External links
- "The Bringers of Wonder, Part Two" at IMDb
- Space: 1999 – "The Bringers of Wonder, Part Two" – The Catacombs episode guide
- Space: 1999 – "The Bringers of Wonder, Part Two" – Moonbase Alpha's Space: 1999 page
| "The Bringers of Wonder, Part Two" | |
|---|---|
| Space: 1999 episode | |
| Episode no. | Series 2 Episode 19 |
| Directed by | Tom Clegg |
| Written by | Terence Feely |
| Editing by | Alan Killick |
| Production code | 42 |
| Original air date | 11 August 1977 [1] |
| Guest appearances | |
| |
"The Bringers of Wonder, Part Two" is the 19th episode of the second series of Space: 1999 (and the 43rd overall episode of the programme). The screenplay was written by Terence Feely; the director was Tom Clegg. The final shooting script is dated 23 June 1976. Live-action filming took place Wednesday 25 August 1976 through Tuesday 28 September 1976 (with a two-day interruption from 21 to 22 September to film additional scenes for "The Beta Cloud"). [2] A day of second-unit filming was completed on Tuesday 30 November 1976. [3] This was the series' only two-part episode.
Dr Shaw's attempt to smother Koenig is thwarted by Maya and Russell. Koenig realises that his crashing the Eagle was the aliens' first attempt to kill him through mind control. He speculates that as the only person treated with the Ellendorf device, he has a unique perception of what is happening that allows him to see the visitors for what they really are. He tries to convince the other Alphans that the visitors cannot be who they appear – they are projecting disguises based on the Alphans' memories. Further, considering time dilation, any faster-than-light journey to the Moon would equate to centuries on Earth, meaning that their real family and friends are long dead.
Maya completes an Ellendorf session and gains the ability to see the aliens. Transforming into one of them to learn their motives, she discovers that they absorb radiation for food. Now the radioactivity of their planet has been exhausted and they are searching for a new supply, obtainable by blowing up Alpha's atomic waste domes. As they have low kinetic energy, they must use illusions to trick the Alphans into performing the act themselves.
At the domes, Carter and Ehrlich procure an atomic fuel core as a catalyst for the nuclear explosion. Koenig, Maya and Russell stall them by remotely locking them inside the fuel storage facility. To break the alien's hold over the Alphans, the trio blast white noise over the Moonbase's public address system. Their true forms revealed, the aliens vanish. However, they are not defeated.
Carter and Ehrlich cut through the lock and proceed to the domes in a Moon buggy. Koenig, Maya and Verdeschi take off in an Eagle to stop them. Realising that the aliens are focusing on Carter and his accomplices, Koenig deprives the aliens of electromagnetic radiation by having all of Alpha's non-vital systems shut down. Since there is electricity in the human brain, he also has anaesthetic gas released into the ventilation system to render the personnel unconscious.
The Eagle crew catch up with Carter, Ehrlich and Bartlett. In the ensuing struggle, Ehrlich's spacesuit is breached and he is evacuated to Alpha. Carter and Bartlett are about to force the fuel core into the storage chamber when tackles Carter. Bartlett breaks free of the aliens' control. The alien leader appears, admitting that its people deceived the Alphans but asking whether the their struggle to survive adrift in space is truly preferable to the joys that the aliens offered them. Carter, still under control, tries to set off the explosion but is thwarted by Koenig. Cursing Koenig for condemning the Alphans to a futile existence, the leader vanishes along with the rest of the aliens and their spacecraft.
Attentive viewers will note that there were only three alien "jellies" (as they were known in the script) constructed for the production; for crowd scenes, life-sized photographic cut-outs were employed. Cast from latex, the costumes were painted with grease for the slime effect and had artificial blood pumping through fine transparent tubing. Actor David Jackson, who had appeared earlier this series under considerable latex appliances as 'Alien Strong' in "The Rules of Luton", was relieved that there was no special make-up for this role. He read his lines from off-screen while a stuntman sweated under what he recalls as an unwieldy latex "teepee". [4] Jackson would gain fame in 1978 for his portrayal of Olag Gan in the Terry Nation science-fiction series Blake's 7 .
In the broadcast version of this episode, Helena's status report used to re-cap the previous episode mentioned the date as "2515 days" after leaving orbit; the shooting script clearly has the date typed correctly as "1915 days". [5] It has been speculated that actress Barbara Bain simply misread or misspoke the line; [2] however, when viewing the compilation movie Destination: Moonbase Alpha released by ITC London in 1978, the line in question is spoken by Bain as "1915 days" [6] (for continuity sake, the "correct" 1915-day notation was used for this synopsis).
Many publicity shots of Nick Tate and the unidentified actress playing his illusory companion were taken in the Pinewood Studios gardens and surrounding grounds during the shooting of their scenes. [4]
The score was re-edited from previous Space: 1999 incidental music tracks composed for the second series by Derek Wadsworth and draws primarily from the scores of "The Metamorph", "The Taybor" and "Space Warp". A movement of Beethoven's 'Symphony No. 5 in C minor' is heard during Bartlett's illusion of listening to the piece on his hi-fi system, while in reality he was preparing the waste domes for detonation. [4]
Ian Fryer, who regards the two-part The Bringers of Wonder as the "key episode" of Space: 1999's second series, argues that the plot of Part Two is stretched out with some unnecessary fight sequences. However, he considers the ending "surprisingly good", aided by Commander Koenig's dialogue and the "splendid" waste domes set. [7]
The episode was adapted in the fourth Year Two Space: 1999 novel The Psychomorph by Michael Butterworth published in 1977. The author would make the jelly aliens the psychically-synthesised minions of a massive non-corporeal space amoeba (which was also the unseen antagonist in the previous segment "The Lambda Factor"). The sentient amoeba was dying and required a massive influx of radiation to rejuvenate itself. It would manipulate the Alphans with the lambda-wave effect to provide the explosion that would be its salvation. [8]
In the 2003 novel The Forsaken written by John Kenneth Muir, it is stated the events of this story were one of the consequences of the death of the eponymous intelligence depicted in "Space Brain". The Brain provided the radiation required for the jelloid aliens' survival; after its death, the jelloid beings would being searching for alternate sources of sustenance. [9]
