Have to say they’re about even IMO. McCoy was a total racist to Spock throughout, episodes like Galileo 7 had supposedly scientific professionals bitching about giving a man a “decent burial” and hammering Spock for keeping them all alive. And don’t get me started about how women were portrayed; either as eye-candy (Janice Rand), ignorant and easily led (McGiver in Space Seed) or swooning (Chapel). Even Uhura who was on the bridge most of the time got sweet F-A to do.
This isn’t to say Space 1999 fares better in the female stakes but at least they weren’t overtly sexualized in arse-skimming miniskirts that exposed one’s underwear pretty much any time they moved. Sandra Benes (Zienia Merton) spent most of her time swooning, screaming or being ignored. Doctor Russell (Barbara Bain) gets more screen time but not a lot to do, with the exception of one satisfying moment when she takes a rocket launcher and blows the crap out of an Eagle that, amusingly enough, ace pilot Carter didn’t crash.
Bottom line, if you focus on the story being told rather than the science, Space can be an enjoyable watch. Yes, they reset at the end of episodes, but so did everything including Star Trek TOS and Next Gen.
It’s not really accurate/fair to give Anderson credit for the “model work” on Space:1999. He was exec producer/co-creator; if he was ever hands on with things like that it was only on the very earliest of the puppet shows his company made. His productions were lauded for their model work, but that was the team that worked for his company, not him directly, as much as he probably approved general design decisions.
In fact, the SFX director for Anderson’s company by the time of Space:1999, Brian Johnson, so impressed with the results he achieved on a TV budget that he was given the job of being in charge of The Empire Strikes Back’s SFX when Dykstra didn’t stay on.
Even Doctor Who for that matter, since what we usually think of as “an episode” was usually broadcast in multiple short segments.
Babylon 5 is really a latecomer to this. By then we’d had not only Blake’s 7 and Doctor Who, but also the Tripods and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Even earlier, there was a 6-part serialization of The Quatermass Experiment on the BBC in 1953.
Now, all these are British, in the US the only Sci Fi TV series I can think of with a genuine story arc are The Invaders from the 60s and of course V from the 80s. There were probably others.
The loss of the Moon directly affects the Earth’s orbit, rotation and wobble. Without the Moon to act as a stabiliser, the Earth begins to wobble more and more, sending our seasons into turmoil and changing our orbit around the Sun from slightly elliptical to massively elliptical. We now swing around the Sun in a wild, unstable, fluctuating orbit.
one have to assume that in the series, after the moon is blown out of orbit, earth is pretty much doomed anyway.
edit/ ohmygawd, does that mean that stephensons “seven eves” is a bunch of BS? a plothole as wide as earths orbit? shit, cause I love that book.
Damn. I loved Space 1999 and must have seen it when it freshly minted, but based on the comments so far feel like I might just let sleeping dogs lie. I tried to rewatch Blakes 7 a few years ago and didn’t get very far either.
Yeah but you feel like their relationship change other time and they get a better understanding of each other. (even if the reset button can be pressed from time to time for dramatic purpose or plot points)
Yeah, that’s a shame, really much in line of most TV at the time I think, and that’s too bad because in the pilot Number One (the science officer I guess ?) is a woman.
I can’t agree, I saw most of season one and I struggle to make sense of most episodes. I can overlook bad science in sci-fi but you need to make some point to keep me engaged.
Also, keep in mind TOS first aired in 1966, and Space 1999 in 1975 ! It’s a big difference in context.
The model work and all special effects on Space: 1999 were done by Brian Johnson, who did the same series of moon shot effects in 2001: A Space Odessy, and is largely the source between the comparisons drawn between :1999 and 2001: because Brian built both moonbases and space craft models and filmed them “Gerry Anderson stye”. I consider Brian Johnson the creator of the best practical special effects of spacecraft and setting in movie and television history. Many think Douglas Trumbull did those scenes because he is credited foremost for SFX on 2001.
