The Continuity Guide
Lunar Chronology
by Martin Willey

3 Lunar Chronology

Year Two episodes featured Helena noting the "days since the Moon left Earth orbit" in her Status Reports. Otherwise there was little internal continuity between episodes.

Some continuity can be deduced from changes in the design of Main Mission. The first four episodes (Breakaway, Matter Of Life And Death, Black Sun, Ring Around The Moon) have desks in a simple U arrangement, and steps up to viewports. In Ring Around The Moon only the viewports shift forwards. In Earthbound and all following episodes the viewports are at a different position again, the steps to them are gone, and the desks more widely separated. Kano's revolving desk does not appear in Earthbound or Another Time, Another Place, first being seen in Missing Link. The illumination varies. Main Mission has white panels from Breakaway-Force Of Life (9 episodes), green from Alpha Child-The Full Circle (6 episodes), yellow in End Of Eternity, then white again in The Troubled Spirit, The Infernal Machine-The Testament Of Arkadia (5 episodes). In a few episodes it is seen in two colours: white or red in War Games & The Last Enemy, white & green in Space Brain. The Command Office is white throughout the series until becoming orange lit from End Of Eternity to The Testament Of Arkadia (9 episodes), apart from a brief scene in red in Matter Of Life And Death.

In Matter Of Life And Death they are "billions of miles from Jupiter", which in interstellar distances is not far (by Missing Link they are 5 million light years from Earth), although "many things have happened since we broke away from our solar system". In Earthbound they are still in 1999 (2074 is 75 years away), but by Voyager's Return they are in 2000 (1985 is 15 years ago) and in Dragon's Domain they are in 2002 (5 years since 1997, 887 days since 1999). In some episodes it is stated the Alphans have been in space for "months" (The Last Sunset, Journey To Where, Brian The Brain and The Bringers Of Wonder part 2) although the dates suggest years. There are two major errors: Dragon's Domain appears somewhere in the middle of Year Two, and The Bringers Of Wonder part 2 is 18 months after The Bringers Of Wonder part 1. Note that two Year Two episodes did not give dates: Journey To Where and The Taybor.

Message From Moonbase Alpha is set approximately 20 years after the breakaway (ie 2019 or 2020); the Moon will return to Terra Alpha after 25 years (ie 2044 or 2045).