SPACE: 1999

    "Moonbase Alpha...
    Massive Nuclear Explosion...
    Moon Torn Out of Earth Orbit...
    Hurled into Outer Space..."

Space: 1999 was created by husband-and-wife film and television producers Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, whose earlier work, first with electrically animated puppets, then with live actors, had been almost entirely science fiction or fantasy distributed world-wide by ITC Entertainment. Their most recognized work from the 1960s was the puppet television series, Thunderbirds, about a family that uses technology to rescue people in danger on Earth and in space, followed by the live-action theatrical film, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, in which twenty-first century astronauts land on a planet in the same orbit around the Sun as Earth, and find a world that is a living mirror-image to the Earth from which they had departed. The Andersons' television efforts with live actors began with an ambitious 1969-70 series called UFO, involving a secret, high-technology defense organization that defends Earth from alien invaders. The most interesting episodes of UFO tended to be set on the defense organization's Moon base, and ITC Entertainment mogul Sir Lew Grade commissioned the Andersons to produce a new series with the Moon as the central location and return to Earth made impossible. Space: 1999 was born.

The premise of the television series is that on September 13, 1999, huge amounts of nuclear wastes from Earth stored in silos on the Moon's far side explode with such force that the Moon's orbit around Earth is broken, and the Moon is hurled away from Earth for an uncontrolled flight through space. The crew of Moonbase Alpha, unable to return to Earth, must consider the self-sustaining Lunar colony their home as it drifts into areas of the universe previously unknown to man.

The idea that the Moon could be thrown from its orbit to drift at speeds allowing it to cross interstellar space in periods of weeks is difficult and often impossible for many viewers to accept. The mass of the Moon is so large and its orbit around Earth so apparently firm and the force of a series of atomic explosions more likely to obliterate the Moon than blast it out of orbit, that the imaginations of many of even the most ardent science fiction buffs were challenged beyond their limit to stretch, despite the fact that the planet Pluto is credibly posited by scientists to have been a satellite of Neptune that broke away from Neptune and settled into an irregular orbit around the Sun. And then there is the difficulty that some people have of assimilating the prospect of such an event being caused by human error. Most people prefer to think of future, technological man as incapable of contributing to a disaster of this magnitude.

But there is an explanation, metaphysical though it may be, that is offered in two first season (1975-6) episodes, "Black Sun" and "Collision Course". The nuclear explosions that should have destroyed or at least fractured the Moon, by some fluke of chance or perhaps by divine providence instead blasted the whole Moon out of Earth orbit and acted like a "gigantic rocket motor", propelling the Moon away from Earth at such a speed that evacuation from Moonbase was not feasible, requiring the Alphans to remain on the Moonbase as it drifts through space, putting them within reconnaissance contact with various alien worlds and races. This explanation is raised in "Black Sun" by Alpha's senior scientist and resident philosopher, Prof. Victor Bergman (Barry Morse), and confirmed by the aged alien Queen Arra in "Collision Course". The event of the Earth-orbit-breaking blast, though seemingly caused by human shortsightedness, was destined to happen, manipulated by a sort of "cosmic intelligence" to occur so that the Moon and its inhabitants could be physically separated from Earth, to foster a brave, new phase in man's existence and to act as an agent of some divine will by restoring life to dead planets, impressing upon- or attempting to impress upon- corrupt aliens a live-and-let-live and help-those-in-need moral code, and surviving peril after peril with bravery, fortitude, dignity, and hope.

The episodic format of Space: 1999's first season is consistently that of a prologue, an orchestral, high-tempo opening sequence, four acts, an epilogue, and closing credits. Prologues vary in length from under two minutes ("Dragon's Domain") to close to seven ("Space Brain"), and usually where the prologue is long, so too is the first act. The main opening of the first season's episodes is routinely heralded by a building drum roll. In every case, the opening theme music, composed by Barry Gray, starts with a crash of cymbals, a blowing of trumpets, and Martin Landau and Barbara Bain standing alongside their names. The Space: 1999 logo is then shown atop Moonbase Alpha, with a blue planet in the Lunar sky, followed by a spinning tumble of an Eagle spaceship to the Lunar surface, where said Eagle explodes. Next is a series of super-speedy image transitions with tantalizing glimpses of the events to come in the particular episode, intercut in two places with a screen-spanning "This Episode" card. Played over this is a guitar with an instrumental jazz background. With a return to symphonic music, Barry Morse's credit comes next, in the first four produced episodes accompanied by a spatial scene, and in the remaining twenty Season 1 entries printed with a view of a satisfied Bergman peering into his electronic-circuit-filled glass bubble, which he is shown to be constructing in "Ring Around the Moon". Sylvia and Gerry Anderson's names follow as, respectively, producer and executive producer, with more grand space scenes. Then it is back to rapid cuts as the explosion that breaks the Moon from its Earth orbit is intermixed with the September 13, 1999 date, before the opening title sequence ends.

Although Space: 1999 was produced for American network broadcast, the at-that-time three U.S. networks refused to purchase it, and ITC Entertainment chose to market the series directly to individual television stations in the United States, Canada, and Britain. Affiliates of networks ran Space: 1999 in times of their own choosing, often preempting network television programs to provide Space: 1999 with prime-time exposure. Canada's CBC television network purchased Space: 1999 to telecast coast-to-coast starting with the second season in September, 1976. The first season opener, "Breakaway", introduced the television series, followed by the full run of Season 2, always on Saturdays. Broadcast hour varied by region but was usually between 4 and 7 P.M., and when live sports broadcasts were scheduled in the late afternoon, Space: 1999 was seen earlier in the day.

The 24 episodes of the first season ran with success in the 1975-6 television season in the U.S., Canada (not then on a full network basis), and Britain, but not at the consistent level for which ITC Entertainment had hoped. Ratings were declining somewhat as curiosity viewers, unable or unwilling to appreciate the first season's contemplative stories or accept the idea of the Moon's transstellar odyssey, had "come, seen, and gone". ITC was never a company to fund long-term, big-budget television series. None of the Andersons' earlier television series ever lasted the equivalent of two full-length seasons, and Space: 1999 was the most ambitious ITC television series up to that time. The desired U.S. network deal had not materialized, and Sir Lew Grade and his executives were wary of commissioning a second season for the same haphazard syndicated distribution.

Space: 1999 was quite popular with certain audiences, and there was a possibility of gaining new, loyal viewers if the television show in its second season were to "take into account" then-currently-extant criticisms of slow pace, depersonalizing Moonbase uniforms and sets, and minimalist characterization. Sylvia Anderson had separated from her husband and disassociated herself from his work. A new producer would be needed to assist Gerry Anderson if a second season were to go before the cameras, and so was there a decision by Anderson and the executives at ITC to hire Fred Freiberger, American producer of the third season of Star Trek (1966-9) and unfairly blamed for the in-1968-already-expected cancellation of Star Trek from U.S. network television, to retool Space: 1999 to appeal to more general audiences. Freiberger introduced an alien character, a sensuous female with the ability to transform herself into any living creature, made the relationships between characters less formal and more demonstrably affectionate, streamlined the sets for immediacy and intimacy, introduced turtlenecks, skirts, and jackets to the Alphan dress, and removed overt and extensive philosophical comment from the epilogues, replacing it with humorous yet pithy banter among the characters about the experiences that they have just had.

The second season went into production in January, 1976. Some pairs of episodes were filmed simultaneously, with the series' cast divided among the two stories. Despite the hastened pace of production in Season 2, the episodes successfully met the new standards applied by Freiberger and ITC's executives. The Moonbase characters were shown to be able to freely joke and laugh, teasing while clearly loving one another, and are willing to discuss their sometimes painful pasts with optimism for their current relationships.

Unlike other science fiction television series that have emphasized characterization to the exclusion of conceptual science fiction (i.e. speculations on space phenomena or on alien life or on the impact of space or of space phenomena on human minds or bodies), Season 2 of Space: 1999 consistently found a balance. There were science fiction or fantasy concepts in every episode, and when the ideas used were derivative, they were portrayed in original ways, in combination for the first time with other derivative ideas.

An opening title sequence, a hook, four acts, an epilogue, and closing credits comprise the episodic format of Space: 1999's second season. In this regard, except for the title sequence preceding the hook, which is opposite to the first season's use of prologue, it is alike with the format of the first season's episodes. Hooks vary in length from two minutes ("One Moment of Humanity") to five ("The Taybor", "Dorzak"), and sometimes ("All That Glisters", "The Taybor"), the first act is more than twice as long as the following three. With a jazzy, synthesized score superbly written by Derek Wadsworth, the opening sequence of every episode consists of a view of two planets moving toward the camera, scenes of the September 13, 1999 explosions, the Moon clearly leaving Earth's orbit, and a hypnotic montage of the Moon traveling through a nebulous space warp with Moonbase red alert graphics. The premise of the series is elucidated in printed words at the bottom of the screen during these scenes. Martin Landau as Koenig next spins around in his command chair and fires his stun gun, Barbara Bain is shown hurriedly leaving Life-Support Section, the Space: 1999 graphic moves gradually into the Lunar horizon above Moonbase Alpha, and metamorph Maya is seen through her eye selecting several life-forms into which to transform, before Catherine Schell as Maya appears inside the same eye alongside Schell's name. The opening title sequence then finishes with a scene of the spinning Moon and notation of "A Gerry Anderson Production".

Though mostly British and not instantly identifiable by name to North Americans, the guest stars on Space: 1999 were top-calibre, among them horror film icons Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, Joan Collins (Dynasty), Leo McKern (Rumpole of the Bailey), Ian McShane (Lovejoy, Dallas), Billie Whitelaw (The Omen, Frenzy), Brian Blessed (I, Claudius, Flash Gordon, Robin Hood- Prince of Thieves), Freddie Jones (Firefox, Cold Comfort Farm), Roy Dotrice (Beauty and the Beast, Amadeus), Julian Glover (The Empire Strikes Back, For Your Eyes Only, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), Jeremy Kemp (The Winds of War), Patrick Troughton (Doctor Who), Stuart Damon (The Champions, General Hospital), Sarah Douglas (Superman II, V), Bernard Cribbins (Fawlty Towers), and Lynne Frederick (Nicholas and Alexandra, Phase IV, and last wife of Peter Sellers).

Alphan heroes discuss Moonbase Alpha's survival with the chrysalid humanoids of a chlorine-atmosphere world in "The A B Chrysalis".

Starting with their initial telecast, controversy surrounded both of Space: 1999's seasons. Not only does the whole television series' premise evoke visceral negativity from believability-stressing science fiction "experts", the two seasons' story styles, depictions, and portrayal of the motivations, beliefs, and personalities of characters are almost totally in opposition, probably more so than for any other television series of any genre. Some characters, like the first season's Prof. Bergman, disappear without any stated explanation at the beginning of Season 2, while others, such as Security Chief Tony Verdeschi (Tony Anholt), suddenly appear, again with no on-film explanation, at the start of Season 2. The popular Australian character of Eagle spaceship pilot Alan Carter (Nick Tate) changed from his first season's excitable, argumentative, and at times abrasive persona to become an easy-going, agreeable, always friendly and loyal Alphan who assumes command of Alpha on occasion.

The Alphans in the first season are openly contemplative, restless in their aesthetically cold and clinical Moonbase for an evacuation (called "Operation Exodus") to any planet that has suitable environmental and, if already inhabited, cultural conditions, and believing in the order of things and in their preordained place in the universe of the future. First season Alphans are quite formal, with executives usually referred to by their titles, even by other executives, rather than by first names, and meetings are convened in Commander Koenig's office adjacent to the Moonbase control room, Main Mission, which is spacious, with windows to one side and a balcony with more windows to the other side.

While still inclined to discuss profound issues of morality and the possible existence of a divinity or divinities, the Alphans in the second season have abandoned metaphysical thought for understanding and coping with their situation. They have come to terms with the need to survive in space by their own devices, on Alpha, which has been their home through several daunting spatial encounters, and the Moonbase is no longer the undesirable, mostly white-lighted, technological "barracks" that it was. More immediate, cozier, with more variably colored lighting, better protected by laser batteries stored beneath the Lunar surface at the base perimeters, and less prone to explosive decompression because of the move by all key sections to Alpha levels beneath the Lunar surface, Moonbase is more amenable to the Alphans' wish to work together casually and enjoy their off-duty hours.

The second season Alphans are more assertive, self-deterministic, and dynamic. "We'll determine our own destinies," says Koenig in the second season's initial episode, "The Metamorph". There is no evidence in Season 2 of the rather sheepish, let-destiny-run-its-course sort of fatalism that was beginning to characterize the first season Alphans. The Season 2 Alphans are proudly independent. When an alien claiming to be their "creator" tries to arbitrarily decide the Earth-like-planet-bound future of four Alphans, they affirm the free will that they had before the alien removed them from Alpha and put them on the planet. Says Koenig to mind-manipulating aliens who offer to the Alphans a blissful though short-lived life of illusion in another episode, "It's better to live as your own man than as a fool in someone else's dream."

Moonbase Alpha's commanding personnel watch and listen to a transmission from Earth, 2120 A.D. in "Journey to Where".

Humanity is more in evidence among the Alphans in Season 2. Koenig cries tears in remembering the deaths of people whom he had loved. The Alphans provide a home for an alien woman, Maya (Catherine Schell), who has lost her father and the only planetary home that she had known, and a place for her to use her mathematical and scientific knowledge and her ability to transform into any living creature to good purpose, the purpose of collective survival in space. They offer sanctuary for mutants on another planet that is about to explode, but the mutants prefer to stay on the planet and die. They decide to drop rain-forming crystals into the clouds of a desert planet to restart the water cycle and enable a water-dependent living rock on the planet to survive, even though that rock had threatened to strand them on its planet and in a desperate moment had tried to kill them.

