cjn@calmasd.UUCP (Cheryl Nemeth) (01/10/85)
Space: 1999 wasn't really that bad. I actually enjoyed some of the programs. Cheryl Nemeth
kevin@voder.UUCP (The Last Bugfighter) (01/12/85)
> Space: 1999 wasn't really that bad. I actually enjoyed some of the programs. > > Cheryl Nemeth *** Damn it Helena, DO SOMETHING! *** No it wasn't, of course there was nothing else on at the time. Unfortunately, what I thought was the best of all their episodes was the one I think was entitled 'War Games' in which Moonbase Alpha gets attacked by what appears to be an earth attack fleet and gets totally wiped out. They then wake up and find it's all a dream being caused by the planet they're approaching. Loads of special effects. The only thing I really had a hard time with, other than the fact the moon must have been traveling at hyper-speed or falling into space warps right and left) was the alien women character in the second season who could change her shape into anything. I can't remember her name (something like Myra) but she was played by Catherine Schnell. I just cannot accept that a 110-120 pound person can change into a 200lb panther and then into an insect! Something about conservation of mass and energy. If mass and energy are truly the same then a 300lb monster would have no energy left and a tiny fly would have so much it probally couldn't contain it. I did like the designs of the Eagle Transporters and the Hawk attack ships, I thought they looked quite realistic and the concept of the cargo modules made sense, although you probally had to be carefull about fancy manouvers if you wern't carrying a cargo section as it must have strengthend the entire framework. -- Kevin Thompson {ucbvax,ihnp4!nsc}!voder!kevin "It's sort of a threat, you see. I've never been very good at them myself but I'm told they can be very effective."
alb@alice.UUCP (Adam L. Buchsbaum) (01/13/85)
The alien woman you refer to was named ''Mia'' (maybe it was spelled Mya, I dunno, but it was pronounced ''Mie-ya''). I seem to recall an episode in the second season, when they made a brief reference to picking her up from some doomed planet (maybe it was a doomed society; I remember her father (i.e. alien father) was in it and wasn't such a good guy), in which they said her mass was conserved during all transformation; thus, if she became an insect, she was a VERY dense one, and if a panther, a very undense (undense?) one.
@RUTGERS.ARPA:hester@uci-icse (01/17/85)
From: Jim Hester <hester@uci-icse> The following is from "Fantastic Telivision": a reference book to many TV-SF serials, and ancient memories. The spelling of the alien's name was "Maya." She came from the planet Psychon. In four pages of description, the only things "Fantastic Television" had to say about her were "He (Fred Freiberger - producer for the second season) also wanted to add new characters, most significantly an alien named Maya who would serve as Alpha's science officer" and "The introduction of Maya, however was not the wisest move. Audiences looked upon her as a gimmick---a Mr. Spock rip-off, a token, rather than a resident, alien." The pertinant details from the index of episodes follows: THE METAMORPH: This first episode of the (second) season ... introduces Maya to the regular cast. On the planet Psychon, an evil-minded alien named Mentor captures the Alphans and tries to drain their minds. His daughter Maya who is capable of transforming herself into any form, helps the Earth people escape. I vaguely recall this episode. Their planet was doomed, reason unremembered. Mentor had created a 'protein computer' which had transmutation abilities, but it got it's power from intelligent beings, using them up in the process. Maya's father was killing off everyone in sight trying to charge the computer up to save his planet, and just about killed off the Space 1999 regulars before Maya finally discovered him and destroyed the computer, which set off a chain reaction killing her father and destroying the planet (or at least making it uninhabitable). Thus she joined the Alphans. There was one other episode that had a criminal from her planet who had been put into some kind of suspended animation and cast adrift. Same plot: Maya believed everything he said up until the end when she found him out and betrayed him. The episode was called "DORZAK", which was presumably his name. The description given in the index is worthless.
