Space: 1999 "Earthbound" TV episode Screenplay by Anthony Terpiloff Directed by Charles Crichton Original air date: December 5, 1975

The Alphans discover an alien spacecraft programmed to take its passengers to Earth.

 

Read the episode summary at the Moonbase Alpha wiki

 

NOTES FROM THE SPACE: 1999 CHRONOLOGY

 

According to the Gaska timeline, this story takes place 42 days after leaving Earth orbit. 

 

CHARACTERS APPEARING OR MENTIONED IN THIS STORY

 

Commissioner Simmonds (likely dies after the end of this episode)

Commander Koenig

Paul Morrow

Dr. Russell

Alan Carter

Sandra Benes

Tanya Aleksandr

David Kano

Professor Bergman

Eagle 1 co-pilot (unnamed)

Tony Allan

Pierce Quinton

Kaldorians

Captain Zantor

Lee Oswald

Dr. Mathias

June

Andy

Alan Harris 

 

DIDJA NOTICE?

The shot of an Eagle lifting off at 2:43 on the Blu-ray is simply a flipped-film shot of the second Eagle lifting off at 2:46. Both Eagles (identified in dialog as Eagles 1 and 2) are carrying red-striped pods, indicating they are rescue pods.

The wire-like tower seen on the Moon's surface at 6:39 and 17:34 on the Blu-ray is revealed to be a gravity tower in the novelization (page 85).

While Bergman scans the alien ship from within the Eagle docking clamp, Kano uses the moonbase Computer to get a Spectro X analysis. "Spectro X" appears to be a fictitious term, probably meant to be something along the lines of a spectrographic and x-ray analysis. The term appears again in the novelization of "The Last Sunrise".

When the Alphan investigation team first steps aboard the alien ship, notice they go from Earth-normal artificial gravity to Moon-normal gravity. The actors are forced to walk and move as if they are within a lighter gravity field. Frankly, they don't sell it particularly well, but I suppose it would be difficult to emulate gravity conditions you've never actually experienced. They move more like Sleestaks than they do people in light gravity!

Finding humanoid aliens in suspended animation aboard the ship, Commander Koenig sends "Tony" to go back to the ship to bring back some lights and Dr. Russell's equipment. This appears to be Tony Allan, a security officer who appears in several Season One episodes. (The novelization confirms this and reveals the fifth member of Koenig's contact party to board the alien ship is security officer Pierce Quinton.)

Finding no signs that the aliens in the sealed cells are alive, Koenig makes the decision to open one up and Dr. Russell proceeds to break the seal with a drill. But, shouldn't they be worried about alien microbes possibly being freed? The novelization has Dr. Russell vaguely wondering about that herself, yet she proceeds and nothing is said about it.

At 16:11 on the Blu-ray, the actors' marks and some set electrical cabling can be seen on the floor of the Kaldorian ship.

It's not explained in the episode how the Kaldorians are able to speak English (well, Captain Zantor anyway...the others are not seen to interact verbally with anyone at all). The Zack comic book adaptation reveals that Kaldorians make themselves understood through thought transmission. Whether this is a natural ability of theirs or enhanced by technology is not disclosed.

The Kaldorians give the Alphans several Libra bird eggs filled with gold. Zantor tells them Libra birds were symbols of peace and freedom on their dying world.

At 20:30 on the Blu-ray, the commlock on Koenig's belt appears to have "fake" buttons on it, like little squares of electrical tape, possibly. In later scenes, he is wearing a normal commlock.

Zantor tells Koenig that his ship is on its way to Earth, hoping to settle there if they are welcome. If not welcome, they will take their own lives.

Earlier, Simmonds warned Koenig to be careful because the Kaldorians may not be as friendly as they seem. After learning that the Kaldorian ship is headed for Earth, Simmonds suggests the Alphans seize the ship for themselves, with the Kaldorians considered expendable. Now Simmonds is trying to make the Alphans not as friendly as they seem.

