I watched this show as a kid, too. But I thought it was stupid. The moon, blasted out of orbit by the explosion of a nuclear waste dump but somehow not blown to smithereens. It’s traveling so fast that there is no hope of rescue from earth. I think they left the solar system in the first 15 minutes after the explosion, so faster than light. Then, they drift through space with the worst luck in the universe, running into disaster after disaster like a pinball hitting every single bumper on the table. And the Eagle spaceships were the dumbest of them all. They stopped when they ran out of fuel. I think sometimes they even rocked back and forth once they’d lost power. Oh no! We’ve been blasted in to a part of the universe where conservation of motion doesn’t exist, but somehow the Moon kept going and our stupid spaceships didn’t…
And don’t get me started on Barbra Bain. She acted in every episode as if she was reading the script off a teleprompter for the first time.
But it was sci-fi, and way cooler than a lot of other stuff on at the time, and at the time lots of amazing ideas… though often bit ridiculous, and like most shows, even today, ignore physics. If it was all hunky dory & no new disasters each week, there wouldn’t be a reason to watch it, right? (like nearly any program–something has to happen every week to create drama and interest and has problems to solve…). But it wasn’t as cool as the UFO series!
I had to look to see if there were any tv shows I watched during my highschool years, which was the time this show aired. I was in boarding school. I read and played sports every free moment and learned to play the guitar. I didn’t watch tv at that time. Came home on weekends and summer and realized how empty my life was when I was home on a Friday night and watched Dukes of Hazzard. Sad. But worst was Saturday night. Love Boat and Fantasy Island. Sad. Sad.
I bet I would have love this show. I think I was just a few years too young. I think the absurdity of old science fiction TV shows is what makes them so fun to watch.
My husband was/is a fan! Not having watched it myself, I was pretty proud when I saw a couple at a con, successfully identified them as Space 1999 cosplayers, and pointed them out. Really nice-looking model – immediately recognizeable, and I love the multiple axes and angles of layered material.
I loved Space 1999! I used to watch reruns in the 80s when I was a kid. Even then, I thought the entire premise of the show made no sense at all. I forced my wife to watch them all again with me recently, and somehow we’re still married.
kinda hoping for a bucket. it was amazing that they could have so much stuff destroyed with no apparent way to rebuild it and yet have more ships handy immediately.
kind of like the show " the 100", with rubber gloves over 100 years later. LOL ain’t gonna happen folks
This bothered me until I realized that every story takes place in its own universe. In that universe vacuum tubes play a much larger role than in ours.
Seriously though, while the hit to miss is not that good the things he got right he really got right.
Cell phones, water beds, waldos… And yes, waldos get their name from his description.
And yes, I get mad when rocket scientists don’t call a Clarke orbit a Clarke orbit!
All remote manipulators are widely known as waldos such as medical tools, remote arms for handling radio active materials, etc. Named after a book called Waldo and Company.
I forced my wife to watch them all again with me recently, and somehow we’re still married.