Space 1999 Merchandise Guide: Big Finish

Big Finish Audio Dramas

UK 26th February 2021
CD: ISBN: 978-1-83868-286-6 €22.02
Digital download: ISBN: 978-1-83868-287-3 €16.99
GerryAnderson.co.uk special edition CD: €28.9

This is the second audio drama in the Big Finish Space: 1999 series, confusingly titled Volume 1. It is a 3-CD set of 180 minutes. Each disc has one story, of about 60 minutes (slightly more than the television episodes). This improves the rather slow pace of the first drama.

On the end of each disc is an interview section, with writers and cast talking about the story, of about 9- 12 minutes.

As before, there is a GerryAnderson.co.uk special edition, consisting of 500 copies, which adds a slipcase, booklet, and "special feature digital download", contents to be defined.

The stories are two originals, and one adapted from an episode. The adapted episode is Death's Other Dominion; the Uranus Probe becomes the Neptune Probe, presumably to avoid schoolboy jokes; the planet Terra Nova is renamed Nival here. The Siren Call features Meta (actually a planet called Pyrus); the name echoes the original Art Wallace script The Siren Planet, which became Matter of Life and Death.

Bonnar's Koenig and Hayward's Bergman are good. Creasey's Helena is still a little too acidic here. Bentinck's Simmonds is a pompous fool, and a little too much like Lost In Space's Dr Smith, but later he gets some redemption. The aliens and mad scientists are conventional villains. In the first story, the Pyrians are energy beings who occupy the cadavers of humanoid aliens. Their Meta signal is a siren signal to attract the humanoids so they can take their bodies. The entire breakaway is engineered so they can kill the Alphans and take their bodies. The original series played with such ideas (see Alpha Child), but the Big Finish version is pure pulp adventure, without any of the mystery or grandeur.

Arguably this fits year 2 better, but it does feel more like Doctor Who.

The Siren Call by Andrew Smith. Length 1h 3m 57s (interviews: 12m 21s)
The people of Moonbase Alpha are recovering from the shock of their base and their Moon having been blasted through a wormhole in space. But now they are far from home with little hope of a return to Earth.
Ahead of them is the planet Meta, whose signal somehow caused this catastrophe. Could this be their new home or does yet more danger lie ahead?
Death's Other Dominion by Roland Moore (adapted from the original teleplay by Anthony Terpiloff and Elizabeth Barrows)
1h 7m 4s (interviews 9m 17s)
A voice calls to the Alphans from a mysterious, snowbound planet. Can it be possible that humans from Earth have really colonised this remote world?
When Commander Koenig and his team investigate, they discover the planet Nival holds many terrible secrets.
Goldilocks by Andrew Smith 1h 3m 23s (interviews 12m 49s)
Not too hot, not too cold. The perfect planet on which life can thrive. But not all forms of life that thrive in the Goldilocks zone are peaceful.
Investigating this lush paradise, the Alphans must battle an ancient terror for survival.