It's a testimony to the Immortal Bard that his works are so adaptable so many centuries after he penned them. The 1956 sci-fi classic FORBIDDEN PLANET drew upon THE TEMPEST as did this second season opener of SPACE: 1999. Brian Blessed as the imperious Mentor, a man with two faces harboring dark secrets, is a space-age Prospero, and Maya his innocent and naive daughter is Miranda. The mindless husks slaving in the mines are a collective Caliban, exploited by the malevolent and mercenary Mentor.
The sweeping changes made between seasons threaten to overwhelm the story unfolding before us. We try to keep up while also taking in the new characters while feeling heavily the absence of the old. Victor Bergman was the unkindest cut of all, but I missed Kano and Paul almost as much. Each man added a lot to the show. When Tony asks Sandra whether Annette will crack up if she loses her newlywed husband Bill, I thought about Sandra losing Paul. There was a romantic tension established between them in Year One that new producer Fred Freiberger blithely flushed down the Memory Hole in Year Two. It was frustrating that new guy Tony wasn't introduced, and worse that no mention was made of the departed characters, even when scenes like this gave an opening for explanation.
(There's an apocryphal/noncanonical quotation here on IMDb that does not appear in the episode that purports to explain Victor's disappearance. This exchange of dialogue was unsatisfying, but something needed to be said addressing the new and the missing characters. Did Freiberger think the audience would just shrug and voluntarily adopt collective amnesia?)
Martin Landau grew his hair out and backed off on the Brylcreem for this season, and in the new uniform he looked quite dashing and capable as a boots-on-the-ground commander. I always think of Commander Koenig as more cerebral that Captain Kirk, but that isn't really the case, as when Koenig breaks off a stone club and sets to smashing an alien technology he doesn't fully understand or appreciate. Although with all of Moonbase Alpha in dire jeopardy, he admittedly had ample reason to succumb to blind destructive rage.
I enjoyed Barbara Bain as Cinnamon on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, but not as Helena on SPACE:1999. Helena is a wholly unnecessary character with no role to play except the horrified, over-emoting woman or at best offering exposition as she did in this episode's opening. I can't imagine Bain was especially enthusiastic about her part. Even the all-new and dynamic opening titles didn't know what to do with her. "Um, uh, how about walking down the hall with furrowed-brow determination?" suggested somebody, probably Freiberger. Koenig gets to fire a cool weapon; Helena takes a brisk stroll. That said, the tweaked theme and new titles are an improvement over Year One, where Koenig and Helena just stood there like department store mannequins.
It was mentioned the music was more upbeat, like something heard on THE PROTECTORS. That was a nice nod to Tony Anholt's previous series, which starred American import Robert Vaughn. That brought to mind its sister series THE ADVENTURER starring Gene Barry, another Yank whose star was dimming. Catherine Schell and Barry Morse were recurring costars in that fun 1972-74 spy series. One memorable episode, "Has Anyone Here Seen Kelly?" guest starred the strikingly beautiful Anouska Hempel, who here played fainting bride Annette.
Speaking of earlier British series, did anyone else think of Rover from THE PRISONER when Mentor's glowing ball of light chased, covered, and captured the runaway Eagles and Alphans?
Dumbest line in the show award goes to Dr. Mathias when he makes a cameo simply to say the fully recovered Annete needs rest. All Annette did was swoon and pass out for a moment. Mathias got brought back but Victor, Kano and Paul got pink slipped?
Brian Blessed's bearded visage and booming voice are always welcome, and he thoroughly embodied the role of Mentor/Prospero. I suspected, however, that his dying pleas to Koenig to take Maya with him were an afterthought and dubbed in post-production. It softened the emotional blow of Maya's world suddenly ending and her joining Alpha, making it a fulfillment of her father's dying wish. Schell did a fine job in the closing conveying Maya/Miranda's innocence and fear of being thrust into a brave new world she never made.
A promising start to Year Two!
