’s Alpha Child. Patrick Stewart as the warmly cerebral Captain Jean-Luc Picard is eerily similar to Victor Bergman, right down to their artificial hearts; and Dr. Beverly Crusher is obviously based on Helena Russell - her cool manner masking feelings for her Captain/Commander.

For all its weaknesses, the primary feeling I encountered while watching Space: 1999 was one of regret: humans have not even returned to the moon since the series was filmed, much less built a moon base. Humanity seems more mired in mediocrity than ever.