On the surface this is an obvious ‘man versus Machine’ story similar to others before, notably ‘Guardian of Piri’, not least because in both cases the central machine is not alone – the Guardian has its Servant, while Gwent has Companion. While one of the peripheral subjects explored here is vanity, ‘The Infernal Machine’ makes a statement about its central theme of isolation as Gwent says, ‘None of us exists except in relation to others. Alone we cease to have personalities; isolation … Do you understand?’ Isolation and loneliness are also exemplified by the vast empty spaces within Gwent and are personified by Companion – alone in deep space with only a machine version of himself as company. Isolation here is shown to be a danger of immortality – Companion programmed his entire personality into the ageless body of Gwent, only to discover that the immortal and sentient Gwent requires companionship and cannot live alone. Ultimately, this version of immortality is unsustainable and ends in suicide. Once more (as in ‘Guardian of Piri’, ‘Death’s other Dominion’, ‘End of Eternity’ and the upcoming ‘Mission of the Darians’) the writers raise a doubt regarding the value of the pursuit of eternal life. Suspenseful to the end and visually beautiful, ‘The Infernal Machine’ is undoubtedly the most emotional, touching and gently endearing segment of the series.
Rating: 9/10
1.22
MISSION OF THE DARIANS
Screenplay by Johnny Byrne
Directed by Ray Austin
Selected Broadcast Dates:
UK LWT:
Date: 1 November 1975. Time: 5.50 pm
Granada:
Date: 21 November 1975. Time: 6.35 pm
US KRON (San Francisco):
Date: 1 November 1975. Time: 7.00 pm
Credited Cast: Martin Landau (John Koenig), Barbara Bain (Helena Russell), Barry Morse (Victor Bergman), Prentis Hancock (Paul Morrow), Clifton Jones (David Kano), Zienia Merton (Sandra Benes), Nick Tate (Alan Carter), Paul Antrim (Bill Lowry), Robert Russell (Hadin), Gerald Stadden (Male Mute), Jackie Horton (Female Mute)
Guest Star: Joan Collins (Kara)
Guest Artists: Dennis Burgess (Neman), Aubrey Morris (High Priest)
Uncredited Cast: Sarah Bullen (Operative Kate), Loftus Burton (Operative Lee Oswald), Ann Maj-Britt (Operative Ann), Binu Balini, Andrew Dempsey, Michael Stevens (Main Mission Operatives), Ron Tarr (Darian Guard), Linda Hooks (Blonde Female Darian), Jenny Cresswell (Female Darian)
Previously Titled: ‘Mission of the Daria’
Plot: Moonbase Alpha encounters the massive space ark SS Daria – devastated 900 years previously by a nuclear explosion. A message cries out for assistance and the Alphans journey to the Daria, where they split up and encounter a race of highly advanced Darians on a mission to a new world, and a primitive tribe that has degenerated into savagery; hunting mutants born of the radioactive devastation and sacrificing perfect bodies to their God, Neman.
Quotes:
High Priest: ‘Here in this sacred shrine of knowledge, we dedicate this perfect body. We pledge her in the spirit of true science; we pledge her in the light of clear knowledge and maintain that she is free of the Mutant, whom we abhor in all its manifestations. This we pledge on the sacred book of Neman, maker of Man, father of Spirits. To you, Neman, we the survivors of Level 7, offer this body.’
Victor: ‘That’s it, John – living human bodies.’
High Priest: ‘Defiler of truth … Killer of spirit … Enemy of Neman.’
Alan: ‘Spirit? This is no spirit. Look, they have deceived you. He’s a man; a man like you; a man like me.’
Hadin: ‘Neman – you are not a God.’
Koenig: ‘These people are your future now. Prepare them to survive in space. We’ll help you, but the rest is up to you.’
Filming Dates: Friday 10 January – Friday 24 January 1975
Incidental Music: Includes the introduction from ‘The White Mountain’ by Frank Cordell (heard in several scenes including when Koenig meets Kara, and when the Eagle returns to Alpha), and ‘Experiments in Space – Vega’ by Robert Farnon (heard during the opening sequences with the discovery of the colossal spaceship). These two tracks were from the Chappell Recorded Music Library. Additional Barry Gray compositions are included from the Joe 90 episode ‘King for a Day’ and the Stingray episode ‘Ghost of the Sea’ (heard here as Kara’s theme, and utilised previously as the beautiful dream-like music on Zenno in ‘Missing Link’.)
Commentary:
Barry Morse: ‘“Mission of the Darians” was an attempt to engage in a certain amount of philosophical argument regarding racial purity. Even the name “Darian” equates with “Aryan”. So it was admirable in that respect.’
Nick Tate: ‘I found Joan Collins to be very friendly. We had lunch at the studio a few times while she was guest-starring.’