When he finds that Simmonds has stolen his commlock, Koenig tells Kano to deactivate the commlock and have Computer program an alternative commlock for him, adding, "Explain to the Computer as best you can." This seems like an odd thing to say..."explain" to the computer? The novelization of this episode tries to clear this up somewhat by noting that Koenig had had Computer reprogram all the commlocks after the coup attempt by Commander Preston in "Operation Deliverance", with his own commlock the only one up to date on access to all restricted areas. Even so, it is still kind of weird for Koenig to suggest "explaining" to Computer, but it may also be because Kano is seen in later episodes to have a different kind of rapport with Computer than most people have with technology and that he almost thinks of it as alive in its own way.

Simmonds takes the power converter from the Nuclear Power Station so that Alpha is without main power, holding it hostage for passage on the Kaldorian ship back to Earth. But if the converter was such an important part, wouldn't there be some spares in storage in case of breakdown? A possible explanation could be that the spares were destroyed during the destruction caused to the moonbase during the breakaway from Earth orbit in "Breakaway".

When Zantor lies down in his suspension cell at 46:10 on the Blu-ray, the actor's long, white wig falls partly off, revealing his short, dark hair.

At 46:17 on the Blu-ray, notice that Simmonds sets his stun gun down on a surface outside of his suspension cell before he climbs in. Yet he keeps his commlock with him. If he had only kept the stun gun on him, he could have used it to blast open his cell when he finds he's woken up only hours later.

When Morrow contacts Koenig in his office at 48:44 on the Blu-ray to tell him about the communication being received from Simmonds, Koenig is seen to be in a meeting with Dr. Russell, Dr. Mathias, and Dr. Bergman. They have a large sheet of paper that appears as if it may be a layout of the moonbase on the table before them. We don't get any explanation of the meeting here, but in the Powys novelization, they seem to be talking about possibly digging some tunnels from the underground levels of the base, possibly to serve as a burial and memorial area for Alphans who die in the course of their cosmic journey into the unknown (this is later confirmed in "Breaking Ground").

At 50:34 on the Blu-ray, as Simmonds is trying to break out of his suspension cell, one of the Kaldorians in the background cells turns his head to look at him and another sits up! It happens in about one second at the very end of this particular shot. It must have been that the director called cut, but that last second made it past editing. Seconds later, the Kaldorians are all still seen to be asleep.

Notes from the novelization of "Earthbound" by Patricia Sokol, 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. "Earthbound" begins on page 80 of the book.

Characters appearing or mentioned in the novelization, not in the episode

Julia Vale (mentioned only)

Dr. Ben Vincent (mentioned only)

Dr. Lee Russell (mentioned only)

Alec Preston (mentioned only, deceased)

Eric Sparkman (mentioned only, deceased)

Frank Warren (mentioned only, deceased)

Brian (mentioned only, deceased)

Karl (mentioned only, deceased)

Dr. James Warren (mentioned only)

Patrick Osgood (mentioned only)

DIDJA NOTICE?

On page 80, Dr. Russell reflects briefly on the recent incident with the Betan crew. This refers to the events of "Operation Deliverance".

    The reference to Lee Russell on page 80 is to Helena Russell's lost husband, who disappeared with the Astro 7 Jupiter mission several years previous (seen again in "Matter of Life and Death").

    The "Vincent" Helena thinks of is Dr. Ben Vincent, a member of the medical staff who appears in several later episodes.

    Helena is rightly worried about a Julia Vale, who has had some emotional health issues, as was seen in "Remembering Julia".

Commissioner Simmonds caustically thinks of Koenig and his command staff as "Arthur and his royal court, complete with grizzled old wizard." This, of course, is a reference to the legendary (possibly mythological) British leader of the late fifth and early sixth centuries, King Arthur, and his wizard/advisor/ Merlin. For Simmonds, Koenig stands in for Arthur and Victor Bergman for Merlin.

On page 82, Koenig sees the approaching spacecraft as the final refutation of Fermi's paradox. The Fermi paradox is the seeming contradiction of the lack of evidence of extraterrestrial civilizations with the apparent likelihood that the galaxy should be teaming with life based on known physical laws of the universe, and calculations such as the Drake equation, estimating the proliferation of life and civilizations in the Milky Way. 

