Collectible of the Week: Official Space:1999 Stun Gun (Remco; 1976)

I’ve always loved the look, feel and atmosphere of Space:1999 (1975 – 1977).   

When I was a kid, I was certain that this was exactly what the future would look like. I’m disappointed to this day that it hasn’t been the case.

My admiration for the Space: 1999 vibe extends to the series’ inventive and futuristic props, such as the comm-lock and the staple-gun-styled stun gun used by The Alphans.  Accordingly, as a child, one of my most prized possessions was indeed an “official” Space:1999 stun gun,  a toy produced by Remco.  

Featuring “realistic space sound” and “3 function actuator,” this stun gun toy was actually little more than a flashlight, I suppose you could say.  But when you de-pressed the trigger (located above the handle), you could “fire” a “lazer beam,” “project a light target” on a wall (like an Eagle, for instance…) or enjoy the “sequential color lights.”

If memory serves, Remco also produced a Star Trek phaser very much like this toy, with similar light and sound effects, and the same capability to project images on the wall.  I’m pretty sure I had that one too, though I no longer own one today.

Recommended for children over five, the Remco stun gun operated on 2 “C” batteries, and proved a critical part of  many interplanetary adventures…in my own backyard, of course.

The Space: 1999 Equation

“If we were to do the series again, and return to what made the idea work initially – the epic quest – it would be well-received, I believe.  It should be a series about belief, not issues or politics.  People are so tired of politics, and they want to believe, to have their imagination stimulated.  It’s the perfect time to do a story of discovery, with an epic feel about it, and do it on the basis not that the characters have all they need, but they don’t.  They would be on this kind of mission to establish themselves.”

- Space: 1999 writer and story editor Johnny Byrne, in an interview with me, from 2001.

Since the announcement of a Space: 1999 reboot a few days ago, I’ve been imagining what a new series might look like in terms of overall theme, meaning and scope.   What I personally would prefer to see in a new series is a return to and updating of many of the core conceits of the original 1970s program.

Now, there is no guarantee a remake would go that route.  There are many paths from which to select.  Many fine paths, I should stress.  People of good conscience can debate the issue, to be certain.

Yet part of the reason so many long-time Battlestar Galactica fans had a serious problem warming to the Ron Moore remake of a few years back is that the new series deliberately (and in some cases rather brutally…) inverted or turned upside down the core belief structure of the highly-rated 1970s Larson TV series.  

Many fans could have happily lived with human-appearing Cylons, for instance, but the over-turning of the original series’ belief structure, it’s very philosophical identity felt, well, rude to those who had carried a torch for the series for twenty-five years.

A prominent example: The original Battlestar Galactica existed in a universe of moral absolutism.  A race of advanced “angels” and demons (like Count Iblis) confirmed the nature of the universe in terms of good and evil.  We saw this to be true in episodes such as “War of the Gods” and “Experiment in Terra.”

By contrast, the new series delved deeply, immediately, and irrevocably into the trenches of moral relativism, so much so that the snapping of a  human baby’s neck by a Cylon in the mini-series was judged as an act that was neither good nor evil, merely one that would be judged dependent on your core belief system. 

This moral relativism carried through into the depiction of the main characters as in-fighting, deeply flawed, soap-opera-styled characters who were nonetheless heroic in some basic sense.

Now, I’m not asserting that Moore’s take on the material was bad, unintelligent, or unprovocative, merely that as an updater, he took the core philosophical structure of the original Battlestar Galactica — a defeated people on a long space exodus — and inverted it to promote values completely opposite to what the franchise had once championed on a regular basis.  

This example brings us to an important question:  When you remake a familiar and beloved property do you update and alter central ideas to make it relevant, but maintain the core ideas of the franchise? 

Or do you toss out the existing philosophical underpinnings of the franchise and start from scratch with new philosophical leanings?

Star Trek fans might not appreciate it if Mr. Spock became a battle-loving warrior, or if Starfleet suddenly dropped the non-interference Prime Directive in a new TV series.  It’s the very same thing with great literature.  We happily accept and enjoy new iterations of Hamlet or Dracula, but some core ideas in those works must be retained from one generation to the next, or the text no longer boasts a distinctive identity. 

Accent can change, stress can change, and visualization can change.  And actors must, by necessity, change too.  But a name like Hamlet is not just a brand to exploit in terms of marketing.  Rather, the name encompasses a set of specific ideas and values that can be translated and made relevant all over again to a younger generation.

Now I have no idea what Space: 2099 will look like, and I can’t guess. I’m excited and hopeful about the new series.  I support the project fully and enthusiastically.

So, all that I can do now, in anticipation, is provide my best reading or interpretation of the original Space: 1999 as a series, in a search for what those common values might be in regards to this soon-to-be-revived franchise. 

I feel this endeavor might prove helpful because many people didn’t watch Space: 1999 when it was on, or weren’t even born when it first aired.

As I see it, Space: 1999 was erected upon the following creative pillars and philosophical underpinnings.  These ideas represent the very ”identity” of the original 1970s program, I submit. 

Is this the Space: 1999 equation?

1. Technology is a double-edged sword. 

While technology permits for the Alphans to sustain themselves on the moon (and in deep space), and the wonderfully versatile Eagles permit for landings on planets that could represent a new home, technology is not a cure-all in the original Space: 1999 universe. 

On the contrary, technological solutions to problems (like atomic waste on the moon), cause the “Breakaway” catastrophe in the first place. 

And in episodes such as ”Space Brain” and “The Troubled Spirit,” technological solutions to crises are  often proven to be flawed.

A nuclear charge-carrying Eagle (mysteriously) can’t return to Alpha when it is on a collision course with a cosmic intelligence in the former episode, and in the latter episode, a scientific “exorcism” of a ghost is the very thing that creates a haunting on the lunar base in the first instance.

In large part, this conceit of technology as a double-edged sword is what distinguishes the Space: 1999 universe from the Star Trek universe.  In Star Trek, “Technology Unchained” has made the Federation a paradise.  Without the need to worry about survival issues like hunger and poverty, man has turned, particularly in the 24th century, towards “enriching” himself, not his pocketbook.  

Writing in Science Digest all the way back in 1975, editor Arielle Emmett wrote that Space: 1999 concerned the ”downfall of technological man.”  That’s the template,  “Earthbound” is a perfect example of this idea well-executed.  It showcases the glorious potential and horrors of advanced suspended animation in a most chilling fashion.

As we are developing new technologies, new medicines, new weapons and new media at a prodigious rate right now, this facet of the original series remains timely. 

Do our tools make us more human, or less human?  Do our tools connect us or isolate us?  Do we control our machines, or do they control us?

