Space: 1999 "Black Sun" TV episode Screenplay by David Weir Directed by Lee H. Katzin Original air date: November 6, 1975

The errant Moon is on a collision course with a black hole.

 

Read the episode summary at the Moonbase Alpha wiki

 

NOTES FROM THE SPACE: 1999 CHRONOLOGY

 

According to the Gaska timeline, this story takes place 104 days since leaving Earth orbit. 

 

CHARACTERS APPEARING OR MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

 

Tanya Alexander

Lee Oswald

Sandra Benes

Paul Morrow

David Kano

Commander Koenig

Anna Wong

Professor Bergman

Mike Ryan (dies in this episode)

Alan Carter

Dr. Russell

John "Smitty" Smith

Dr. Mathias

George Osgood

Toshiro Fujita
Professor Angela Robinson

newswoman

voice

Alan Harris

 

DIDJA NOTICE?

Eagle 1 is seen to be equipped with an anti-gravity screen as pilot Mike Ryan investigates the black sun. Professor Bergman built an anti-gravity shield for the Eagles to protect against the Tritonian gravity weapon in "Ring Around the Moon". 

Sandra was romantically involved with Ryan.

As Ryan turns the Eagle back toward Alpha, the model Eagle can be seen to be sitting on a black stand for the shot at 7:25 on the Blu-ray.

Eagle 1 is destroyed by the black sun.

Pilot Mike Ryan is killed in the black sun in this episode, but his presence continues to be felt later in "Spider's Web" and Alpha.

    The Alphans refer to the cosmic phenomenon as a black sun. This was a term often used in the early 1970s for what is now generally called a black hole. In the novelization, when Commander Koenig refers to the phenomenon as a black sun, Bergman explains that a more relevant term would be "black hole".

There are eight anti-gravity towers ringing Moonbase Alpha that stabilize the gravity inside.

At 10:43 on the Blu-ray, the rocket model seen next to Kano in Bergman's lab may be a Saturn V, the NASA rocket that took U.S. astronauts to the moon and the Skylab space station from 1967-1973.

At 11:02 on the Blu-ray, a large sheet labeled "PHOTON DRIVE" is seen hanging against one of the light panels on the wall in the background in Bergman's lab. The novelization describes Dr. Russell seeing plans on Bergman's workbench for a proposed photon drive, but the sheet seen here looks almost like a colored contour map or something!

At 18:18 on the Blu-ray, Bergman is looking at some reports as he is prepping the survival Eagle. On the left side of the screen, names that appear to be "Castalli" and "Harrisonduay" are seen; no such names are otherwise seen in any other episodes. The report on the right side of the screen has the header "PRE-FLIGHT TAKE-OFF CHECKLIST".

According to the novelization, the Alphan who hands Bergman the details of the power requirements at 18:52 on the Blu-ray is John "Smitty" Smith. He will also appear in a few later stories from Powys.

The survival Eagle is Eagle 5. Koenig has Computer select the six Alphans (three men and three women) most likely, in every way, to ensure the survival of mankind in space. In "Earthbound", he also had Computer select the one person who should return to Earth with the Kaldorians.

Koenig refers to the anti-gravity shield over Alpha as the Bergman force field.

    The six Alphans chosen by Computer to be on the rescue Eagle are Alan Carter, George Osgood, Toshiro Fujita, Dr. Russell, Sandra Benes, and Professor Angela Robinson. It's not known whether George Osgood is any relation to Patrick Osgood, who is assigned to head a team to dig tunnels for Alpha's underground cemetery in "Breaking Ground". Toshiro Fujita appears again in "Force of Life".

    In the original Pocket Books novelization from 1975, Angela Robinson is Aretha Robinson instead.

Koenig tells the crew of the survival Eagle they have supplies enough to last five weeks.

As Alpha starts to cool down due to low life support settings in order to divert optimal power to the force field, personnel are given silvery jackets to keep warm. This jacket style is seen again in "Testament of Arkadia".

At 28:04 on the Blu-ray, we see that the door to Dr. Russell's quarters has her name on it.

The announcement being broadcast over the comm panel inside the travel tube at 28:39 on the Blu-ray is a news report from Alpha News Service, transmitting throughout the base. This episode is the only appearance of this service in the TV series, but it does make another appearance in the short story "Remembering Julia".