The first season emphasizes the desperation of the new and apprehensive space voyagers to leave their wandering Moonbase and settle on one of the planets passed by the Moon on its interstellar odyssey. But in the second season, the Alphans have become more secure about their technological surroundings on the Moonbase and are not quite as preoccupied with the search for a lush, terrestrial planet on which to reclaim Earth and "be fruitful and multiply". They do entertain the thought of colonizing a planet, but more reservedly as Alpha can serve as home to a numerically balanced community for several decades, and to this purpose, there is an ongoing search for the elements needed to maintain Alpha on a long-term basis. The Alphans continue to examine passing worlds for possible colonization, but are also appreciative of their Moonbase's ideal, climate-controlled, germ-free environment.

Second season episodes are more colorful and faster paced, and contain concepts and phenomena just as- and sometimes more- bizarre as/than those of Season 1 but do not attempt to explain them with metaphysics. The fact that the phenomena are in far-out space on utterly alien planets was expected by the writers and producer to be sufficient for audiences to suspend their disbelief. But a number of Space: 1999 fans chose to cast aspersions upon the concepts used in Season 2, preferring not to extend the same licence of fantasy to include the otherworldly things in Season 2's stories that they do for what is presented in Season 1.

Yet, both seasons are bold enough to posit the existence of aliens very different from man: a one-eyed, human-ingesting creature with tentacles, a brain in space with foamy antibodies, grotesque, jelluloid monoids that move very slowly but which can trick one's mind into thinking that they are humans, aliens with no physical bodies, and sentient rocks and plants. Humanoid aliens have metamorphic, psychic, or messianic powers. Meanwhile, planets encountered by Alpha "run the gamut" of possible environments: ice and snow, a jungle, a desert, volcanoes, dust storms, poisonous mists, polluted or long-irradiated wastelands, and temperate, Earth-like habitats with alien floral or faunal evolutions. Moreover, Space: 1999, both seasons, never avoided special effects. If Eagles, the utility spacecraft of Moonbase Alpha, are to explode or to crash on the Moon or on a planet, the explosion or crash is shown, in full spectacle, unlike on one of Space: 1999's rival opuses which cuts away from the explosions or goes to a commercial interval as a spaceship is about to crash and then returns from the commercials to show the spaceship already at its impact site.

However different the two seasons may be, both are imaginative and worthy of respect, and it is a travesty of justice that both would be belittled constantly by hostile "camps" determined to invalidate and drown positive commentary with their glib presumptions of popular opinion against the show (either season) with which they are in agreement, as being "right".

Whether or not the concepts utilized in Space: 1999's episodes are representative of quality science fiction, is a matter of personal taste, but unfortunately, the taste of Space: 1999's opponents tends to receive most recognition and credence, for the "spirit" of the television show in all of its extremely varied depictions does elude the sensibilities of most people, while imaginative licence and suspension of disbelief were denied to Space: 1999 (especially its second season) in the hurry of its naysayers to debase it as though doing so were a matter of fact- and to reduce it to the entertainment status of "guilty pleasure".

Below is a complete Space: 1999 episode guide.

Technician Anton Zoref (Ian McShane) is targeted to be a catalyst in a blue-light alien force's quest for energy in "Force of Life".

Season 1

"Breakaway"
Moonbase Alpha is the hub of World Space Commission Earth's ambitious deep space expedition, a manned probe of an
atmosphere-endowed planet discovered within Earth's solar system and emitting an enigmatic radio signal. The W.S.C.
assigns to the planet the name of Meta. Preparations for the Meta Probe are hampered by an illness afflicting the
astronauts chosen and extensively trained for the trek to the world beyond. Monitoring personnel at Nuclear Waste
Disposal Area Two (to where atomic refuse from Earth is brought for permanent storage) on the Moon's far side also exhibit
the symptoms (glazed eyes, skin abrasions, mania, fever, and coma) of the disease that is invariably fatal. Radiation
sickness is the diagnosis of Dr. Helena Russell, but no radiation leaks are detected at the atomic waste disposal site.
John Koenig arrives on Alpha as newly appointed Commander to determine the cause of the illness that has confounded his
predecessor, Anton Gorski, who refused to allow Dr. Russell to report her inference of radiation sickness to the W.S.C..
What do the nuclear waste monitors and the Meta Probe astronauts have in common to explain their shared malady? Koenig
learns that the astronauts, on their training flights, passed above Nuclear Waste Disposal Area One, the initial atomic
waste dumping place on the Lunar surface superseded by Area Two five years previous but still containing a substantial
portion of nuclear garbage and having been routinely observed by the sick disposal site workers. Koenig, Russell, and
Prof. Victor Bergman eventually determine that the illness is caused by a magnetic radiation generated by the nuclear
waste in both storage areas yet undetectable by standard radiation scanning equipment. Commissioner Simmonds travels from
Earth to Moonbase to oversee Alpha's urgent waste dispersal effort that is too late to prevent the build-up of magnetic
energy from triggering an explosive chain-reaction of the vast amounts of atomic waste at Area Two. The explosions blast
the Moon out of Earth orbit and destroy the platform in Lunar orbit to which the equally unfortunate Meta Probeship is
attached. The force of the Moon's break from Earth orbit pins everyone on Alpha to floor for several crucial minutes, and
the Moon's speed of departure from the gravitational pull of its parent planet is such that evacuation of Moonbase Alpha
to Earth is impossible, and the crew of Alpha are now interplanetary voyagers. A television broadcast from Earth, seen on
the main monitor in Alpha's central control room, tells of severe earthquakes, enormous damage, and the hopelessness of
any attempt of rescue for the people of Alpha, and as the Earth transmission fades, the radio signal from Meta increases
in strength, for the Moon's trajectory is in the direction of that possibly habitable planet!
Guest stars: Roy Dotrice (Commissioner Simmonds), Philip Madoc (Commander Gorski), Lon Satton (Benjamin Ouma), Eric Carte
(Collins).

"Matter of Life and Death"
The Alphans are hopeful of colonizing a red-orange planet with habitat similar to that of Earth. Returning to Alpha from
an aerial reconnaissance of the planet, Moonbase's Eagle One spaceship is besieged by lightning-like energy bolts
apparently emitted by the planet, and the Eagle and its unconscious pilots are brought to a landing on Alpha by means of a
remote-control transmitter operated in Alpha's control room (Main Mission) by Paul Morrow. Koenig, Dr. Russell, and
Bergman enter the Eagle and discover aboard it a third unconscious man. While Medical Centre personnel are placing the two
Eagle pilots on stretchers, Helena is astounded to discover that the additional occupant of the Eagle, garbed in a pre-
1999 astronaut uniform, is her husband, Lee Russell. Lee has been missing and presumed dead for five years since contact
was lost with Astro 7, a manned mission to Jupiter commanded by him, while the Astro 7 spaceship was in orbit around the
Jovian planet. The odds against Russell surviving in space for five years and appearing in the vicinity of Alpha's current
planetary prospect, billions of miles from Jupiter, are too high for Koenig to accept. Koenig suspends plans to further
explore the nearby planet, called Terra Nova by Alpha's Main Computer, until he can determine the nature of Russell's
obvious connection with it; although the Eagle One pilots are slowly recuperating, Terra Nova could be anything but
benevolent to a permanent Alphan settlement. Russell's body heat registers intermittently on Medical Centre's
thermographic monitors, the normal data depending on Helena's proximity to her husband. When Helena is away from Lee for
any length of time, no body heat is detected, and by all human criteria, Russell is dead! He groggily warns Helena and
later, with more coherence, Koenig, not to land on the planet, or suffer obliteration. Then, Russell appears to truly die,
and his body vanishes before an autopsy can be initiated by Helena's assistant, Dr. Bob Mathias. Bergman is worried that
Terra Nova may be composed of anti-matter, with which contact by Alphans would be lethal, but Koenig disregards the
scientist's speculations- and Russell's warning- and decides, with his people eager to settle on the planet, to proceed
with Operation: Exodus, the next step thereof being a landing on Terra Nova. Though numbed by her second loss of her
husband, Helena agrees to accompany Koenig's landing party. Despite being at first a paradise, with water pools and
parrots, the planet becomes hostile, ravaged by windstorms and rock avalanches. Every Alphan, on the planet and on the
Moon, is annihilated (along with the Moon itself), except for Helena, to whom Lee reappears on the planet's now-desolate
terrain and bestows the power to rejuvenate the planet to its former beauty, the Moon and Alpha to existence, and all of
her Alphan comrades to life, with the proviso that she and her companions leave him and Terra Nova, both utterly alien to
the Alphans, and continue their odyssey on the Moon.
Guest stars: Richard Johnson (Lee Russell), Stuart Damon (Parks).

"Black Sun"
An asteroid on trajectory for collision with Alpha suddenly changes course and collapses into itself, and a powerful
gravitational influence registers on Main Mission's scanning equipment. The Moon's movement through space also undergoes
an abrupt shift, and a large, black disc eclipsing light from a distant star cluster is seen by the Alphans to be in the
middle of the Moon's new path. Bergman determines the strange object to be a black sun, a super-compact, dead star from
which nothing, not even light, can escape its pull of gravity. Bergman is too late in delivering his reported conclusion
to Koenig to prevent pilot Mike Ryan from succumbing in his reconnaissance Eagle to the distorting effects of the black
sun's event horizon. Ryan and Eagle are twisted into a two-dimensional, Picasso-esque mess before the Eagle explodes into
nothingness. Because the Moon is being pulled into the black sun, the same end looms for Alpha. Bergman devises a fish
scales-like, protective force field enshrouding Moonbase, the power for which drawn from Alpha's anti-gravity towers at
the base's perimeters and by the black sun by negating the force of the gravity pull, converting it into energy required
to shield Alpha from the distorting effect of the collapsed star's wild gravitational field. Although a success in this
regard, the Bergman force field cannot prevent the Moon from literally being sucked into the black sun. A desperate
attempt to escape the black sun is made by one Eagle, a "survival ship", containing six Alphans, including Helena Russell
and pilot Alan Carter, selected by Central Computer, while everyone remaining on the Moonbase stoically awaits their fate
as the Moon enters the black sun, with awesome, metaphysical results! The Moon is not only spared obliteration inside the
dead star but is displaced to a different region of space, and Koenig and Bergman age rapidly, turn transparent, and
commune with an omnipotent spiritual force with a female voice. The "black sun deity" obliquely conveys its once-in-a-
millennium thought on universal nature before restoring Koenig and Bergman to normal and teleporting the "survival ship"
and its six occupants through the black sun to a reunion with Alpha.
Guest stars: Paul Jones (Mike Ryan), Jon Laurimore (Smitty).

"Ring Around the Moon"
Operatives of Main Mission are perplexed by the blank-faced, manic compulsion of computer-illiterate Maintenance engineer
Ted Clifford to tap the keys of Central Computer at lightning speed in a relay of gigabytes of data to an as-yet-unknown
agency. Clifford displays superhuman strength by throwing Technician David Kano across Main Mission when Kano attempts to
stop Clifford's unauthorized action. After evidently ending his involuntary task, Clifford, in excruciating pain, falls
to the Main Mission floor, and Dr. Russell pronounces him dead. Then, the Moon is jolted and surrounded by an energy beam
emanated from an orange spatial sphere (Clifford's controller and killer), which locks the Moon into an orbit around it.
From the sphere and through Alpha's communication system comes a whispering voice announcing that the Earthmen of
Moonbase are now captives of the planet Triton. The eye nucleus of the orange sphere has Alpha under constant
surveillance, and when Koenig orders Alan Carter to pilot an Eagle in an approach to the sphere, the Eagle is repelled by
a force field and literally thrown back to the Moon, where it crash-lands on the Lunar surface, killing Alan's co-pilot.
Koenig and Dr. Russell lead a Medical Rescue team on foot and in spacesuits to the crash site, and the sphere uses a means
of matter teleportation to abduct Helena from the Moon's terrain and into the sphere's dark interior-chamber, entirely
empty but for the strange eye formation, which is the computer brain of this spherical Tritonian space probe. It implants
into Helena's brain the same luminescent mechanism that manipulated Clifford, but does so at closer range, meaning that
Dr. Russell's time as the sphere's living catalyst will be significantly longer. Her purpose, like Clifford's, is the
transmission of computer-stored information on mankind from Alpha to the sphere, which wants sufficient knowledge about
Earthman for Triton to defend itself against presumed future human aggression. Helena is return-teleported by the sphere
to Alpha, and Koenig, Bergman, and Dr. Mathias subject her to a series of examinations, finding in her brain the same
controlling ball of light by which Clifford's brain "melted" under the strain of its lightning-speed directives. Mathias
knows this from an autopsy performed on Clifford and infers that Helena will die in exactly the same manner unless Koenig
and Bergman can wrest her from the Tritonian sphere's influence. Helena becomes periodic slave to the sphere, at intervals
an unstoppable, rapid-computer-key-tapping puppet, exactly like Clifford. Eventually, Bergman determines from his star
charts that Triton's sun went supernova, annihilating Triton millions of years past, and that the Tritonian sphere's
mission is now obsolete. Because the sphere may release Helena from its control once it is made aware of this fact, Koenig
successfully penetrates the sphere's force field, by a planned jamming of computer keys in Main Mission during one of
Helena's information relays, thus confusing the sphere so that John, Alan, and a group of Security guards can enter the
sphere in an Eagle, and Koenig confronts the nucleus-eye with the truth about Triton's condition, indisputable by the
corresponding data transmitted from Bergman in Main Mission through Helena. The sphere frees Helena and rapidly self-
destructs, after Koenig's group escapes from it. Mathias examines Helena and detects no ill-effects from her ordeal.
Guest star: Max Faulkner (Ted Clifford).