2.  Outer Space is Terrifying and Mysterious.  It isn’t a Cosmic United Nations.

Many popular ”outer space” franchises, from Star Trek to Farscape to Andromeda  have featured recurring alien villains.  We all know their names: the Klingons, the Peacekeepers, the Nietzscheans, the Ferengi, the Borg and so on.   Communication is possible with all these species, and the galaxy is like a cosmic U.N., with different countries separated by the vast cosmic ocean of outer space.  You can radio back to headquarters (Earth) via a sub-space radio, and there is no time dilation at all.

Not so in Space: 1999, the original series. 

There, outer space was a realm of mystery and terror and awe.  I’m reminded of Taylor’s lyrical description of deep space in Planet of the Apes: “Time bends. Space is…boundless. It squashes a man’s ego. I feel lonely.” 

Those sentences perfectly describe the established Space: 1999 aesthetic. 

Another way of putting it, the original Star Trek had a rule for prospective writers that they should not get lost in ”the bigness of it all” in terms of outer space. 

In Space: 1999, the bigness of it all is the very point of the drama. 

It’s important to remember that on Space: 1999 the errant moon was moving through alien star systems, on an unplanned course, never to return, so there were not recurring enemies to battle.  This makes it more challenging, I suppose, in terms of drama: you don’t have a regular villain to fall back on.  But the idea was also rewarding, each episode offered new horizons.  Space: 1999 wasn’t pinned to an increasingly complex alien-based continuity where you had to say, “but a Ferengi would never do that!”

There was a logical reason for this approach in terms of the structure of Space: 1999.  The Alphans had few resources and fewer weapons on their cosmic odyssey.  Thus they were never in a position to combat a continuing enemy like the Borg or the Klingons. 

Indeed, Moonbase Alpha might — with luck and ingenuity – survive one engagement with a militant alien empire, but it would never have survived if the Sidons, the Dorcons or other villains had kept hammering at it, week after week.  The base was too fragile for that, its life support systems too precarious, its defenses too “primitive.” 

Again, this goes right back to Martin Landau’s (correct) assertion back in the 1970s that Space: 1999 was less “macho” than Star Trek.  Star Trek was about peaceful contact with aliens in a universe of plenty, but also about gunboat diplomacy.  The Enterprise had phaser banks to make certain the crew was safe, and the Federation was protected.   By contrast, Space: 1999 was about a Darwinian universe where survival was the overriding issue, and this was distinctly a battle for limited resources.

We saw many aliens in Space: 1999 who attempted to steal the Alphan resources (“The Beta Cloud” and “Bringers of Wonder” to name two episodes), and the series obsessed on matters of survival.  One character, in an episode called “Dorzak” said that the battle for survival “makes monsters of us all.”  Yet another episode, “The  Exiles” saw characters debating survival explicitly. 

Is it more important that you simply survive, or how you choose to survive?”

Johnny Byrne’s “Mission of the Darians” looked at a disaster on an alien spaceship where the crew turned to cannibalism because there was no uncontaminated food remaining.  The series hero, John Koenig was asked if he would have turned to the same grisly solution if that crisis had occurred on Alpha.

Rather pointedly, he didn’t answer.

3. Mankind in Space: 1999 is technologically and psychologically unprepared for the mysteries of deep space, and when he countenances those mysteries, it is his human nature which will either hand him defeat, or bring him to victory.

In Star Trek, man has conquered his environment.  Technology is a friend and a tool, as I’ve written above.  But if you look at the characters of Star Trek: The Next Generation, they have also, in large part, conquered their passions, their individual emotions.  They don’t take offense at one another, they don’t argue amongst themselves, and they are “evolved” far beyond us in many significant and commendable ways. 

The scientists and astronauts of Moonbase Alpha were not examples of evolved, idealized, romanticized mankind, but us — contemporary man — in space, replete with all our flaws, emotions, paranoia, fears and hopes. 

Frequently in Space: 1999, a mistake by the Alphans was the very thing that led into the adventure of the week.  They tampered in alien justice in “End of Eternity.”   They investigated and opened up orbiting cryo-chambers in “The Exiles.” 

Humans are curious, and that can be a strength, but it can also be a weakness.

The story “Collision Course” depicted beautifully how man is psychologically and technologically unprepared for life in space.  An alien from an advanced race, Arra (Margaret Leighton), informs Commander Koenig that he must permit the moon to collide with her colossal world.  In this case, she claims, it will trigger some kind of evolutionary metamorphosis, but that Alpha will survive the event.  That’s a lot to “believe in,” but Koenig discovers that he trusts Arra.   He’s made a human judgment about her.

Back on Alpha, however, his team can’t get on board with this idea of letting the collision occur and it goes around Koenig’s authority to attempt to avoid disaster with mines deployed in space. 

What is the superior value in this instance?  Trust in science?  Or trust in a person?  Do we depend on what we think we know, or what we feel?

I’m not drawing any universal conclusions regarding that idea, but Space: 1999 meditated on the notion that in deep space, the “laws” of the universe might not be exactly exist as we understand them now, from our perch on Earth.  Instead, man is going to be asked to take — now and again — a “leap of faith.” 

Some men and women will be equipped to do so, some will not.  This creates tension amongst the Alphans.

Now, Space: 1999 has been accused of being anti-science, and this is so because the series suggests that a.) technology is not always the answer, and b.) that the laws of science as we understand them in the here-and -now may not apply, exactly, in the far corners of space and time.  In Space: 1999, man must puzzle his way through answers, based not on techno-babble, but on a combination of technology, psychology, philosophy and even spiritualism. 

4. The Alphans are the new kids on the block, literally.  I once compared the original universe in Space: 1999 to a classroom.  It’s a crucible from which the Alphans – having escaped from a dying, politically-destructive Earth — learn about themselves and their role in space. 

You’ll notice that in no episode of Space: 1999 do the Alphans encounter a race that is less advanced than they were, at least in terms of technology (unless you count 13th century Earth in “Journey to Where,” or the Alphans themselves, as cavemen, in “Full Circle.”)

Instead, the Alphans universally countenanced super-advanced aliens wthat believe they have life “licked,” so-to-speak, and are apparently far more advanced. But these aliens, almost universally have lost  or sacrificed some important aspect of humanity. 

The Zennites of “Missing Link” have emphasized science over emotion, and have forgotten how to feel. 

The Sidons of “Voyager’s Return” champion their  legalisms over moral solutions to their problems, thus embracing vengeance under the auspices of “law.” 

The aliens of “War Games” have created a world with no fear…and yet they fear the presence of the Alphans on their world. 

