Catacombs Reference LibraryITC Video Reviews
Catacombs Reference LibraryReviews from TV Zone, "the monthly magazine of cult television", an early 1990s UK genre magazine
Reviews of the ITC video tapes by Richard Houldsworth
TV Zone Number 28 (March 1992); p13
Space: 1999 Volume One ITC Video Price £10.99 Released 10th Feb '92
How pleasant to see Space: 1999 on video again. Doubly pleasing is that these episodes are in their original format, as opposed to the dreadful hacked-together 'movies' from Channel 5. It's a shame ITC have not gone back to episode one and released the episodes in order.
Volume one opens with A Matter of Life and Death, which has never been one of my favourite stories. It finds Doctor Russell confronted with the return of her husband Lee, who was thought to have died on a Space mission some years before. He has come to warn the Alphans about Terra Nova, an idyllic planet on which they are planning to settle. Predictably, they ignore his warnings, and for the second time in the first season, lead characters are brutally killed off, only to bounce back to life later on for no apparent reason.
Next is The Infernal Machine, a delightful example of Science Fiction drama which features Leo McKern as the living spaceship Gwent, and its humanoid Companion. As Companion nears death, Gwent has come to find new friends, and decides to abduct Koenig, Doctor Russell and Victor Bergman. The three must use their wits to escape, while Victor suffers heart problems and Gwent runs low on power. The episode features some excellent visual effects (Gwent itself is marvellous), the acting is good and there are some poignant moments.
From one of the best to the very best, Dragon's Domain; the episode everyone remembers. Perhaps it's the well-executed 'dragon' that sticks in the mind, or the superb effects accompanied by the classical music of Albinoni (yes, it is that music from Butterflies!) or the fascinating flashbacks to the earlier careers of the main characters that make this episode such a winner. Whatever, this is perhaps the only occasion the series got absolutely everything right, and it's one to savour.
Lastly, The Testament of Arkadia, in which two Alphans seek to bring the extinct planet Arkadia back to life and which is told in flashback by Koenig. Again, there are some great moments, but the music does become rather intrusive and the scene in which the Arkadians appear before the eyes of Anna and Ferro (a token it was in the co-production Italian deal!) is too over-the-top to be credible.
Finally, the videos' spines join to form what looks like becoming a panoramic view of the lunar landscape. Who said innovation was dead?
Richard Houldsworth
TV Zone Number 29 (April 1992); p20
SPACE: 1999 Volume Three ITC Video Price £10.99 Released 14th April '92
Space: 1999 offers a dazzling array of technological tricks, outrageous aliens and menacing monsters. So says the publicity blurb from ITC, obviously written by somebody who hasn't seen any of these first season monster-free episodes. That aside, it's encouraging to see more 1999 releases so soon, once again featuring episodes of a generally high quality. Keep them coming.
First up is The Last Enemy, which was originally transmitted as the last episode of series one. It finds the Moon trapped between two warring planets, who wish to use it as a weapons platform. Caroline Mortimer gives an engaging performance as the duplicitous Dione, and the script and direction (both by Bob Kellett) keep the viewer's attention. Apparently this episode was written at the behest of Barbara Bain (who played Helena Russell), and Bob Kellett was forced to humour her.
Mission of the Darians takes place on the huge spaceship Daria, which has been devastated by an atomic accident, leaving the survivors' descendants mutated. The Alphans answer an ancient distress signal and try to help, but the rescue party is split and Helena is captured by a group of primitives who execute the deformed. There are some disturbing scenes, particularly the death of crewman Lowry, who is believed to be a mutant because he has a missing finger, and a mute dwarf. Joan Collins guest stars as Kara, but is her usual unremarkable self. Nevertheless, the episode is a classic.
The heading is wrong- it's volume 4
In The Troubled Spirit, experiments with plant life result in Dan Mateo being haunted by his own deformed ghost. It's an interesting attempt by writer Johnny Byrne at doing a pure Horror story on Alpha, and in many respects it does work - I saw it as a child on its original transmission and it scared the life out of me.
Finally, Space Brain is the sort of Sci-Fi hokum that the series got a - mostly undeserved - reputation for providing. As the Moon drifts towards a giant brain, the creature floods it with a foam-like substance, which will crush it and make it digestible. Pure nonsense, obviously written because the production team had got hold of foam generating equipment, and thought a story could be written around it.
Points to note: the effective use of music from The Planets Suite, and an appearance by Shane Rimmer (who voiced Scott Tracy in Thunderbirds) as Kelly.
Richard Houldsworth
TV Zone Number 33 (August 1992); p23
SPACE: 1999 Two Volumes ITC Video Price £10.99 each Released: 13th July '92
Under-rated in its day, Space: 1999 deserves this new lease of life from ITC. As these tapes prove, there was the occasional duff story, but there were also numerous top-notch episodes...
In End of Eternity, the Alphans break into a prison cell on a rogue asteroid, and discover a severely injured humanoid who later dies in the medical centre. He then comes back to life, his injuries healed, and reveals himself to be "a killer who can't be killed".
