Episode Guide: Year One
Title: "Space Brain"
Within this page: Overview | Backplot | Plot Synopsis | Unanswered Questions | Analyses/Observations | Comments | Memorable Lines
Overview
The Moon heads uncontrollably towards a living organism in space, whose immune system defenses may spell doom for the Alphans.
Production Number: 020 (Season One)
- filmed Thursday, December 5 - Thursday, December 19, 1974; Thursday, February 27 - Friday, February 28, 1975
Original U.K. airing week: 29 January 1976 (ATV Midlands)
Original U.S. airing week: 12 March 1976 (syndication)
Written by Christopher Penfold
Directed by Charles Crichton
Backplot
- In the year 1999, lunar nuclear waste storage dumps have exploded, due to magnetic radiation, sending Earth's moon into interstellar space. The inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha, unable to escape, are seeking a new home.
- The spirit of Dan Mateo had previously wreaked murderous havoc upon the base in the episode "The Troubled Spirit." The Moon is hurling deeper into the unknown of outer space.
Plot Synopsis
(From the original ITC Press Release.)
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Alpha encounters an intangible mass as it heads though space... and towards disaster. Whatever the mysterious energy field might be, it possesses a strange and frightening power.
The indication of a new and unseen danger of the Moon as it heads though space is the sudden outburst of strange, rapid hieroglyphics on all of Alpha's screens. Two astronauts are sent out to investigate and report a spectacular display of light, with a gigantic cluster of gossamer threads suspended in the heavens. It is like a huge space anemone. The Eagle is gripped in what seems to be like enormous coloured snowflakes... and disappears.
Moments later, a glowing ball of white hot substance screams towards Alpha. Commander Koenig (MARTIN LANDAU) takes it to be a meteorite, but when it lands its impact is devastating. Analysis of its constituents provides a terrifying shock, as Professor Bergman (BARRY MORSE) reports that they are the tightly compressed elements of the Eagle and its human occupants.
Meanwhile Carter (NICK TATE) and his colleagues Kelly (SHANE RIMMER) have set out in another Eagle to search for the missing Alphans. Kelly space walks to investigate, and is caught up in the glutinous foaming substance they have encountered. It seems at first that he is dead, his body floating in space, but life returns and Carter is able to get him back into the Eagle before obeying instructions to return immediately to Alpha. Kelly is behaving like a man possessed, saying they must go forward and displaying superhuman strength as Carter tries to control him, and then has no option but to turn his stun gun on him
Back again on Alpha, it soon becomes evident that Kelly's brain has been taken over by the mysterious, intangible alien force. Through him, the computer is taken over receiving and transmitting messages at a fantastic speed. But he is unable to replay what it is that the strange force is trying to say.
The Moon is heading towards the energy field and it is impossible to change course. By now, Koenig has come to realise that, whatever it is, it is organism and intelligent. Only disaster can lie ahead if they hit it. Desperate measures are required. An Eagle is loaded with an enormous nuclear charge, timed to explode when it encounters the space "brain", but the uncanny forces are stronger than has been feared. Kelly is at last able to make it known that the "brain" is not aggressive. It is trying to defend itself. All it wants is for the moon somehow to be diverted from its collision course.
Koenig immediately orders the nuclear-filled Eagle to be brough back, but it is too late. It has changed course and is now heading for Alpha! Can it be stopped and, if so, what happens next. The threat of oblivion is very close.
SCREENPLAY BY CHRISTOPHER PENFOLD
DIRECTED BY CHARLES CRICHTON
Guest Artists
SHANE RIMMER
CARLA ROMANELLI
with
PRENTIS HANCOCK as PAUL MORROW
CLIFTON JONES as DAVID KANO
ZIENIA MERTON as SANDRA BENES
ANTON PHILLIPS as DR MATHIAS
NICK TATE as ALAN CARTER
DEREK ANDERS as WAYLAND
Unanswered Questions
Analyses/Observations
This episode has the longest pre-credits sequence of any Space: 1999 episode. The opening sequence, edited by Derek Hyde Chambers, runs approximately seven minutes.
Comments
- The organic material, given off by the "space brain" is common household detergent soap.
- Statistically, Moonbase Alpha shows ongoing signs of widowings: Dr. Helena Russell (Lee Russell - "Matter of Life and Death"); Eva Zoref (Anton Zoref - "Force of Life"); Cynthia Crawford (Jack Crawford - "Alpha Child"); and now Melita Kelly (Kelly - "Space Brain"). Melita Kelly is the last known widow of Year One.
- Shane Rimmer (Kelly) was the voice of Scott Tracy in Thunderbirds. Rimmer also narrated a Fanderson documentary about Space: 1999.
Memorable Lines
"Are you saying this foam crushed Eagle One?" - John Koenig "In sufficient quantity, John, this...foam as you call it, could crush anything." - Victor Bergman
"If only... we could have communicated." - Helena Russell
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