Episode Guide

Year 2 - Episode 1

• First draft script titled The Biological Soul, featured Year One cast
• Second draft script titled The Biological Computer, 22 December 1975 (introduced Maya)
• Revised draft script titled The Biological Computer, 5th January 1976
• Shooting script titled The Metamorph, 19 January 1976
• Filming began on Monday 26th January 1976, and was scheduled for 13 days, but overran to 16 days, finishing on Monday 16th February 1976.
• The first lion employed was uncontrollable. The second was also uncooperative- it had toothache. The third was tame, but too friendly: it put its paws on the still photographers' shoulders. (see also story in The Making Of Space:1999 by Tim Heald p29)
• Edited into the 1982 compilation movie Cosmic Princess

Cast

Sets

Int. Command Centre
Int. Medical Centre
Int. Weapons Section
Int. Alpha Corridor
Int. Travel Tube
Int. Eagle Pilot Section
Int. Eagle Passenger Section

Int. Grove Of Psyche
Int. Corridor outside Grove
Int. Brain Transfer Unit
Int. Cave
Int. Cell Area
Int. Psychon corridor

• The Psychon ship was built in two scales, 122cm and 66cm. The larger model is built around the tank of a Hoovermatic vacuum cleaner and was built as an ad hoc model after Year 1 by Martin Bower.
• The graveyard reused a number of ships from other episodes. Note only two are bigger than the 44" Eagles, and some are tiny (for instance, the Altares probe in the foreground). However, the graveyard is only seen in three brief scenes and is shrouded in mist, so the scale problems are not too obvious. The ship models are:
  • Shuttle from Collision Course (upside down)
  • Sidon ship from Voyager's Return (upside down)
  • Front end of the bomber from Alpha Child and War Games
  • Front end of Deltan ship from The Last Enemy
  • The dragon ship from Dragon's Domain
  • One other graveyard ship from Dragon's Domain
  • Two Alphan mines from Collision Course (two different scales!)
  • Two Ariel capsules from The Last Sunset
  • Altares probe from Into Infinity
  • Another small spaceship.
• In addition, a larger scale Eagle leg (69cm x 63cm) was built by Martin Bower for one shot of the graveyard.
• The rear motors of the first Eagle model have been altered to fire freon gas. Both the first and second 44" Eagles serve as the booster Eagle for different shots.
• Shots of an evading Eagle were reused from The Last Sunset (also seen in War Games and The Infernal Machine).
• The new Moonbase Alpha laser battery appears. Also note the outbuildings nearby: one is the Breakaway roundhouse, another is the Altares probe (also seen in the planet graveyard, from Into Infinity). The laser batteries also appear in The Exiles, Seed of Destruction, The Beta Cloud, The Bringers of Wonder, and The Dorcons.
• A revolving radar dish is used for one scene (it is actually a Year 1 gravity tower, modified originally as an antenna for the Altares from Into Infinity).
• The volcanoes were 1.5m high, made from a hollow frame of chicken wire covered in burlap and splashed with quick setting polyurethane foam, with peat moss as boulders. The lava was red paint with polystyrene chips, with much dry ice and titanium tetrachlorine providing the smoke.
• The remnants of the supernova from Into Infinity are seen. They also appear in the Year 2 opening titles and The Beta Cloud. Thanks to Marcus Lindroos.

• The geology readout comprises: Manganese trisilicate (MnSiO8, a valid mineral), Magnesium Phosphate (a rare chemical), Lithium (an element that doesn't occur on its own, but can occur for instance in clays), titanium (another element that doesn't occur by itself, but in minerals such as rutile and illmenite, found in magmatic intrusions that have undergone segregation, such as gabbros and diorites).
• Titanium is not rare, it comprises 0.6% of the Earth's crust and is more common on the Moon. Refining it is difficult- the dioxide is reduced in an electric furnace. Due to its high strength, low density and corrosion resistance, it is a common structural material in ships, aircraft and spacecraft (and is named as a constituent of the Eagles in Space Brain). As titanium dioxide it is used as a white pigment in paint. The highly toxic titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) was used to make the wispy smoke in this episode's SFX scenes. The only use that might be referred to as "life support systems" is as prosthetic devices. Perhaps the space warp severely depleted Alpha's stock of artificial limbs.

