The Moon approaches a frozen planet which they consider barely suitable for habitation. On the planet Jack Tanner foresees the coming of the Moon in a vision. He tells the apparent leader of the colony, Doctor Cabot Rowland, who brings it up on their sensors.
	He cannot believe that is Earth's Moon,until he sees it. Hoping that the Moonbase and it's personnel have survived whatever could have cast the Moon this deep into space, he tries to contact Main Mission. He invites the people of Alpha to join him in his "lost paradise" on
Ultima Thule, while Jack tries to warn them to stay away. John, Helena, Victor, and Alan take an Eagle down to investigate. They land as close to the source of the signal as they can, and go in search of the "Thulians". They get lost in a blizzard and decide to head
	back to the Eagle. On the way, they get separated and can't find their way back. All but Alan, who ultimately manages to find the ship, are rescued by the Thulians. They are taken to the caves where the Thulians live and are revived. Dr. Rowland explains that his people
are the survivers of the Uranus Probe lost in 1986. Their ship passed through a space warp that not only cast them across space, but back in time as well. They have been alive for 880 years on Thule! He wants to understand the secret of immortality, and for that he needs
	the mortal Alphans to make a comparison for his final experiment. With that knowledge they will travel the stars forever "as Gods" in the Phoenix which they are building from the remnants of the Uranus Probe. What he neglects to mention, is that several of the crew were left brain-dead by some of his
experiments in the past. Jack shows these "revered ones" to Koenig, to warn him of the dangers. He explains that he, too, was among the "honored dead" but managed to regain most of his faculties, along with the bonus of psychic abilities which allow him to see the future.
	Rowland suggests that the Alphans be given the choice to join him on his quest. Helena and Victor support this notion, as they are excited to unravel the mystery that would conquer death. Koenig tells them that Alpha connot survive with a partial crew, but he will allow a
vote, they either all stay on Alpha or go to Thule. This satisfies everyone, but Dr. Rowland wants to go to Alpha to state his case, and Freda wants to go for counterpoint. Jack tells Freda that she should not go and neither should Dr. Rowland. Koenig tells Freda that he will state her case in her stead. They leave
	Thule for Alpha. Dr. Rowland is certain that the Alphans will side with him. In the cockpit, Koenig asks Alan if he can count on his support. Alan doesn't understand what what Koenig has against the prospect. They hear a scream form the passenger module and rush
back to investigate. Helena is sitting next to the corpse of Dr. Rowland and he is still gripping her hand. It turns out that immortality on Ultime Thule has a price: you can never leave! As Alpha starts to pass out of range of Thule, they recieve a message from Jack
	Tanner. The Thulians are going to give up the quest to understand their immortality, and focus on restoring the "revered ones". Koenig wishes them luck and tells them that wherever they go the fate of the Thulians haunt them til the end. ...if there is an end.

This Episode

Random Thoughts

This episode has an almost Shakespearean quality, especially the dialogue delivered by John Shrapnel as Jack Tanner. His performance was both amazing and disturbing as he would pass from madness to lucidity and back again.

I thought Mary Miller was terrific as Freda. She had a tremendous amount of presence for a supporting character, and was both sensitive and strong as the situation required. I wanted to include a picture of her here as she does not appear in any of the pictures from the synopsis of the show.

Brian Blessed was wonderful as Dr. Cabot Rowland, the seemingly sane doctor, with the vanity to think he could discover the secret of immortality.

I found it a little odd that Koenig was the only Alphan put off by Rowland's delusions of God-hood. I can understand Helena's fascination with conquering death, as a doctor, but Victor's philosophical background, makes it a little harder to understand his willingness to go along, short of a blind pursuit of knowledge.

One of the more impressive aspects of this episode (actually the first season of Space: 1999 as a whole), was the size and grandeur of the sets. For example, the Thulian Cave sets, in particular, the cavernous main living area pictured below.

I mentioned last month the first appearance of Arra's dais as a set piece that we see used again periodically throughout the series. In Death's Other Dominion, we see a glass chamber that will appear occasionally over the run of the show.

A few episodes that come to mind are Mission of the Darians (as the booth where people are reduced to proteins for the Darians food-bank) and A Matter of Balance (as the matter/anti-matter transferral chamber). The door from the chamber appears in Journey to Where (as part of the matter transference chamber).

Wallpaper

Sound Files