Episode Guide
ITC Press Release: Matter Of Life And Death

"SPACE 1999"

SYNOPSIS

A man returns from the dead and promise of a new civilization on a planet resembling earth opens for those stranded on the runaway moon. But there is drama ahead.

***

Dr. Helena Russell (BARBARA BAIN) has believed herself to be a widow since the disappearance of her husband, Lee, on a space mission that went wrong. Locked in orbit around Jupiter, the ship burned up. All the crew must have died.

Now, sensationally, she comes face to face with Lee (RICHARD JOHNSON) when he arrives on the moon in a spacecraft that has been probing a planet, Terra Nova, which is apparently capable of sustaining human life.

But how did Lee get into the spacecraft? His condition is anything but normal and Professor Bergman (BARRY MORSE) theorises that Lee must somehow have found himself on Terra Nova and that some aspect of the planet's environment caused him to change in some way.

Commander Koenig (MARTIN LANDAU) is puzzled but preoccupied with the possibilities of evacuating Moonbase Alpha personnel to the planet that has all the promise of a normal future akin to that on earth.

Alarmingly, when Helena touches her husband she is gripped by an enormous vibration which hurls her across the room, and further examination of Lee produces even more puzzling factors. He records no life, no body heat, yet his heart is beating and he is breathing. When he at last regains sufficient consciousness to talk, his plea is: "You are in danger. You must not go near the planet. You face power beyond your understanding. It will destroy you." and he dies. This time, there is no doubt. He is dead, but after death his skin shows changing atomic structure signs of reversed polarity and apparent confirmation of a theory that this is the first stage in the process towards anti-matter. As soon as the process is complete, it means annihilation. A little later, his body disappears.

Nevertheless, Koenig decides to go ahead with the landing, taking an advance party which includes himself and Helena, and Terra Nova proves to be so like earth that he is sure it can be colonized. But from Moonbase comes an ominous warning. Bergman reports trouble. There is trouble too, aboard the spaceship. And then things begin to happen to the landing party.

Koenig and Helena watch as a violent explosion rocks the moon, which disintegrates, the debris hurtling towards Terra Nova. Shock waves hit the planet. Koenig and Helena dive into a cave, but Koenig is hit by falling debris........ and dies.

Helena then hears the voice of her dead husband, turns, and finds Lee standing beside her to tell her how he and his companions had been affected by a form of radiation, atomized scattered into deep space. What Lee became, what he is now, ended on Terra Nova. Just as there are many forms of life in space, so there are many forms of death. Lee is now anti-matter. He could never survive on earth. Now Helena must leave. He can give her the strength she needs.

Lee vanishes and Koenig, alive again, comes towards her. Everything is as it was before and from Bergman on the moon comes the announcement that everything is ready for Operation Exodus.......... if Koenig gives the go-ahead.

SCREENPLAY BY ART WALLACE, JOHNNY BYRNE

DIRECTED BY CHARLES CRICHTON

Guest Artist
RICHARD JOHNSON

with

PRENTIS HANCOCK as PAUL MORROW
CLIFTON JONES as DAVID KANO
ZIENIA MERTON as SANDRA BENES
ANTON PHILLIPS as DR. MATHIAS
NICK TATE as ALAN CARTER
STUART DAMON as PARKS