In “Guardian of Piri,” the Alphans discover an extinct race, the Pirians, that gave up physical labor and “work” and destroyed themselves through lassitude and luxury.

Again and again, the Alphans gaze at alien worlds in the series, and find that while some of those societies possess glorious aspects, they also showcase an absence of something important; the very things the Alphans cherish most in themselves, as human beings. 

Johnny Byrne always told me that the Alphans would be successful, ultimately, in their space quest, and they would achieve success by accepting their limitations and potential as a species.  Their humanity — warts and all — is their greatest gift.

5. Horror Mythology.  If you look across the catalog of Space: 1999 episodes, you begin to detect that many episodes actually had more in common with the original The Outer Limits than Star Trek.  This is because the horror genre — particularly the Gothic — played a considerable role in Space: 1999.  Various episodes resurrected and updated famous horror tropes. 

I’ve written about this in length in a post here. 

In short, Space: 1999 in 1975 and 1976 gave us outer space, high-tech variations of  The Premature Burial (“Earthbound), the Siren (“Guardian of Piri”), the Midas Touch (“Force of Life,”) the Midwich Cuckoos (“Alpha Child”), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (“Full Circle), Faust (“End of Eternity”), Ghosts (“The Troubled Spirit”), St. George vs. The Dragon (“Dragon’s Domain”), The Picture of Dorian Gray (“The Exiles”) and even the zombie (“All That Glisters.”) 

You’ll notice that some of these tales arise from ancient mythology (the siren, the Midas Touch, namely), and others come from more recent mythology, 19th and early 20th century literature.  Johnny Byrne once informed me that his idea for “Another Time, Another Place” came from a mythology built around a church in Ireland.

He told me: “One hundred yards up the road from the house where I grew up was this little church with a fantastic reputation.  We heard that if you walked around the church sun-wise (clockwise) three times, you’d meet yourself coming out.  That kind of legend was the core of “Another Time, Another Place.”  Our mythology is filled with situations in which a person stumbles into a mist and then emerges 300 years later or some such thing. So I constructed a story around the experience of my upbringing.”

6. Mind-blowing Visual Distinction.  In terms of visualization, Space: 1999 was a series that took ambitious, even crazy risks on a regular basis, and was never afraid to fail. 

There were occasional visual failures (the soap suds of “Space Brain”), of course, but also radically new environments featured on the series. 

Who can forget the bizarre but mind-blowing surface of planet Piri in “Guardian of Piri?” 

We saw, in Space: 1999 worlds of soft fabrics glowing mists and hard-edged nightmares (“Missing Link,”), diamond-like, jeweled mirror (“Seed of Destruction”), vast computer/man interfaces (“War Games,” “The Infernal Machine”), an anti-matter world of crimson skies (“Matter of Life and Death”), an underground alcove of spheroid “bouncing” probes (“AB Chrysalis”), and much more. 

In some sense, Space: 1999 was really about allowing the imagination to run wild — with very little control or barrier terms of scientific rationalization or explanation.  Farscape was truly brilliant in this regard as well, showing us colorful worlds of tremendous ingenuity and visual invention.

Anyway, these are my thoughts on what Space: 1999 was “about” in its first, 1970s incarnation.  Those are the values I see played out, across the catalog of 48 episodes.  These are the reasons I enjoyed the series.  Other fans have other reasons, I should hasten to add.  I’m not trying to speak for anyone else, or for any agenda. This is just my interpretation of a work of art that inspired me.

The bottom line: Many possible storytelling paths are available, of course, for Space: 2099, so long as imagination is not in short supply.

Collectible of the Week: Space:1999 Moonbase Alpha Set (Mattel; 1976)

The year 1976 was America’s bicentennial, but much more importantly (!) the heyday of Space:1999 toys and memorabilia. 

Mattel released its three-foot-long Eagle toy in 1976 and also a line of  action figures to go with this play set, the Space:1999 Moonbase Alpha “control room & launch center.”  On television, this area was called “Main Mission” and was a colossal, two-level chamber replete with big screen and observation deck.

This toy doesn’t quite live up to the impressive set from the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson TV series, but is a lot of fun nonetheless. 

It comes with a cool ”Starflash Computer” that “really lights up!” and  vaguely resembles one of Alpha’s trademark “comm-posts.” 

Eagle-eyed collectors, however, will also notice that the Starflash computer is actually a toy re-purposed from the popular Matt Mason toy line of the sixties.

Other than the Starflash Computer, this set is basically a vinyl mat with  a swivel chair, a console chair and table, TV monitor screens, console readout dials, and vinyl covered walls. 

You could apply decals to the playset, to recreate scenes from Year One of the series.  Most importantly, however, this set was a place where your Commander Koenig, Dr. Russell and Victor Bergman action figures could hang out and fight Planet of the Apes figures, or the aliens from Mego’s Star Trek line.

The back of the box described the set this way: “18″ x 30″ x 11″ control room & launch center designed for 9″ Space: 1999 action figures. Control panels are printed, label set and instructions included.  Action figures not included. Flasher light “D” battery sold separately.”

Today, as an adult collector, I long for a more accurate representation of Moonbase Alpha, one that  captures the minimalist, Kubrickian aesthetic of the TV series a bit more closely. 

But I still have a lot of nostalgia for this toy, in part because I remember seeing it in toy stores back in the disco decade and begging my parents for it. 

CULT TV FLASHBACK #137: Space:1999 "Voyager’s Return" (1975)

Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s Space: 1999 (1975 -1977) certainly took more than its share of critical brickbats regarding the scientific accuracy of the series premise, which saw Earth’s moon blasted into deep space by a colossal explosion (in the year 1999.)

And yet the undeniably wonderful aspect about that very far-out concept is that it permits contemporary man rather than future man the opportunity to engage with and confront the mysteries of the cosmos. 

As I wrote in my book about the series, Exploring Space:1999 (1997) the powerful central notion of Space: 1999 is that it is us — our generation, right now – up there reckoning with the awe and terror of the unknown. 

As many 1970s articles described this idea, the Alphans of Space:1999 are “technologically and psychologically” unprepared for a space journey of any kind, and so have much to reckon with and learn about on their unplanned odyssey.

An illuminating comparison involves Star Trek.  In that (wonderful) franchise, man is the master of his destiny and master of the stars as well.  In Space:1999, man is scraping to get by, to survive in a universe he isn’t equipped to truly understand or countenance.

Space:1999 was thus at its finest when the writers remembered their central conceit regarding the characters; that contemporary man, with all of his flaws and foibles, is at the core of all the storytelling. 

One impressive installment that plainly remembers this idea is Johnny Byrne’s “Voyager’s Return,” directed by Bob Kellett.