sean@ukma.UUCP (Sean Casey) (01/18/85)
Catherine Schell played the role of Maya, who as orphaned on the Zooming Moon when her (decidedly) evil father managed to get their planet destroyed. There was no mention at all of mass conservation, although some interesting references to her superior mental powers were made. Her ability to change shapes was not explained in any detail. The change was instantaneous, and she had to have had some sort of previous contact (she couldn't make up a monster and become it). Although I didn't like the way they did up her eyebrows, I always thought she was cute. I thought she was cute in Return of the Pink Panther too. Sean
bsa@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery (the tame hacker on the North Coast)) (01/19/85)
> Article <3268@alice.UUCP>, from alb@alice.UUCP (Adam L. Buchsbaum) +---------------- | The alien woman you refer to was named ''Mia'' (maybe it was spelled | Mya, I dunno, but it was pronounced ''Mie-ya''). Maia. (That was a low point; all the SF I could find at the time was Star Trek I was watching for the 6000th time, and that. Thankfully, we started going to a larger library soon after that (my mother needed her fix of SF too, it runs in the family). --bsa -- Brandon Allbery @ decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!bsa (..ncoast!tdi1!bsa business) 6504 Chestnut Road, Independence, Ohio 44131 +1 216 524 1416 (or what have you) Who said you had to be (a) a poor programmer or (b) a security hazard to be a hacker?
bsa@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery (the tame hacker on the North Coast)) (01/20/85)
> Article <625@voder.UUCP>, from kevin@voder.UUCP (The Last Bugfighter) +---------------- | The only thing I really had a hard time with, other than the fact the | moon must have been traveling at hyper-speed or falling into space warps | right and left) As I remember it, spacewarps played a large part in quite a few episodes. They went through one just before they got to Psychon (see below); they passed through a black hole as (I think) the third episode, surviving because they had a super gravity warp they devised as a result of their being blasted away in the first place (don't you just *love* it); they went through one while leaving some people behind inspecting an alien vessel (which just happened to have a spacewarp detector in it), et cetera. They also went through one just prior to returning to Earth every time they did return (but I'm not certain of that). Time was thrown off by these spacewarps, I believe. +---------------- | was the alien women character in the second season who | could change her shape into anything. I can't remember her name (something | like Myra) but she was played by Catherine Schnell. I just cannot accept Maia, played by Catherine SCHELL. | that a 110-120 pound person can change into a 200lb panther and then into | an insect! Something about conservation of mass and energy. If mass and | energy are truly the same then a 300lb monster would have no energy left and | a tiny fly would have so much it probally couldn't contain it. I can (barely) see the massiveness question; although how a 120 lb insect could move, I know not... but what really threw me was the fact that she could transmute in the first place. How did she hold 120 lbs = 4.889e25 ergs (thank you, "units" :-) of energy together without turning herself (and the moon) into a mushroom cloud? Or were her shape changes reminiscent of a Tleilaxu Face Dancer? | I did like the designs of the Eagle Transporters and the Hawk attack ships, | I thought they looked quite realistic and the concept of the cargo modules | made sense, although you probally had to be carefull about fancy manouvers | if you wern't carrying a cargo section as it must have strengthend the | entire framework. Eccept that they always flew with SOME kind of module; the cargo module (plain), or the bomb module (red striped), or *something*. (Amazing what you can remember of rotten shows; it just proves the saying about bad news vs. good news...) --bsa -- Brandon Allbery @ decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!bsa (..ncoast!tdi1!bsa business) 6504 Chestnut Road, Independence, Ohio 44131 +1 216 524 1416 (or what have you) Who said you had to be (a) a poor programmer or (b) a security hazard to be a hacker?