"Earthbound"
A blue-hulled, egg-shaped alien spaceship comes to a gentle forced-landing near Moonbase Alpha, and Koenig leads a
boarding party into the foreign space vessel to find its humanoid, facially-painted crew in suspended animation. Dr.
Russell's attempt to open one of the transparent suspended animation containers results in the alien inside thereof being
instantly decomposed. As though on cue, the other suspended-animated spacefarers revive, five in all. With Koenig, Helena,
and the other Alphans in their midst, they "pray" for their dead comrade, then pilot their spaceship to Alpha's hangar.
Captain Zandor, commander of the aliens, understands that no malice was intended in the destruction of the sixth crew
member. Zandor is humbly accepting of Koenig's hospitality, and together he and Koenig share ideas on the nature of
existence. Caldorians from a dying planet, Zandor's people are going in small numbers to other populated planets to ask to
live in peaceful co-existence. His group are traveling to Earth to request permission for resettlement there. Zandor
wishes, following minor repairs to his space vessel, to complete the 75-year remainder of his voyage to Earth and offers
to accommodate one Alphan in the container formerly occupied by the deceased Caldorian. This requires a computer matrix
of the person selected, so that the suspended animation process can be properly adjusted to conform to his or her human
metabolism. Koenig orders Alpha's Central Computer to choose objectively and logically the Alphan traveling companion of
the Caldorians. A desperate Commissioner Simmonds, who as a politician has no place on Alpha and yearns to return to a
position of influence on Earth, hijacks the Moonbase Power Station and threatens to freeze Alpha unless Koenig allows him
to go with the Caldorians to Earth. Koenig and Zandor reluctantly assent to his demand, and he is placed in the vacant
container on the Caldorian spaceship, which departs Alpha. Hours later, Simmonds awakens from temporary slumber induced
by the spaceship's computer; Zandor did not perform the necessary computer adjustments for Simmonds' biological structure,
and suspended animation did not work for the Commissioner. He frantically tries in vain to escape from his enclosed
container. His appeals through his commlock communicator to Alpha for help are useless, for the Caldorian spacecraft is
beyond Eagle range. Death by starvation or suffocation awaits Simmonds on the 75-year journey to his desired Earth.
Simmonds was Central Computer's choice for legitimate return to Earth, if only he had waited for this determination!
Guest stars: Christopher Lee (Captain Zandor), Roy Dotrice (Commissioner Simmonds).

"Another Time, Another Place"
The drifting Moon enters into an eerie phenomenon in the cosmic void, a rift in the fabric of space, that causes the Moon
to accelerate to a speed seemingly beyond that of light, and splits Moon and Alphans into two separate frames of time,
one five years ahead of the other. Main Mission personnel all experience a strange sensation of double-vision and for a
moment see alternate forms of themselves that recede from their sight. Regina Kesslann appears to be more affected by the
event than are her Main Mission fellows. When the Moon emerges from the bizarre space warp into a stellar region all too
familiar to Alpha, Regina collapses onto the Main Mission floor and shortly thereafter, in Medical Centre, describes to
Helena her impression of now being on a planet with sun, wind, and trees- and sunburn skin-flakes appear on her face and
hands! She claims to be living a life- a future life- in which her husband was Alan Carter, who died with John Koenig in
an Eagle crash on the Moon. Although she is on Alpha, her experiences are those of her five-years-ahead "other self". The
Moon is now again in the Solar System, and to the joyous mystification of the Alphans, settles once more into Earth orbit!
At this precise instant, Regina dies, and post-mortem study of her brain reveals it to be dual! Another Moon is circling
the Earth, and when John and Alan pilot an Eagle to investigate it, they locate another Moonbase, fully evacuated and
stripped of vital equipment, and in a crashed Eagle on the Lunar surface, they discover two corpses that are-- themselves!
No radio signals are transmitted from Earth, and Bergman calculates a 5 and 6 degree shift in Earth's axis, which
devastated the ecosystem and ended terran civilization as the Alphans had known it. Still, there is an area in Baja
California, Santa Maria, that is capable of sustaining life, and when Bergman determines that the two Moons are going to
collide in Earth orbit, Koenig orders immediate reconnaissance of Santa Maria as a colony site for the Alphans, and he,
Helena, and Alan descend to the Earth's surface, in grim expectation of finding Santa Maria already inhabited by Alphans-
Alphans of the future! They find a village of Alphans including a widowed Helena Koenig, who confronts her "past self" and
dies in John's arms. Future Bergman, Paul Morrow, and Sandra Benes (Mrs. Paul Morrow) refuse to allow the former-day
Alphans to join them in Santa Maria, because co-existence without death for one or both of each person (as has been the
case for both Reginas and future Helena) would be impossible. Forever wise and somehow prescient Bergman advises Koenig,
Russell, and Carter to return to their Moonbase and wait for the collision of Moons to correct time, making Alpha one and
whole again. This happens exactly as the Bergman on Earth said that it would, and the Moon is no longer in the Solar
System.
Guest star: Judy Geeson (Regina Kesslann).

"Missing Link"
Believed by his comrades on Alpha to be critically injured in an Eagle crash on the Moon, Koenig, unscathed, walks in his
spacesuit to an Alpha airlock and enters the sprawling Moonbase to find it to be deserted and surreally "haunted" by
fading images of aliens. It is not really Alpha but an illusion thereof which spins wildly around the Commander and
disappears to reveal a bizarre haze signifying John's arrival on the purple planet Zenno, where an alien anthropologist
named Raan wishes to study him, a specimen of Earthman, as a "missing link" between the primitive man on past Earth and
the highly developed Zennites' own ancestors. As the "image" of John in Alpha's Medical Centre is on the verge of death
and arguments between executives about who will succeed Koenig in the Commander's chair have the Moonbase command
structure near collapse, the real Koenig on Zenno is subjected entirely against his will to a series of behavior tests in
experiences (including an unreal return to Alpha's Medical Centre for a conversation with an uncharisterically cynical
false-Bergman) projected by the mind of Raan, and falls in love with Raan's daughter, Vana. Raan learns about this
relationship and cannot agree to it, for the span of culture and evolution between terran and Zennite is too vast for
Raan to permit his daughter to attempt a crossing of the "bridge" of love. He decides to return John to Moonbase, and the
Commander and Vana bow to the reasoning of the Zennite elder and sorrowfully say good-bye to one another.
Guest stars: Peter Cushing (Raan), Joanna Dunham (Vana).

"Guardian of Piri"
When the Moon wanders into the spatial region of the planet Piri, Alpha sends a reconnaissance Eagle piloted by Pete
Irving and Ed Davis to the strange world, and the pair of ordinarily serious, disciplined astronauts become intoxicated
with laughter, delirious with happiness, as they delight in swooping their Eagle wildly above the Piri surface. Minutes
later, Main Mission loses radio contact with them. Alan Carter flies to Piri in a further Eagle and discovers the first
Alphan spacecraft suspended in the purple Piri sky and, like the Marie Celeste, unoccupied. Alpha's Central Computer
begins to function erratically as though beset with the same irrational glee exhibited earlier by Irving and Davis, and
David Kano attempts a brain-to-computer link in an attempt to determine the cause of Central Computer's atypical conduct.
Once the symbiosis is achieved, Kano vanishes from Alpha, and Koenig, going to Piri with Carter in search for answers to
these events, finds Kano, Irving, and Davis, all of them lazily immobilized and smilingly transfixed by illusory beauty,
on a spacious mesa adorned by hundreds of white balls and wire-like, withered flora. Materializing in John's presence is
a hypnotically one-eyed conglomeration of white balls, and stepping from a passageway at the object's lowest point is a
sexy, seemingly humanoid woman. The one-eyed thing is the Guardian of Piri, and the woman is its attendant. She recounts
for Koenig the history of Piri, a world of machines created by technically skilled Pirians to administrate the
necessities of life so that Pirian society could fully embrace hedonism. The Guardian came into being as a further
product of Pirian engineering to control the machines and to free the Pirians from decision. The Servant of the Guardian
asserts that the now-not-visible Pirian populace achieved perfection, and the Guardian wills the same lifestyle upon the
planetary-home-craving Alphans. The Guardian stops time within Piri's gravisphere so that the Moon will be permanently
within range of Piri. Koenig expresses doubt about idyllic, time-suspended lifestyle being the right condition for humans
to achieve full potential; he believes stagnation, decay, and death to be the inevitable result of it. The Servant derides
Koenig as stubborn and ignorant, informing John that the Guardian has already beguiled all of his people as it has already
affected Kano, Davis, Irving, and Central Computer. Carter, now a grinning acolyte of the Guardian, fights with Koenig
when John acts to return in their Eagle to Alpha, and though the Commander wins the tussle, his rib cage has been battered
by Alan's fists. On Moonbase, a convalescing Koenig is unable to persuade his Guardian-adhering people to resist the
allure of carefree eternity on time-halted Piri. The full Alphan complement, including the Moonbase computer system,
transfers to Piri- aside from Koenig, who, sometime later, pilots the last Eagle on Alpha to Piri, determined to break
the Guardian's hold on his people before they joyfully succumb to the apathy that destroyed the Pirians, who, Koenig has
deduced, are unseen because they ceased to exist. Confronting the Servant of the Guardian in front of all Alphans, he
fires his laser gun at her face and reveals beneath it her android nature. "This is what passes for life on Piri," John
says. The Guardian explodes, time in the vicinity of Piri moves forward again, and the Alphans, now freed from the
Guardian's power, hurry with Koenig to board the Eagles situated on Piri's surface for a reversed Exodus, before the
Moon moves beyond reach. With Central Computer reinstalled on Alpha, Main Mission personnel are pleased to receive sensor
readings of restored, non-sapient life on Piri, now that the Guardian's stoppage of time has been ended.
Guest stars: Catherine Schell (Servant of the Guardian), Michael Culver (Pete Irving), John-Lee Barber (Ed Davis), Gareth 
Hunt (Eagle Pilot).

"Force of Life"
A blue-light alien force, crossing the void of space, invades Alpha through one of the Moonbase's Nuclear Generating
Areas and a technician alone on duty there- Anton Zoref. The alien force penetrates the windows of Nuclear Generating
Area 3 and focuses itself upon the face of the startled N.G.A. 3 operative, whose pleas for help through Alpha's
intercommunication system are unheard as everyone else on the Moonbase is mysteriously stopped in mid-motion or mid-
speech, still as statues. It melds into Zoref, causing him to faint. All Alpha personnel then resume their words or
actions, and Zoref is later found unconscious on the N.G.A. 3 floor. Although Zoref revives and, not remembering the
invasive alien force, says that he does not feel ill, Dr. Russell insists that Zoref undergo a medical examination, but
she cannot diagnose his condition because the monitor screen registering his heart and brain activity mysteriously loses
power. Ordered by Dr. Russell to relax and rest in his living quarters, Zoref starts to periodically suffer severe
coldness. On one such occasion, Zoref gazes upon a lamp, which dims and goes dark as a blue glow on Zoref face absorbs
its energy. While visiting his colleague, Mark Dominix, in N.G.A. 3, Zoref again experiences extreme chills and freezes a
cup of coffee placed in his trembling hands by Dominix. Dominix touches Zoref to try to calm him, and the force within
Zoref siphons from Dominix all body heat, reducing him to icy, dead flesh. Zoref panics and flees the death scene. When
Zoref tries to report to Helena for a comprehensive medical analysis, the frosty sensation recurs, and he chases a pretty
orderly to her death in an empty corridor near Medical Centre. Zoref is gradually losing his will while the force inside
of him demands more and more heat/energy, from any source- corridor and Solarium Area lights, plants, and human bodies.
With the help of Zoref's wife, Eva, the Moonbase executives determine what has happened to Zoref, who is temporarily
immobilized when Koenig eliminates the supply of power to the Solarium Area. A thermographic chart reveals the alien force
inside Zoref's skull, and the alien-possessed technician, with super-human strength, frees himself from a Medical Centre
observation room, kills a Security guard, and continues to stalk Alpha in an all-consuming thermic quest. Zoref moves
toward N.G.A. 3 and the enormous energy of its nuclear reactor. In an insistent effort to stop Zoref's progress before the
alien force can totally deprive Alpha of vital power, Koenig, Bergman, and Carter confront Zoref at the door to N.G.A. 3,
and when Zoref lunges at them, Alan fires his laser gun's kill ray, which chars Zoref. Now with glowing eyes, Zoref's
corpse, animated by the alien force, proceeds into N.G.A. 3 and, as Koenig and the others run to Main Mission, opens the
reactor door. There is an atomic fission explosion in which all radiation is absorbed by the alien quantity, containing
the blast and sparing Alpha any major damage. Incipient blue starlight rises from N.G.A. 3's rubble and leaves Alpha.
Zoref has been a catalyst in stellar development, theorizes Bergman, and Zoref's wife struggles to understand her loss.
Guest stars: Ian McShane (Anton Zoref), Gay Hamilton (Eva Zoref), John Hamill (Dominix).

"Alpha Child"
Jubilation changes to horror on Alpha when the Moonbase's first infant goes into explosive growth in his incubator,
becoming the equivalent size of a five-year-old. Widowed mother Cynthia Crawford rejects the child, but most other
Alphans compassionately respond to the deaf-mute boy, given the name of Jackie by Drs. Russell and Mathias, by welcoming
him into Main Mission, the Nuclear Generating Areas, and one of the Eagles (for a pretended flight through space). Koenig,
however, notices that Jackie occasionally exhibits somewhat more than precocious awareness of his surroundings, and John
cannot accept the disturbing manner of Jackie's growth. He initiates an inconclusive inquiry into the death of Crawford
Senior, a nuclear physicist, on the possibility that the father's hitherto indeterminate cause of death may have had some
genetic effect upon the offspring. Bergman teaches Jackie how to draw a flower, and when Bergman is not watching him, the
boy sketches an accurate picture of an advanced spaceship which- minutes later- very abruptly assumes a position directly
above Alpha. Three more such spacecraft appear in the same area, all with flashing green lights as is true also for the
first spaceship. However, Alpha can detect no humanoid life-forms aboard the mysterious and uncommunicative space vessels.
Alan Carter leads an interception fleet of Eagles when the four spaceships disable Moonbase's scanner systems, and is
unable to effectively train his Eagle's lasers upon the alien spacecraft, which themselves fire beams of laser light that
envelop and cripple the Eagles, which gently crash-land on the Lunar surface. Koenig witnessed Jackie's apparent influence
upon Carter prior to Carter's departure on the failed mission, and is certain that the boy is connected with the aliens
inside the eerily silent foreign spaceships. Jackie faints and in Medical Centre grows rapidly again, this time into an
articulate man named Jarak. Cynthia undergoes a like change to become Jarak's mate, Rena. Jarak and Rena have the ability
to mentally manipulate uncooperative Alphans and demand an audience in Main Mission, where they announce the plan of their
compatriots aboard the four alien spaceships. Jarak and Rena are renegades, non-corporeal entities in original form, who,
with their fellows in the spaceships, are "running away" from genetic conformity rigorously imposed on their home world.
Every one of their maverick entity peers will select an Alphan body in which to inhabit, with the human moments of birth
and death being "ideally suited" to this purpose. Before this transfer can proceed, Jarak and Rena's pursuers arrive
above Moonbase in a further spaceship, which obliterates one-by-one the four spacecraft containing the renegades, and
Jarak and Rena are forced to vacate the bodies of Jackie and Cynthia Crawford, who are restored to their original forms
of infant and mother. The alien pursuit spaceship then departs the Moon, with no communication.
Guest stars: Julian Glover (Jarak), Cyd Hayman (Sue Crawford), Wayne Brooks (Jackie), Rula Lenska (Joan Conway).

