All that Glisters
| Belgium (Flemish) |
Al wat blinkt |
|
17 Aug 1977 |
| Denmark |
Farligt Mineral |
Dangerous Mineral |
6 Jun 1977 |
| France/Canada |
Tout ce qui luit |
All That Glisters |
11 Dec 1976 |
| Germany |
Der entscheidende Stoff |
The Decisive Material |
21 May 1978 |
| Italy |
La Milgonite |
The Milgonite |
16 Apr 1979 |
| Hungary |
A sziklák titka |
The secret of the rocks |
26 Jul 1979 |
| Japan |
Bizarre! Lethal Colour-changing Rock |
21 May 1981 |
| Poland |
Nie wszystko zloto, co sie swieci |
|
2 Sep 1978 |
| Portugal |
Nem Tudo o que Brilha... |
All That Glisters... |
17 Sep 1977 |
| Spain |
Todo lo que reluce |
All that glitters |
7 Apr 1977 |
| South Africa | Skyn Bedreig |
Mock Threat | 19 May 1984 |
| USA (New York) |
|
|
5 Mar 1977 |
| USA (San Francisco) |
|
|
5 Feb 1977 |
| UK (ATV) |
|
|
28 Oct 1976 |
| UK (LWT) |
|
|
30 Oct 1976 |
A battle for life with a rock that pulsates with power, energy, intelligence and purpose...a rock fighting desperately for its own preservation, seeking water that it can obtain only from the Alphans. ITC summary
- Revised draft dated 9 February 1976.
Shooting script dated 9 March 1976.
Pink line amendments and pages 12 March, blue line amendments and pages 16 March, yellow line amendments and pages 17 March.
Filmed 18 March-31 March 1976
- Additional scenes filmed 11th May 1976
- Martin Landau hated the script. Handwritten comments on his copy of the script include
"All the credibility we're building up is totally foresaken in this script!", "...Story is told poorly!", "Characters go out the window"
, and "The character of Koenig takes a terrible beating in this script - We're all shmucks!"
- Fred Freiberger was impressed by this script. Director Ray Austin and star Martin Landau disliked the concept; Landau was at the point of leaving the production. Tony Anholt (in SIG #8 p6) recalls:
There was one big, big battle going on about the script "All That Glisters." I got zapped pretty early on and spent my time walking around like a zombie carrying a piece of rock. Martin was desperately unhappy about the whole script, he thought it was absolute rubbish, as indeed we all did. Freddie, once he saw the opposition, just became utterly entrenched and would give nothing at all - that was the greatest episode of the series, it was the most sci-fi type of story - that was going to stay and he would prove his point. Short of walking off the set, completely screwing the whole series up, there was nothing we could do about it.
- Although a lifeform could exist with a mostly solid body of skeleton/shell, the rocks have no limbs to move themselves. Instead they rely on animals (humans) to carry them about. It is implausible that such an inert animal could evolve powers to control minds, and sufficient intelligence to fly an alien spaceship like the Eagle.
- Presumably the rocks destroy water in their metabolism, creating the red oxide dust that creates the planet deserts. However it is implausible that the hydrological cycle has stalled over the entire planet, the water permanently suspended in clouds. Perhaps the water shortage is local to the Eagle landing site - the rocks cannot move, after all.
- Cloud seeding needs large unstable masses of moisture laden air. It has not been scientifically proven to work, and is certainly not as quick or efficient as seen here. "Nucleoid active crystals" is a malapropism. "Nucleoid" refers to the genetic region in unicellular prokaryotes; the rain process is called "nucleation", in which hygroscopic nuclei accelerate the Bergeron precipitation mechanism. Materials include silver iodide, dry ice and salt.
- Tony's heart stops, yet he is still alive. His organs and cells should fail and degenerate rapidly without oxygenated blood.
- The geological minerals (quartz, orthoglase, hornblende, augite, olivide, feldspar) are typical igneous minerals suggesting a diorite or andesite rock.
- Reilly says he has "tapped" uranium. Uranium is a hard-rock mineral, usually mined in open-pit mines (the largest deposits are in Canada, Australia and Kazakhstan). However, in US sandstone deposits, they are mined by in-situ leaching, pumping weak acid or alkali liquids into the permeable rock and extracting the leachate from wells, which arguably could be called "tapping".
- The unnamed planet is 2.58 million miles (4.15 million km) from the Moon. The Moon has a mean orbital distance from the Earth of 240 thousand miles (384,000 km), and most planets encountered seem to be in the same range (their apparent diameter viewed from Moonbase Alpha is similar). Perhaps this explains the unusually restrictive 3 hour launch window. In comparison, Terra Nova and Retha were within range for about 3 days, Ultima Thule was accessible for 5 days and the War Games planet landing window was 4 days. The planet was discovered only two days before, so the approach must have been very fast; the return would presumably be slower to save fuel. Thanks to Marcus Lindroos.
- This is a risky mission with most of the key personnel from Alpha. A second Eagle as backup in case of engine failure (or alien abduction) would have been sensible. Perhaps this is the Eagle with the different pod seen in one scene...
565 days after leaving Earth orbit (Saturday 31 March 2001). The planet was discovered two days previously; all events occur during the 3 hour, 2 minute landing window.
0 fatalities.
Alpha Technology:
Eagle 4 ("Rescue"). Features the booster pod (usually!). Here it is a "specially adapted laboratory section".
Rock
Unnamed planet
Aliens:
Living rocks
Footage:
- The only episode not to feature any scenes on Moonbase Alpha.
The Eagle has a booster pod throughout, apart from one scene (as the rock tries to make the Eagle launch) of a standard pod.
While the SFX model has lateral extensions (mostly), the interior set is actually normal width but about twice as long as normal. The exterior set door is the standard door with steps. The model Eagle has a narrow door and no steps are ever seen.
- Koenig is obviously very angry throughout this episode.
- Tony Anholt dropped the rock. Ray Austin:
He broke the bloody thing, he dropped it! He was supposed to be trying to carry it or something. There was one scene where Frankie Watts had it wired and he had a wire up his leg to move across the set with it. He dropped it and it held us up.
(Andersonic 13, Feb 2012, p10)
- In the 1980s UK repeats (such as HTV on September 8, 1983, and LWT on January 1st, 1985), this was the only episode shown with the show titles after the hook. Every other episode of Year 2 was shown with the titles first, then the hook immediately followed by the rest of the episode. It is not known if this was the original format of the episode in 1976. All commercial releases on video and DVD have used the standard titles-first format.
The rock colours:
- Yellow- induces cardiac arrest in Tony
- Blue- paralyses Koenig in pain
- Green- numbs Helena, stops Dave using laser, pilots Eagle and drains water
- Red- is death!
External Links
Episode Guide
Year 2 - Episode 4 