Kano and Dr. Mathias play chess as they await the passage into the black sun. The chess pieces appear to be actual chess pieces, whereas, in "Dragon's Domain", Kano plays the game with flat squares with symbols on them as pieces.

Paul plays guitar as he waits for the Moon's rendezvous with the black sun. He is also seen playing in "The Testament of Arkadia".

Besides Paul's feelings for Sandra, there is a hint of an attraction between Tanya and himself.

The voice that speaks to Koenig and Bergman as the Moon passes through the black sun sounds like a woman. In the novelization, the voice is said to sound both male and female. In the original Pocket Books novelization from 1975, it is said to sound like a child's voice.

In an unusual burst of emotion for Bergman, when the survival Eagle returns to Alpha after the Moon's passage through the black sun, he cheers loudly and claps Koenig the on the back while flinging his file folder into the air.

As the Main Mission personnel joyously greet the debarking crew of the returned survival Eagle, the crew of the Eagle all claim they did not follow the Moon through the black sun, they were heading in the opposite direction. Koenig remarks, "If you didn't follow us through, how did you find Alpha again? A million light years?" Presumably, Koenig's statement of "a million light years" is just a figure of speech pulled out of the blue and they do not actually know how far the black sun has flung them.

Notes from the novelization of "Black Sun" by E.C. Tubb as it appears in the Space: 1999 Year One omnibus published by Powys Media. The page numbers presented here come from the full Space: 1999 Year One omnibus. "Black Sun" begins on page 133 of the book. There will also be notes (as appropriate) from the original adaptation of "Black Sun" by Tubb as it appeared in Space: 1999 - Breakaway, a merged novelization of the episodes "Breakaway", "Matter of Life and Death", "Ring Around The Moon" and "Black Sun", first published by Pocket Books in 1975. (Roughly speaking, chapters 12-14 cover the events of "Black Sun").

CHARACTERS APPEARING OR MENTIONED IN THIS NOVELIZATION, NOT IN THE EPISODE

Dorothy Bergman (mentioned only, deceased)

Peter Rockwell (mentioned only)

Harry Kirwan (mentioned only)

Ben Vincent (mentioned only)

Claudia Anderson

Jesse Franklin

Jean Koenig (mentioned only, deceased)

Elgar (mentioned in the 1975 Pocket Books version)

DIDJA NOTICE?

     Page 133 describes the shelf of well-thumbed books in Bergman's laboratory as made up of both classics and the latest works of modern technology.

    This page also reveals that Bergman won a Nobel Prize for his work in physics. The Nobel prizes are awarded once a year by a committee of the Scandinavian countries for work in the studies of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace and are considered the top prizes in the world in each field.

Paying Bergman a visit in his lab, Dr. Russell sees plans on his workbench for a proposed photon drive (seen hanging over one of the light panels on the wall in the televised episode), the antigravity shield and force screen (developed and used in "Ring Around the Moon"), a design for a self-contained space city that was eventually incorporated in Moonbase Alpha, and a plan for a simple house. The house was designed by Bergman as the habitation for himself and a woman named Dorothy, "the only woman I could ever have married." Survival reveals Dorothy to have been his wife; according to Alien Seed, she died in a crash at some point in his past.

Bergman's remembrances of Dorothy bring to Helena's mind memories of Lee. Dr. Lee Russell was Helena's husband before he was lost with the Astro 7 mission to Jupiter as revealed in "Matter of Life and Death".

As the asteroid approaches the Moon, Morrow wonders if it is a fugitive from the Kuiper Belt. The Kuiper Belt is an asteroid belt in our solar system extending from Neptune outward.

Page 136 reveals that Sandra had been an Associate Professor on Earth before applying to work at Moonbase Alpha. She'd had a fiancé named Peter Rockwell, left behind on Earth when the Moon was blown out of orbit.

On page 139, Bergman explains what a black hole is to Koenig. His explanation is simplistic, but fairly accurate to current theories of science. During the explanation, Bergman mentions the Swartzchild radius and Einstein. The Schwarzschild radius (sometimes called "gravitational radius") is the radius of the event horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole, a black hole with neither electric charge nor angular momentum, named for German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild (1873-1916), who developed the equation for determining this radius. Einstein, of course, is a reference to Albert Einstein (1879-1955), the renowned theoretical physicist who developed the theory of relativity in physics.