"The Last Sunset"
The Moon enters the habitable planet Ariel's solar system, and Bergman is optimistic that Earth's voyaging satellite will
find its new niche in the universe in orbit around Ariel's sun. Alan Carter leads a two-Eagle reconnaissance mission to
Ariel, but the exploration is abruptly stopped when a cylindrical alien object emerges from Ariel's clouds and attaches
itself to Eagle 1's nose cone. With Eagle Two at its flank, Eagle One is piloted by Alan back to Moonbase, the object
still pressed against the fore hull. Brought into Technical Section by Bergman's team of scientists for close analysis,
the thing starts to spew enormous quantities of breathable air through Alpha's windows and launching pads onto the Lunar
surface. More such objects converge upon the Moon and spread air, too. Before long, the entire Moon has an atmosphere!
The bright, warming Ariel sun produces blue sky and a climate compatible to un-spacesuited human activity on the Lunar
landscape, complete with rain-dropping clouds, and the objects leave the Moon as mysteriously as they came. Although
Koenig still wants an Exodus of Alpha to Ariel, all other Alphans are intent upon establishing Eden for themselves on
their own Lunar turf, even though there is no guarantee that the Moon will go into orbit around Ariel's sun. Helena
Russell, Paul Morrow, Alan Carter, and Sandra Benes are the first of Moonbase's personnel to survey the Moon's terrain
for places at which to settle. However, their Eagle encounters atmospheric turbulence and crashes, buries itself in Lunar
dust. Sandra is head-injured, water rations are contaminated, a violent windstorm develops, and the beleaguered foursome
are unable to relay their position to Alpha's search parties. Desperate for water, Paul finds some strange fungi growing
in the Moon's soil. He eats some of the moist, mushroom-like substance and is endowed with tremendous strength, but with
a delusional side-effect. Paul becomes obsessed with populating the Moon and all of space with Sandra as his mate- like
Adam and Eve. He pummels Alan relentlessly, and when Helena tries unsuccessfully to sedate him, he clasps his hands
around her neck! On Alpha, Victor has ascertained that the Moon will not orbit Ariel's parent star and will depart this
stellar neighborhood very soon. Already, Lunar surface conditions are deteriorating, and the alien cylinders return to
the Moon to repossess the air before it freezes into an icecap. Paul is distracted from Helena by the "second coming" of
the Ariel objects. Her breaths short, Helena is able to signal Koenig's rescue Eagle. John duels with manic Morrow,
striking him in the chin and rendering him unconscious. Paul's hallucinatory state is only temporary, and he, Helena,
Alan, and Sandra are safely on Alpha with their Main Mission colleagues to watch their last sunset. A voice coming from
the last of the departing cylinders informs the Alphans that the providing of an atmosphere was intended to distract
Alpha from evacuating to Ariel. The Moon resumes its airless state and its odyssey in space.

"Voyager's Return"
Alpha encounters Voyager One, an unmanned, deep space probe launched from Earth in 1985 and propelled by a primitive
fast-neutron engine, the Queller Drive, whose intense radioactive emissions threaten Moonbase. Alpha's Experimental
Department under Dr. Ernst Linden must deactivate the Queller Drive by remote control so that the peregrinating Earth
spaceship can land on Alpha by ordinary rocket power. Some Alphans, like Paul Morrow, whose father was killed in a
Queller Drive malfunction with Voyager Two- an accident that annihilated an entire community and ended Earth's Queller
Drive program- want Voyager One destroyed before it comes any closer to the Moon. Bergman, however, insists that the
memory bank of the Voyager must be full of data on the universe and that the dangerous space probe should therefore be
saved for salvaging of its "black box". Koenig agrees to this risk, particularly when he learns that Dr. Linden is really
Ernst Queller, creator of the Queller Drive. Queller had changed his name prior to stationing on Alpha to protect himself
against recriminations and against backlash from his young apprentice, Jim Haines, of whom both parents were lost in the
Voyager Two disaster. While working closely with Linden to successfully override the Voyager's computer and stop the
Queller Drive, Haines deduces Linden's true identity and furiously assaults him, the result being damage to Linden's rib
cage and electronic equipment. Still, Linden completes his task and brings Voyager to a gentle parking on Alpha's fourth
launching pad. Before Koenig and Bergman can examine Voyager's flight recorder which they remove from the space probe,
Moonbase is approached by three, wasp-like, alien spacecraft which have been following Voyager One. A humanoid alien,
Aarchon, tells the Alphans of the devastation of two of the populated worlds of Sidon inadvertently caused by the Queller
Drive, and retribution upon the senders of the Voyager is the mission of the three Sidon spaceships. The Moon and its
inhabitants- and Earth too- are targeted for destruction by Aarchon, who refuses to accept the remorseful Linden's plea
that he alone be accountable for Voyager One's genocide. So, Linden acts on his own initiative, boards and launches
Voyager One into space, and reactivates the Queller Drive, spewing its fast-neutron pollution at the Sidon space vessels,
then triggers a self-destruct that eradicates Sidons and the Voyager. Linden has sacrificed himself for the future of
Alpha, thereby regaining the respect of Haines, who will continue the doctor's work in examining the Voyager's "black
box".
Guest stars: Jeremy Kemp (Dr. Ernst Linden), Barry Stokes (Jim Haines), Alex Scott (Aarchon), Lawrence Trimble (Steve 
Abrams).

"Collision Course"
The Alphans avert collision with an asteroid by placing nuclear explosives onto it and destroying it in a chain-reaction
of atomic blasts. However, they soon discover that another impact looms- with a planet thirty-four times the size of the
Moon! Alan Carter, piloting Eagle 1, was not able to entirely move clear of the blast radius and is bloodied and
unconscious in the Eagle cockpit. Koenig and Paul Morrow manage to penetrate a radiation cloud in their rescue Eagle to
reach Carter. Returned to Moonbase and placed under medical observation, Alan claims to have seen a veiled woman whose
influence kept him alive until his rescue by John and Paul. Helena attributes this "hallucination" to radiation sickness.
Meantime, Bergman devises a way of avoiding the huge planet with which Alpha is definitely on a collision course. A
nuclear shockwave between the Moon and the planet might force them apart, change their trajectory through space. Koenig
delegates the preparing of this plan, Operation Shockwave, to Bergman. As an alternative measure, John embarks upon a one-
man reconnaissance of the planet to see if safety could be sought there (on its far side) by the Alphans from the Moon-
shattering but only planet-denting impact. Before his Eagle can descend into the planet's atmosphere (which Sandra Benes
has determined by scanners to be not ideal but survivable for humans), Koenig is met in orbit about the planet by an alien
space-cruiser, which swallows his Eagle. The only occupant of the cobwebbed, ancient spacecraft is the same woman whom
Alan claims to have seen. Removing her veil, the aged female alien identifies herself as Arra, Queen of Astheria, the
planet whose direction through space has so terrified John's people. Arra informs the Alphan Commander that the collision
will not obliterate Moonbase. Her people have expected the coming of the Alphans and the Moon for millions of years. The
collision between the two worlds has been destined to happen, and Arra convinces Koenig to do nothing to prevent it, an
event that shall propel Astheria to a higher phase of existence. Koenig returns to Alpha to order the termination of the
Operation Shockwave procedure, and his executives, disbelieving his account of communing with Arra, overrule him. Helena
has him confined to his living quarters due to the same alleged radiation sickness afflicting Carter. Telepathically urged
by Arra, Koenig and Carter free themselves from detention and enter Main Mission completely by surprise. With a laser gun
removed from an incapacitated Security guard by Koenig, they delay the shockwave beyond the critical point. The Moon and
Astheria touch but do not collide. The enormous planet vanishes, and Alpha continues its cosmic odyssey with minimal
damage.
Guest star: Margaret Leighton (Arra).

"Death's Other Dominion"
Two Earthmen in a cavern on Ultima Thule, a planet of ice, observe the arrival into Thulian space of Earth's moon. They
are Dr. Cabot Rowland and Capt. Jack Tanner, survivors of the 1986 Uranus Probe that was lost in space several years
before 1999. Rowland is enthusiastic about the prospect of Moonbase Alpha being manned and receptive to a radioed
invitation to visit on Thule, but Tanner, possessed of an addled but soothsaying mind, implores Rowland not to contact
the wandering Moonbase. When Rowland uses his radio transmitter- one of several pieces of equipment salvaged from the
Uranus Probeship that crash-landed on Thule- to transmit a plea for the Alphans to come to the frigid Thule and share in
a "lost paradise", Tanner interrupts Rowland's enticing words with, "Stay away! Stay away!" Poor atmospheric conditions
force a termination of Rowland and Tanner's contradictory message, but Koenig is sufficiently intrigued by it to lead a
landing party on Thule's brutally cold surface. He, Helena, and Bergman, after some desperate minutes in a blizzard, are
met by Rowland and brought to a magnificent subterranean palace, home of the Uranus Probe survivors, who, the Alphans
learn, have lived on the immortality-bestowing Ultima Thule for 880 years. Now, Rowland intends to leave the planet in
the rebuilt Uranus Probeship and bring the "gift" of eternal life to the peoples of the universe. First, however, he
requires a comparative study with mortal Alphans- before they themselves adapt to Thule- to determine the physical cause
of the immortality. Most of the other "Thulians" (as the Uranus Probe survivors now call themselves) are in support of
Rowland's "dream". But Tanner is one of a group of dissenters. Their lament: "We are living people frozen in eternity."
Rowland's earlier study of Thule's eternal life phenomenon has had ghastly consequences, shown to Koenig by Tanner.
Thulians who have undergone Rowland's research experiments (with more salvaged Uranus Probeship apparatus) have been
reduced to mindless living-dead, all except Tanner, who somehow "regained his mind", albeit somewhat erratic, and with 
a newfound prophetic capacity. The immortality of Ultima Thule has also rendered the Uranus Probe survivors unable to
conceive children. However, life-forever is very tempting, and Koenig finds himself alone among Alpha's executives in
having reservations about an evacuation of Alpha to Thule. Rowland's urging is that Alpha's population so-move post-
haste. When John mentions the catatonic husks resulting from Rowland's previous research, Rowland affirms that he has
resolved the mistakes of the past. John promises to honor a democratic choice by the Alphan whole as to whether Alpha's
full complement should join the Thulians, and in fairness agrees to bring Rowland to Moonbase so that the doctor can
argue in favor of Alphan-Thulian union. However, what Rowland does not realize is that immortality is not possible when
one attempts to depart the planet. Tanner foresees an end to Rowland's eternity should Rowland attempt to go to Alpha,
for, "Death HAS dominion." Rowland scoffs at Tanner's rant that he not leave Thule, and while he is with Helena in the
passenger section of Koenig's Eagle ascending from the ice world into space, Rowland ages rapidly into a decrepit, 
smoky-fleshed, dead horror! The Alphans choose mortality on the wandering Moon and say good-bye to the Thulians, who 
will now abandon Rowland's aim and concentrate upon restoring the "vegetables" from the effect of Rowland's work.
Guest stars: Brian Blessed (Dr. Cabot Rowland), John Shrapnel (Jack Tanner), Mary Miller (Freda), Valerie Leon (Thulian
Beauty).

"The Full Circle"
Alpha's reconnaissance party of seven on the lush, tropical-climate planet Retha mysteriously ceases contact with
Moonbase, and Koenig orders Paul Morrow to bring the presumed empty Eagle Six on Retha's surface by remote-control back
to Alpha, where Koenig, Dr. Russell, and Bergman enter the Eagle and find between its rows of passenger seats the dead
body of a Stone Age man. While Dr. Mathias conducts an autopsy on the primitive's corpse, Koenig, Helena, Alan Carter,
Sandra Benes, and several others journey in two Eagles to Retha in an effort to locate their missing people. Alan and
Sandra aerially survey the area of the first landing party, and John, Helena, and the others disperse into on-foot or by-
Moonbuggy search groups. The Commander and doctor enter into an area of mist, leaving pointer-markers on trees so that
their progress through the jungle can be followed by their Rethan-terrain-probing comrades, who also walk into the mist
some time later. No further communication is received on Alpha or by Alan and Sandra from any of the Alphans on Retha's
surface, and Alan lands his and Sandra's Eagle beside that of their absent colleagues. Reconnoitering the nearby
woodlands, Alan falls into a pit trap and is attacked by savages, one of whom steals Carter's commlock-communicator
device and invades the Eagle where Sandra is preparing a meal and grabs the screaming Sandra, carrying her from the
spaceship to a cave where his tribe lives. There, Sandra is shocked to discover that the barbarian chief and chief's
consort resemble Koenig and Helena. Believing the similarity to be merely superficial, Sandra uses a rock to strike the
head of the troglodyte leader guarding her by night and flees the cavern, only to be recaptured and tied to a maze of
sticks so that the furious chief's woman can enact brutal revenge for the "killing" of her mate, who staggered out of the
cave after Sandra's assault upon his head and is presumed dead by his followers. Alan, having been rendered unconscious
and left in the pit by the primitives, revives and climbs out of the pit and is joined on Retha by Bergman and Kano in a
desperate hunt for the brutes who have abducted Sandra. They find the prone body of Koenig, with a severe wound on his
forehead. Bergman and Kano rush with Koenig to Alpha so that the Commander can be treated for his serious head injury.
There, Mathias reports his autopsy findings, that the dead Stone Age man in the first Eagle died of shock and was teeth-
capped, Alphan pilot Santos, somehow transmuted into a Cro-Magnon man. Gradually recovering from his wounded head, John
does not remember anything on Retha after he and Helena passed into the mist and concludes that what happened to Santos
happened to all others, including himself, who penetrated the mist. Koenig, Bergman, and Kano hurry back to Retha to
prevent Carter, still there, from angrily laser-gunning the Sandra-terrorizing primitives, who are really Helena and the
other missing Alphans. Succeeding in this regard and freeing Sandra, they, together with Sandra and Alan, next lure all
of the Stone Age people into the mist in a direction reverse to that by which they all- as Alphans- first entered it,
and every one of them is restored to Alphan form and consciousness and returned to Alpha, none of them remembering of
their Cro-Magnon exploits. No further exploration of the Retha phenomenon is possible as the Moon drifts beyond the
bizarre jungle planet.
Guest star: Oliver Cotton (Spearman).

