Missing Link
Commander Koenig finds himself in another world and another time. It is a world of light and beauty. He has to choose between life back again among his companions on the moon and the love of a beautiful girl. Love is the only weapon he can use... ITC summary
- Shooting script 5th April 1974. Pink page amendments 3rd May 1974, green page amendment undated. Filmed 22nd April - 7th May 1974. Additional shooting script 4th July 1974. See Script to screen
- For Alan Carter's fight with Bob Mathias in Medical, Nick Tate choreographed with the stuntman, Paul Weston. But when it came to shoot the scene at the end of the day (1st May 1974) Anton Phillips stood in. Instead of jerking his head back, he jerked forward onto the punch and was knocked out.
- The Zenno void is a 90 ft (27m) long tent of parachute nylon, filled with slippery, choking dry ice. Zienia Merton said in an interview:
I said, 'Listen Ray, how far is this mist coming up?' and he said 'To Martin's chin' and you know how little I am and so I said, 'well if it's coming up to Martin's chin, I can throw me lines in, I needn't appear... all Martin has to do is hold a black mop for the top of my head' There was this great trestle table suspended six feet off the ground and I said, 'Hey, I'm not that short...!'. But the effect they wanted was to make it look as if we were floating in the air and it was a marvellous effect.
- SFX footage
- SFX storyboards
- The Zenno surface is a matte painting, animated with lights. The painting was filmed on 28 July 1974 according to the clapperboard.
On screen the city appears with a yellow halo.
The Zenno matte painting (by Ray Caple) appears in full only in the This Episode clips, with a small Eagle flying over (part of an unused storyline).
- For the first time, three Eagles are seen together (the crashed Eagle, the rescue Eagle alongside, and the cargo (winch) Eagle overhead). However, only one 44" Eagle existed (the second was being built and appeared first in Guardian Of Piri). Hence in some shots, one of the other Eagles was substituted with a photographic cut-out (the Eagle nose capsule when being carried away is also a cut-out).
Vana's theme is an unused Barry Gray track intended to be the Moonbase Alpha theme. The script specifies the love theme from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, although this was not used. Otto Solin points out: "It would not be a bad idea to use this music here since they speak of being united as one in a world without fear ("...ewig einig, ...ohn' Erbangen"
).".
- Library track: from Stingray "Ghost Of The Sea" by Barry Gray
- Library track: from Secret Service "A Case For The Bishop" by Barry Gray
- Library track: from Secret Service "Last Train to Bufflers Halt" by Barry Gray
- ITC Music Cue Sheet
- A missing link is a transitional stage in evolution for which no fossil evidence exists. Are the Zennites actually descended from Earthmen or were ancient Zennites simply like Earthmen? The episode is not clear.
- The straight line and steady beep of the ECG indicates the heart is asystolic, with no electrical activity and thus no blood being pumped. This is not "shockable"- defibrilation will not bring anyone in asystole back to life. Helena then uses compression-only cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), which by itself is also of little use in asystole. Even when CPR is performed by doctors in hospitals, patients frequently suffer rib fractures, and survival rates are 20% or less.
0 fatalities.
Alpha Technology:
- Launch pad 7 is mentioned. There are only 5 pads visible around the base, but according to The Exiles there are outlying stations with their own launch pads as well.
- Medical thermographic scans are seen.
Eagle 1 (crashed); 4 (Rescue); 7 ("Cargo", with a winch platform)
- The Rescue Eagle appears. A shot of the launch is taken from Earthbound.
- The winch pod, called a Cargo Eagle here, also appears in Breakaway and Space Brain
- This is the first episode in which the correct Eagle number appears on the cabin doors. For the first six episodes the cockpit door had always read "6".
- The passenger module set changes. A computer now occupies one side (the seats reappear in Guardian Of Piri, The Exiles and New Adam New Eve). The bulkhead by the passenger module doors changes from a viewscreen to a computer panel with two small TV screens.
Zenno
Aliens:
Zennites. Humanoid and perhaps related to Earth humans.
In the Zenno/dream Diagnostic Unit, Koenig's nameplate reads "KEONIG". On Alpha his name is spelled correctly. The close-up was filmed 3 months after the original filming, see Script to screen. The mistake makes sense within the story, because this is a fake medical centre created by Raan.
The real Moonbase- spelled correctly. |
Long shot in the Zennite Moonbase- also spelled correctly. Filmed on Tuesday, 30th April 1974. |
Koenig's POV from the last shot- the misspelling. Filmed as a special "insert" on Monday 22nd July 1974. |
- The camerawork emphasises the dream/nightmare elements of the story with soft focus and indistinct lines. Note the mirror in Diagnostic Unit.
- The concept that fear must be understood and neutralised is also in War Games.
- The story emphasises the characters- most get to lose their tempers. The script makes clear that Koenig initially pretends to fall in love with Vana (only when he tells Raan he loves her does he realise he means it). This is too subtle for the screen; in the episode he seems to fall in love with her and be willing to abandon Helena and Alpha immediately.
- In the script, the Eagle is scanning for mineral deposits on the Moon with many different coloured planets in the space sky.
- In the script, but not the episode, Raan states he is 508 years old, while Vana is 218. Koenig remarks "Neither of you looks a day over 21".
- The story has an obvious debt to Shakespeare's The Tempest (1611), with Raan as Prospero, Vana as his naive daughter Miranda and Koenig as the shipwrecked Ferdinand, who falls in love with Miranda.
- Vana's final repeated line "Do not forget me." refers to Dido's lament from Henry Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas (1688). Aeneas is sailing from the fallen Troy but is stranded in Carthage, where he falls in love with its queen, Dido. He decides he must follow his duty to travel to Rome, leaving her.
External Links
Episode Guide 
Year 1 - Episode 7 