In “Voyager’s Return,” Moonbase Alpha encounters a technological terror of human design when the errant moon crosses paths with a Terran space probe launched in the year 1985.  That probe, Voyager One, makes use of a dangerous interstellar drive called “The Queller Drive.”  The drive spews “fast neutrons” into space, and destroys all life that it comes in contact with.

The Queller Drive has a spotted history.  It kicked in too early during the launch of Voyager 2 (when standard chemical rockets should have been employed…) and the probe immediately killed two hundred people, including Paul Morrow’s (Prentis Hancock’s) father. 

Now, Commander Koenig (Martin Landau) must decide if he should destroy Voyager One and the Queller Drive outright, or attempt to commandeer the probe for its black box, which contains valuable data about the star systems the craft has visited.

Ultimately, Koenig sides with Professor Victor Bergman (Barry Morse), over the objections of Dr. Helena Russell (Barbara Bain) and Paul, and sets about to tamper with the Voyager One so as to retrieve the crucial data. 

When Bergman’s efforts fail, a scientist on Moonbase Alpha steps forward and reveals that he is, in fact, Ernst Queller (Jeremy Kemp), the despised and derided inventor of the dangerous drive system. 

Queller believes that he can right the wrongs of long ago, and commandeer Voyager One before it endangers Alpha.

Unfortunately, the Queller Drive has malfunctioned again.  Voyager One recently passed into the territory of a race called the Sidons.  There, the Queller Drive rendered lifeless two inhabited planets and now the Sidons are in pursuit of the “primitive” craft seeking their own brand of justice. 

Worse, the Sidons intend to destroy Moonbase Alpha and Earth as well, for the crime of genocide…

At the heart of “Voyager’s Return” are the issues of atonement, redemption, and even revenge.  Dr. Queller desperately wants to make amends for the Voyager 2 accident, and contribute something positive as his legacy. 

Meanwhile, those around him — again, examples of contemporary man — judge him with harshness and anger.  Morrow won’t forgive him, or even accept his presence.  And Queller’s assistant, Jim Haines, lost two parents during the Voyager 2 accident.  Jim physically assaults Queller at an inopportune moment, and his impulsive actions nearly cause the destruction of the base. 

Again, future man may be more evolved and peaceful, but contemporary man is passionate and irrational even when common sense indicates he should be otherwise.

Writer Johnny Byrne described for me during an interview in 2001 his feelings on this issue of contemporary man and his use/mis-use of technology as it pertains to this adventure: 

“We take a number of lessons from this episode. And one of them is that we are all governed by a universal principle: that our technology develops faster than our wisdom. Let me go back. I think this is a universal principle: the rate of a life form’s biological development is out of key with the rate of technological development. In a hundred years, we’ve advanced enormously in terms of technology, but we’re essentially the same fearful, passionate, mistake-ridden, aggressive, greedy, ego-driven creature. And there is nothing materially different in recorded history going right back to the Greeks. We are governed by the same kind of incoherent tribulations today as we were then. We really haven’t progressed.”

Again, this is a very realistic (as opposed to idealistic) view of mankind, and one of the things that, actually, makes us root so strongly for the denizens of Moonbase Alpha.  They weren’t born into paradise and prosperity.  They don’t possess an endless supply of resources.  They haven’t colonized a thousand worlds. Instead, they are people — just like us — attempting to do their best in a difficult situation.  That is innately heroic, even if the Alphans don’t always live up to the best aspects of their nature.  And in “Voyager’s Return,” Jim Haines’ impulsive violence is ultimately matched by his capacity to forgive and accept Queller.  This is a triumph of the human spirit.

As I’ve written before, Johnny Byrne often penned Space:1999 episodes based on the events and people he saw in the world around him.  In writing “Mission of the Darians” he subtly re-parsed the details of a news story about a soccer team’s struggle to survive in the Andes.  For “Voyager’s Return,” Byrne based Ernst Queller on a very well-known man.

“Dr. Queller was Werner Von Braun, or someone like him,” Byrne informed me. ”He created something he believed was good, but it had catastrophic effects. In that sense, he was like all those scientists who created the V-1 and V-2 rockets…his work was used or wicked purposes.”

Archivist Martin Willey at the impressive Space:1999 site The Catacombs also notes that “Queller was named after Edward Teller, the Hungarian-American scientist known as ‘the father of the H-Bomb.’”

These 20th century men brought terrifying new technologies into the world, and yet Space:1999 evokes sympathy for them as men; as human beings who saw their work perverted.  In “Voyager’s Return,” Queller is a man saddled with incredible guilt and shame, and yet when he has an opportunity for redemption…he takes it.

“It was redemption delayed, but redemption nonetheless,” Byrne told me. 

Again, it’s a point worth belaboring: a perfect future man doesn’t often require redemption…because he doesn’t make mistakes.  Space:1999′s “Voyager’s Return” reveals modern man making a mistake on a galactic scale, and shows how his soul pays the price.

The Sidons make for an interesting and pointed counterpoint to Queller in “Voyager’s Return.”  They have clearly suffered and have been wronged, and yet their need for “justice” blinds them to the fact that they have set out to murder innocent beings; to commit the very crime of genocide that they accuse the Alphans of. 

In contrast, Queller set out to kill no one.  His engine malfunctioned and people died.  The Sidons — enraged by what they perceive as an attack — plan to lash out at the innocent and guilty alike with no mercy, and with no sense of reflection about their deeds.  Where Queller is haunted by his conscience, the Sidon leader, Aarchon is at peace with his decision to commit murder, and hides behind the letter of the law to do so.

Today, “Voyager’s Return” remains very dramatic and affecting, in part because of Johnny Byrne’s sense of our common humanity but also because of his wicked sense of humor.  The episode’s teaser is chilling, and amusing, at least in a macabre fashion.  Voyager One destroys a manned Eagle in flight, and then announces — ignorant of an act of murder — “Greetings, from the people of the planet Earth.”

This is our greeting to the universe?  Fast neutrons spit into space, creating a giant wake of destruction?  The moment represents fine gallows humor, but also strongly transmits Byrne’s thematic point about technology outpacing human evolution…much to our detriment.

“Voyager’s Return” isn’t often listed as a “best” or “favorite” episode of Space:1999, and it’s easy to see why that’s the case.  It does not feature the mind-blowing alien vistas and cultures of such episodes as “Guardian of Piri,” nor the show-stopping special effects of an episode such as “War Games.”  The episode is not as overtly frightening or Gothic as “Dragon’s Domain,” nor a chapter in the series’ larger story arc (involving the mysterious unknown force). 