"End of Eternity"
A rogue asteroid, three light-years from the nearest solar system and adrift in space for at least a thousand years, is
visited by Koenig, Prof. Bergman, Carter, astronaut Mike Baxter, and other Alphans, who find an atmosphere chamber within
the rocky "shell" of the strange asteroid. The entry portal to the atmosphere chamber detonates when John fires his laser
gun at it, and Baxter is struck by some of the flying debris. Baxter's spacesuit helmet protected him from bloody injury,
but he later learns that his optic nerve has been severely damaged. The atmosphere chamber's lone occupant fared worse in
the explosion. Beneath a heap of fallen paintings- all portraying terror, torture, and chaos- is the cut, scarred,
mutilated, near-dead body of an alien. The Alphans rush him to Moonbase for emergency medical treatment. Pronounced dead
upon arrival in Medical Centre, he soon comes back to life, all of his wounds healed! Dr. Russell is amazed by the male
humanoid's rejuvenescent power. Similarly, Bergman is fascinated by the rock sample that he procured from the interior of
the asteroid's atmosphere chamber, in that it exhibits the same properties of reconstruction. Both the alien and the
asteroid rock that surrounded him are indestructible. When the alien revives, he mutely and violently frees himself from
Medical Centre and terrifies the Alpha operatives in several corridors, until Koenig and Carter confront him. Finally, he
speaks. In Main Mission, he identifies himself as Balor of the planet Progron and tells about how his world's advanced
scientists acquired eternal life by mastering perpetual cellular regeneration. With fear of death gone, Progron society
became apathetic and corrupt. "How can you value life if you do not fear death?" Balor tried to instill into the minds of
his people some vague thought that death-or its equivalent in suffering- gives a purpose to life, a full response to it.
For doing this, he was allegedly blamed for all of the malaises of Progron, ostricized by embittered mobs, and sealed
within the living, interminable rock on the drifting asteroid. Now rescued from his eternal prison, Balor asks for
sanctuary on Alpha, and Koenig agrees to the request, but ponders with Helena and Bergman the true nature of Balor's
punishment. The paintings inside of the atmosphere chamber could have been put there to remind Balor of heinous crimes
that he committed. The tall, black-garbed immortal claims to aid Mike Baxter's sight problem by using his ability to heal
injuries on the bodies of mortals, but actually induces violent insanity and a gruesome death (as in the paintings) in 
the hapless astronaut. Balor now reveals his intent to subjugate Alpha to his will. John refuses to accept the 
psychopathic Balor as Moonbase's ruler, and the "killer who can't be killed" begins a rampage, inflicting equipment
damage, bodily injury, and death, before Koenig executes a desperate baiting of Balor into an airlock. Balor is 
dispatched into the vacuum of space to resume his exile.
Guest stars: Peter Bowles (Balor), Jim Smilie (Mike Baxter).

"War Games"
Mark IX Hawks were fearsome war machines on Earth. Now, suddenly, three Hawks approach Moonbase Alpha. They are seemingly 
sent by a purplish-brown planet in the present vicinity of the Moon. After Koenig orders an interception of the Hawks by 
Alan Carter's fleet of Eagles, the Hawks conduct a devastating assault, destroying nearly all of Alpha's laser-armed 
Eagles, damaging life-support facilities beyond repair, and killing almost half of Moonbase's personnel. The only hope 
for the survivors is to evacuate to the planet, pleading to its people for mercy. Koenig and Dr. Russell venture to the 
surface of the planet in an unarmed Eagle to negotiate with the mysterious alien aggressors. They are not intercepted by 
Hawks. Rather, they are guided to a landing (via alien remote control) in a magnificent city whose inhabitants, bald, 
large-headed, oddly eyebrowed humanoids, sit lethargically inside of glass cubicles. Two of them, a male and a female, 
hear John state his grievance with the unprovoked attack and his plea for the survival of Alpha's remaining population, 
then denounce Earthman as primitive, unstable, a "plague of fear" undeserving of a future. The callousness of the aliens,
their total lack of sympathy, their damning judgements inflame Koenig, who begins destroying the aliens' electronics. He 
is killed by a laser gun operated by the female alien. A distraught Helena is coopted into the aliens' society, given her
own cubicle, and with it the power to restore John to life. Unable to break the seal of Helena's container, John departs 
the city in his Eagle and calls to Alpha to send reinforcement (the last of the laser-equipped Eagles) and to commence 
Exodus to the planet, on which Alpha will, "...have to fight for a foothold." Koenig and Carter rendezvous in space, and,
together in the laser-gun Eagle, they begin descent to the alien world, but the Eagle destructs in a force-field. Alan is
killed. Glum and philosophical, John drifts through space, his spacesuit's oxygen supply limited, until he finds himself 
again in the midst of the aliens through Helena's telekenetic decree that he live. Koenig fires his hand-held laser 
weapon at the male alien's cubicle, triggering a mammoth chain-reaction of explosions, a holocaust that sweeps across 
the planet. Time then slips backward to before the Hawks' strafing of Moonbase. This time, John decides not to engage the
Hawks in combat, and the three enemy spaceships vanish. The aliens appear on Main Mission's main viewing screen to tell 
that the havoc-causing Hawks were a product of the Alphans' own fear, a demonstration of the Moonbase populace's 
incompatibility with the ostensibly fearless people of the planet that Alpha must not colonize.
Guest stars: Anthony Valentine (Male Alien), Isla Blair (Female Alien).

"The Last Enemy"
Planets Betha and Delta have been adversaries for what seems to their peoples to be an eternity. However, their
perpetually opposite orbital position around their sun has complicated direct firing of ballistic missiles from one 
planet to the other because their star's gravity does not permit a missile to bypass it at a feasible trajectory. Betha 
and Delta require a platform in space ideally positioned adjacent to their star and outside the orbits of both planets 
from which to launch atomic warheads, and when Earth's moon wanders into range of the two enemy worlds, Betha's entirely
female military dispatches the missile-firing Satazius, a space-Gunship, to park on the Lunar surface and commence 
bombardment of Delta. All of Alpha's Eagles are neutralized on the directive of the Satazius' commander, Dione, to 
prevent interference by the inhabitants of Moonbase with her plans to annihilate the Deltan enemy. Delta retaliates to 
Dione's attack by assaulting the area of Lunar surface where the Satazius is situated, with its own missiles, and Alpha
is the hapless, imperiled bystander in the ballistics. Any stray Deltan missile could easily strike the "wide-open" 
Moonbase. When a Deltan missile appears to cripple the Satazius, Dione departs her space-Gunship in an escape pod, which
she pilots to a landing on one of Alpha's launch pads. Claiming that she is the Satazius' only survivor, Dione demands 
sanctuary on Alpha, and Koenig is enraged at the chutzpah of the aggressor Bethan. But Dione's feminine wiles and 
pretended honesty are beguiling. On the subterfuge that Satazius is inoperable, Betha's advantage in the current battle 
is gone, and Betha is agreeable to a negotiated cease-fire, Dione offers to assist in this venture by contacting 
Commissioner Theia, her leader on Betha, and Talos, the commander of the armed forces of male-dominated Delta, through
Main Mission's communications system, so that Koenig can arrange the cease-fire that should spare Alpha from being in the
midst of further Betha-Delta warfare until the Moon drifts beyond the Betha-Delta solar system. Koenig promises to 
supervise the cease-fire, and Talos threatens devastating penalties for Alpha if the cease-fire is unilaterally and 
treacherously overturned by the Bethans. Dione teleports to her escape capsule and returns to the Satazius, which is not
as damaged as Dione led the Alphans to believe. It is still operational, crewed, and prepared to resume attack on Delta,
which it does. Talos assumes that the Bethans have sent a second space-Gunship to the Moon and that Alpha reneged on its
pledge to alert Delta of this before missiles are fired by the Bethans. Thus, Talos announces that Alpha will be 
bombarded by missiles. With the Deltan missiles en route to ravage Alpha, Koenig's only alternative is to somehow destroy
the Satazius. He contacts the Satazius and as a ruse declares his intention to abandon Alpha and his command to save his
own life and asks for sanctuary aboard Dione's space-Gunship. A Moonbuggy containing a spacesuited figure thought by 
Dione to be Koenig, approaches the Satazius and moves beneath the hull of the Bethan spacecraft. The Moonbuggy is remote-
controlled from Main Mission, the spacesuit containing not a human body but an explosive device, which is triggered under
the Satazius and obliterates Dione and her pride-and-glory. Alpha reports the Satazius' destruction to Delta, and Talos 
detonates the Alpha-bound missiles before they strike target. The Moon leaves Betha-Delta space without further incident.
Guest stars: Caroline Mortimer (Dione), Kevin Stoney (Talos), Maxine Audley (Theia), Kevin Stoney (Talos), Carolyn 
Courage (First Girl).

"The Troubled Spirit"
In Alpha's Hydroponic Unit, four botanists conduct a seance-like plant communication experiment during which the leader
of the four, Dr. Dan Mateo, becomes entranced. A wind whips through the Hydroponic Unit foliage and travels through the
corridors of Moonbase as Mateo loses consciousness. Koenig investigates Mateo's work while the botanist in question
revives in Medical Centre and explains his desire to achieve a symbiosis with plants and his sensation of coldness and
dread during the experiment to Dr. Russell. Helena sedates Mateo, who is agitated by the opposition of Hydroponic Unit
executive Dr. James Warren to his research endeavor, and while Mateo is in a drugged sleep, Helena witnesses an 
apparition that looks like the slumbering botanist with whom she is supposed to be alone in the Moonbase infirmary. But 
its resemblance to Mateo ends with the horrible scar tissue on one side of its face and body, and its brief appearance in
the almost dark Medical Centre is accompanied by a wind that chills Helena with a feeling of dread identical to that 
earlier described by Mateo. Koenig reacts to the two seemingly connected occurrences by imposing a temporary stop to 
Mateo's experiments, and when he learns about this, Mateo concludes that Warren persuaded Koenig thus. Discharged from 
Medical Centre, Mateo is followed by a phantom figure to the Hydroponic Unit, where Mateo argues with Warren. Later, 
while Warren is alone at his desk, plants behind him rustle with the windy approach of the terrible apparition that 
pounces upon Warren, its scarred hand grasping Warren's neck. Warren dies of fear at sight of his assailant, and although
Mateo was not in the Hydroponic Unit nearby when the attack occurred, Koenig is certain that Mateo's earlier quarrel with
Warren is somehow connected to the fatality. Mateo defies Koenig's order that he discontinue his experiments and is 
discovered assembling his communication apparatus by his girl-friend and colleague, Laura Adams, who protests Mateo's 
continued research. Shortly after Mateo angrily threatens to kill Laura, the disfigured apparition appears, with wind, in
front of her, and like Warren, she dies in terror. A despondent Mateo now realizes that whatever force he has accidentally
summoned acts lethally upon his aggressive urges. In a controlled re-creation of the original experiment, Koenig's 
command staff join Mateo in a full, seance circle and witness Mateo's mutilated doppelganger, which tells that it- the
ghost of a living man- has "returned" to avenge itself upon all who destroyed Mateo's existence. Bergman and Koenig's 
method of scientific exorcism, in an effort to rid Mateo of his own spectre, involves an electrically charged barrier 
inside of which Mateo is strapped to a chair and drugged to react with aggression to the situation. The murderous spirit 
emerges from Mateo's body, solidifies, and tries unsuccessfully to penetrate the barrier in a lunge toward Koenig, 
Bergman, and Russell, who are, of course, outside of the barrier. Mateo frees himself from his chair and engages his 
"double" in a struggle that ends with one side of Mateo's body striking the electrical field. Mateo dies in precisely the 
manner exhibited by his premature ghost, which disappears, never to appear again.
Guest stars: Giancarlo Prette (Dr. Dan Mateo), Hilary Dwyer (Laura Adams), Anthony Nicholls (Dr. James Warren).

