Tuesday, September 4th, 2007
11:00 The Dead Zone
12:00 Space: 1999
For the 8th episode of season three, The Dead Zone puts the Johnny-Sarah-Walt love-triangle front and centre. Johnny goes to a wedding and (through visions) finds out that the bride's first true-love - long believed dead - is actually alive and well, and will return to her. Johnny, Sarah and Walt wrestle with this information for about half of the episode, very aware of the parallels with their own situation: Johnny was in a coma for years, and Sarah gave up on him to marry Walt.
It's a great episode (after a run of weak ones) and it really packs an emotional punch. Not only with the three main characters that we know and love, but also with the guest characters. Best bit? The climax, as we wait to find out which man the bride has chosen to marry.
Six episodes into the first season and regulars of Space: 1999 find themselves back on Earth. Or, at least, a version of Earth. A strange, space phenomenon hurls the moon billions of light years back to where it started from: orbit of the planet Earth. But all is not as it seems, the phenomenon has also managed to duplicate the moon - and the other moon has arrived at Earth 5 years earlier.
What follows is a spooky episode, with lots of silent action early on, as guest star Judy Geeson gets badly affected by the time-warp duplication thing (or whatever it is) and has some creepy nightmares. There's a goofy line of dialogue at one point, indicating that her character now has... "two brains". Sigh. Best ignored. However, apart from that snippet of nonsense, this is a strong episode. Space: 1999 works best when it showcases the regulars as being at the mercy of a crazy, cruel universe that they don't understand. When episodes tell this type of story (as they frequently do) the result can sometimes be quite profound. Or, as in this case, a lot of fun to watch. We get a fast-paced script, a deserted Moonbase Alpha, duplicates of most of the regulars, and a downbeat ending. Nobody in it understands what is going on. They merely try to survive it. And it's good TV.
The Dead Zone, Space:1999
