Destination: Moonbase Alpha (38 page)

Koenig delivers a memorable speech: ‘Now Commissioner, we just can’t scrap the Ultra Probe and ignore those ships out there. We’ve had a lot of successes so far. We’ve learned a great deal about our solar system. We know what dangers to expect out there from black suns, neutron storms, radiation and the like, but if we think we know everything that goes on out there, we’re making a terrible mistake!’ The final sentence defines much of the prevailing moral of the first series and has been stated before, notably in ‘War Games’, another tour de force by Christopher Penfold.

‘Dragon’s Domain’ is about obsession – specifically Tony Cellini’s obsession with the monster. It is a tragic episode chronicling his absolution and almost inevitable demise. As
Space: 1999
has repeatedly shown, some events are beyond our understanding; here it is the re-appearance of the spaceship graveyard, somehow aligning Cellini for another encounter with his Dragon, through which he is vindicated. His fate was sealed in much the same way as was Mateo’s in ‘The Troubled Spirit’. The very essence of this concept – that the fates have something to do with the outcome of our lives – is of central import to the stories of Year One. By contrast, in the premiere second season episode, ‘The Metamorph’, Koenig will state, ‘We’ll determine our own destiny.’ That one line might be the single most important statement defining the difference between the Alphans who appear in Year Two and those of Year One. Meanwhile, the superior quality of Christopher Penfold’s ‘Dragon’s Domain’ and the thoroughly outstanding production values create a truly timeless
Space: 1999
segment.

Rating:
9/10

1.24

THE TESTAMENT OF ARKADIA

Screenplay by Johnny Byrne

Directed by David Tomblin

Selected Broadcast Dates:

UK              LWT:

             
Date: 21 February 1976.               Time: 11.30 am

             
Granada:

             
Date: 5 March 1976.               Time: 6.35 pm

US
              KRON (San Francisco):

             
Date: 3 January 1976.               Time: 7.00 pm

Credited Cast: Martin Landau
(John Koenig),
Barbara Bain
(Helena Russell),
Barry Morse
(Victor Bergman),
Prentis Hancock
(Paul Morrow),
Clifton Jones
(David Kano),
Zienia Merton
(Sandra Benes),
Anton Phillips
(Bob Mathias),
Nick Tate
(Alan Carter)

Guest Stars: Orso Maria Guerrini
(Luke Ferro),
Lisa Harrow
(Anna Davis)

Uncredited Cast: Suzanne Roquette
(Tanya Alexander),
Sarah Bullen
(Operative Kate),
Loftus Burton
(Operative Lee Oswald),
Ann Maj-Britt
(Operative Ann),
Andrew Dempsey
,
Michael Stevens
,
Andrew Sutcliffe
,
Maggie Wright
(Main Mission Operatives),
Tony Allyn
(Security Guard Tony Allan / Irwin),
Quentin Pierre
(Security Guard Pierce Quinton / N’Dole),
Shane Rimmer
(Operative voice),
Robert Reitty
(Luke Ferro voice dubbing)

Plot:
The Moon is stopped dead in space by an unknown force near the planet Arkadia. As power levels begin dropping, the Alphans are forced to consider evacuating to the planet, and a reconnaissance mission is launched. Once there, they learn the true origin of humankind. The Arkadian influence remains, and leads two Alphans to stay on Arkadia to sow the seeds of life on the world from which their ancient ancestors originated.

Quotes:

• Koenig:
  ‘Our struggle to survive in a hostile universe had long erased the memory of the cataclysmic disaster that first hurled our Moon out of Earth’s orbit. The recent events that occurred on the planet Arkadia have revived that painful memory and forced us to reconsider our purpose in space.’
  
• Kano:
  ‘Computer’s not a crystal ball, Commander. She can only predict on specific data.’
  
• Koenig:
  ‘… A force, an indefinable intelligence, did exist on the planet …’
  
• Alan:
  ‘When the ship’s sinking, the rats are the first to leave.’
  