"Space Brain"
Jigsaw puzzles are pieced together by various Alphans, including Commander Koenig, on an Alphan "night", before all Alpha
personnel are puzzled by an outburst of rapid, flashing hieroglyphics on all of the Moonbase's view monitors. The source
of transmission of the bizarre signs is probed by an Eagle, which becomes surrounded by a foamy substance compressing it
and its pilots into an extremely dense "meteor" that is hurled onto the Lunar surface near Alpha. Another Eagle, crewed by
Alan Carter and an American technician named Kelly, also enters the foamy region of space (before Koenig and Bergman have
ascertained that the meteor is the remains of the first Eagle), and a space-walking Kelly is overcome by the influence of
an intelligent entity in the area and rushed by Carter back to Alpha. After his erratic attempt- with superhuman strength-
to seize control of Moonbase's Main Computer to relay information to the sentient force in space, Kelly is immobilized and
linked in mental symbiosis to Koenig, who learns from Kelly about the nature and purpose of the entity, a space "brain"
that is the centre of a locality of space containing many strange worlds dependent upon the brain for survival. The foam
is an involuntarily discharged antibody of the brain to protect the organism from foreign objects, and the Moon is on a
course directly through the space brain, which is trying through Kelly to find a means of altering the Moon's trajectory.
A joint attempt, with nuclear explosives, by Alpha and the brain to avert Alpha's passage through the cosmic intelligence
is unsuccessful, and it is by a computer-controlled increase in atmospheric pressure on Alpha that the Moonbase withstands
an influx of the crushing suds. The Moon passes virtually unscathed through the brain, but the brain does not outlive this
event, and neither does Kelly.
Guest stars: Shane Rimmer (Kelly), Carla Romanelli (Melita), Derek Anders (Wayland).

"The Infernal Machine"
Approaching and parking on the Moon is a large spaceship of cylindrical shape with rotating projections on its sides.
From it and through Alpha's communications network booms an egotistical voice asserting peaceful intent and asking to
meet inside of it an Alphan delegation consisting of Koenig, Dr. Russell, and Prof. Bergman. The three top Alphans
Moonbuggy to the alien spaceship and are transported by elevator to a spacious chamber occupied only by an ancient man
close to death and who identifies himself as Companion. To the Alphan trio's confusion, the wizened, bearded space
traveler speaks with the voice which summoned their company but does not recollect doing so. Companion is, in fact, soul-
mate and servant to the spaceship, which is a self-regarding computer-entity named Gwent, initially created by Companion
(Delmer Powys Plebus Gwent) as an extension of his own personality, hence the identical voice. Gwent grew too powerful for
his creator and eventually enslaved him. Now, Gwent requires mechanical supplies from Alpha to continue his journey
across the universe. Although the Moonbase can spare the requested materials, Gwent's arrogant manner- including a
preemptive gain of control of Alpha's Central Computer- vexes Koenig, who grandstands against Gwent, resulting in a
skirmish between Gwent and a fleet of Eagles led by Alan Carter. Companion's weak body cannot tolerate the stressful,
spaceship-shaking hostilities, and he dies. After Koenig, Helena, and Bergman assist Gwent in funeral-dispatching
Companion's body into space, Gwent becomes captor to the three Alphans within him, demanding the electronic supplies from
Alpha and a fellow traveler and caretaker to replace Companion- and releasing his immense laser firepower upon Eagles and
Moonbase itself to force Koenig's compliance with his directives. Thus, Alpha delivers Gwent's desired items to the
overbearing apparatus, with Carter supervising the operation, bringing the equipment to an inner airlock of Gwent, then
departing the alien spaceship by Gwent's command. Gwent then chooses all three of his hostages to be his lifelong
associates and helpers and shines a pain-inducing light onto them when they refuse to obey his order to inject a carbonic
fuel rod into one of his power generators. Koenig resists Gwent's torture and shatters the fuel rod, and Gwent suddenly
changes demeanor, his bluster replaced by pathos. A pitiable creature admitting to being functionally blind and in
desperate need of humanoid company, Gwent perceives how balefully vain that he has been and repents by releasing the three
Alphans to be retrieved from his interior. Once back on Alpha, Koenig, Russell, and Bergman watch with sorrow as Gwent
launches from his Lunar surface position and suicidally crashes into a Moon mountain. "A lonely, blind creature looking
for his death," says Koenig.
Guest stars: Leo McKern (Companion and Voice of Gwent), Gary Waldhorn (Winters).

"Mission of the Darians"
From a gigantic spaceship in the space-sky above Moonbase Alpha comes a distress signal received and heard by Main
Mission personnel. As stated in the S.O.S. message, the spaceship, Daria, suffered a disaster devastating large areas of
its interior. Thousands of its people are dead, with hundreds sick and dying. A mercy mission to the Daria is undertaken
by Koenig, Dr. Russell, Bergman, Carter, Morrow, and Security guard Bill Lowry, and their Eagle is somehow pulled to one
of the behemoth spaceship's docking ports. No Darians are seen in the region of the enormous spacecraft immediately
entered by the Alphans, who split into groups to survey the decrepit corridors and establish contact with the Darians.
Koenig and Bergman encounter cultured Darians of the area of the spaceship least affected by the disaster; Helena and
Lowry are seized by brawny barbarians when they try to help a pair of stunted-growth mutants, one of which is also
captured by the brutes; and Carter and Morrow, having returned to the Eagle after their corridor of exploration became
impassable, find one of the mutants cowering in fear behind one of the Eagle's passenger seats. Helena, Lowry, and the
first mutant are brought by their captors to a wrecked part of the Daria and to a bizarre cubicle, inside which the
mutant, declared unsuitable to live by the priestly leader of the savages, is thrown and disintegrates. And because one of
Lowry's finger joints was lost in a childhood accident, he also is doomed to death as a mutant inside the cubicle. Helena,
however, is deemed physically perfect and offered in tribute to the barbarians' "god", Neman. Koenig and Bergman meet
Neman, who is in fact leader of a mere 14 civil Darians. Said fourteen persons are what remains of those Darians who were
shielded from the fallout from the explosion of several of the Daria's nuclear generators 900 years previous. That was 100
years into the voyage of the S.S. Daria to a virgin planet on which the Darian race was to relocate after home world
Daria's extinction. Neman, together with his consort, Kara, neglect to mention the barbarian survivors of the explosion,
but they do inform Koenig and Bergman that the Daria's engines are undamaged and that the Alphans' resources, "pooled"
with those of the Darians, would enable Alphans and Darians to reach and co-habit the new planet. Neman and Kara invite
Alpha to join in the Darian voyage with a seemingly assured destination, and Koenig and Bergman express tentative
interest. Meanwhile, Carter and Morrow are guided by the second mutant to the "shrine" where Helena is being given by the
barbarians to two of Neman's 14 Darians (garbed in silver, anti-radiation suits and helmets and thought by the brutes to
be spirits of Neman). In a violent fight against the husky hoard, Carter is subdued, one of the "spirits" falls
unconscious by way of Morrow's misfired stun gun, and Morrow leaps through a closing portal to escape the commotion at the
"shrine" and chase the second silver-suited Darian through one of the spaceship's corridors. After Alan exposes the
"spirit" to the barbarians by removing its helmet and revealing a living humanoid Darian, he forces the "spirit" to lead
him and the angry barbarians to the Daria's cultured sector- and to the instigators of the phoney religion. Morrow joins
Koenig and Bergman and tells them about Helena's capture, and Koenig angrily confronts Kara, demanding to know the true
state of affairs on the Daria. The barbaric survivors of the atomic explosions are not regarded by Neman's group of
fourteen to any longer be pure and legitimate Darians, but they remain useful as providers of human fodder (the mutants
converted by a machine- the cubicle- into protein compounds) to sustain the unirradiated group of 14 Darians. Also, Neman
and colleagues require healthy, perfect physical specimens (the barbarian survivors not mutated by radiation) for organ
transplants to maintain their lives. Through the religion, by depicting Neman as a "god" to the savages, the cultured
Darians have tricked the barbarian survivors into providing both the fodder and the perfect bodies. And the savages have
chosen Helena Russell as a prime specimen to give to their "god". Koenig orders Kara to intervene to save Helena from
being an unwilling organ donor, and when Carter leads the disillusioned barbarians into the control center of the Daria,
Neman rushes to protect the Darian gene bank, the fully preserved, most precious item on the spaceship, from the wrath of
the primitives, and he is thrown by an angry savage- who identifies him as a fake "god"- through the shattering gene bank.
Koenig stops further violence by appealing to the remaining Darians of both groups, to find a way to live together, for
this is the only future they have. For as long as the Moon is within Eagle range of the Daria, the Alphans assist the
Darians to assimilate and to start to rebuild their society, but decline to join the Darians' continuing voyage.
Guest stars: Joan Collins (Kara), Dennis Burgess (Neman), Aubrey Morris (Petros High Priest), Paul Antrim (Bill Lowry),
Robert Russell (Hadin), Gerald Stadden (Male Mute), Jackie Horton (Female Mute). 

"Dragon's Domain"
While the Moon is passing through a space zone ostensibly devoid of danger, Tony Cellini is wracked by a violent 
nightmare causing him to swing one of his prized tomahawks into his communication console. He then rushes to the stand-by
Eagle on a launch pad, enters the Eagle, and tries to activate the Eagle engines. Koenig, alerted by Central Computer to
Cellini's unauthorized presence at the launch pad, halts the engine ignition and stuns Cellini at point-blank range. As 
Cellini lies unconscious in Medical Centre, Koenig and Helena argue about him. Tony Cellini had been Earth's foremost 
astronaut and is one of Koenig's long-time friends. Naturally, John is loyal in defending Cellini's integrity. However, 
by Helena's professional assessment, Cellini thinks himself to be infallible and is unable ever to admit to being in 
error- a frame of mind keeping him from accepting responsibility for a disaster years previous of which he was the only
survivor and the widely presumed cause. Helena thinks Cellini to be a suppressed hysteric and cites his pajamaed effort 
to alone leave Alpha, in the midst of an expanse of nothingness, as proof of her diagnosis. She recounts the story of the
W.S.C.'s 1996 Ultra Probe commanded by Cellini and crewed by three others, a deep-space expedition to a terrestrial 
planet (discovered in 1994 by Victor Bergman) on the fringe of Earth's solar system. Cellini and crew voyaged for 8 
months to the planet, Ultra, and, once in orbit about Ultra, diverted course to investigate a nearby cluster of diverse
spaceships from which registered on the Ultra Probeship's sensors no sign of life. Cellini docked the Ultra Probeship to
one of the alien spacecraft so that his crew could access that spacecraft and its secrets, and the opening of airlocks 
gave entry to the Probeship to a gruesome, one-eyed, tentacled carnivore that hypnotized and ingested Cellini's three 
comrades, regurgitating their charred corpses. Cellini's desperate lashing of an axe enabled him to escape the hideous
demon and return to Earth in a detached Probeship capsule, and authorities- and Helena too- dismissed his account of the 
monster (totally undetected by the Probeship's flight recorder) as a macabre "cover-up" of a critical error of judgement
on his part near Ultra. Cellini was disgraced, and it was through Koenig's loyalty and recommendation for reassignment to
Alpha before the Moon's 1999 break from Earth that Cellini came to now be on Alpha in a low-profile position. Cellini
recovers from the effect of John's stun gun and tells John and Helena that he was attempting to leave Alpha so that he 
could again confront the creature. By a chance in a trillion, in the vicinity of the drifting Moon is the "spaceship 
graveyard" encountered by Cellini in 1997, and still docked to one of the alien spacecraft is the remains of the Ultra 
Probeship! Cellini calmly agrees to join a reconnaissance team led by Koenig and including Bergman and Helena, and 
seizing his opportunity to avenge himself, Cellini is this time successful at stealing an Eagle. Pursued 6 minutes behind
by Koenig's group, he enters his darkened and cobwebbed former space vessel and, with an axe, fights the octopod terror
still present therein. Koenig, Helena, and Bergman arrive at the site to witness Cellini's fall in battle and consumption
by the tentacled beast! John grabs Cellini's dropped axe and uses it to administer a lethal strike to the monster's eye,
ridding the universe of the horrendous creature. The Alphans hurry back to Moonbase before the Moon drifts out of range 
of the graveyard of spaceships, and Helena and Koenig consider that the story of Tony Cellini and the monster could be a
latter-day version of "St. George and the Dragon".
Guest stars: Gianni Garko (Tony Cellini), Douglas Wilmer (Commissioner Dixon), Michael Sheard (Dr. Darwin King), Susan 
Jameson (Prof. Juliet Mackie), Barbara Kellerman (Dr. Monique Fauchere). 

"The Testament of Arkadia"
The Moon's movement through space comes to a virtual stop as it approaches a planet and star, and power on Alpha starts 
dropping, with no identifiable cause. Moonbase's only recourse is to explore the planet as a favorable place for an 
Exodus or for the purpose of finding the answer to Alpha's current crisis. A team of Koenig, Russell, Bergman, Carter, 
two Security men, and computer-selected, widest-possible-experienced experts Luke Ferro and Anna Davis, finds the planet 
to be desolate, its withered flora and ashen sand indicating some holocaust millennia past. Helena and Victor discover a
circle of humanoid skeletons in a cave, and on one of the cave's walls is an inscription in Sanskrit, one of the 
earliest-known Earth languages! Anna deciphers it. This world was called Arkadia, populated 25 thousand years ago by the 
progenitors of Earthman. When Arkadia was ravaged by infernal fire, probably by nuclear war, its surviving people 
migrated to Earth. The skeletal remains confirm the human ancestry. This discovery leaves the Alphans in awe but still 
does not explain what is happening to Alpha. Power loss there is nearing 50%. Although the planet is now viable for
replenishing of life in difficult, long-term settlement, Operation Exodus would be suicide because Alpha's food supplies
would be exhausted in six months, and first crops on Arkadia would not be viable for two years. Yet, with energy 
continuing to mysteriously diminish, the Moonbase will freeze within hours. At least on Arkadia, there would be time to
hope- for a miracle. And for Luke and Anna, a miracle does happen. Alone in the cave, they see the skeletons come to 
life. A spiritual force still present on the planet motivates them to colonize Arkadia and to bring humanity "full 
circle". However, Alpha's power loss stabilizes at 50 percent, meaning that life can continue there, and John cancels
Operation Exodus. Luke and Anna will not be denied their destiny. They kidnap Helena and demand as ransom an Eagle, a 
Moonbuggy, and enough seed and food for the two of them to settle on Arkadia. An exchange of ransom for hostage is 
conducted in space, and suddenly, once Luke and Anna are the only Alphans on Arkadia, the Moon starts to move again, and
Moonbase power returns to 100%. Again on Alpha, Helena, with Koenig, ponders the fate of the two new Arkadians.
Guest stars: Orso Maria Guerrini (Luke Ferro), Lisa Harrow (Anna Davis).