Piloting Eagle 1 as he approaches the alien ship on page 82, Carter thinks the ship does not appear built for aggression, with him half expecting the top to fly off with a plume of purple smoke to deposit a genie on the Moon's surface. The ship is shaped and colored slightly like the bottle Jeannie the genie lived in in the 1965-1970 fantasy sitcom I Dream of Jeannie!
Kaldorian ship	Jeannie's bottle

On page 85, Simmonds does a mental run-through of the space failures under Dixon: the Uranus Probe, Jupiter's Astro-7, and the Ultra Probe. The Astro-7 was already mentioned above. The Uranus Probe events are revisited in "Death's Other Dominion" and the Ultra Probe's in "Dragon's Domain". Commissioner Dixon, Simmonds' predecessor, is seen in flashback in "Dragon's Domain".

On page 87, the Zantor's discussion with Koenig and the others about the Kaldorians' desire to settle on Earth goes on a bit longer, with Zantor offering an exchange of knowledge from their ship's computer to both Earth and Moonbase Alpha. Koenig thanks him and arranges for Kano to help integrate the two computer systems for the exchange.

Page 88 reveals that Kaldor has slightly lower gravity than Earth.

Page 89 indicates that humility was a quality held in foremost regard in Kaldorian society.

On page 90, Simmonds reflects on Alec Preston's failure. Preston was a member of the Moonbase Beta coup attempt against Moonbase Alpha in "Operation Deliverance".

Page 90 indicates it has been weeks since the Moon was blown out of Earth orbit. This coincides with the BLAM! Ventures timeline which states "Earthbound" takes place 42 days after the Moon leaves Earth orbit.

Page 99 describes Simmonds' attempt to contact Earth upon his awakening in the suspended animation cell as the returning hero Odysseus announcing his return to Ithaca. Odysseus was the legendary king of the Greek island of Ithaca in Homer's epic poem The Odyssey. 

Notes from the "Destination Earth" adaptation of "Earthbound" German comic strip Zack #20 Koralle-Verlag GmbH (Pages 7-18) Text: Farinas Art: Cardona September 27, 1977

 

Zack was a German comic magazine, 17 issues of which featured a Space: 1999 strip. Many of the strips were original stories, others adaptations of the televised episodes. All were written by Farinas and drawn by Cardona (Spanish artist José Maria Cardona Blasi).

 

"Destination Earth" is a combined adaptation of "Breakaway" and "Earthbound". The first four pages cover "Breakaway" and is covered in the "Breakaway" study. Here, we will cover the "Earthbound" portion of "Destination Earth", contained on pages 7-18.

 

Here, the story opens with an informal meeting between Commander Koenig, Professor Bergman, and Dr. Russell instead of a command conference of senior personnel.

 

On page 7, panel 3, it is a man, instead of Sandra, who chimes in over a comm port to report an object approaching the Moon.

 

Here in the comic, Tony Allan does not join in the investigation team with Koenig, Bergman, and Dr. Russell.

 

In the comic, the suspended animation chamber in the Kaldorian ship already has breathable air in it, while, in the TV episode, atmosphere had to be added from the pod.

 

Koenig and Bergman force open one of the suspension cells by brute force, which unfortunately causes the body within to suddenly burn and turn into a pile of ash. In the TV episode, Helena drills into it, with the same result.

 

On page 83, Koenig thinks back to his experience in the orbit of Venus. This event is revealed in "The Lambda Factor".

 

Instead of calling themselves Kaldorians, the aliens use the term "Kaldorons".

 

In the comic, Simmonds awakens in his suspended animation cell and exits it, using the Kaldorian equipment in an attempt to contact Earth. In the TV episode, of course, he immediately used his commlock to attempt communication and was unable to exit his sealed cell at all. But with Simmonds free within the ship, it seems like he would probably try to awaken the Kaldorians or turn the ship back to the Moon, possibly causing damage or killing the aliens. But Simmonds' further actions are left unknown as the story ends. 

 

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

 

Did the Kaldorian ship ever make it to Earth after a 75-year journey? It's never revealed. Even when Earth manages to contact Alpha via neutrino transmission in "Journey to Where" in the year 2120, the Kaldorians are not mentioned and the Alphans are not seen to ask about them.

 

Did Simmonds die in his cell days after the end of the episode as implied?

 

MEMORABLE DIALOG

 

a serious attempt to locate Earth and return.mp3

maybe they don't live by lunar time.mp3

we would take our own lives.mp3

expendable.mp3

sufficiently human.mp3

if I could rig that Computer, it would shout out your name.mp3

I don't believe in chance.mp3 

 

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