Directed by ex-stuntman Ray Austin, this is another of 1999's finest. Johnny Byrne's script is absorbing and adult (rather too adult for the timeslot ITV gave the series!), and Austin does it justice. There are many memorable sequences, particularly those in which he uses music a device which is but no sound effects particularly unnerving. Not quite as unnerving, however, as the scene in which pilot Baxter attacks Koenig with a model plane. I doubt if that would be allowed in a family show today...
Full Circle is less rewarding; fifty minutes of dry ice, bearskins and nonsense as the Alphans explore an alien forest and Sandra Benes is kidnapped by some primitives who resemble her colleagues. Don't rush to watch it...
A great script, with great direction by Charles A Fish Called Wanda Crichton) and great thespians are the hallmarks of Death's Other Dominion. Whilst Brian Blessed plays the fanatical scientist Doctor Rowland with atypical reserve, John Shrapnel is excellent, running around, howling and spouting (mostly) gibberish as the deranged Jack Tanner. The story sees the Alphans discovering the survivors of a lost expedition from Earth on the ice planet Ultima Thule, and this is the second episode of the two tapes to deal with immortality. But as Tanner says, "Thule is a jealous woman. She'll never let us go." Cue the grisly ending...
Voyager's Return stars Jeremy Kemp as Ernst Linden, a man living on Moonbase with a tragic secret. In the past he was Dr Queller, inventor of the deadly Queller Drive which powered the Voyager One spacecraft and annihilated all in its path.
Now Voyager One is approaching Moonbase, followed by a fleet of alien ships. Basically it's a character piece; Queller has to come to terms with his remorse, his assistant Jim Haines has to come to terms with his hatred (the Queller Drive killed his family) and the aliens have come for revenge. Some strong acting complements the strong storyline.
Richard Houldsworth
TV Zone Number 36 (November 1992); p13-14
Space: 1999 Volumes 7 and 8 ITC Video Price: £10.99 each Released: Oct 12th '92
This month's episodes are not quite as impressive as previous releases. Alpha Child is a story we've all seen before: woman has baby, baby grows to adulthood within a matter of days, then does mysterious things. There is a welcome guest appearance by distinctive thespian Julian Glover, who raises the unimaginative script from the mundane.
The Last Sunset is similarly disappointing; aliens send canisters of compressed air to the Moon, enough to make the surface habitable! This ludicrous premise develops into an unstimulating situation in which Paul, Alan, Sandra and Helena crash in an Eagle and are effectively lost in the desert.
Force of Life is the best of the batch. Anton Zoref is possessed by an energy absorbing force which causes everything he touches to freeze. Zoref is portrayed by Ian (Lovejoy) McShane, and there are some disturbing moments. Memorable scenes include Zoref walking down a Moonbase corridor as the lights around him black out, and the man's final moments as Koenig attempts to halt him at the nuclear reactor.
The Guardian of Piri features Catherine - she would later appear as Maya in the second season - as the Servant of the Guardian. The story showcases some superb design work by Keith Wilson. Again, the plot is not desperately original (bearing more than a resemblance to Star Trek's This Side of Paradise), but the visuals are good enough to hold the viewer's attention.
Richard Houldsworth
TV Zone Number 39 (February 1993); p13
SPACE: 1999 Volumes 9 and 10 ITC Video Price: £10.99 each Released: Jan 18th '93
With these two tapes, ITC have released all they can from the first series; the rights to Breakaway, War Games, The Black Sun and Collision Course rest with Channel 5.
Volume 9 opens with Missing Link, a bizarre tale in which Koenig is seriously injured when his Eagle crashes on the lunar surface. As Dr Russell tends to his comatose body, his spirit is on the planet Zenno as anthropologist Raan (played by Peter Cushing) wishes to use him as part of a research project. However, Koenig pays a great deal of attention to Raan's daughter Vana... The narrative is unremarkable, but the episode is set apart by the stunning visuals and imagery; the alien city is superb, and the design work and lighting give the planet a truly 'alien feel. There are also some quite grotesque creatures that attack Koenig in a hallucination, a sequence which defies the video's U-Certificate rating.
Another Time, Another Place is one of the better episodes, in which the Moon encounters a strange phenomenon in space. Afterwards, Regina Kesslan (a beautifully sympathetic performance by Judy Geeson) believes that she is living on Earth, and is the widow of Alan Carter. Meanwhile, the Moon re-enters Earth orbit and the Alphans find future versions of themselves on the planet. The story's strength lies in its plotting; the mystery builds so well that one can almost forgive the occasional bad idea; for example, that Regina has two brains!
Onto Volume 10, and the classic Earthbound, in which an alien ship that is en route to Earth crashes on the Moon, and the leader Zantor (Christopher Lee) offers to take one Alphan as a passenger. For once the aliens are the good guys; Commissioner Simmonds (played by Roy Dotrice, and last seen in Breakaway) is the villain, desperate to return home at absolutely any cost. He gets his own way, I but there is a sting in the tale...
Ring Around the Moon is the worst episode of the first series, in which the Moon is held captive in space by an energy probe from the planet Triton. Dr Russell is taken over, and used as a tool to feed information to the probe, and it's all very much B-Movie stuff. Watch this one last.
Richard Houldsworth