Johnny Byrne: ‘I think “Mission of the Darians” is probably the one I like best. It is perhaps the most serious of all the stories I wrote. It has the cruel, inescapable things that life sometimes forces upon us. If you remember, there was a crash in the Andes and the people, in order to survive, had to eat their fellow passengers. I don’t think that book had been published when I wrote this story.’ [The book and subsequent film were called Alive. Another account, Miracle in the Andes, was published in 2006.]
‘First of all, I was excited by the thought of a 50 mile long spaceship. Secondly, my mind harked back to a wonderful story that I had read by Brian Aldiss many, many years ago. It was called Non-Stop. That always set up an echo in my mind and, while not plagiarising Brian, I couldn’t help dealing with a theme of people cut off and sort of drifting, and the mystery about them. So here they are in this wonderful spaceship. They discover that thousands of years ago the original people who owned this ship, who had taken the ship and who were on their way to a new world, had a huge accident, and now there is a small group of the original aliens plus the atomic survivors – the mutants of their own people. It’s not a co-incidence that they are called Darians, it was meant to equate with Aryans, the life theme of the Aryan race, the sort of proto-Nazi thing – not fascism and not Nazism, but the kind of primal racial instinct. [They were meant to be] kind of superior beings, knowing that they’ve got to keep [the mutants] alive so that they can survive; and once there on a new world, they would be disposed of. But here in the gene bank is all they require to remanufacture the race again.
‘The thing was – and I thought it was well worked out – that a kind of religion was built around a sort of disfigurement and the things that would obviously weigh large in people’s minds in a post-atomic situation. Lots of stillbirths and horrific mutants and things like that would appear. The structure of social groups would be incredibly rigid and they would try to eliminate the mutants, in the way the Spartans would dispose of daughters or deformed children to keep the purity going. And of course they would feed these into the food chain. That was what was keeping the “good” Darians alive. The name of the game is survival, and that’s what they were doing. Essentially we are talking about cannibalism, no matter how science fiction it was.
‘At the end of the day, the resolution was a very humane one, where the idea was that the gene bank is now destroyed. It should’ve been destroyed in the first place – these are the people who own the future. The two groups have got to be connected so that by the time they land they will have their own people. Not the same, but they will have people. So they basically needed each other. Again, there were no heroes and villains, but things that people had to do.
‘All of the stories were full of contrived incidents. At the rate we were getting through Alpha Moonbase personnel, I’m amazed that any remained at the end of the first season! But it was important to show, I think, this whole obsession [the Darians] had with mutants. It was important to have one Alphan character [Bill Lowry] there who could be disposed of to show how deeply rooted this tradition was; basically how ignorant, how clueless [the Darians] had become about the real world. And how they were simply acting on
a kind of ritual memory rather than common sense. We did actually have two dwarfs in it, which I thought added immensely to the value. And there were some magnificent glass shots in it. There was a view when you came in through a door and you saw the entire huge bay of the spaceship. We didn’t do many glass shots, but that was one, and it really added immensely. The sight of that massive ship moving through the frame in the first shots was excellent. Ray Austin did a marvellous job of directing this … We had a brilliant model maker – absolutely brilliant. He gave it that distinctive kind of Lego style. It really looked mind-bending on a big screen, which I used to see it on in rushes.
‘Names that I keep using are Neman and Hadin. Hadin comes from the Sagas of Icelanders, which have been the great source of my inspiration, and Hadin comes from one of the most famous, Njal’s Saga. One of the sons of Njal was Skarp-Hedin, the ferocious man, and I was so impressed by that character that whenever possible I try to use his name, because it gives me a sort of fix on the character. Both these names, Hadin and Neman, are in “Mission of the Darians”. It was originally called “Mission of the Daria”; this envisaged the Darians as more sort of genetically Nazi-like, where they were going to turn out endless warriors and they were in a big ship full of tanked sperm, or something. But it was completely different to what turned out ultimately.
‘It was a very fundamental human problem: what do people do when they’re in a situation and they have no food? They eat each other – they always have done. And it was a re-statement of the principle that the desire to survive and live is very strong; and for me to find a way in which I could a) express that idea, and b) do so in such a way that it wouldn’t be banned from popular television – after all, it was about cannibalism – was well worth the effort … So, it worked on many, many different levels. It had, I suppose, the most fundamental question of all at the heart of it: what will people do, and is there any limit to what people will do, in order to survive? And the answer’s basically, “No, there isn’t.”
‘It probably helped that we had Joan Collins, the perfect example of the imperishable survivor. Sometimes I think that she probably fed on too many spare parts in that particular episode, because she seems to be surviving, unchanged, 20-odd years later! I think, in that sense, Joan Collins was the perfect choice for this Darian super goddess. I quite enjoyed working with her and being there when they were shooting it.’
Sylvia Anderson: ‘Generally speaking [Martin and Barbara] were okay, but of course the problem is that whenever you have Hollywood actors over to England their attitude is that, “We’re big time. We’re big Hollywood people and we’ve done a big series.” So they had to have the Rolls Royce to transport them from the shooting studio, which was about 50 yards away, to the restaurant everyday. So there were a lot of things like that. I will say this – when Joan Collins came on in a guest spot [in “Mission of the Darians”], Barbara stuck very, very closely to Martin. And, incidentally, Barbara’s expression did change. Normally she was very expressionless.’
