SPACE: 1999-SPACE BRAIN

 

SPACE: 1999-SPACE BRAIN

 

Well, there are those who might look at this and scoff, seeing only bubble bath foam. Frankly, I don’t get those people who do that because at the heart of this is a sensitive, daring, scary, and touching story that is also quite sad in a way.

 

The more I watch this the more I wonder if the brain was holding back in the end and sacrificed itself to save Alpha for some reason even though there was at least one galaxy, maybe hundreds of galaxies or more depending on the brain for survival. Perhaps, it didn’t want to kill or couldn’t even though it, horribly, destroyed Eagle 1, probably without realizing it or what it was, just an anti body attack killing a foreign invader.

 

I don’t understand why no one thought about the nuclear charges possibly bouncing back at Alpha the way Eagle 1 was turned into a horrid meteorite and sent back to Alpha, probably by mistake, too. The brain just wanted to survive. What I don’t understand is Victor told us that the foam in sufficient quantities could destroy just about anything. Was he wrong? Why wasn’t the Moon itself crushed? This is why I think it held back, certainly the anti bodies were capable of covering the entire moon but didn’t. AND doesn’t Alpha have any portable computers so Kelly could have been moved?

 

His wife (yes, the script seems to say Kelly is her husband but on screen it’s not stated) Melita Janni seems to be Italian and certainly not American or British.

 

One of the most beautiful things in the entire series is John’s connecting to the brain but what did it accomplish? Just finding out it is not malevolent and that it supports hundreds of galaxies---was that worth endangering John’s life? Was more to be found out?

 

The space walks here are wonderfully done and again, to disprove those who think there is no characterization or no warmth in these characters, Alan won’t abandon Kelly, Kelly’s wife really does seem to love him, Helena holds John’s hand and he smiles at her, Victor pulls a worried Sandra away from the windows as the foam rises and he smiles, trying to calm her, and more.

 

I love Helena’s dedication to her patient and Mathias when she leaves Main Mission to return to Medical Center to help him and Kelly. Again, Landau is great as a man who is desperate (ordering Alan to abandon Kelly for one thing) to save Alpha and Helena but who is NOT willing to risk just using brute force all the time as his scenes trying to understand what Kelly is doing show he is not willing to just shoot first. On the other hand, he does send nuclear charges into the brain so…there’s that.

 

With all the faults of this strange episode, I still like it. Life starts out on Alpha in this episode and I’m not sure what five hour barrier Sandra was talking about and that Koenig broke…I guess people stay up five hours and no less because John is under that time before going to sleep? What?

 

Also on the other hand from the fact that everyone cares about Kelly, John does order Alan to abandon him but other than that, no one seems to upset that Wayland and Cousteau were horribly killed and turned into a meteorite, crushed in their Eagle. I mean they show mild concern but the two men’s deaths, as often happened in STAR TREK when crewmen died, seemed to have little life changing effect on the Alphans (this was corrected in season two where Helena shows a lot of grief for the two men that die in THE METAMORPH).

 

I’m also not sure the end quote, a lyrical one from Helena rings true. They couldn’t communicate but somehow they did through John through Kelly and yet it amounted to almost nothing. WHY? Why couldn’t the brain transmit through John? It gave him info and even through Kelly, later, came up with a plan to increase the Moon’s rate of spin

 

The music used is MARS, THE GOD OF WAR along with the other standard (but wonderfully great) soundtracks from other episodes. It’s all effective.

 

Sensitives, like myself (at least I hope) will feel sad as the foam attacks Alpha in a bid to try to save itself and all the planets in galaxies that depend on the brain for survival. What made the fault in the Eagle at that moment? What made the brain not destroy the entire moon? What helped Alpha survive? Clearly there might be two MUFs or at least one mysterious unknown force at work here. Would it be for one and against the other? Or was it just trying to counteract what was preordained?

 

Again, there are different ways of looking at this episode and indeed, this series. BUT those who think this is just a brain attacking Alpha because Alpha is on a collision course with it and the foam episode are just unimaginative, perhaps cold, and imperceptive critics. At its heart, flaws and all, there is a sensitive and melancholy spirit but despite its tragedy (the loss of Kelly and the death of the space brain, if indeed it was totally dead?!---we have only John’s word for it and other things have died and the Alphans been unaware of it returning from death) needed-to-be-told feel about this episode.

 

A few photos exist of Alan fighting a possessed Kelly which makes no sense as per the episode. THE TRIPODS second season has the same writer here use the image of a bunch of aliens who are the master of the Tripod aliens who …are Cognoscs…a bundle of light and energy who looks like nothing and is a space….brain. More info: see below:

 

 

THE best site for all things SPACE: 1999:

https://catacombs.space1999.net/main/epguide/t20sb.html

 

 

All in all a satisfying episode which seems more and more strange and puzzling each time watched.

