Startling Barbara Bain — A Space: 1999 Podcast

The Metamorph. Season 2, Episode 1. First broadcast Saturday 4 September 1976. After just over six months, we’re back, and all the members of the Moonbase Alpha crew who weren’t killed off by the producers during the break are huddled in a cramped and airless cupboard some feet underground, awaiting the arrival of this week’s alien threat — played by Brian Blessed dressed as a badger crossed with an onion — who has no desire to kill everyone on the base — preferring instead to enslave and lobotomise them all before using them to train his latest Large Language Model. Which seems fitting, given just how dumb everything has suddenly got.

The Day After Tomorrow. First broadcast Tuesday 9 December 1975. While we wait to find out if Space: 1999 is getting a second season, here’s an educational space adventure featuring some familiar faces in front of and behind the camera. One and two-thirds nuclear families don inoffensive pastel leisurewear and board a lightspeed spacecraft for a one-way trip through a black hole, after which no one will ever hear from or think of them again. Except Brian Cox. Bless him.

The Last Enemy. Season 1, Episode 24. First broadcast Thursday 19 February 1976. This week, the Moon becomes a reluctant missile platform for two implacable and entirely incompatible genders, both completely untroubled by the possibility that they might kill everyone on the base. Also, the show ends. Sort of.

The Testament of Arkadia. Season 1, Episode 23. First broadcast Thursday 12 February 1976. Stranded in a cold and purposeless corner of an indifferent universe, adjacent to the end of everything, the crew of Moonbase Alpha make a discovery which changes the meaning not just of their journey but of their very existence, a discovery which drives this week’s Large Hot Italian Guest Star and his posh new girlfriend to make an irrevocable decision.

The Troubled Spirit. Season 1, Episode 22. First broadcast Thursday 5 February 1976. The 70s have come roaring back on Moonbase Alpha this week — with a séance, some dank hydroponic weed, and a beardo hippy and his Coral Electric Sitar. All of which inevitably summons an irrational paranormal phenomenon intent (as always) on killing everyone on the base. But not before some urgent and profound philosophical questions are raised, including Why?, What on earth is going on here? and Death, eh? What’s with that?