Episode Guide
ITC Press Release: Mission Of The Darians

"MISSION OF THE DARIANS"

A call for help from the survivors of a dying world ...... an incredible world that has been flying through space for 900 years, with contrasting inhabitants. Some have never changed; others have reverted to barbarism. But can this offer new hope for the Alphans?

The spaceship is colossal. From Moonbase Alpha, it appears to be at least fifty miles long and two miles wide. From it come signals which, when decoded appeal repeatedly for help: "Emergency! Emergency! This is the Commander of the Spaceship Daria. A major catastrophe has occurred. Large areas of our ship are devastated. We who survive will perish without urgent medical and material aid ......."

Commander Koenig (MARTIN LANDAU) immediately orders a mercy flight, taking with him Professor Bergman (BARRY MORSE), Dr. Helena Russell (BARBARA BAIN), Alan Carter (NICK TATE), Paul Morrow (PRENTIS HANCOCK) and Security Man Bill Lowry (PAUL ANTRIM)

They enter a bewilderingly strange world of startling contrasts. One part is in the charge of the agelessly beautiful Kara (JOAN COLLINS) and the ship commanded by a man named Neman (DENNIS BURGESS). The vast spaceship set out 900 years ago from its own dying world in search of a virgin planet where the Darian civilizations would begin again, But a nuclear disaster struck early on the voyage and the emergency signal was automatically triggered off and has been broadcasting eve since.

There are now only 14 true Darians left; but in another part of the spaceship, in what has become a wilderness, are decendants of the original survivors who had been left to die and, when found, already degenerate creatures, mutant and savage. worshipping at a shrine dominated by a picture of their god, and led by one they called Hadin (ROBERT RUSSELL).

To their horror, Koenig and Bergman discover from Kara the secret of the Darians who have survived in their original form. Their existence relies on a form of cannibalism, their lives preserved by transplant surgery, their food supplies from re-cycling plants using human fodder. They have tricked the barbarians into supplying that fodder.

And Koenig realises than an offer to provide new hope for the Alphans by leaving the moon and joining the Darians on their flight to a new planet can mean only one thing - more human fodder is needed. He realises, too, that Helena and the other Alphans with her are in acute danger .........

SCREENPLAY BY JOHNNY BYRNE

DIRECTED BY RAY AUSTIN

Guest Star
JOAN COLLINS

Guest Artistes
AUBREY MORRIS DENNIS BURGESS

with

PRENTIS HANCOCK as PAUL MORROW
CLIFTON JONES as DAVID KANO
ZIENIA MERTON as SANDRA BENES
NICK TATE as ALAN CARTER
PAUL ANTRIM as LOWRY
ROBERT RUSSELL as HADIN
GERALD STADDEN as MALE MUTE
JACKIE HORTON as FEMALE MUTE