My review from 2012:

SPACE BRAIN

 

 

Wow. Talk about epic. Well, sort of. Apparently John hasn't learned from TROUBLED SPIRIT: he's sending a nuclear bomb charged Eagle into the space brain before he has all the facts! Mistakes first: Where does Kelly's wife vanish to? Is there a scene missing where she has to be sedated and taken away from Kelly. One moment she's with him in Medical and the next...she's vanished from the episode entirely. Much drama has been lost this way. Again, why don't the Alphans have portable life support machines? Disconnecting Kelly will cause him to die? Why? John just seems to abandon him, not Helena so much. The Eagle with the bombs crashes but the bombs do not seem to go off at least to me. Why can't they be used? Why doesn't the anti body attack and destroy the entire Moon and crush it, which would surely leave a pressurized Alpha floating in space and dead too? Why were so many Alphans not running for the underground shelters and so many were left above and running for their lives (well 5 or 6 anyway)? Why weren't all of them told to put on pressure suits as was suggested at one point but not every did? Were the Eagles on the pads crushed? Surely they should have been covered by soap bubbles as they were.

 

 

 Kelly's speech is a bit strange. Dubbed? The British actor making himself sound American? Not sure.

 

 

IF one can get over the foam and soap bubbles that everyone finds so ridiculous, there are some really good things going on in this. It cannot be more different from TROUBLED SPIRIT or COLLISION COURSE. Also the brain is not evil or trying to destroy the Alphans but trying to avert the collision. The communication problem is an interesting one and communication was also a key problem in early LOST IN SPACE episodes, notably THE SKY IS FALLING. Of course, later episodes of both shows have aliens and Earthlings talking up storms as if nothing uncommunicated. This also happened in LAND OF THE GIANTS, the inception of that show had the giants speaking in such tones (low frequency I believe) the giants could not be understood and maybe even speaking in a different language. This was dropped in the first episode THE CRASH after the unaired pilot even had a low whispered "Come back" in English. Back to SPACE BRAIN: I like it. The conclusion is exciting and interesting and fun but it is kind of sad. Maybe Victor and John were wrong and the brain somehow survived and maybe it used Kelly to survive (?). It's a sad ending really.

 

 

 

The idea of anti bodies reminds me of the movie FANTASTIC VOYAGE and maybe even one of the animated episodes of FANTASTIC VOYAGE. The lights dim out in Main Mission but then we see the green lights. Previously, they were white light. I love John's wild shock look when Kelly grabs him and lifts him off his feet and gives one of those large across the room tosses 1999 does so well (remember Helena being thrown across the room by Lee's touch? or by the blast of the warning shot in THE LAST SUNSET?). The exciting climax is made so by the music used from MARS, THE GOD OF WAR by Holtz I believe. It is apt and fitting and used more than once in this series. It was also used in THE TOMORROW PEOPLE-THE DOOMSDAY MEN.

 

 

 

It's kind of gross but also very horrifying and interesting how the crushed Eagle is refound. I seem to remember this scene was used in some narrated version of this story on an LP around the time of the first season being aired. In any case, even though it is called a brain it is a much more mature version/story than things like the 1950s movies such as BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS (not that there's anthing wrong with enjoying such movies). Brain monsters or rather brain eaters, complete with spinal cord tails feature in FIEND WITHOUT A FACE (good scary movie) and THE BRAIN EATERS.

 

 

 

Powyrs Media in a move that might not be so bad explains that the death of this brain (they propose there are more brains out there) causes so many problems in season two of the show such that the aliens that need homes (BRINGERS OF WONDER, Vindrus in A MATTER OF BALANCE, the light creatures in THE BETA CLOUD, and others) need homes due to the brain dying. Also: powers of energy have spilled out and the LAMDA FACTOR effect (itself a MUF) came from this. What caused the collision? Powyrs says one of the other MUFs for its own evil ends. What caused the Eagle to malfunction? Again, same answer. It makes some sort of sense in a way but I don't like that they blame the same force that allied itself with Arra (I think; Powyrs universe is most convoluted).

 

 

 

On a positive note, music and light are used to great effect; John and Helena really seem to care about each other in a big way, holding hands, worrying about each other more; Kelly and Melita care about each other (and it's hard to see how she would have left Med Center without being carried out), and if you cancel your criticism of soap foam being used and use your imagination instead and overlook the bubble stuff, this episode is highly exciting and interesting. Love the space walk stuff even if CATACOMBS site reports all the mistakes that happen all over it (Alan wearing Kelly's number because it's stock footage of the same spacewalk, the gravity cancelling out in the Eagle but nothing floating, etc).

 

 

 

I also like how Victor tries to lure a worried Sandra away from the foam covered window. That little touch shows humanity.

 

 

All in all, another good episode.