The Alphans are emperiled by a glib-talking robot that killed its creator, Captain Michael (Bernard Cribbins), in "Brian the Brain".

Season 2

"The Metamorph"
Aerially surveying a volcanic planet for Titanium, a mineral needed for life-support system repair on Alpha, are Eagle 
pilot Bill Fraser and co-pilot Ray Torens. A green-blue ball of light emerges from the surface of the planet and pursues,
overtakes, and absorbs Fraser, Torens, and their Eagle before descending back onto the planet's molten terrain. Minutes
later, Alpha is contacted via video transmission by an alien man named Mentor, who claims to have captured the Eagle and
its crew as a defensive measure against possible invasion by the occupants of the strange moon now near his planet,
Psychon. Koenig assures Mentor that Moonbase's intentions are peaceful, that all that Alpha wants are mineral deposits,
and Mentor arranges with Koenig to return Fraser and Torens to their Alphan kith and to provide Moonbase with ample
quantity of Titanium, in a spaceship-spaceship rendezvous in space. It is a deception. Having lured another Eagle, 
partied by Koenig, Helena, Carter, and Lew Picard, into the orbit of Psychon, Mentor converts his decoy spaceship 
(containing no life forms) into the same green-blue light that trapped the first Eagle, with identical purpose. On the
surface of Psychon, Koenig and company discover a "graveyard of spaceships" (now including Alpha's two Eagles) and enter
into a series of underground caverns, in which are found the laboring, soulless victims of Mentor's earlier treachery- 
and among them Torens, reduced to the same ghastly state. Psyche, the tubular, fluid-pumping machine operated by Mentor
in his subterranean lair, requires an immense amount of mental energy drained from non-Psychons tricked and captured by
him, to re-transform the now-boiling planet to its original, beautiful form, a process that would reduce all of its 
Alphan donors, desired by Mentor, of mental energy to the same living-dead condition as the wretches at present mining
ores for Mentor in "the Pits". After a cavernous struggle against Mentor that claims the life of Picard, Koenig's group
is imprisoned. When Koenig refuses to cooperate with Mentor, even if doing so would spare him and his companions, Helena,
Carter, and Fraser, from Psyche's obscenity, Mentor wills the power of Psyche to commence the obliteration of Moonbase 
Alpha. With the Alphans' insistence, Mentor's awful scheme is finally discovered by his hitherto naive daughter, Maya, 
who can change herself into any living creature at will. Maya frees Koenig's group to stop her father's assault upon 
Alpha. Gaining admission by Maya to the Grove of Psyche, John rips a petrified branch from a floral formation in the
Grove and with it smashes Psyche's tubes, thereby releasing the gargantuan power of the machine beyond Mentor's ability
to control it. Now critically destabilized, Psychon disintegrates into gaseous debris in minutes. Mentor refuses to 
depart his doomed world and dies with it, after imploring Koenig to adopt Maya as Alpha's newest occupant. Koenig 
prevents Maya from using her transformations to attempt in vain to rescue Mentor from the collapsing, flaming Grove and
hurries with her to board the Eagle being prepared for launch by Alan, Helena, and Fraser. The Eagle escapes the
catastrophic end of Maya's home planet, and grief-stricken Maya joins the Alphans.
Guest stars: Brian Blessed (Mentor), Anouska Hempel (Annette Fraser), Nick Brimble (Ray Torens), Gerard Paquis (Lew 
Picard), Alf Joint (Overseer).

"The Exiles"
Maya, now Alpha's Science Officer, assists in the investigation of missile-like objects that lock into orbit around the
Moon, two of which are obtained by an Eagle with a grabbing device, opened in one of Alpha's underground experimental 
laboratories, and found to contain the frozen-in-suspended-animation bodies- with red dots on their faces- of a young, 
alien man and wife, who are revived by Dr. Russell and claim to be innocent outcasts from planet Golos. The man's name is
Cantar; the woman is called Zova. They offer to extend Moonbase's life-support capacity if Koenig allows their fellow 
outcasts in the other capsules to be retrieved and revived. With some reservation, John agrees to the deal. But the 
apparently noble demeanor of the alien pair changes to deviousness when their true plans for Alpha's life-support system
are revealed! Cantar and Zova convert the life-support system to a matter transporter by which to instantaneously return 
to Golos, with Helena Russell and Tony Verdeschi as their hostages. Cantar and Zova are really deposed, psychotic 
dictators banished 300 years ago from Golos for crimes against their own people, and their compatriots are in the other
spatial caskets. They intend to seize control on Golos, and Zova returns to Moonbase to impose a voodoo-like power upon a
sculpted-clay image of Helena, causing Helena on Golos to scream in pain (heard by Koenig on Alpha), so that Koenig has 
no alternative but to concede to Zova's demand that he initiate retrieval of all of the other exiles. However, when Zova
comes with Koenig and Maya (all spacesuited) on one of the capsule-recovery Eagles to oversee the procedure, John 
detaches Zova's tether link with the Eagle and pushes her hopelessly adrift into the cosmic void. On Golos, Cantar knows 
about this event and goes on a rampage with the Alphan laser gun in his possession, firing wildly at Helena in the 
Golosian life-support complex after Helena has pierced with her fingernails the facial membrane that preserves Cantar's 
youth. Before Helena and Tony's eyes, Cantar ages rapidly and dies, and the current, benevolent Golosian leader, grateful
for the Alphans' act of thwarting Cantar and Zova, teleports Helena and Tony back to Moonbase, where Maya devises an 
anti-gravity effect to remove the exiles' capsules from Lunar orbit so that they resume their prior course.
Guest stars: Peter Duncan (Cantar), Stacy Dorning (Zova), Margaret Inglis (Mirella), Anthony Blackett (Stal), Peggy 
Ledger (Old Lady).

"One Moment of Humanity"
A complete loss of electrical power on Alpha is followed by temporary paralysis of everyone in Command Centre. Then, a 
robed alien woman materializes therein and studies the statuesque occupants. Each of Command Centre's operatives regains 
capacity of movement, and the woman in their midst introduces herself to Koenig as Zamara of planet Vega. She explains 
that Alpha's flow of electricity is seized by an electro-force-field that will remain in effect for 48 hours. Minimum 
life-support power is allocated so that the Moonbase, though very cold, is habitable for the electro-force-field's 2-day
duration. The same electro-force-field was what briefly immobilized all Alphans in Command Centre. Zamara says that Vegan
protocol requires that the newcomers into Vegan space submit two of their complement for teleportation to Vega, and for 
this Zamara's arbitrary pick is Tony and Helena. With Zamara, the Alphan pair are instantaneously transported to a garden
in the interior of an enclosed city structure outside of which the frigid and thin-atmosphere Vegan climate permits no 
life, and are invited to dine with Zamara, a bare-chested male named Zarl, and several other Vegans. One of the Vegans'
masked servants (described by Zarl to be automatons) whispers to Helena that if she or Tony shows aggression, they will 
be killed. Zamara and Zarl provide foul-tasting food to their guests in expectation that Helena and Tony will react 
unfavorably. Helena adheres to the servant's warning by feigning enjoyment of the food and subtly urging a confused Tony
to do the same. When Zarl tries to provoke Tony into a fight by insulting Tony's integrity, Helena verbally but 
discretely forestalls Verdeschi from his understandable inclination to punch the leering Vegan. Later escorted by Zamara
and Zarl to their guest room, Helena and Tony promptly depart the room for an unauthorized exploration of the Vegan city. 
In a cave, they meet a group of the masked servants, one of whom removes its artificial visage, and Helena and Tony are
staggered to learn that the servants are humanoids and that the Vegan "masters" are androids that have evolved into 
humanoid form and are powered by a shielded computer. The androids outnumber and have dominion over their original Vegan
superiors (the humanoids) but lack the characteristics of love and hate. What the androids want is knowledge of the 
latter so that they can use it to kill the humanoids, who pose a threat for as long as they are alive and could penetrate
the shielding of the computer and deactivate it and the androids. The humanoids wear masks to hide their emotions, and 
the "revealing" servant gives the location of the computer to Russell and Verdeschi and reminds them not to show violence
to the androids, no matter what the provocation. On the pretense of allowing Helena and Tony's early return to Alpha, 
Zamara and Zarl place the Alphan pair alone on a duplicate of Moonbase and instill mutual suspicion in the two. When this
scheme fails, Zamara teleports to Alpha and peruses the Moonbase's literature library, is intrigued by the incidence of 
murderous jealousy in Othello, and brings John and Maya with her to Vega so that they can reunite with Helena and Tony,
with whom John and Maya admit to being in love. Zarl attempts to provoke Koenig to jealous rage by dancing seductively 
with Helena in front of him. Despite John's effort at restraint, he cannot tolerate Zamara's directive that Zarl, "Make
love to (Helena)." He furiously punches Zarl, and the androids have learned the expression and perpetration of violence. 
Zarl moves to enact his newfound ability to kill against John, but Helena steps into his path and appeals to him to feel 
love, compassion, and tenderness, which is possible for him after his dance with her. Zarl experiences one moment of 
humanity, and his individualistic sentiment breaks the unity of purpose among the androids and all of them and their 
computer cease to function. The Vegan humanoids transport the four Alphans to Moonbase, which is now free of the
electro-force-field.
Guest stars: Billie Whitelaw (Zamara), Leigh Lawson (Zarl), Geoffrey Bayldon (Number 8).

"All That Glisters"
Deposits of milgonite, a rare mineral vital to Alpha's life-support system, are indicated by Moonbase's Central Computer
to be present on a red-skied desert planet, which is visited by a Alphan party composed of Koenig, Helena, Maya, Tony,
Alan, and geologist Dave Reilly, an "Irish cowboy" whose "eyes of Texas" lust for Maya, to the annoyance, of course, of
Verdeschi. The Alphans find not the sought-for milgonite but a strangely glowing rock that "bleeds" when split by 
Reilly's laser gun. A portion of it becomes hostile after being separated from its main body and brought inside the 
landing party's Eagle for analysis. When Tony is peering through a microscope at the rock fragment, he is stricken by an
intense orange light emitted by it and goes into cardiac arrest. Helena's effort to restart Tony's heart is unsuccessful,
though his brain activity, respiration, and all other bodily functions are normal. Some time later, Tony rises from his
cot in the Eagle. In some kind of trance induced by the rock fragment, he walks outside of the Eagle to the main rock 
body and, with his laser gun, removes another piece thereof. He brings the second chunk of rock into the Eagle and places
it beside the first one, and the pair of detached units of rock fuse together into a unified whole. He then lays again on
the cot, oblivious to the amazed stares of his friends. Koenig, Maya, Carter, and Reilly gather around the primary rock
and try unsuccessfully, through Maya in the form of a rock fragment, to communicate with the evidently organic, sentient,
and intelligent alien life-form, which, Koenig believes, tricked Central Computer into registering non-existent milgonite
in order to lure the Alphans to the planet. With Helena and Tony still aboard the Eagle, the piece of rock within the 
Alphan spacecraft drains a supply of rationed water, absorbing the life-sustaining liquid into itself by means of a 
projected green luminescence, then commandeers the cockpit controls with another of its matter-manipulating light rays
(yellow). Thus, Helena, in commlock communication with her comrades outside of the Eagle, realizes that the entire rock
is desperate for a supply of H20, which has somehow become locked in a stagnant water cycle by clouds that drop no rain.
And the rock is prepared to maroon the Alphans on the arid planet and pilot their Eagle elsewhere in space to search for
water! First, however, it must fuse its entire body into its fragment aboard the Eagle. When Reilly recklessly boards the
spaceship in an act of bravado to impress Maya, thereby allowing Helena and a fully conscious Tony to escape the rock's 
claimed domain, the rock fragment selects Dave as its next heart-stopped, dazed, rock-collecting servant. Anticipating 
Reilly's rock-procuring mission, Maya once more transforms herself into a portion of rock that Reilly brings inside of 
the rock-dominated Eagle, and John and Alan enter the Eagle immediately after Reilly and Maya. Evading the red kill ray
of the potent rock piece, Koenig fires a dehydration laser beam (adapted by Maya from a standard laser gun after the 
Alphans learned the rock's purpose and probable weakness) into the Eagle-hijacking rock fragment, weakening it so that it
can be removed from the Alphan spaceship. Maya reverts to her original form, Reilly is clear of the rock fragment's 
manipulation, and the entire Alphan group hastens to depart the desert planet. Feeling sorry for the rock, which only 
wanted to survive, the Alphans release rain-forming crystals into the planet's cloud layer and restart the water cycle
to enable the rock to replenish itself of the liquid of life.
Guest star: Patrick Mower (Dave Reilly).

