johndunbar-580-920543 Although I was over 30 years old when this was released to TV I somehow managed to miss it; it was a very pleasant discovery that I found recently on You Tube. I was astounded to see how superior it was in every respect to the original Star Trek series that I was familiar with. I never warmed to Star Trek because I hated William Shatner's rotten acting, the stupid overworked ideas like the Vulcan thing and the cheap, phony sets. But Space 1999 is real class; its stories, sets, acting and special effects are just swell. But then we can always count on anything that the BBC has a hand in making as being superior to anything similar attempted by any other network on earth (PBS excluded). Nice surprise; thanks You Tube.

Johnny Aitch Having watched the first series when I was about 8 I remember as a 10 year old being so excited by the previews for series 2 showing scenes from The Metamorph.It didn't disappoint. I can still remember lying on the hearth rug to watch it.Both seasons are absolutely brilliant. I am 51 now and I still watch them occasionally and find myself determined to stop after watching 2-3 episodes only to go on and watch 4,5,6 or more..drives my wife crazy. I'm 10 years old again when I watch them and somehow can still watch them through a 10 years olds eyes.The effects still stand up, as do the stories, the acting is still right up there, sometimes wonky scripts but that's part of its charm.I'm not concerned with the flaws in the science..it is science fiction after all and as I said, I'm watching them through the eyes of a ten year old.Simply brilliant!!!!

jc-osms Nice to track down the pilot episode of this series I first (and last) watched as a young teenager back in the 70's. I loved the then married couple Martin Landau and Barbara Bain in the 60's in "Mission Impossible" and here they're teamed up again not unnaturally looking a little older, although neither they or the rest of their Moonbase Alpha crew look exactly young and with it in their beige uniforms and flared slacks.Produced by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, makers of previous "supermarionation" series such as "Stingray" and "Thunderbirds", this was their first live action show I believe. It's not altogether successful, however with a too obvious requirement of model work which doesn't seem too much improved from the puppet shows mentioned above. Maybe I'm being too harsh on the production values given the era in which it was made and no doubt budget constraints but you could argue it adds a little to its charm too.In their parts, Landau and Bain are a little static, in fact other than falling down a fair bit don't expect them to be Kirk-like action heroes. Both are however authoritative in their roles but I personally think younger, more animated leads would have enlivened matters somewhat, maybe if they'd been offered the parts ten years before...Of the rest of the cast, Barry Morse stands out as their sobering Bones-type senior officer and of course there are no aliens on the crew a-la Spock, well, it is only 1999 after all. With a flashy theme tune and using edited "In this episode" snippets at the start to encourage viewers to keep watching (borrowed from "Mission Impossible") it tries hard to be dynamic without really reaching the heights of, yes I'll say it one more time "Star Trek". But kudos to the Andersons for the attempt and with memories of the TV21 comic flooding my brain as I watch, I still get a kick out of it and will continue watching any other episodes I can find.

s-allport Space 1999 big budget British series of the mid seventies it was originally a UFO(an earlier and far superior series) second series which failed to see the light of day.However when UFO was cancelled Gerry Anderson turned the idea into space 1999 which was far less dark and tense than UFO ever was,but the problems soon began to appear bad stories ,bad science, lack of characterization, plot development and no humor at all placed space 1999 into poor/junk science fiction.The proof? people "duck" on Alpha when things nearly hit the moon highly trained staff fall over as a "human barometer" to death/bad situations , banal reactions/scripts to situations/plots, wildly implausible reactions to incredible events poor plot developments I could go on and on.So what about the merits? wonderful(for the time) special effects great model work ,way above average productions values which considering the very large budgets/Andersons technical teams should come as no real shock( some of the shows have all these and more which place them above full fledged science fiction films with higher budgets) yet another great theme tune from Barry Gray just one more of his in a long long line of themes and some interesting ideas which were rarely ever developed or thought through enough.And yet despite all of its faults(did I mention some very very poor acting almost wooden) it was a show that in the mid seventies which filled a void on British TV as really there was only Dr who which was another story of course on the box,and so despite all of its drawbacks those of use who saw it on its first run remember with some affection even though its quite hard to watch it now in the cold light of day,if you are new to it watch and make your own judgment but remember to overlook its faults because if you cant you will struggle to watch all 48 episodes( strangely enough a third series was in the early pre production stage when poor sales and the fact that Lew Grade who was the money man behind virtually all of Andersons stuff, spent a fortune on"raise the titanic" which bombed at the box office causing him to say it would have been cheaper to lower the ocean and also to cancel the series due to lack of funds now who know maybe it might have worked better or perhaps not we will never know) cheers