Destination: Moonbase Alpha (19 page)

Zienia Merton:
‘Martin was a very physical actor. On “Guardian of Piri” we were all sitting there in a trance, and I was sitting there. Martin’s rushing around trying to get everybody going again, and he literally grabbed my neck as he said, “Sandra!” I thought I was going to be in traction. When you watch it, see that moment – it’s unbelievable. It really hurt. So months pass, and we do “Full Circle”. This time I’m meant to hit Martin, as the caveman, with a rock. But it was a polystyrene rock. You had to pretend it was heavy. Barbara came and took me aside and she said, “Zienia, when you come to hit Martin – be gentle with him.” I thought that was sweet.’

Catherine Schell:
‘Keith [Wilson] was the one who designed the dress. When I was offered the part we had a meeting and he said, “I have to design this thing that will make you look spectacular.” I told him all of my bad parts. I said, “I’ve got hips, and I haven’t got [large] boobs, and I don’t really like the tops of my arms very much.” I said, “My neck is pretty good, so perhaps you could do something with that.” Well, you know, necks are not glamorous. I said another thing. I said, “I tend to have a kind of straight figure. I don’t have a bottle-glass figure. So if you could do something where you don’t see that the waistline is not 22 inches, and the hips are 36, or whatever … It tends to be 22-22-22 all the way down.” So when he actually put me into the costume I couldn’t believe that he had [emphasised] all my bad points … The waistline was on show, the hips were, the small boobs were, and this thing covered the neck …

‘The way I saw it, robots – even in the future – wouldn’t be emotional. So it was a very flat performance – very nice, very smiley, but there was no depth to it in a way. I had a feeling that the director thought, “She can’t bloody act!” But I hope in the end when you realise it was a robot … I never saw [the episode] myself, so I don’t know whether it worked or not. I’ve seen clips of it, but I’ve never seen the whole episode.

‘I’d never seen something so bizarre in all of my life. I have to say my mouth was agape. It was just so strange – all the balls [on the planet surface]. I remember there were balls absolutely everywhere, and I just didn’t know if that would convey onto the screen. But I’m told it conveyed
beautifully
. I mean, it’s Keith’s work – he has the imagination. He knows where the camera angles are going to be, and actors don’t always have that same kind of imagination – we do something else. But I thought, “Either this is going to be the biggest disaster, or it’s going to be mind-blowing”.’

Christopher Penfold:
‘“Guardian of Piri” is an odd one. [In 1992] I met a group of ex-Central [School of St. Martin’s] fashion design students who now make extremely expensive gear, mostly for American pop stars, using
Space: 1999
as their inspiration. So these guys turned up at my house and we spent a very long Sunday afternoon in my garden in west London, with them asking questions about “Guardian of Piri”. They were pretty sure that there was some hallucinogenic element in the bloodstream when I was writing it, which was not the case. There was a lot of adrenaline, but nothing else. As far as the sets are concerned, it was one of those … events where as a writer you sit down and write stage directions describing a physical environment that nobody in the world has ever seen – it exists only inside your own head – and it comes out on the printed page. This goes out to the art department and Keith is sitting there looking at it, thinking, “What on Earth am I going to do with this?” And then the art direction comes back and my initial reaction was, “This is nothing like what I wrote!” But, of course, it was fine. It was what was achievable. Keith was absolutely brilliant throughout the series, in responding to quite extraordinary requests from the scripts, in producing a physical environment in which actors could act and on which cameras could photograph, and which would make sense of the lunacy that was going on inside the writer’s mind, and with peanuts at his disposal, really.

‘With “Guardian of Piri”, for one example, we were exploring what it means to be human. Perfection is not an attainable reality, but one for which we constantly strive. That line, “Leave me with my pain,” follows Koenig committing – for him – an extremely irrational act. Immortality might be attainable. What are the consequences of obtaining that immortality? The process of getting there is more important than the arrival.’

Keith Wilson:
‘[Catherine Schell and I] worked together on “Guardian of Piri”, which is for me one of the most extraordinary episodes. It’s one of my favorite episodes. I enjoyed dressing this beautiful creature in that extraordinary dress. When we were shooting the sequence… she had white straps on the shoes that went up to the knees. I couldn’t use ordinary string, or whatever, because it would just fall down. So I used sticky tape. Very delicate, but it would stick to her legs. I used to go in the dressing room every morning and sit on the floor, in between her legs, putting this white tape all the way up her legs… And my hands have a slight tremble. I’ve always had this tremble – just a slight one. And I was sitting between her legs one day and I looked up and she was standing there looking down at me with a huge smile on her face and she said, “Why are your hands trembling?” …

‘The most expensive [
Space: 1999
] set, I think, was [the planet for] “Guardian of Piri”. I was really trying to be different. and because of that I had to make a lot of things that didn’t exist.’

Bloopers:
As Carter and Koenig land on Piri for the first time, various Eagles are already visible on the surface. This is obviously a shot belonging later in the episode, after the exodus to Piri, which somehow got put in the wrong place.

Viewpoints are shown on the big screen in Main Mission which are impossible, including the opening shots of the Eagle flying over the surface of Piri, and then the image of Koenig speaking into his Commlock – how are the cameras picking up these shots?

Watch the Eagles for passenger modules that suddenly change configuration between their standard shape and the extended Laboratory pods (which appear here for the first time).

Observations:
The design of Piri as a landscape of ‘ball’ trees was paid homage in the animated science fiction film
Titan A. E.
, which featured key scenes in a remarkably similar setting.

The original story concept was called ‘Nobody’s Perfect’ and was written by David Weir, who was also responsible for ‘Black Sun’.