• Luke:
  ‘If it is Alpha’s fate to be the sacrificial lamb, so be it. Don’t you understand? It was no accident that brought us to that planet. Our destiny is clear. Preordained from the moment the Arkadians set foot on Earth.’
  
• Luke:
  ‘Be warned. Any attempt to stop us will fail and bring down upon you the terrible forces of chaos and destruction.’
  
• Helena:
  ‘You’re going to a living Hell.’
  
• Luke:
  ‘No, Doctor. We are going home.’
  
• Koenig:
  ‘We must keep faith and believe that for us – for all of mankind – there is a purpose.’
  

The Testament of Arkadia:
‘I, the guardian, salute you. We are an accused people. We who caused our own destruction have paid the price of ignorance and greed. To you who seek us out in the ages to come, we salute you. The desolation you find grieves we few who will soon die. Our civilisation gone, our world Arkadia poisoned, dying. We who caused our own destruction. No need now to tell of the final holocaust then our world flamed in the inferno of a thousand exploding suns. Arkadia is finished. But she, Arkadia, lives on in the bodies, hearts and minds of those few who left before the end, taking the seeds of a new beginning, to seek out and begin again in the distant regions of space. Heed now, the Testament of Arkadia. Neither past nor future; you who are guided here, make us fertile. Help us live again.’

Filming Dates:
Tuesday 11 February – Tuesday 25 February 1975

Incidental Music:
The musical score is one of the most effective in the series and incorporates library pieces ‘Picture of Autumn’ by Jack Arel and Pierre Dutour (heard during Luke’s and Anna’s experience in the cave), and ‘Suite Appassionata – Andante’ by Paul Bonneau and Serge Lancen (featured throughout the episode, including as the Eagle journeys to Arkadia, and as the Alphans explore the planet, as well as during Koenig’s opening and closing entries to his journal). Both pieces were from the Chappell Recorded Music Library.

Commentary:

Barry Morse:
‘Following completion of “The Testament of Arkadia”, we returned to shoot extra scenes for some previous episodes, “The Last Enemy” and “Space Brain” among them, and finally we finished shooting the first series on 28 February, 1975. But my final day of work on
Space: 1999
was Friday 11 April 1975, when I was called upon to return to Pinewood Studios to do some post-synching.

‘“The Testament of Arkadia” featured a world destroyed by its people’s technology and nuclear war. Well, there’s another philosophical subject I think might have been explored a bit more thoughtfully…’

Zienia Merton:
‘You found if an extra person went down with you to a planet, then he would be killed off or left behind, as in “Testament of Arkadia”. I know this was because of [the dictates of the] writing, but I do think they could have thought a little more about it.

‘I think I was on three sets on that last day filming, because we were finishing the last episode, I was dubbing a previous episode, and I was picking up shots on another episode. And I just said to whoever it was, “For God’s sake, wheel me in and tell me what I’m doing, honey, because I don’t know where I am!” Because what you have to remember is that we were also having to dub episodes as we went along, so there was always a backlog. Yes, I think I am right. On the last day I was on three shows – dubbing one, filming one, and picking up on another, which was the one I did with Caroline Mortimer, “The Last Enemy”.’

Johnny Byrne:
‘“The Testament of Arkadia” had a strange genesis. There was a requirement to do a script, and David Tomblin started talking over ideas, and in essence much of what finally came out stemmed from the kind of story David wanted to do. I then had always considered that life did not begin on Earth, but was brought to Earth. It’s not the kind of story I would normally write. Somehow the logic of the situation plus my close collaboration with David pushed me that way, and I found myself doing a story that had this kind of connotation, and once I had launched on it, it had to be pursued to the very end.

