Catacombs Reference LibraryEnd of Eternity Fantasy Flashback
Catacombs Reference LibraryReviews from TV Zone, "the monthly magazine of cult television", an early 1990s UK genre magazine
by Richard Houldsworth
TV ZONE SPECIAL Number 17, Lost Voyagers Special (May 1995); p20-23 (4c, 2bw)
End of Eternity was written by regular Space: 1999 contributor Johnny Byrne as an attempt to confront the ethics of immortality. Although the writer feels the episode is not his most successful, the captivating script, with the quite brilliant direction of Ray Austin, make the story something of a classic.
Austin began his career as a stuntman, working on many of the action/adventure series of the Sixties and Seventies. Many of the shows he has directed have contained a high quota of stunts - his most recent assignment has been the tv series Highlander and End of Eternity is no exception, as Balor engages in hand-to-hand combat with numerous Alphan guards and the Commander. Austin elected to remove the soundtrack from these sequences, replacing it with some very subtle incidental music. The results are effectively eerie. In terms of violence, this is one of the few episodes when the show went over the top, and footage that was considered too graphic was removed. For the scene in which Baxter attacks Koenig with the toy aeroplane, which was shot in loving detail from the plane's point of view as it strikes the Commander's head, a scene was recorded in which Koenig drags himself along on the floor, his head a bloody pulp. Although these shots never made it into the final version, colour stills of Basil Newall's gory make-ups for Martin Landau still exist.
For the role of the sadistic Balor (a name taken from the word Baal, meaning 'Devil'), Peter Bowles was selected. Now a veteran of numerous TV sitcoms (perhaps most notably To the Manor Born), Bowles is quite superb as the alien villain, and his presence is made all the more effective by some concealed boots with high platforms, making the tall actor appear enormous, End of Eternity is not Bowles's sole credit in the Fantasy genre; in the same year he played Abby Grant's short-lived husband in the opening episode of Terry Nation's Survivors.
For the fight scenes, Bowles was doubled by a stuntman, who is perhaps all too visible in some sequences. The same stunt performer was also required for Balor's final scene, in which he is ejected into space. Subtle camera trickery and a set built at 90 degrees allowed the stuntman to fall downwards through the doors, while appearing to fly sideways out of the airlock.
End of Eternity was broadcast by the ITV network in the autumn of 1975, and is available. from ITC video (ITC 8164), and will be broadcast by satellite station Bravo, who have purchased much of the ITC back catalogue.
Richard Houldsworth