I was rather underwhelmed with this installment of "Space: 1999", though for season two (which generally stank), an adequate episode isn't that bad a thing--as way too many were rip-offs of plots from other shows (particularly "Star Trek").
The show starts with some miners under the Moon's surface. Apparently they are looking for a rare ore that is needed for a variety of important things--including for an artificial heart desperately needed for one of the crew members--who also happens to be the wife of the leader of the team of miners. Wow...walk about a coincidence. During the mining, there is an explosion and this leader begins to act goofy--telling his wife that Moonbase will soon be destroyed by fire. When, shortly after this, the place starts getting really, really hot, no one puts two and two together to realize that the guy has something! Instead, he begins to act crazier and everyone pretty much ignores him--even if he does seem to have some inside knowledge. It all works out (naturally) at the end and all is well once again on the Moon.
While not a bad episode, there were a couple noticeable problems. First, once again, Commander Koenig spends most of the episode in an Eagle--off world. This happened a lot in the show in the second season and I assumed it was a way to cover his taking a week off from the show. In other words, they filmed a few linking scenes with him and inserted them to hide that he was not there for filming. After a while, this DID get a bit old. Second, this episode featured something that NEVER worked well in sci-fi (see "Star Trek: The Motion Picture")--a giant space cloud! A dull plot point in an otherwise watchable episode.
The show starts with some miners under the Moon's surface. Apparently they are looking for a rare ore that is needed for a variety of important things--including for an artificial heart desperately needed for one of the crew members--who also happens to be the wife of the leader of the team of miners. Wow...walk about a coincidence. During the mining, there is an explosion and this leader begins to act goofy--telling his wife that Moonbase will soon be destroyed by fire. When, shortly after this, the place starts getting really, really hot, no one puts two and two together to realize that the guy has something! Instead, he begins to act crazier and everyone pretty much ignores him--even if he does seem to have some inside knowledge. It all works out (naturally) at the end and all is well once again on the Moon.
While not a bad episode, there were a couple noticeable problems. First, once again, Commander Koenig spends most of the episode in an Eagle--off world. This happened a lot in the show in the second season and I assumed it was a way to cover his taking a week off from the show. In other words, they filmed a few linking scenes with him and inserted them to hide that he was not there for filming. After a while, this DID get a bit old. Second, this episode featured something that NEVER worked well in sci-fi (see "Star Trek: The Motion Picture")--a giant space cloud! A dull plot point in an otherwise watchable episode.