‘It has a strange kind of eerie quality about it. It looks out of place in the welter of all the
Space: 1999
stories. It has, I think, a serious message. It was bedevilled, like many of the stories at that time, by the fact that we had to use Italian leading men because of the money connections with Italy. And many of them couldn’t speak English very well, and it was a big problem. They brought in a wonderful man who would dub these voices, Bob Rietti. He can simply stand there and speak in their voice and correct it and re-dub it. A lot of Luke’s stuff was re-dubbed. They would take sometimes only a word in a sentence and this guy would pick it up perfectly.

‘The idea that we may have been influenced by a superior intelligence in our distant past is a very valid one and a very profound one. It’s certainly not beyond the bounds of possibility to assume that something strange has happened to the people of this planet. About 15,000 years ago, it seems that there was a sudden burst of knowledge and creative activity that, after millions and millions of years, accelerated the pace of evolution and pitched humankind into being the dominant species on this planet. Now, archaeologists may give you all sorts of explanations as to how this came about, but any other reason is just as valid. You could say the human gene-bank was, in some way, seeded with knowledge by visitors from outer space, totally transforming the thinking on this planet. Less than 100 years ago, the Wright brothers were flying something with a bit of string. Now we’re flying to the Moon. That development has taken place in only 100 years. If you take that pace of development, or if you take how fast that development can happen, you see that something quite remarkable did happen in that very short time all those years ago, in terms of human understanding, social organisation, technology and all the rest of it.

‘I think “The Testament of Arkadia” showed the effects of under-budgeting. For one reason or another it had less money available for it and so, in terms of production values, it didn’t
quite
measure up to some of the others … That’s my feeling about it. But I thought it was quite well directed and it was quite eerie and spooky in a strange way. Well, it’s not one of my favourites. But I feel it’s quite a special one, quite outside the stream. I always felt very uneasy about it because its statement was so direct. And it had too much of it related to a purely spiritual impulse in terms of the characters. So much had to be taken for granted. Luke being taken over by this force was a kind of religious obsession, but it was never adequately explained how … Well, we knew that the motivation was because at the end what we’re saying is, “We left Adam and Eve”, and it’s an Adam and Eve story. It’s starting again … The Adam and Eve story is a very primal type of story in our consciousness. It’s difficult to say whether it’s purely biblical, some form of inspiration, or whether it maybe matches up to some sort of race memory that we have of a time when we all did live in some kind of land of plenty, a veritable Eden. There’s a symbolism in the Adam and Eve story that is good for all time and, I think, whether you’re religious or not, it has a kind of sense to it – a philosophical sense.

‘It didn’t really examine that process of spiritual possession, which I’d like to have done. I think that’s where it sort of falls down for me. But again, writers are never,
never
satisfied. It’s one of those stories I can look at now and feel very nervous about when it’s coming on, but feel okay about at the end. I thought the performances were well done and that the scenes in the cave where they discover that it’s Sanskrit, and all of that, were very spooky and effective … When it came to it, I enjoyed constructing the story: the idea of arriving on a planet, discovering something peculiar in a cave, and discovering words written in Sanskrit. This latter part interested me enormously, because I’m deeply versed in the history of the ancient Celtic civilisations of Ireland – the pre-history of my own country. The Gaelic language is one of the most ancient of all the Proto-European languages. It’s immensely old – in its most primitive form, its alphabet is only 16 letters, which makes it more primitive than any other. It has very strong links with so many of the other most ancient languages like Cheldeic, Sanskrit and Syriac. I found connections with all of this in the story. We were talking about Sanskrit, the primal Indo-European language, and the fact that it was here and that it was saying something important invested the story with a certain profundity that you either addressed or you chose to ignore. I believe that if you’re going to do this kind of story, you have to go for it on the nose, so the fear that I had about writing it was matched up with the demands of such an important and profound theme, which you couldn’t avoid even if you wanted to. That was one of the great things about the first season of
Space: 1999
– you had to take things to their logical conclusion, otherwise they lacked all credibility.