Christopher Penfold: On Space:1999

"...as fresh ideas were tossed around, we realized more and more that there are mysteries in outer space that are beyond man's understanding and that we could dramatize these.
Time, as we know it, means nothing. Distance, as we know it, is incomprehensible.
We assume there is life on other planets, with civilizations and mental developments millions of years older than on Earth.
The possibilities are as limitless as space itself."

-Christopher Penfold, Destination: Moonbase Alpha The Unofficial And Unauthorized Guide To Space:1999 (p.35)-



It's FAB FRIDAY and all things immensely creative from the world of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.

Space:1999 (1975-1977) has its problems (Regina Kesslann's two brains in Another Time, Another Place), but it's also a science fiction series that got a lot of things right or we certainly wouldn't still be talking about it and attempting interpretation of it all these years later. Ideas, concepts, productions design, spacecraft design, music, cast. There's a lot to love and adore about the series even when it doesn't always hit those character notes quite as deeply as we would have enjoyed or assemble those story messages with articulated perfection. Perhaps being a little messy is the way I prefer it.



Space:1999 offered the kind of intangible, metaphysical, science fiction concepts that spar with the human mind and ask us to question our own earthbound thinking. It's one of the things we loved about Space:1999. It took us to other worlds, strange places and forced us to think outside the box of normal understanding.



Some of the things this writer loved about the series was that the human race was downright trouble. Sometimes it seemed we did more harm than good. Our man-made computers didn't always serve us well either.

Like Stargate Universe (2009-2011), we were thrust into space more ill-equipped than not to handle these new discoveries.



We were launched into circumstances we could hardly imagine. We had difficulty wrapping the human mind around problems, but there was no shortage of effort in trying.

This writer remembers most of all that Space:1999 was one of those rare science fictions that made outer space mysterious, unnerving and generally a scary place. Whatever their shortcomings each episode resonated on some level in mood, atmosphere or visuals and the stress faced by humanity felt undeniably real and stayed with you long after viewing it.



A boy in feet pajamas remembers indelible images from that series that remain with him.

Those open-ended examinations still have me revisiting the series today and discovering new angles and examining and considering concepts of our human understanding that remain as timely and applicable today as they did in the 1970s.