The Merchandise Guide
Video: US Laserdisc
Compiled by Martin Willey

The Bergman picture is the title credit shot, not from an episode.

RING AROUND THE MOON

Compare with ITC summary.

A space probe en route to destroy Earth encounters the runaway Moon and plans to eliminate it as well.

An alien space ship rings the moon with a circle of light, locking it into an orbit and holding it captive. Another ray of light links a maintenance engineer on Moonbase Alpha with his computer and when the storage banks have been "read" by the aliens, the engineer is destroyed.

The next victim is Dr. Helena Russell (Barbara Bain) whose atomic structure is altered and beamed through space, then reassembled at the receiving terminal. When she is returned it is to transmit classified information about Earth from her computer banks. Presumably, she will come to the same end.

While Koenig (Martin Landau) seeks a way to defend his command against the alien force, Professor Bergman (Barry Morse) concludes his planetary calculations. He is convinced that the space probe is from the planet Triton, which blew up and disintegrated two million light years away. The sphere is on a mission to destroy Earth, then a menace to Triton. Ironically, there is no longer any reason for the mission, but Koenig is unable to convince the Tritonians that they are on an obsolete assignment.

Finally Koenig decides that his only defense is an offense, and he mounts a daring "invasion" of the captor vehicle in space.

MARTIN LANDAU as John Koenig
BARBARA BAIN as Dr. Helena Russell
BARRY MORSE as Professor Bergman

Prentis Hancock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paul Morrow
Clifton Jones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Kano
Zienia Merton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sandra Benes
Anton Phillips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dr. Mathias
Nick Tate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alan Carter
Max Faulkner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ted Clifford

Producer: Sylvia Anderson Executive Producer: Gerry Anderson Screenplay by: Edward Di Lorenzo
Story Consultant: Christopher Penfold Moon City Costumes Designed by: Rudi Gernreich
Directed by: Ray Austin Series Created by: Gerry and Sylvia Anderson

Color/Approx. Running Time: 52 Minutes

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MISSING LINK

Compare with ITC summary.

Koenig is kidnapped and brought to a planet five million light years from Earth, were he is studied as a spaceman of an earlier life form - a link to the past.

Commander Koenig (Martin Landau) is critically injured along with Professor Bergman (Barry Morse) and Sandra Benes (Zienia Merton) when their Eagle crashes. Dr. Helena Russell (Barbara Bain) relies on Alpha's Life Support System to save them, but is puzzled by their failure to respond. For Koenig, however, circumstances are quite different - and he finds himself on an unbelievably beautiful, futuristic world with strange and elegant buildings in the shapes of different bright colors.

It is the planet Zenno, and it is not an hallucination. He has been brought there by an anthropologist named Raan (Peter Cushing), who wishes to study Koenig as a sort of missing link to learn about the past. Zenno is five million light years in Earth's future - a planet which may never be discovered by "ancient" earthmen.

Here Koenig again sees a beautiful girl who first appeared to him in the main control room of Alpha, just after the crash. She is Raan's daughter, Vana (Joanna Dunham) and she tells Koenig that she is 218 years old. Apparently she is attracted to younger men, for she experiences with Koenig an emotion new to her: love. Koenig realizes that his only chance of ever returning to his own time and people is to use her love as a bridge to her father.

But Raan counters by endangering Sandra's life and then their games are complicated by an unexpected turn of events: Koenig begins to think how lovely it would be to spend his future with Vana.

But his real life, he reminds himself, is back on the moon and he must decide which of his lives will continue - the one on Moonbase Alpha or the one five million light years away in the beautiful city of light, with the beautiful woman of Zenno.

MARTIN LANDAU as John Koenig
BARBARA BAIN as Dr. Helena Russell
BARRY MORSE as Professor Bergrnan

Guest star: JOANNA DUNHAM as Vana
Special guest star: PETER CUSHING as Raan

Prentis Hancock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Paul Morrow
Clifton Jones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Kano
Zienia Merton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sandra Benes
Anton Phillips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dr. Mathias
Nick Tate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alan Carter

Producer: Sylvia Anderson Executive Producer: Gerry Anderson Screenplay by: Edward Di Lorenzo
Story Consultant: Christopher Penfold Moon City Costumes Designed by: Rudi Gernreich
Directed by: Ray Austin Series Created by: Gerry and Sylvia Anderson

Color/Approx. Running Time: 52 Minutes