On page 140, Koenig asks Bergman, "...how is that we didn't see..." something as massive as a black hole until now. Bergman doesn't really have an answer, saying, in part, "Just because we haven't observed something doesn't mean it doesn't--or can't--exist." By "we" Koenig may be referring to more than just Moonbase Alpha, but Earth as well; at this point, the errant Moon is still relatively close to the Sol system. Since this episode ends with Koenig and Bergman thinking there may be some mysterious unknown force acting upon their errant moon's journey, we might draw the conclusion that the lack of detection of the black sun was due to an influence of this force, hiding the black hole's disturbances on the space around it.

Also on page 140, Koenig asks if the anti-gravity shield built for the Eagles by Harry (Kirwan) ("Ring Around the Moon") could be extended to cover Alpha and Bergman responds it theoretically could. This implies that the Alpha shield is based on Kirwan's smaller anti-gravity shield.

On page 142, Dr. Russell is worried about Alpha turning into a base of frozen, hypercapnic occupants. Hypercapnia is a condition of abnormally elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the blood.

In the original Pocket Books novelization from 1975, some Alphans attempt suicide in the belief that the black sun will destroy the Moon anyway.

On page 143, a woman called Anderson activates the Alphan anti-gravity shield for the test with Koenig and Bergman on the Moon's surface within the perimeter of the base. This may be the Claudia Anderson who later appears as a technician of some sort in Born for Adversity.

On page 144, Koenig refers to the anti-gravity shield used on the Eagles as the "Bergman-Kirwan device." On page 148, the shield over Alpha is referred to as the "Bergman-Kirwan shield." In the televised episode, he refers to it only as the "Bergman force field."

When Koenig tells Dr. Russell that he has left one Eagle intact and plans to place a survival crew aboard it before Alpha is potentially destroyed by the black sun, he says Computer will choose the crew "like before" and Dr. Russell asks where will they even go without Kaldorian suspended animation technology, considering it would take them 75 years to get to Earth. These are references to events in "Earthbound". Dr. Russell is right, of course; there's really nowhere for the Eagle to get to at the sublight speeds available.

On page 147, Jesse Franklin and Smitty repair Gravity Tower Three. Jesse Franklin appears again in "Futility".

On page 148, Koenig feels some guilt at keeping the outfitting of the survival Eagle secret, reflecting that not so long ago, the lives of some pilots had been lost through the perceived need to keep secrets. This refers to the events of "Breakaway".

Page 150 reveals that Paul Morrow had growing feelings for Sandra Benes, lending a little more weight to their goodbye just before Sandra boards the Eagle in the televised episode. It seems she must have some awareness of his feelings for her, but she had been involved with Mike Ryan until his death less than a day ago. Paul and Sandra are seen together in a couple of later episodes.

Page 152 has Koenig reflecting on events in his past, including the death of Jean Koenig. Resurrection reveals this is his wife, killed in the third world war in 1989. Gaska's "Awe" adaptation of "Breakaway" refers to her as Kateryn instead. She is mentioned in the TV episode "The Rules of Luton", but not by name.

Gazing out the window at the Moon's surface on page 152, Bergman reflects on the "planet" Meta, which he alone knows was actually the Moon itself, somehow returning, lifeless, to its home system. He learned this in "Operation Deliverance".

On page 153, Bergman discusses the possibility that some mysterious unknown force has been helping the Alphans survive all that they've been through. In his mind, he thinks about Pascal's wager. "Pascal's wager" is a philosophical argument posited by French philosopher, theologian, and scientist Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) that a person bets their life on whether God exists and that they should assume He does because the rewards in the afterlife if He does outweigh the price paid in life if He does not.

In the televised episode, when Bergman asks the voice if it is God, it responds only with, "It was good to have known you." In the novelization, the voice responds, "I have a god. My god has gods."

In the original Pocket Books novelization from 1975, a security man named Elgar is mentioned by Bergman. This is his only mention.

On page 157, Koenig thinks of their recent passage through the doorway of the black sun into another part of the universe as akin to Alice in Wonderland. Alice in Wonderland is an 1865 novel by Lewis Carroll about a girl transported to Wonderland, a hidden, surreal, and semi-mystical world that does not run by the same rules as the normal world does.

At the end of the novelization, it seems that the mysterious unknown force which has saved the Moon and reunited Eagle 5 with Moonbase Alpha may have also taken away from Bergman the memory of Meta being the Moon somehow returned to the outskirts of the Sol system, as he'd realized at the end of "Operation Deliverance".