Episode Guide

Year 2 - Episode 16

• Amended shooting script dated 20th July 1976. Revised 30th July.
• Shooting schedule dated 30th July 1976, revised shooting schedule dated 16th August. Filmed 6th August- 24th August 1976
• A "Double Up Koenig" script, filmed simultaneously with Space Warp
• Martin Landau's wrote comments on the script as follows: I'm not going out on a limb for this show because I'm not in accord with what you're doing as a result...etc
  I don't think I even want to do the promos - I don't want to push the show anymore as I have in the past. It's not my idea of what the show should be. It's embarrassing to me if I am not the star of it and in the way I feel it should be. This year should be more important to it not less important to it....I might as well work less hard in all of them

Cast

Sets

Int. Command Centre
Int. Hydroponics
Int. Shermeen's Quarters
Int. Tony's Quarters
Int. Alpha Corridor
Int. Travel Tube
Int. Eagle Pilot Section
Int. Eagle Passenger Section
Int. Equipment Room (revamp travel tube reception) with attached Nuclear Generator Room (revamp travel tube)

Ext. Planet Surface (location)
Ext. Planet Surface- Temple Clearing (location)
Int. Temple (studio)

• Sunim is represented by a blue monochrome version of an Apollo 11 photograph of Earth. It was taken on 16th July 1969, about 10,000 nautical miles from Earth, and shows portions of North and Central America under swirling clouds. The picture is also used as Planet D in Brian The Brain. Thanks to Marcus Lindroos.

• Antimatter is also used as a plot device in Matter Of Life And Death. Antimatter is not a parallel dimension that is transparent to ours. The explanation that Koenig and Maya give Tony is wrong in every respect.
• Feynmann in 1944 suggested time was reversed for antimatter, a theory that became popular in pulp science fiction but was found in the 1950s to be wrong.
• Logically, if time is reversed, Vindrus would know the Alphans would defeat him before the episode started.
• The planet is said to be an illusion, but the Alphans breathe the air and walk in gravity. How does an illusion reflect the stun beams?
• This is another planet with a constant even surface temperature- this time 78 (25 C). It would be impossible to evenly warm a planet surface.
• Maya strides through the forest declaring "no life forms" despite being surrounded by vegetation.
• There are no animals. The forest seen could not exist without animals mixing the soil, pollinating flowers, dispersing seeds and nutrient cycling.
• The episode establishes there must be a balance between antimatter and matter. The ending, in which Koenig states only matter was destroyed, not antimatter, contradicts this.
• Why do humans have to be exchanged to balance matter? As antimatter is on the subatomic level (protons- antiprotons; electrons-positrons) Vindrus could have exchanged a matter rock for each antimatter person he brought across.
• The stun ray is called "an electrical beam". Lasers are not electrical beams. However, stun guns being developed in 1999 used a laser to ionise a path through the air, then discharged electricity along the path to disable the victim. This technology closely matches the capabilities of the Alphan stun gun.
• "They depict the whole evolutionary process of man. Emerging from a sea of primeval slime, then advancing through all stages of development...Simian, Australopithecus, Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon, to modern." The illustrations skip a massive amount from jellyfish to ape-man. Simian means ape; an ape species living about 15-20 million years ago was an ancestor of the hominid species which include humans. The australopithecines included several species of hominids between 4 and 1 million years ago, and were bipedal. About 2 million years ago homo erectus appeared and spread throughout Africa, Asia and Europe, with more sophisticated tools and using fire. Homo sapiens, modern humans, first appeared 230,000 years ago with the Neanderthal, now generally regarded as a subspecies of modern humans rather than a separate species; they co-existed with modern humans who appeared about 120,000 years ago and probably interbred. Cro Magnon culture appeared about 40,000 years ago with a wide range of tools and art work. The Alphans regress to Cro Magnon society in The Full Circle

Alpha Technology:

• We see a mobile nuclear generator (see props)
• Shermeen is said to have been collecting specimens from every planet they've visited. Strangely we have never seen her amongst the landing parties before.
• A propogatoscope, with the unusual accessory of a proton bombarder
• Different Hydroponics Units are seen in The Troubled Spirit and The Beta Cloud

Props:

• Maya uses the Eagle remote control to operate the Big Screen video shots.
• The space warp scanner from Space Warp is in the Eagle 1 pod.
• Taybor's pyramid plan from The Taybor appears in the equipment room
• A red version of an Ariel capsule from The Last Sunset appears in the equipment room (it is also seen in Journey To Where)
• The gun Vindrus uses is a Darian gun from Mission Of The Darians
• The obelisks on the planet surface are seen again in Devil's Planet and in the throne room in The Dorcons
• The propogatoscope also appears in Weapons Section in The Beta Cloud
• The mobile nuclear generator is also seen in The Lambda Factor and the Pigs In Space segments of The Muppet Show!