Alpha Personnel:

• There is no explanation of any of the changes since Year One: Command Centre, new uniforms, the appearance of Tony and the disappearance of Bergman, Morrow and Kano.

Alpha Technology:

• The fixed laser cannons are seen. They are also in Seed Of Destruction, The Beta Cloud, Bringers Of Wonder part 1 and The Dorcons.
• The laser rifle is seen. It is also used in War Games, The Infernal Machine, Dragon's Domain and is often seen in other episodes.
• Helena uses the Alpha Log Recorder (a bulky computer on its own trolley, which seems to function purely as a dictating machine).

Maya transformations:

Lion, Koenig (not a complete transformation in the final cut), alsatian dog, turtle dove, kestrel, "gorilla". In the original cut, an orange tree and a silver tree. Note that Maya transforms directly from the dog into the gorilla.

An earlier cut of this episode was shown in US previews in August 1976. The noticeable differences to the final episode were:

• The incidental music was slightly different
• In the titles, Koenig fires a yellow beam instead of a green beam
• In the titles and rest of the episode, Maya's transformations use a different close up of her eyes, with smaller pupils. The animal emerging from it shakes as if filmed by a hand-held camera.
• Scene 45. In the final cut a lion transforms into Maya. She then starts to form into Koenig "Would I make a good Alphan, father?". In the first cut Maya transforms straight from a lion into an orange tree, then into a silver tree. She completes her transformation into Koenig.

• The original scripted date for the episode was 108 days (on screen it is 342 days).
• Freiberger probably picked the name Maya from the Central American Indian civilisation. By coincidence (definitely not known to him) the name is also a Sanskrit word meaning wizardry or illusion, and a concept in Hindu philosophy and religion of divine powers used to make humans believe in illusions, and by extension, the illusory world of the senses.
• There is also a Maia in Greek mythology, a mountain-nymph in Arkadia who was the mother of Hermes.
• Mentor in Homer's Odyssey was a friend of Odysseus and guardian of his household; hence the modern form of a wise adviser.
• Psyche in Greek mythology was the mortal wife of Eros; in Roman mythology the lover of Cupid. She is regarded as a personification of the human soul.
• Maya's role is a more direct replay of Pocahontas (real name Matoaka, later Rebecca Rolfe, c.1595-1617). She was the daughter of Powhatan, king of the Algonquian Indian tribes in Virginia, North America. As a twelve year old girl, she stopped her father from killing the British settlers, in particular their leader, Captain John Smith. She married John Rolfe, another of the settlers, in 1612, and returned with him to England in 1616, where she died.
• Maya is apparently unaware that Mentor is draining the minds of aliens ("My father would harm no one."). Yet she is transformed into a lion when Koenig wakes up, which obviously alarms him. She doesn't seem to think anything is untoward about his being unconscious, or being in a cell with a forcefield ("Oh, I'm sorry, I should have warned you. About the forcefield."). Yet she asks him "Why are you so unfriendly?" Thanks to Thomas.
• Changing into animals is scientifically dubious, but has a long history in myth and fiction, including Greek gods, werewolves, vampires and characters in Kafka, T.H. White's The Sword in the Stone, Terminator 2, Star Trek Deep Space Nine and the Harry Potter books (the Animagi). Koenig holding the rapidly changing Maya during the Psychon fire echoes a tale in Homer's Odyssey: Menelaus tells how he captured and held the god Proteus, despite the god transforming into various forms including a lion, a serpent and a tree.
• The script has echoes of the first series (Mentor's "I only wanted to do good" recalls the hubris of Queller and other episodes) but has a strong humanist theme of the second series ("We'll determine our own destinies!")
• Unexplained 1: are the overseers other Psychons, mind-drained aliens or rock transformations?
• Unexplained 2: who issued the scream that leads the Alphans to find Torens?
• When Maya enters the Grove Of Psyche after Torens's brain has been drained, she seems to stumble slightly as she steps through the door (this shot). Thanks to Thomas.
• Lew Picard was Louis Picard in the French version of this episode