Review: ‘Mission of the Darians’ is a perfectly realised epic about survival, both thrilling and horrifying, which incorporates a number of classic science fiction concepts including immortality and the multi-generation space ark. The generation ship idea has been utilised to great success in novels before, but on television the idea has tended to fall flat – see the early 1970s Canadian science fiction series The Starlost, for example.
The plotline follows three separate story threads that ultimately pull back together in the climax, creating one of the most complexly plotted segments of the series. The procedure the Alphans follow is totally believable, as is the holocaust portrayed. The theme is that of the downfall of an advanced race due to failures of technology, and it demonstrates that the future lies ultimately with the people themselves – not with their carefully cultivated technological achievements. As such, this episode embodies what is perhaps the greatest overarching concept of the series.
The mutant characters add immensely to the portrayal of distinct and separate societies existing in isolation from each other in the immense Daria. The Daria itself is remarkably similar to the freighter Nostromo in the later film Alien. The detailing of this miniature is outstanding for a television production and the massive scope of the ship is demonstrated when the tiny Eagle approaches. Interiors of the Daria are enriched through the use of several matte paintings conveying the craft’s immense scale.
The experiences on Level 7, within the Daria, are terrifying. The scene leading Helena, Lowry and the Female Mute to be judged as mutants is genuinely frightening, aided by eerie sound effects and subordinated natural sounds and voices – a hallmark technique of director Ray Austin, which he had utilised to great effect in previous episodes, notably ‘End of Eternity’.
This is very much an ensemble episode. Barbara Bain is remarkable, conveying Helena’s terror for herself and her horror at what happens to those around her. The entire cast of regulars and guests are on top form, notably Prentis Hancock, relishing the opportunity for Paul Morrow to get out of Alpha and into the action; he and Nick Tate made a very effective team. Barry Morse is also noteworthy as Bergman, with several memorable scenes demonstrating him as vital to the progress of the storyline. Martin Landau’s Koenig is at his edgiest, confronted with an alien vision of what he must consider to be a potential outcome for his own people, should any of the links in their food chain break.
Joan Collins, who leads the guest cast, is very good throughout, and is delightful at the end as her character Kara looks at Hadin, obviously considering what their future together might entail.
Of interest is the portrayal of security guard Bill Lowry. Far too regularly (not just in Space: 1999, but in science fiction television in general) the security guard is present as a glorified extra who can be discarded at any moment with no lingering effect. Here, Lowry is not only integral to his portion of the story, but an actual three-dimensional human being, and his loss is profoundly felt by both the viewers and the characters onscreen – exemplified by Helena in the Eagle at the episode’s end, the empty seat and the remembered tune hummed by Lowry. It’s a poignant moment.
The sets are inspiring and the use of matte paintings and attention to detail within the interiors of the Daria combine to provide a significant and convincing degree of reality. Matte paintings were also utilised in prior episodes ‘Missing Link’ and ‘The Last Enemy’, but the ones here are possibly the best and are certainly the most effectively integrated into the episode.
As a final teaming of writer Johnny Byrne and director Ray Austin (following their pairing in ‘End of Eternity’ and ‘The Troubled Spirit’), ‘Mission of the Darians’ marks the culmination of their efforts together. Byrne’s script again raises the memory of World War II and the Nazis, as in ‘Voyager’s Return’. The word ‘Darian’ equates with ‘Aryan’ – the idea of a superior, master race whose genetic purity and perfection was to be preserved to thrive at any cost. In the same manner, ‘Neman’ can be interpreted as ‘New Man’ – all the more important a connection as Neman has led the advanced Darians in the genocide of the mutants. The concept of an advanced race being forced to resort to cannibalism in order to survive is presented in a believable manner, and it leads one to wonder what the Alphans themselves would do if confronted with a similar situation. The theme of the episode can be summed up with a single word: survival. Indeed, the dialogue of this script features no less than 23 references to ‘survival’, ‘survive’, ‘survived’ or ‘survivors.’ The resultant moral question being: to what lengths would we go to ensure our own survival?
In typical Space: 1999 style, the questions raised have no simple answers, but latent implications that continue to reverberate to this day: what would mankind do to preserve itself? Would the Alphans have done anything differently than the Darians? What is the price of our survival? And as our own planet Earth becomes more crowded and we face mounting environmental concerns, could there be a nightmare outcome l
ike this awaiting the whole world? This last question dovetails into another message inherent in the episode – that the races of Earth must come together; our future is with each other, just like that of the Darians (and, indeed, the Alphans). Each society has strengths to benefit the union: it would be difficult to imagine Kara and her people surviving on a new world without the practical grounding of the other survivors to help them, but in such a colonisation attempt the more advanced Darian technology would also be of great use. Essentially, they are stronger together than they are apart.
Destination: Moonbase Alpha Page 25
