Episode Guide
ITC Press Release: Alpha Child

"ALPHA CHILD"

The first baby is born on the moon.......but terrifying events follow with an outer space battle between spaceships deciding the fates of hundreds.

Cynthia Crawford (CYD HAYMAN) is the first woman on the moon to become a mother, but terror is soon to follow the birth of her baby, Jackie. Within hours, he grows into a five-year-old boy, alert and intelligent but a deaf mute. Cynthia is reduced to a state of shock and Commander Koenig (MARTIN LANDAU) and Helena Russell (BARBARA BAIN) wonder if the fantastic growth is a form of mutation caused by the artificial environment on Alpha. They are puzzled and intrigued by the skill with which the boy draws an amazingly detailed picture of an advanced spaceship and then, alarmingly, a green light in the space sky materializes into a craft identical to the one Jackie has drawn, a little later to be joined by three others.

The alien ships hover menacingly just above the moon's surface. Computer records some form of life inside, but it is not human. Attempts to bombard one of the craft with laser fire are in vain: the rays are defected.

Koenig takes quick action, putting into operation a four-pronged attack, but as he does so another startling transformation takes place in Jackie. In minutes, he grows into a man (JULIAN GLOVER). His name, he says, is Jarak, and he forced Helena to contact Koenig with the warning that, unless he calls off the new attack, Alpha will be destroyed.

He then demands to be taken to Cynthia Cawford. She dies as she sees him but is immediately revitalized into a ravishingly beautiful creature who greets Jarak passionately. He addresses her as Rena and explains that they are involuntary travellers through space, seeking a physical form which to conceal their own identities. On their planet, they faced extermination because they were different and now 120 of them are running away form the ruthlessly imposed genetic conformity.

Their plan is to take over the bodies of those on Moonbase. The moments of birth and death are ideally suited to this purpose and the birth of Jackie Crawford gave Jarak his chance. Now there will be more deaths as Jarak's companions in the hovering spaceships transfer themselves to dying Moonbase Alpha bodies that have been selected.

But a blinding flash is a warning to Jarak that his people's enemies have caught up with them. Six more space ships have arrived and the war of the spaceships is not raging. The outcome will decide that fate of Moonbase Alpha and its people and of Jarak and Rena.

SCREENPLAY BY CHRISTOPHER PENFOLD

DIRECTED BY RAY AUSTIN

Guest Artists
JULIAN GLOVER
CYD HAYMAN

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
WAYNE BROOKS as JACKIE