schmidt@reed.UUCP (Alan Schmidt) (01/21/85)
[What you can't eat can't hurt you] Since Maia COULD fly when she became honey bees, and her leaves didn't plunge to the ground when she became ordinary house plants, the conservation of mass wasn't in her physics book. So.... How about some applied TARDIS technology? (Don't get on my case, Who-ites, I know this isn't exactly 100% right.) Maia projects herself into a fourth dimension, and then reprojects herself into this dimension with altered size and mass. This also conveniently explains how her considerable intelligence would fit into those tiny, tiny brains (well, not really, but pretend it does). She DID believe in conversation of life (she couldn't change into anything which wasn't living, even if she thought it was). That I CAN'T fathom. -- Alan (..tektronix!reed!schmidt)
sher@rochester.UUCP (David Sher) (01/24/85)
The thing that most struck me about the early shows of 1999 was the shoot first and ask questions later philosophy they operated on (My whole family collectively decided not to watch the later shows). Whenever they ran into anything strange their first response seemed to be send out some eagles and shoot it down. This might have been understandable except for the fact that what ever they sent the eagles against was either 1. totally dead 2. So advanced as to make their eagles look like a tonka truck (Captain, rather badly constructed space craft using reaction engines are tickling our sheilds with low powered laser weapons. Kirk: set phasers to stun, we don't want to hurt those primatives) The only reason the eagles survived was that the superadvanced types they tried to shoot down usually didn't recognize them as weapons. -David Sher
milne@uci-icse (06/28/85)
From: Alastair Milne <milne@uci-icse>
Space:1999 was far from being one the best series I've ever seen, but it
was at least nice to look at. A great deal of work went into having
striking and aesthetically pleasing scenery, and equipment. If a similar
amount of work had gone into removing Barbara Bain, the series might have
done better. What wonderful things contracts are: you have no acting
talent worthy of the name, no expressiveness, no spark of character, and
they can't get rid of you because you have a contract.
The absurdity of the pseudo-science? About par for the course, I'd say.
Dreadful compared to what it could have been, but average compared with its
contemporaries. I find I get numb to such things after a while, and just
content myself with enjoying what there is to enjoy from it. Better than
waiting for a ship that looks as if it'll never come in. When medical shows
with their pick of decent medical advisers declare that "X-rays ruled out
concussion", I give up any hope. If they can't get that one small thing
right, what expectations shall I hold for shows where science is supposedly
the lifeblood? Well, I've simply stopped holding any at all.
There were enjoyable bits. I thought those hand weapons were a fresh idea.
I liked the Eagles, even if there are strategic problems with using
freighters as fighters. Those little communications devices they used
(visual communications at one end, electronic key at the other) seemed a
very practical idea. The transport system around the base (the "lavender
subway", I called it, because of the colour of the light in it) was well
done. And people like Alan Carter and Paul were enjoyable. By the way,
was it Prentis Hancock who played Paul? I've seen him in a couple of Dr.
Who's ("Planet of Fear"; "The Ribos Operation"), I'm sure I've seen him
before, and I'm wondering if it was in Space:1999.
I thought at the time that the second-season changes were the beginning of
the end, as similar changes were for Bill Bixby's "The Magician". The show
was losing what steam it had had, and not even Catherine Schell made up for
it. And they kept Barbara Bain!!!! Does nothing ever go right?
Oh well, at least it didn't have as bleak an outlook on life as UFO did.
But, as a certain Parisian gentleman would say, that's another story.
Alastair MilneJAFFE@RUTGERS.ARPA (07/09/85)
From: crash!bnw@SDCSVAX.ARPA
I recall that during Space(d out): 1999's first season, Dr. Asimov
wrote an article, published in TV Guide, that detailed the errors involved
in the show. I do not, however, have any idea of the date of that issue.
/Bruce N. Wheelock/
arpanet: crash!bnw@ucsd
uucp: {ihnp4, cbosgd, sdcsvax, noscvax}!crash!bnwbnw@crash.UUCP (07/09/85)
From: <crash!bnw@Nosc>
I recall that during Space(d out): 1999's first season, Dr. Asimov
wrote an article, published in TV Guide, that detailed the errors involved
in the show. I do not, however, have any idea of the date of that issue.
/Bruce N. Wheelock/
arpanet: crash!bnw@nosc
uucp: {ihnp4, cbosgd, sdcsvax, noscvax}!crash!bnw