To further my Space: 1999 series of blog postings, last night I sat down after dinner and watched "Earthbound", one of the preciously few good episodes from that show.
Since I know the series very well I can pick and choose what I want to watch, if I dare. When Space premiered back in September of 1975, I was there in front of the colour tube to welcome another starfield patch... even if stars were a bit on the scarce side in this one.
Despite the chintzy-looking alien 'sleeper ship' set and its even chintzier inhabitants, the Kaldorians, the episode works because of an engaging story and a great character: Commissioner Simmonds, played to perfection by Roy Dotrice, was sorely needed as a continuing foil for the bland-as-dead Moonbase Alpha regulars. Not necessarily in a Doctor Zachary Smith (of Lost in Space) way, but of full-blooded human beings. It was not to be, however.
The episode's middle section, involving a threatened Helena Russell, suffers a little from a false false alarm -- obviously the sequence was inserted to fill out the script's page count -- but the more driven element of the narrative picks up when the Commissioner does what he feels is right; for him. The ending is potently memorable, and worthy of EC Comics. Space: 1999, the first year, is considered by many of its fans to be more horror than SF.
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