Instead, with real dedication and intelligence, the episode focuses strongly and simply on issues of the human heart.  On rage.  On desperation.  On shame.  On forgiveness.  These aren’t the emotions of a “fantastic future” so much as they are the emotions of today, and such qualities make the program well-worth remembering, even if the less-imaginative among us insist that Space: 1999 is past its expiration date. 

“Voyager’s Return” proves that it isn’t.

Pop Art: Board Game Edition

The Future Just Got More Fantastic…

From TVShows on DVD: Following their very well-received The Prisoner Blu-ray release last fall, A&E Home Video is preparing a high-def Blu-ray Disc version of Space: 1999 – Season 1. Amazon.com is taking pre-orders now…for a 6-disc set that the box cover describes as “complete, uncut and restored in high definition”.

The Future is Fantastic

Some good news here for long-time admirers of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s mid-1970s space epic, Space:1999!

Powys Media is releasing a number of new, original Space:1999 novels, anthologies and even an audio-book throughout 2010.

Back in 2003, I authored the original novel, Space:1999: The Forsaken (now sold-out and out of print, alas…), but more recently, I also penned a short story called “The Touch of Venus“ for the upcoming Shepherd Moon.

The short story anthology also features works by authors E.C. Tubb, Brian Ball, William Latham, Michael A. Faries, Stephen Jansen, and Emma Thomas.

Check out Powys Media’s web site to see the other series titles being released this year, including the Maya story Born for Adversity by David A. McIntee — with a foreword by actress Catherine Schell — and the Resurrection audio book narrated by the late, great Barry Morse.

Johnny Byrne (1935 – 2008)

“The key to writing anything is to convert weakness to strength. If you look at the heart of Space:1999, that unlikely sounding premise (the moon being blasted out of orbit…) is the core of it. The very thing that is so often mentioned as the weakness of the series — the premise — is in fact the stepping stone into some wondrous territory…”

-author and poet Johnny Byrne, discussing his approach to writing.

It is with a feeling of tremendous sadness and overwhelming loss that I report today the passing of Irish poet, science-fiction author, and film and television screenwriter Johnny Byrne.

Johnny Byrne penned several episodes of Space:1999 (1975-1977) including my all-time favorite episode, “Force of Life.” His other contributions include such amazing and atmospheric stories as “Another Time, Another Place,” “Voyager’s Return,” “The Troubled Spirit,” “End of Eternity,” “Mission of the Darians” and “Testament of Arkadia.”

Byrne’s teleplay, “The Metamorph” (originally “The Biological Soul”) kicked off Year Two and introduced the character of Maya (Catherine Schell) to the sci-fi series. Byrne also penned the final episode of Space:1999, “The Dorcons.” It was that episode – airing in 1977 – that introduced the phrase “Resistance is Futile” to science fiction television.

Johnny Byrne was also the story editor on several Year One episodes of the seventies cult classic, but Johnny always talked down that particular contribution. Which is indicative of his generosity and tenderness of spirit, I believe: he wanted the writers of those other episodes to receive all the accolades, and so refused to talk about his rewrites or additions. In this sense (and in every sense), Byrne was truly a writer’s writer.

Doctor Who fans will remember Johnny Byrne for his serials from the early 1980s including “The Keeper of Traken,” “Warriors of the Deep” and “Arc of Infinity.” He is generally credited for having created the character of Nyssa (a companion of the Peter Davison era). I know from my many conversations with Johnny on the subject that he enjoyed working with John Nathan-Turner, but was never entirely happy with how his particular Who stories turned out (mainly “Warriors of the Deep”), Yet he always laughed about them and joked that Space:1999 had spoiled him in terms of production values and special effects. I will always remember Johnny Byrne describing in glorious detail and good humor his utter horror and disappointment at the moment in “Warriors of the Deep” when a monster called the Myrka was introduced on-screen. It was a lesson for him (and a lesson for me, a fledgling writer…) that the TV show in your head is not always the TV show that ends up being broadcast.

Yet to merely term Johnny a sci-fi writer is likely to do his memory a great disservice, because Byrne was also a remarkable poet, a dedicated dramatist and a stead-fast voice of the counterculture of the 1960s. His varied (and impressive) writing credits include episodes of the horror show, Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected (1980-1982), and he was also story consultant and writer for nearly thirty episodes of the beloved and classic British program, All Creatures Great and Small (1978-1990). Johnny was also the creator (and author of two-dozen episodes) of the British hit series Heartbeat (1992-2008), a medical drama.

Some folks will also remember Johnny for co-writing (with Jenny Fabian) the best-selling cause-celebre of the British rock-n-roll set in the early 1960s, entitled Groupie. It’s easy to forget it today, but it was that book — that chronicle of life during the ascent of David Bowie and his ilk — that actually popularized the term “groupie” in the States and the U.K. I also know that Johnny had worked on a sequel to that watershed book, entitled “Down on Me.” I have hopes it will eventually be published. I read an early draft several years ago and it was brilliant and immersive.

Over the years, I conducted a variety of interviews with Johnny Byrne, and he described his history and background this way:

“Bear in mind,” he told me, “that I came from the avante-garde creative background. I had been in spearhead activities in the counter-culture in the 1960s, and had been involved in the underground press, in experimental poetry, and I wrote science fiction in small magazines. We were breaking molds…”

That Johnny Byrne achieved so much during his career is a testament to his dedication, grit and talent. Born into poverty in Dublin in 1935, Johnny quit his formal education at age thirteen and started a series of difficult jobs. He quit this life at age 21 because he felt he had “made too much money” and then turned his attention entirely to writing. At 22, his new career as an artist began. He proved an immediate success in this field, and by 1972 (when Groupie was a bonafide international hit) was being sought for his remarkable skills as a TV scenarist.

Although we have lost many great artists already this year, including Space:1999′s Barry Morse and versatile actor Roy Scheider, this loss hits me particularly hard because I knew Johnny well. We weren’t just acquaintances…but friends.

Specifically, Byrne’s writing has been an inspiration to me for decades, and the two of us became fast friends in the year 1999 ironically. We kept up a correspondence and dialogue for the last nine years, sometimes hot and heavy, sometimes not so much. So I count Johnny as a mentor and teacher, and his work has inspired me in ways I can hardly enumerate. Some of his influence I am no doubt unconscious of…I just absorbed it through repeated viewing of his episodes. Much of my writing on The House Between is inspired by Johnny’s style, Johnny’s world vision, Johnny’s sense of imagination and his deep understanding of the genre; and what the genre can be.