The chain-reaction destruction of the Guardian is similar to the chain-reaction destruction of the alien planet in the later episode ‘War Games’ – perhaps not unsurprising as both scripts are by Christopher Penfold.

Watch for the ‘Piri’ graffiti scrawled on a lighting panel in Medical Centre.

A special effects shot of the surface of Piri was reused in the 1979
Doctor Who
story ‘Nightmare of Eden’.

Review:
‘Guardian of Piri’ is a visually astonishing episode featuring a powerful anti-conformist theme. The script by Christopher Penfold and direction by Charles Crichton are virtually faultless. Crichton’s particularly effective in contrasting the vibrant psychedelic set of Piri against the dimly lit sequences featuring Koenig isolated on Alpha.

Utmost praise must be given to realisation of the planet Piri itself, and of the expansive mesa that is home to the Guardian – depicted via a dazzling, surrealistic, utterly otherworldly set. It is a beautiful design by Keith Wilson, unparalleled not only within the episodes of
Space: 1999
, but perhaps within all filmed science fiction.

Catherine Schell is brilliant in her portrayal of the robot servant of the Guardian, conveying outward warmth combined with an underlying coldness. The literary connections to Greek mythology and Homer’s
The Odyssey
are apparent with Shell’s lovely Servant fulfilling the role of
The Odyssey
’s Sirens, leading the wayward travellers (whether seafarers or spacefarers) to their deaths. As everyone who has more than a passing acquaintance with
Space: 1999
knows, Schell would return as the regular character Maya in the show’s second season. It should also be noted that ‘Guardian of Piri’ is not the only episode in which she plays a robot in
Space: 1999
– in Year Two’s ‘The Taybor’, a robot duplicate of Maya is constructed, and meets a fate uncannily similar to that of the Servant of the Guardian!

Martin Landau, Barbara Bain and Barry Morse are all in excellent form, as are the entire supporting cast. The background on David Kano is well played by Clifton Jones and is greatly welcome – here viewers learn that he was part of an experiment to implant computer connections in the human brain in order to link the abilities of the mind with those of a computer. This provides a fascinating insight into the advancements of human science in
Space: 1999
. It is significant that both he and Bergman (with his artificial heart) are among the first to succumb to the spell of the Guardian.

The party scene is highly enjoyable, depicting the Alphans inebriated under the Guardian’s spell. Among other delights, watch for Helena and Victor playing peek-a-boo around a communications post, and Sandra dancing. Another comedic scene in this episode is set in Koenig’s office, featuring Helena and Victor discussing the Commander and whether or not they’d like to take him to Piri. It’s delightfully funny and shows Barbara Bain’s deft handling of humorous material.

There is beautiful attention to detail in this production, as evidenced by such seemingly minor aspects as bubbles floating in the air and a butterfly fluttering around the robot body of the Servant in the epilogue. There is iconic series imagery here, including the flight of Eagles leaving Alpha, and while there are several small moments that don’t quite succeed, including some of the miniature work with the Eagles on the surface of Piri, these criticisms are negligible.

The anti-conformist stance of Penfold’s script is confirmed via the directive from the Servant of the Guardian, ‘You must accept, Commander … You must conform.’ While the Alphans are taken in by the spell of the Guardian, they are under the impression that they are fully realising their potential as ‘thinking human beings’ (in Professor Bergman’s words), while being granted immortality through the abilities of the Guardian to stop time. However, Koenig states the truth: ‘Life is stopping for them.’ The Alphans are indoctrinated into a world held in a state of static death, with no progress or future, visually symbolised by the Eagle suspended in mid-air and the near-motionless poses of the Alphans on Piri. Everything comes to a full stop on Piri – including life, as Koenig says.

Once the Guardian is destroyed and time is restored, the sterile environment of Piri returns to life and regains the promise of a future, as do the Alphans on their own voyage. As the Alphans realise, they brought a dead world back to life, which is an ongoing theme throughout their journey. Ironically, in the end, Piri could have been perfect for them.

‘Guardian of Piri’ is also concerned with the Man versus Machine conflict – here it is Koenig versus the Guardian. Man being overpowered by machines will return as a theme for future episodes, notably ‘The Infernal Machine’ and ‘One Moment of Humanity’.

Another moral to the story is in the nature of man – Koenig states, ‘Leave me with my pain. It reminds me I’m human.’ This is in contrast to the unthinking existence of Piri, representing the escapism of the drug culture – note the glazed attitude of those under the spell of the Guardian! They’re blissful, but they’re under a spell that leads nowhere. It’s a strong condemnation of drugs and extreme escapism. One also cannot blithely follow idealistic promises without thinking about them, and their potential ramifications. That is how the entire Pirian society perished, and the same fate nearly befalls the Alphans, as well. The Servant of the Guardian shows Koenig an image of Helena and tells him: ‘Her nerves are relaxed, her appetite assuaged. The struggle is over. And you can join her in paradise.’ Here, the ultimate lesson of the episode is being pointed out to Koenig: that, in reality, there is no ultimate paradise. The reality of life is inextricably bound to struggle, in one form or another. The idea that computers could take over all of society’s work, leaving the people as unthinking hollow shells of themselves, remains thought provoking: does mankind run the risk of creating a Guardian here on Earth through its ever-increasingly technological world?

Visually stunning, and with much to say on the essence of being human, ‘Guardian of Piri’ is a classic episode of
Space: 1999
and a fine example of the potential of the science fiction television genre.

Rating:
9/10

1.9

FORCE OF LIFE

Screenplay by Johnny Byrne

Directed by David Tomblin

Selected Broadcast Dates:

UK
              LWT:

             
Date: 13 September 1975.               Time: 5.50 pm

             
Granada:

             
Date: 3 October 1975.               Time: 6.35 pm