These EpisodesDragon's Domain
These EpisodesFrom the These Episodes documentary originally on the 2005 Network DVD boxset.
I wanted to deal with the myth of St George and the dragon. It's actually mentioned there in Helena Russell's final line in the episode.
It was quite a frightening picture. The dragon appearing out of the fire. Tentacles that were wrapping round people and sucking them in and devouring them. I think it must have been, for kids, quite a frightening episode.
I had young children at the time and they were alternatively excited, fascinated, horrified by the occasional frightening episode of Doctor Who. So my mind turned to Hans Christian Anderson, and the role that fairy tales have in developing the young child's imagination, and the young child's ability to come to terms with things about our human life which are actually difficult to explain, and properly in their way, also sometimes quite frightening.
So green eyed monsters and monsters in space, phrases like this, were the kind of science fiction ideas I had picked up in my own development. And I related those very much to the myth of St George and the dragon.
I find from people talking about, what kids like over the years, I always get the same story. "Yeah my kids watch that episode, he was terrified, he went to hide behind the couch. So I went to switch off, and he says no, don't switch off, dad, I want to watch it." So somehow kids do cope with these sort of situations.
Of course, looking back, concealed out of camera were people with fine wires pulling all the tentacles, and trying to get the tentacles to move in the right direction. But I think the final result, once the music was thundering, was really quite good. I think it was very good for for the time it was made. Again, today we could improve on it.
I'm often asked about Helena Russell's narration in Dragons Domain. And I'm pretty sure it came about as a result of the structure of the episode, which, unusual in fact, and I think unique in the first series, contained a large section of flash-back.
Tony Cellini came back from the first Ultra probe having had an encounter with the monster in space. And this flew in the face of all rational thought. Helena Russell took against it in a big way.
And it became a dialogue between truth and speculation. The final encounter that John Koenig has with the dragon. The realisation that Helena has, that only was the space graveyard true, but so also was this absolutely unimaginable monster, was the impetus behind the story; that her development from a position of being entirely super rational, to one of being able to be open to other possibilities than her reason made available to her.
I think it was dealing with the mixture of excitement and apprehension that we as human beings always have, when we are on the edge of the unknown. I think that probably it was that fact which, not only makes Dragons Domain a popular episode of Space: 1999, but is also the reason why the whole alien series has been such a spectacular success.
Contents copyright Martin Willey