I respect Johnny and his work so enormously because his teleplays in the genre boasted a strong mystical streak in a hard-tech setting at a time when that was an extremely unpopular (even derided…) move in science fiction circles. Space:1999 aired in the mid-1970s when people were seeking Star Trek’s optimism about the future and a sense of “cosmic brotherhood” where future science could solve all of the worlds’ prroblems.

What insightful viewers found in the work of Johnny Byrne (and also the great Christopher Penfold) was instead a darker, perhaps more realistic view of contemporary humanity. If Star Trek was Camelot in space, then Space:1999 as Johnny Byrne saw it (and in his words…) was “the 1970s wake-up from the hippie dream” of the 1960s.

This world was one of limited resources, not endless surplus. This world was one where outer space was a realm of awe, mystery and terror, not merely a caucus of United Nations separated by subspace radio and the ocean of the starry void. Technological man’s emotional and moral failings were at the heart of Space:1999 and the series – criticized far and wide by people who have never watched it as cheesy or campy or anti-science – was a meditation about our very nature, but one without the romanticism of a Star Trek, or the political correctness of The Next Generation. Dick Adler, the TV critic for The Los Agneles Times suggested Johnny be nominated for an Emmy Award for his writing on Space:1999 and noted that whereas Star Trek was “recklessly liberal” Space:1999 was “more realistic” because it confronted the idea of “limited options for survival.” What is difficult for people to understand is that Space:1999 is also a deeply spiritual, deeply mystical series, only not in the “up with people” manner of Star Trek. Johnny understood that, and dealt well with the criticism that was lobbed at him, and at Space:1999.

“Critics don’t understand the paradigm,” Johnny confided in me once. “They never did. It [Space:1999] isn’t Star Trek. It is a modern day or near future origin story of a people. The Celts, the Aztecs and the Hebrews all have origin stories. But Space:1999 took place in a real time, not in pre-history. It was a futuristic rendering of that old story: of people cast out from their home with no plan, no direction and no control. There are elements of faith, magic and religion in the show, and nobody seems to understand or accept that. In Space:1999, we are witnessing the foundation of a culture.”

“It didn’t fall into the classic mold of science fiction, no question about it. I’m the first to know that. The very premise was dodgy, but you had to suspend disbelief in order to see the possibilities of it. All the professional science fiction writers – unfortunately – did not judge it for what it was. They judged it for what it wasn’t. This was a cardinal error and for that reason, I didn’t take the criticisms to heart. They were not judging what I had done; they were judging what they had hoped to see…and it wasn’t there.”

Johnny’s proud Irish heritage was also critical to his interface with the drama of Space:1999, he always asserted:

“Growing up in Ireland, I didn’t have radio and television, so everything was imagination and history and super(natural)-history, if you will. It wasn’t that we weren’t smart or educated – I knew by heart everything Shakespeare had ever written by the age of 11. But to all of us, there was the real world and the other world.”

“I believe that the further we move out into space, the lesser will be our skepticism about such things,” Johnny said. “We will experience things beyond our comprehension.”

I knew Johnny Byrne both as a writer and as a friend, and since I’ve already discussed here his talent as a writer, I’d also like to comment a bit on him as the latter; as a friend. He was infinitely generous. We first met by correspondence, when he requested a copy of my first book, Exploring Space:1999 in late 1997. You can imagine how intimidated I was, at age twenty-something having my thoughts on the TV series examined by one of the very writers who had contributed so much to the program. And in my typical “where angels fear to tread” manner, I hadn’t pulled my punches when it came to some of Johnny’s shows (particularly “A Matter of Life and Death.”) But when I met Johnny at the Breakaway Convention in Los Angeles in 1999, he was gracious, and actually requested that I sign his copy of my book. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to drop down and say “I’m not worthy.” And I wasn’t. And I am not.

The book (and my conclusions about the series) fostered a number of debates between Johnny Byrne and me (and these were actually videotaped, I think…) and I realized that Johnny was one of those (rare…) writers who could countenance disagreement and criticism politely and civilly. Even when I had slagged the series (and one of his contributions), he steadfastly and without hurt or negativism explained what the genesis of the episode was, and what point he had sought to get across. These debates are ones that I will never forget, in many ways a high-point of my career as a TV critic.

On the night of September 13, 1999 — the night the moon was to go out of orbit by series lore — I remember standing out on the convention hotel balcony with a group of new friends and fans. We all smoked cigars (even Kathryn) to mark the occasion, and we were joined by Johnny Byrne and his adult son, Jasper. It was an amazing experience: to gaze up at the moon in the night sky on that portentous night with one of the voices who had crafted the series’ mythology. Johnny was charismatic too. He could tell a story like nobody else; and he held you with rapt attention as he wove his tapestry. His unmistakable voice, with that Irish accent, was a pleasure to listen to…it was almost like falling into a trance.

Johnny and I kept up our new found friendship with transatlantic phone calls and then we met in person again in 2000 to further our friendship and running dialogue. This time, Johnny introduced me to the amazing writer Christopher Penfold, and also George Bellak, the writer who had first crafted “Breakaway.” To be in the presence of these three authors was something akin to Nirvana for me. Again, I think these debate/interview sessions are recorded either on video or audio tape. Somewhere.

Unfortunately, I fell ill at the 2000 convention and had to retire early one night, but Johnny and my friend Mateo Latosa (whom Johnny had introduced to me…) took out Kathryn for a night on the town. They drank and smoked and caroused and discussed the meaning of life into the wee hours, and it was an experience I know that Kathryn will never forget. She loved (and loves) Johnny every bit as much as I do. Like I said…he was charming and disarming, and to share his presence was a gift.

Johnny was also a career sounding board for me. He sat down and watched Annie Hell, one of my no budget productions and – trying, I’m sure, to find something positive to say – complimented me on my dialogue “flights of fancy.” On the strength (meager as it was…) of that production, Johnny gifted to me one of his stories that had never been produced as a film, entitled “Grimoire.” He told me to write it into a screenplay and we would share the credit if it was ever made. Again – what generosity! On the basis of a no-budget production of questionable value, Johnny sought to inspire and teach me. I still have the script we collaborated on, though – alas – it has never sold. Maybe someday I’ll do it independently, but to this day I still can’t believe that Johnny was so giving an individual that he would just turn over one of his stories to me and tell me “have at it.” He was an artist who supported other artists.