PS: I recently saw Brian Blessed in the "Mindwarp" segment of the 1986 DOCTOR WHO epic Trial of a Time Lord. There he played a bombastic barbarian hellbent on overthrowing tyrannical rulers called... Mentors. What goes around comes around.
The sweeping changes made between seasons threaten to overwhelm the story unfolding before us. We try to keep up while also taking in the new characters while feeling heavily the absence of the old. Victor Bergman was the unkindest cut of all, but I missed Kano and Paul almost as much. Each man added a lot to the show. When Tony asks Sandra whether Annette will crack up if she loses her newlywed husband Bill, I thought about Sandra losing Paul. There was a romantic tension established between them in Year One that new producer Fred Freiberger blithely flushed down the Memory Hole in Year Two. It was frustrating that new guy Tony wasn't introduced, and worse that no mention was made of the departed characters, even when scenes like this gave an opening for explanation.
(There's an apocryphal/noncanonical quotation here on IMDb that does not appear in the episode that purports to explain Victor's disappearance. This exchange of dialogue was unsatisfying, but something needed to be said addressing the new and the missing characters. Did Freiberger think the audience would just shrug and voluntarily adopt collective amnesia?)
Martin Landau grew his hair out and backed off on the Brylcreem for this season, and in the new uniform he looked quite dashing and capable as a boots-on-the-ground commander. I always think of Commander Koenig as more cerebral that Captain Kirk, but that isn't really the case, as when Koenig breaks off a stone club and sets to smashing an alien technology he doesn't fully understand or appreciate. Although with all of Moonbase Alpha in dire jeopardy, he admittedly had ample reason to succumb to blind destructive rage.
I enjoyed Barbara Bain as Cinnamon on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, but not as Helena on SPACE:1999. Helena is a wholly unnecessary character with no role to play except the horrified, over-emoting woman or at best offering exposition as she did in this episode's opening. I can't imagine Bain was especially enthusiastic about her part. Even the all-new and dynamic opening titles didn't know what to do with her. "Um, uh, how about walking down the hall with furrowed-brow determination?" suggested somebody, probably Freiberger. Koenig gets to fire a cool weapon; Helena takes a brisk stroll. That said, the tweaked theme and new titles are an improvement over Year One, where Koenig and Helena just stood there like department store mannequins.
It was mentioned the music was more upbeat, like something heard on THE PROTECTORS. That was a nice nod to Tony Anholt's previous series, which starred American import Robert Vaughn. That brought to mind its sister series THE ADVENTURER starring Gene Barry, another Yank whose star was dimming. Catherine Schell and Barry Morse were recurring costars in that fun 1972-74 spy series. One memorable episode, "Has Anyone Here Seen Kelly?" guest starred the strikingly beautiful Anouska Hempel, who here played fainting bride Annette.
Speaking of earlier British series, did anyone else think of Rover from THE PRISONER when Mentor's glowing ball of light chased, covered, and captured the runaway Eagles and Alphans?
Dumbest line in the show award goes to Dr. Mathias when he makes a cameo simply to say the fully recovered Annete needs rest. All Annette did was swoon and pass out for a moment. Mathias got brought back but Victor, Kano and Paul got pink slipped?
Brian Blessed's bearded visage and booming voice are always welcome, and he thoroughly embodied the role of Mentor/Prospero. I suspected, however, that his dying pleas to Koenig to take Maya with him were an afterthought and dubbed in post-production. It softened the emotional blow of Maya's world suddenly ending and her joining Alpha, making it a fulfillment of her father's dying wish. Schell did a fine job in the closing conveying Maya/Miranda's innocence and fear of being thrust into a brave new world she never made.
A promising start to Year Two!
PS: I recently saw Brian Blessed in the "Mindwarp" segment of the 1986 DOCTOR WHO epic Trial of a Time Lord. There he played a bombastic barbarian hellbent on overthrowing tyrannical rulers called... Mentors. What goes around comes around.