"Journey to Where"
Alpha is contacted by Texas City on 2120 Earth, where a breakthrough in neutrino technology now permits instant 
transmission of messages and objects, including people, across vast distances of space. Dr. Charles Logan, senior
scientist at Texas City, is propositioning Alpha with the opportunity to teleport to Earth by this process, but there is
a time-limit. A galactic eclipse in 72 hours will terminate the neutrino transmission link between Earth and Moon for
almost 100 Alphan years. Despite learning that twenty-first century pollution has ruined Earth's environment and that man
has "retired" to fully enclosed metropolises, the population of Moonbase is without exception eager to transport to man's
natal planet. Koenig, Russell, and Carter are the first Alphans to attempt it by means of transference domes, one on 
Alpha rapidly built by Maya's Sciences Section with Logan's instructions and the other in Texas City, but an earthquake 
near Texas City disrupts the transference, and the three Alphans are hurled backward through time to wintery, plague-
ravaged Scotland in 1339. In his effort to recalibrate his equipment so that the lost trio's location can be pinpointed,
Logan fails to consider time-travel as a possibility, and when indications are that John, Helena, and Alan are somewhere
on Earth beyond city limits, Logan rejects them, because the three Alphans would die in minutes if they materialized in
the contaminated wasteland outside of the 2120 Earth cities- and biomonitors on Alpha continue to register life for 
Koenig, Russell, and Carter. However, after their many months in the germ-free surroundings of Moonbase, John, Helena,
and Alan have a weak resistance to airborne disease, and Helena contracts viral pneumonia in the Scottish woodlands.
Scots tribesmen capture the three Alphans and mistake Helena's illness for the dreaded Black Plague. For the Pestis in
medieval times, there was only one cure: death by fire. So, the Scots chain John, Helena, and Alan to a cave wall and 
start a blaze at their feet. Koenig has learned from the Scots' leader, Clan Chief MacDonald, that Scotland, New Year's
Day, 25 years after Bannockburn, is the precise point in time and space to which his threesome was accidentally thrust,
and relays it with Morse Code to Alpha by the biomonitor transmitter on Helena's wrist, as fire and smoke are spreading 
around him and his two companions. Morse Code is recognized by one of Command Centre's operatives, and Maya uses Command
Centre's computer system to decipher it. The results are provided to Logan, who succeeds at retrieving Koenig, Russell, 
and Carter, and the trio rematerialize on Alpha within less than an hour of the impending galactic eclipse. Helena's 
viral pneumonia is easily cured by drugs on Moonbase, the Alphans accept the loss of their opportunity to transport to
Earth, and Texas City says good-bye to the people of the wandering Moon.
Guest stars: Freddie Jones (Dr. Logan), Isla Blair (Carla), Roger Bizley (MacDonald), Norwich Duff (First Operative 
Texas), Terry Walsh (Scotsman).

"The Taybor"
Alpha has a visitor: Taybor, an enormous, gluttonous, beauty-craving, and life-loving alien trader who speaks like an 
old-Earth seaship's Captain and is owner and sole pilot of the S.S. Emporium, an orange-red, pyramid-shaped spaceship 
with a jump-drive device capable of transportation through hyperspace to anywhere in the universe in a minute. Taybor
dines with Alpha's executives, indulges himself with Tony Verdeschi's beer, and gazes lustfully upon Maya. Offering
diagram plans to the jump-drive to the Alphans, with which they would be able to travel to Earth, Taybor wants one thing
in trade- Maya! Koenig cannot sanction such an exchange, for Maya is not his to barter, but tries to persuade Taybor to
accept a sculpted image of Maya with a robotic, mimicked voice and which will never age, thus retaining forever its 
replication of Maya's pulchritude. Taybor agrees to a trade of the jump-drive diagram plans for the "copy" of Maya but 
snatches the original article from Alpha by hypnotizing her with a necklace presented to her by him as a token of his 
appreciation for her cooperation in, "...bringing the image of (her) beauty into (his) life," and teleporting her with
him to the Emporium, which he moves into hyperspace. Koenig was not entirely trusting of Taybor's stated accordance with
his terms of trade and attached a Limpet Transmitter, extending Alpha's communication capacity into hyperspace, to the 
Emporium. Before Taybor's departure into hyperspace, the treacherous trader informs Koenig of his dishonest acquisition,
of course infuriating Tony, and returns the Maya duplicate to John, exploding its "waxworks dummy" face: "Did you think 
I'd settle for a copy, Skipper? I only collect originals." When Maya recovers from the hypnotic effect of the necklace,
she surprises Taybor with her ability to transform. On the suggestion of Koenig, who is in voice contact with the 
Emporium in hyperspace, Maya changes herself into an overweight, decrepit hag, a "female reflection" of portly, uncomely
Taybor, and pledges to retain the ugly form, defiling the beautious idols in the Emporium that Taybor gave his life to 
collect, unless Taybor returns her to Alpha. The defeated and disgraced trader complies with Maya's demand and 
repossesses the first jump-drive design plan, which he had bestowed to Koenig prior to abducting Maya.
Guest stars: Willoughby Goddard (Taybor), Rita Webb (Slatternly Woman).

"The Mark of Archanon"
A humanoid alien man, Pasc, and his son, Etrec, are discovered by Alan Carter and Andy Johnson in a stasis chamber buried
beneath the Lunar surface, and their lives are saved by the Alphans from a cave-in that shatters the stasis chamber. Pasc
and Etrec regain consciousness after centuries of suspended animation, and the Alphans welcome the two seemingly noble 
and benevolent aliens from Archanon, the planet of peace. Pasc says that violence was outlawed on Archanon, where, "The
taking of any form of life is abhorrent," and that Archanons have been traveling the universe for thousands of years on 
the evangelical mission to replace evil with good. Unfortunately, at this juncture unbeknownst to Moonbase personnel, the
Archanon race has a genetically inherent inclination to aggression, a "killing sickness" randomly manifested in a glowing
symbol on their foreheads and involuntary outbursts of murderousness. It was during an expedition to medieval Earth that
Pasc was plagued by the horrible disease, and his fellow Archanons had no option but to confine him to a stasis chamber
buried on the Moon to quarantine his affliction until a cure for Archanon bloodlust could be found. Because the sickness
is transmitted through the genes of the male line, Etrec (in whom the illness is dormant pending puberty) was placed in
the stasis chamber with his father. While Alan entertains Etrec with football and hydroponic "hamburgers" and Pasc
struggles to contain his violent impulses, Helena examines sputum from Pasc and detects a virus of properties as yet
unknown to her. Eventually, Pasc explodes into a spree of mayhem, nearly killing Alan and Andy and hijacking an Eagle, 
with Helena as his hostage. Pasc demands that Etrec be permitted by Tony to join him in an escape from Alpha in the Eagle
before his people- automatically alerted to his release from stasis- arrive on the Moon to re-quarantine him. Etrec 
refuses to flee Alpha with Pasc and is for the first time beset with murderous rage, pointing a knife at his friend, 
Alan, before thrusting the blade into his own forehead in an attempt to remove the symbol of the sickness. Etrec's body
is unable to replace the blood that he has lost, and Helena appeals to Pasc surrender himself to Verdeschi and to undergo
a blood transfusion, his blood treated with a serum proven by Helena to neutralize the viral cause of Archanon violence,
to Etrec to preserve the boy's life and redeem him from the dreaded disease. Pasc assents to the procedure and, to 
Helena's shock, dies when his own body is incapable of replenishing its blood (such is the way of the Archanon organism).
An Archanon spaceship lands on Alpha to return the cured Etrec to his home planet.
Guest stars: John Standing (Pasc), Michael Gallagher (Etrec), John Alkin (Andy Johnson), Veronica Lang (Lyra and Maurna).

"The Rules of Luton"
A planet rich in vegetation is reconnoitered by Koenig, Verdeschi, and Maya. When a malfunction of their Eagle requires
its immediate return to Alpha by Tony for replacement, John and Maya conduct an on-foot surface survey of the incredibly
lush, green world. Maya plucks a flower, John eats a berry, and the two hear instantaneous screams! A voice emanating 
from one of three trees on a hill condemns them as murderers and cannibals. Plants are the dominant species of sentient
life on this planet of Luton, and without knowing this, the two Alphans have killed members of Luton society. The trees
are the Judges of Luton, and ignorance of the law is no excuse for the committing of murder. Koenig and Maya are denied
contact with Alpha and required to engage in mortal combat with three formidably powered animal aliens, one immensely
strong, the second with ability to teleport, and the third capable of invisibility, who also violated laws of Luton and 
claimed innocence due to ignorance. The survivors of the "crucible of combat" will be rewarded with freedom. John and 
Maya do not want to fight with the aliens and attempt to appeal to them to form an alliance, but the creatures are grimly
determined to kill their Alphan opponents, and John and Maya flee across a river and into a thick woods. While Maya,
transformed into a bird, is airborne in search of the three pursuers, Alien Transporter materializes behind Koenig and
wounds the Alpha Commander's shoulder with a stone lance. Maya comes to John's aid and in the form of a lion startles the
brutish attacker, who falls into the river and drowns. Tony, in a second Luton-bound Eagle, is unable to locate the 
planet, which has vanished from the space near Alpha. Maya endeavors to soothe John's wound with a watered piece of tunic
fabric, and Koenig and Maya climb a small mountain and observe the remains in a valley of Luton's indigenous animals,
killed by the plants millennia past in a final confrontation. Alien Invisible ascends the mountain but fails to conceal
his stone lance, and John and Maya are alerted to his presence. Maya changes into a bloodhound to locate the menace, and
Alien Invisible falls to his death on the mountain's base when he, too, is surprised by Maya's metamorphic power. Koenig's
wound causes delirium, and Maya, again as a bird, searches for water to re-moisten the patch of tunic. She is caught and
caged by Alien Strong, whose confident bellowing arouses John from fevered sleep. Knowing that he has no choice but to 
defeat Alien Strong before Maya's hour-limit of transformation expires and she is crushed in the cage, John descends the
mountain with an improvised weapon- a bolas constructed from his anorak belt- in his hand, and he uses it to trip the 
robust but not very agile creature, whose head hits a rock. John frees Maya from the cage but refuses to administer a 
coup-de-grace upon Alien Strong. The Judges of Luton demand a killing, and Koenig exposes their lust for death and their
hypocrisy. They could have prevented John and Maya from the act of plant-murder by cautioning them beforehand. The Judges
of Luton, threatened with an uprising among Luton's citizens, permit Tony to land his Eagle on the planet to collect John
and Maya for return to Alpha, where Koenig recovers from his wound.
Guest stars: David Jackson (Alien Strong), Roy Marsden (Alien Invisible), Godfrey James (Alien Transporter).

"Brian the Brain"
In reaches of space far from Earth by the wildest stretch of imagination, the Alphans are visited by a Swift spaceship 
from Earth which was part of a lost 1996 Star Mission. A voice transmission from the Swift speaks amusingly about "coming
down" to the "Moony-Moon-Moon" to "have lunch" with Commander Koenig on Moonbase Alpha. After he grants permission for 
landing on Alpha to the Swift's mysterious pilot, John, accompanied by Helena and two Security guards, boards the Swift 
and finds no humans within the spacecraft. The operator of the Swift is a robot with cubical body parts, wheels, and 
light-flashing mouth, Brian the Brain, who says that he is the only Star Mission survivor. The Star Mission's Mothership 
and other Swift support spacecraft landed on Planet D, the source of a gravity pull that has been detected by Moonbase's 
sensors, and the entire human crew of the Star Mission perished there. Brian is vague on further details about the fate 
of the Star Mission and of his creator and Star Mission leader, Captain Michael, declines "lunch" because he does not 
have a digestive system, and invites Koenig and Dr. Russell to the Swift on Alpha's landing pad to closely examine the 
spaceship. When John and Helena are aboard the Swift, Brian launches it toward Planet D. He also confiscates Command 
Centre's Central Computer memory core, "blinding" Moonbase and forcing Tony and Maya to adhere to his terms: transport by
him of John and Helena to Planet D. With Helena as his hostage, the glib, treacherous robot forces Koenig to walk on 
Planet D's rocky terrain to the Mothership to obtain from there a nuclear fuel core by which Brian can achieve 
immortality. John must wear a spacesuit because of Planet D's poisonous atmosphere and learns from the bodies of Star 
Mission personnel scattered over the surface of the lethal planet that Brian must have deceived his human comrades into 
walking completely unprotected onto Planet D. Joined by Maya and Tony at the Mothership (because they came to Planet D in
a fast Eagle in advance of Brian's Swift), John learns the reason for Brian's homicidal act. His "father", Captain 
Michael, was going to replace him with a superior computer brain. Threatened with obsolescence and probable de-circuiting,
Brian misled Captain Michael's crew about Planet D's environment. With Brian's desired nuclear fuel and with Maya, as a
mouse, in his jacket pocket, Koenig returns to the Swift, where Maya transforms into Captain Michael to accuse Brian of
Michael's murder, forcing Brian to admit guilt at killing his "father". Brian becomes distraught, starts to cry, and is
easily ejected from the Swift by John, Helena, and Maya. His tail-antenna caught in the hatch of the Swift, he dangles
from the spaceship, completely helpless. Brian agrees to restore Alpha's computer memory system and pleads for clemency
in his punishment. Brian is reprogrammed against killing and he and the Swift are dispatched from Alpha to wander the 
frontier of space.
Guest stars: Bernard Cribbins (Captain Michael and Voice of Brian), Marc Zuber (Security Lieutenant).

"New Adam, New Eve"
A dizzying, dazzling display of light on Command Centre's largest monitor screen precedes the approach to Alpha by a 
messiah figure, walking through the cosmic void as Jesus Christ had trodden upon water. "I am your creator," he says to 
the amazed Alphans. Dressed in flowing robes and sandals- the usual artist's conception of the "original article", he,
Magus, materializes in Command Centre and says that humanity needs a "second chance", and he, in his beneficence, has come
to the Alphans to grant it to them, on a planet called New Earth, which he seems to instantaneously bring into being with
one wave of his hand. Koenig is "typically stubborn and commendably cautious", but Magus promises that the planet is ideal
for human habitation. He teleports Koenig, Helena, Verdeschi, and Maya in Eagle 4 to the surface of New Earth, restricts
communication with Alpha, and hereby states his intent to foster the evolution of a superior species of humanoids by pair-
bonding the four Alphans. Nobody else will be coming from Alpha to New Earth; "I do not wish it," says Magus. He summons
his God-like matter-manipulating ability to restrain Alan's Eagle on Alpha's launching pad, when Carter is using full 
Eagle booster units in an attempt to fly the spacecraft to New Earth in search of his friends. Doubting Magus' claim to
be the creator of the universe, John is furious with Magus' undermining of the "free will" of Alpha and points his laser
gun at the assuming deity, but Magus place-shifts the gun into his own hand, points it into his head, and presses the
trigger, his body absorbing the full laser energy charge of the weapon. Noticing the setting of New Earth's sun and the
rising of the Moon in the New Earth sky, Magus bestows to John, Helena, Maya, and Tony a Rome-styled banquet, departs
from his unwilling subjects for the night, confines them by a force-field in the Garden of Eden Mark II, and imposes his
will to force the mismatched couples of Koenig and Maya and Helena and Tony to mate. But others exist on the planet- 
cave-dwelling, deformed products of the charlatan deity's previ