One of Johnny’s greatest Space:1999 episodes was “End of Eternity,” a meditation about immortality. I can think of no better way to comment on Johnny’s legacy than his own words, to me, on that subject, also re-told during an interview:

“If you think about it, human beings are immortal in many ways. In the continuing of family…we’re immortal. We’re immortal in the sense of our work living beyond us. We’re even immortal in terms of memory…when we die, those who came after remember us…”

So today, I ask you to join me in remembering a tremendously gifted artist and writer of the television age. We mourn for Johnny’s family and their loss, but today, let us also contribute to Johnny Byrne’s endurance and legacy — his immortality — in the sense he described above. If you have Space:1999 DVDs at home, pop in “Force of Life” or “Mission of the Darians,” “The Troubled Spirit,” “Testament of Arkadia” or “Another Time, Another Place.” I promise, you’ll be swept away by the vision and poetry of Mr. Johnny Byrne.

If you feel so inclined, please write in to the comments below and let others know how much Byrne’s work on Space:1999, Doctor Who and elsewhere made you feel, or made you think. Johnny would want nothing more than to see that his ideas, his vision of humanity, carried a currency into the next generation.

Johnny Byrne (1935 – 2008)

“The key to writing anything is to convert weakness to strength. If you look at the heart of Space:1999, that unlikely sounding premise (the moon being blasted out of orbit…) is the core of it. The very thing that is so often mentioned as the weakness of the series — the premise — is in fact the stepping stone into some wondrous territory…”

-author and poet Johnny Byrne, discussing his approach to writing.

It is with a feeling of tremendous sadness and overwhelming loss that I report today the passing of Irish poet, science-fiction author, and film and television screenwriter Johnny Byrne.

Johnny Byrne penned several episodes of Space:1999 (1975-1977) including my all-time favorite episode, “Force of Life.” His other contributions include such amazing and atmospheric stories as “Another Time, Another Place,” “Voyager’s Return,” “The Troubled Spirit,” “End of Eternity,” “Mission of the Darians” and “Testament of Arkadia.”

Byrne’s teleplay, “The Metamorph” (originally “The Biological Soul”) kicked off Year Two and introduced the character of Maya (Catherine Schell) to the sci-fi series. Byrne also penned the final episode of Space:1999, “The Dorcons.” It was that episode – airing in 1977 – that introduced the phrase “Resistance is Futile” to science fiction television.

Johnny Byrne was also the story editor on several Year One episodes of the seventies cult classic, but Johnny always talked down that particular contribution. Which is indicative of his generosity and tenderness of spirit, I believe: he wanted the writers of those other episodes to receive all the accolades, and so refused to talk about his rewrites or additions. In this sense (and in every sense), Byrne was truly a writer’s writer.

Doctor Who fans will remember Johnny Byrne for his serials from the early 1980s including “The Keeper of Traken,” “Warriors of the Deep” and “Arc of Infinity.” He is generally credited for having created the character of Nyssa (a companion of the Peter Davison era). I know from my many conversations with Johnny on the subject that he enjoyed working with John Nathan-Turner, but was never entirely happy with how his particular Who stories turned out (mainly “Warriors of the Deep”), Yet he always laughed about them and joked that Space:1999 had spoiled him in terms of production values and special effects. I will always remember Johnny Byrne describing in glorious detail and good humor his utter horror and disappointment at the moment in “Warriors of the Deep” when a monster called the Myrka was introduced on-screen. It was a lesson for him (and a lesson for me, a fledgling writer…) that the TV show in your head is not always the TV show that ends up being broadcast.

Yet to merely term Johnny a sci-fi writer is likely to do his memory a great disservice, because Byrne was also a remarkable poet, a dedicated dramatist and a stead-fast voice of the counterculture of the 1960s. His varied (and impressive) writing credits include episodes of the horror show, Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected (1980-1982), and he was also story consultant and writer for nearly thirty episodes of the beloved and classic British program, All Creatures Great and Small (1978-1990). Johnny was also the creator (and author of two-dozen episodes) of the British hit series Heartbeat (1992-2008), a medical drama.

Some folks will also remember Johnny for co-writing (with Jenny Fabian) the best-selling cause-celebre of the British rock-n-roll set in the early 1960s, entitled Groupie. It’s easy to forget it today, but it was that book — that chronicle of life during the ascent of David Bowie and his ilk — that actually popularized the term “groupie” in the States and the U.K. I also know that Johnny had worked on a sequel to that watershed book, entitled “Down on Me.” I have hopes it will eventually be published. I read an early draft several years ago and it was brilliant and immersive.

Over the years, I conducted a variety of interviews with Johnny Byrne, and he described his history and background this way:

“Bear in mind,” he told me, “that I came from the avante-garde creative background. I had been in spearhead activities in the counter-culture in the 1960s, and had been involved in the underground press, in experimental poetry, and I wrote science fiction in small magazines. We were breaking molds…”

That Johnny Byrne achieved so much during his career is a testament to his dedication, grit and talent. Born into poverty in Dublin in 1935, Johnny quit his formal education at age thirteen and started a series of difficult jobs. He quit this life at age 21 because he felt he had “made too much money” and then turned his attention entirely to writing. At 22, his new career as an artist began. He proved an immediate success in this field, and by 1972 (when Groupie was a bonafide international hit) was being sought for his remarkable skills as a TV scenarist.

Although we have lost many great artists already this year, including Space:1999′s Barry Morse and versatile actor Roy Scheider, this loss hits me particularly hard because I knew Johnny well. We weren’t just acquaintances…but friends.

Specifically, Byrne’s writing has been an inspiration to me for decades, and the two of us became fast friends in the year 1999 ironically. We kept up a correspondence and dialogue for the last nine years, sometimes hot and heavy, sometimes not so much. So I count Johnny as a mentor and teacher, and his work has inspired me in ways I can hardly enumerate. Some of his influence I am no doubt unconscious of…I just absorbed it through repeated viewing of his episodes. Much of my writing on The House Between is inspired by Johnny’s style, Johnny’s world vision, Johnny’s sense of imagination and his deep understanding of the genre; and what the genre can be.

I respect Johnny and his work so enormously because his teleplays in the genre boasted a strong mystical streak in a hard-tech setting at a time when that was an extremely unpopular (even derided…) move in science fiction circles. Space:1999 aired in the mid-1970s when people were seeking Star Trek’s optimism about the future and a sense of “cosmic brotherhood” where future science could solve all of the worlds’ prroblems.

What insightful viewers found in the work of Johnny Byrne (and also the great Christopher Penfold) was instead a darker, perhaps more realistic view of contemporary humanity. If Star Trek was Camelot in space, then Space:1999 as Johnny Byrne saw it (and in his words…) was “the 1970s wake-up from the hippie dream” of the 1960s.

