Maybe I've said it before, but I watched a lot of TV as a kid. These
days I pass on it unless there's a show on with two guys named Adam
and Jamie, and even then I get them either on disc or streaming.
Neither I nor Claudia can stand it when we watch something, the
tension is built up to a near climax, and then we have to sit through
a commercial for hemorrhoid ointment. It sort of kills the magic.
One of the shows I used to watch was Space:1999. I think that even
when I was watching it for the first time, I could tell that it had a
different pace, and a different presentation. The focus is more on
the choices, usually moral, that the characters make, and less on the
monster of the week. The challenge of space isn't presented in bold,
heroic terms, but in human success and failure. It isn't about
exploring space, but growing as human beings, and it spoke in more
mature language than Star Trek ever did.
Some episodes of it were also scary as hell. They had an atmosphere
that was darker than ones from the original run of The Twilight Zone.
In those stories, reality wasn't as solid as the characters, or as
we the viewers, needed it to be. The problems were dragons, ghostly
parasites that floated through walls, and immortals who wanted to be
gods of chaos and destruction. The humans have been tossed into the
dark void, and they don't have the greatest success in dealing with
it. People die, and even though the series never had long story
arcs, we feel those deaths, because we get to know the people before
they die.
One of the characters, Professor Bergman, is supposed to be the head
scientist, and there's something about him that makes me think. I'm
not done re-watching the whole series yet, but through what I've
watched and what I remember, he is consistently wrong, a day late and
a dollar short, and so blasted useless that it's almost funny.
Except of course, his errors get people killed. He's the one that
the commander always asks for an assessment, and most of the time, he
shakes his head and admits that he has no clue. Or his opinion is
the sort of good, solid advice that science-fiction fans are used to
hearing, from the grumpy old man in authority who doesn't have the
imagination to believe in spooks and wonder.
Ponder that. This is a science-fiction show. In this genre, our
worth as a race is symbolized by our accomplishments. As the show
opens, we've gone to the moon, built a sustainable presence there,
and are planning to send explorers to other worlds. There are rays
guns to shoot monsters with, artificial gravity generators so our
heroes don't have to skip down the halls as they rush to defend the
nuclear power generators, and ships that protect our heroes from the
cosmic rays that in real life are the reason most space missions stay
in low earth orbit. There's never (that I remember) any mention of
faster than light propulsion, but if we can zip from the earth to the
moon in one episode, we're going pretty damn fast. So in the show,
we've made progress, and a lot of it.
So in the show, when the smartest man in the room doesn't even have a
clue how to proceed, what the hell are we supposed to do? Martin
Landau does a fine job as a rugged commander, and a hell of a lot of
his tough decisions fall into the twentieth-century (remember the
title) equivalent of circling the wagons. He's always willing to be
the one to lead the way into the darkness, and frequently is in
damage-control mode, so there's no questioning his courage. But his
strength is in contrast to the hideous things that defy his
understanding and tear his base apart.
The show itself is in constant contrast to Star Trek, for good
reason. In a weird dance of character/actor juggling, Landau and
Barbara Bain had quit Mission: Impossible a few years prior to
starting this series, and Leonard Nimoy took over Landau's role as
the IMF's master of disguise. Hold the two shows up side by side,
and you'll see a lot of similarities. Plots, some settings, and even
the three familiar roles of commander, adviser, and doctor are used
in both. But, as I said a few paragraphs up, Space: 1999 is
different. A heck of a lot of scenes in it are dark, as opposed to
the nearly always well-lit halls of the Enterprise. Commander Koenig
is an everyman's hero, where Kirk is Shakespearean down to the way he
sits in his chair. There's a mission behind all the wandering in
Star Trek (even if it was tidily ignored when it got in the way), but
the crew of Moon Base Alpha were blown into deep space because
mankind used the moon as a nuclear waste dump without knowing the
consequences. Brave explorers versus lost victims. Which do we
dream of being, and which do we fear becoming?
For something completely different, Banned Books Week started Sunday.
I don't care if it's written with ink, clay, or pixels; the printed
word is something to be valued. Go read something that people don't
want you to read.
Yep. Still writing.
