1999 Was The Future - It Ain't Now. (Space 1999)

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Product:	Space 1999
Date:	28/10/00 (11 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Enjoyable programme

Disadvantages: Showing its age a bit.

When this programme first appeared on our screens some 30 or more years ago, 1999 seemed to be so far into the future that story tellers could write anything they liked.

They envisaged that with the nuclear waste problem on Earth forever becoming a larger problem, man had dumped all the radioactive material in one huge buried dump on the Moon. Monitored of course.

A colony in pressurised domes was set up on the Moon to do the monitoring and to explore near space and the Moon.

Then one fateful day something went wrong with the dump and it exploded in one colossal explosion and the result of this mayhem flung the Moon out of it's Earth orbit to go careering into space. Rapidly moving away from Earth the colonists soon reached a point where evacuation was impossible and they were marooned in space on a rogue Moon.

Being in the future Moon Base Alpha was self sufficient in food and air and had the "Eagles" to roam their own near space.

Each week the intrepid band of heroes and heroines would encounter some alien or other as they drifted helplessly around the cosmos. It was a cross between Star Trek without the Enterprise, Lost In Space and Voyager. The odd alien like Maya would opt to stay with the Alphans to enrich their lives and help them defeat whatever came next. Maya was able to transform herself into any creature that she had ever seen but her time was limited in that guise before she took up her original form.

At the time Space 1999 was great and looked forward to by many people. Now it looks a little bit dated but is still enjoyable viewing even in odd episodes being shown hither and thither.

The acting was acceptable for the most part and the sets had a bit of reality about them although the "scientific/futuristic" jargon was laughable. Of course the humans always beat the aliens or at least achieved an honourable draw but it couldn't be any other way if the series was t
o survive a while. At least in Space 1999 there was very little if any British propaganda unlike in the American space epics.

With an endless array of story lines available Space 1999 was set to go on until the real 1999 came by. Fortunately this did not happen and the programme died off. I don't recall the Alphans ever getting back to Earth but it would have been a tidy ending if they had. Maybe I missed the ending.

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