This world was one of limited resources, not endless surplus. This world was one where outer space was a realm of awe, mystery and terror, not merely a caucus of United Nations separated by subspace radio and the ocean of the starry void. Technological man’s emotional and moral failings were at the heart of Space:1999 and the series – criticized far and wide by people who have never watched it as cheesy or campy or anti-science – was a meditation about our very nature, but one without the romanticism of a Star Trek, or the political correctness of The Next Generation. Dick Adler, the TV critic for The Los Agneles Times suggested Johnny be nominated for an Emmy Award for his writing on Space:1999 and noted that whereas Star Trek was “recklessly liberal” Space:1999 was “more realistic” because it confronted the idea of “limited options for survival.” What is difficult for people to understand is that Space:1999 is also a deeply spiritual, deeply mystical series, only not in the “up with people” manner of Star Trek. Johnny understood that, and dealt well with the criticism that was lobbed at him, and at Space:1999.

“Critics don’t understand the paradigm,” Johnny confided in me once. “They never did. It [Space:1999] isn’t Star Trek. It is a modern day or near future origin story of a people. The Celts, the Aztecs and the Hebrews all have origin stories. But Space:1999 took place in a real time, not in pre-history. It was a futuristic rendering of that old story: of people cast out from their home with no plan, no direction and no control. There are elements of faith, magic and religion in the show, and nobody seems to understand or accept that. In Space:1999, we are witnessing the foundation of a culture.”

“It didn’t fall into the classic mold of science fiction, no question about it. I’m the first to know that. The very premise was dodgy, but you had to suspend disbelief in order to see the possibilities of it. All the professional science fiction writers – unfortunately – did not judge it for what it was. They judged it for what it wasn’t. This was a cardinal error and for that reason, I didn’t take the criticisms to heart. They were not judging what I had done; they were judging what they had hoped to see…and it wasn’t there.”

Johnny’s proud Irish heritage was also critical to his interface with the drama of Space:1999, he always asserted:

“Growing up in Ireland, I didn’t have radio and television, so everything was imagination and history and super(natural)-history, if you will. It wasn’t that we weren’t smart or educated – I knew by heart everything Shakespeare had ever written by the age of 11. But to all of us, there was the real world and the other world.”

“I believe that the further we move out into space, the lesser will be our skepticism about such things,” Johnny said. “We will experience things beyond our comprehension.”

I knew Johnny Byrne both as a writer and as a friend, and since I’ve already discussed here his talent as a writer, I’d also like to comment a bit on him as the latter; as a friend. He was infinitely generous. We first met by correspondence, when he requested a copy of my first book, Exploring Space:1999 in late 1997. You can imagine how intimidated I was, at age twenty-something having my thoughts on the TV series examined by one of the very writers who had contributed so much to the program. And in my typical “where angels fear to tread” manner, I hadn’t pulled my punches when it came to some of Johnny’s shows (particularly “A Matter of Life and Death.”) But when I met Johnny at the Breakaway Convention in Los Angeles in 1999, he was gracious, and actually requested that I sign his copy of my book. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to drop down and say “I’m not worthy.” And I wasn’t. And I am not.

The book (and my conclusions about the series) fostered a number of debates between Johnny Byrne and me (and these were actually videotaped, I think…) and I realized that Johnny was one of those (rare…) writers who could countenance disagreement and criticism politely and civilly. Even when I had slagged the series (and one of his contributions), he steadfastly and without hurt or negativism explained what the genesis of the episode was, and what point he had sought to get across. These debates are ones that I will never forget, in many ways a high-point of my career as a TV critic.

On the night of September 13, 1999 — the night the moon was to go out of orbit by series lore — I remember standing out on the convention hotel balcony with a group of new friends and fans. We all smoked cigars (even Kathryn) to mark the occasion, and we were joined by Johnny Byrne and his adult son, Jasper. It was an amazing experience: to gaze up at the moon in the night sky on that portentous night with one of the voices who had crafted the series’ mythology. Johnny was charismatic too. He could tell a story like nobody else; and he held you with rapt attention as he wove his tapestry. His unmistakable voice, with that Irish accent, was a pleasure to listen to…it was almost like falling into a trance.

Johnny and I kept up our new found friendship with transatlantic phone calls and then we met in person again in 2000 to further our friendship and running dialogue. This time, Johnny introduced me to the amazing writer Christopher Penfold, and also George Bellak, the writer who had first crafted “Breakaway.” To be in the presence of these three authors was something akin to Nirvana for me. Again, I think these debate/interview sessions are recorded either on video or audio tape. Somewhere.

Unfortunately, I fell ill at the 2000 convention and had to retire early one night, but Johnny and my friend Mateo Latosa (whom Johnny had introduced to me…) took out Kathryn for a night on the town. They drank and smoked and caroused and discussed the meaning of life into the wee hours, and it was an experience I know that Kathryn will never forget. She loved (and loves) Johnny every bit as much as I do. Like I said…he was charming and disarming, and to share his presence was a gift.

Johnny was also a career sounding board for me. He sat down and watched Annie Hell, one of my no budget productions and – trying, I’m sure, to find something positive to say – complimented me on my dialogue “flights of fancy.” On the strength (meager as it was…) of that production, Johnny gifted to me one of his stories that had never been produced as a film, entitled “Grimoire.” He told me to write it into a screenplay and we would share the credit if it was ever made. Again – what generosity! On the basis of a no-budget production of questionable value, Johnny sought to inspire and teach me. I still have the script we collaborated on, though – alas – it has never sold. Maybe someday I’ll do it independently, but to this day I still can’t believe that Johnny was so giving an individual that he would just turn over one of his stories to me and tell me “have at it.” He was an artist who supported other artists.

One of Johnny’s greatest Space:1999 episodes was “End of Eternity,” a meditation about immortality. I can think of no better way to comment on Johnny’s legacy than his own words, to me, on that subject, also re-told during an interview:

“If you think about it, human beings are immortal in many ways. In the continuing of family…we’re immortal. We’re immortal in the sense of our work living beyond us. We’re even immortal in terms of memory…when we die, those who came after remember us…”

So today, I ask you to join me in remembering a tremendously gifted artist and writer of the television age. We mourn for Johnny’s family and their loss, but today, let us also contribute to Johnny Byrne’s endurance and legacy — his immortality — in the sense he described above. If you have Space:1999 DVDs at home, pop in “Force of Life” or “Mission of the Darians,” “The Troubled Spirit,” “Testament of Arkadia” or “Another Time, Another Place.” I promise, you’ll be swept away by the vision and poetry of Mr. Johnny Byrne.

If you feel so inclined, please write in to the comments below and let others know how much Byrne’s work on Space:1999, Doctor Who and elsewhere made you feel, or made you think. Johnny would want nothing more than to see that his ideas, his vision of humanity, carried a currency into the next generation.