“Guardian of Piri”

An alien supercomputer and its voluptuous android servant offer the Alphans an existence that seems too good to be true. Writer: Christopher Penfold Director: Charles Crichton Guest Cast Catherine Schell as the Servant of the Guardian

Back in the original Alpha Chronicle days, when I watched this show as a teenager, I was not terribly impressed with this episode. I thought the plot was too Star Trek and the Piri set looked totally phony. The plot amalgamates two episodes of Star Trek: “This Side of Paradise” and “Return of the Archons.” The latter deals with Landru, a computer which provides its world a perfect existence, but this episode takes the concept a step further as Koenig realizes that the perfect existence provided by the Guardian has already driven the Pirians into extinction. And I understand now that the surface of Piri, a machine’s vision of perfection, was supposed to look artificial. Catherine Schell, who played the Servant of the Guardian, would return as a regular in Year Two as the shape-shifting resident alien Maya. Her performance would save that role from poor concept and bad writing.

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