Episode Guide

Year 2 - Episode 20

• Shooting script titled The Mutiny dated 16th September 1976. Filmed 18th October- 30th October 1976
• Ken Hutchison is incorrectly credited as Ken Hutchinson

Cast

Sets

Int. Command Centre
Int. Medical Centre
Int. Alpha Corridor
Int. Travel Tube
Int. Recreation Centre
Int. Computer Room
Int. Elevator
Int. Eagle Pilot Section
Int. Eagle Passenger Section
Ext. Moon Surface (Area B7)

The Recreation Center set has windows to the surface, unusual in a Year Two set. It was seen in the previous episode, The Lambda Factor

• The crashed Eagle had a special break-apart leg pod made.
• The episode shows massed Eagles in space, created by repeated exposures of the same model.
• The cloud is an air-brushed painting.

• "Internal energy. Electrical storms... rain, sleet.. an atmosphere." "There is a planet, but it's in the earliest stages of formation. There's no green grass, no rivers, no trees. We've arrived fifty million years too early." Tora appears to be protoplanet, still hidden in the cloud that formed it (normally when the parent sun ignites, its stellar winds sweep these gases away). The planet is also producing a secondary atmosphere from volcanoes, creating carbon dioxide. The stage is equivalent to the Earth's early PreCambrian period, about 5 billion years ago (50 million years ago was the Eocene, in which modern mammals were dominant).
• "If Tora's atmosphere gets into our recycling system, our air will be lethal." The Moonbase recycling system should be closed and well sealed as they are in space (that's what airlocks are for). The danger is more likely to be the physical damage of colliding with the cloud.
• "I have a reading on the damage. Pressure hull pierced. Transmission silenced." Obviously some Eagle systems are transmitting this information to Sandra, so she must mean voice transmissions.
• The psychology is suspect: saturation does not lead to boredom, and pictures of the countryside are hardly a substitute for being outside.
• Greensickness is an old name for what is now called chlorosis. It is an iron-deficiency anemia, primarily of young women, characterized by a greenish-yellow discoloration of the skin. In archaic medicine, it was thought to be caused by sexual frustration among unmarried girls (in Romeo and Juliet, Juliet is told "Out you greensickness carrion! Out, you baggage!").
• When Maya changes into a plant to create oxygen, her plant form is using the chloroplasts in the leaves to transform light energy into oxygen (photosynthesis). Oxygen is actually created by a water-oxidation process, not from carbon dioxide (although in high carbon dixoide, photorespiration will occur). Using plant oxygen production to offset human oxygen consumption (and carbon dioxide production) in a closed ecological system is not simple. A more practical strategy would have been open the spacesuit air tanks.

Alpha Personnel:

Alpha Technology:

• Area B7 is explained in the script to be one of the first nuclear waste dumping sites. It is close enough to the Moonbase to drive to in a moonbuggy.
• Launch pads 6, 8 and 9 are mentioned. Only 5 are visible around the base, although we know from The Exiles there are more in outlying locations.
• The laser blaster ("hand held armour piercing laser") is seen. It is also used in Alpha Child and The Last Sunset and is often seen on Eagle weapons racks.
• For the only time in the series (apart from showing Red Alert), the Command Center desk screens show a colour image, not black and white
• Koenig wears a silver Anti-Radiation suit. This kind of suit is not worn in the nuclear waste disposal areas in either Breakaway or Bringers Of Wonder
• We see an evacuation of Moonbase Alpha. Like Another Time, Another Place, desks are removed as well - but not Koenig's desk or the Moonbase computers (one desk and the computers were also left behind in the evacuation in War Games).

Eagles:

• The Eagle laser turret is used. It is also seen in The A B Chrysalis and Devil's Planet. The laser control is identical to the Research Station laser control in The Exiles.
• The forward view screen is seen. It is also seen in The A B Chrysalis, Seed Of Destruction, Space Warp, Bringers Of Wonder part 2 and Devil's Planet.
• One hangar scene is an unused shot from Space Warp. A booster pod is visible.

Maya transformations:

• Maya changes into a plant for the entire three hour trip. This contradicts Rules Of Luton and Space Warp where she can only remain in one form for an hour.

• Maya says "We'll be swallowed by red dust and toxic gases." (sc 115) Tora is obviously yellow-orange in colour. The script described Tora as red, but the line was not changed at filming.
• Wires are seen on the Eagle model in several planet shots, due to the light sky colour. Thanks to James.C

• The title is obscure: the spectre is the habitable planet that the mutineers see in their astroprediction (seance). The title suggests instead a ghost story. The title is also in British English (the American spelling would be "Seance Specter").
• In the script Sanderson is named Sandor. It is never explained what surface exploration teams are looking for or why they have to be isolated for so long.
• The models pictured were scripted to be posing by a stream or an oak, to demonstrate they were nature photos.
• In the script, Maya turns into one such girl (a black model named Venicia Day). Tony is irritated when Alan comes on to her. The scene was shot (see pictures) but cut from the completed episode.