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On it's jounrey away from earth through space, the moon passes an earthlike
planet, Terra Nova, so Commander Koenig (Martin Landau) of the Moonbase Alpha
sends down a scoutship, which comes back with its 2 pilots passed out, & an
unexpected third passenger aboard, Lee (Richard Johnson), the husband of the
ship's doctor Helen Russell (Barbara Bain) ... who has been presumed dead for
the last 5
years. Koenig decides to postpone evacuation of the Moonbase & moving to
Terra Nova until he has thoroughly questioned Lee Russell, who shows a number
of strange symptoms, including having no lifesigns, feeding off the energy of
his wife, & every now & again emitting some energy bursts unhealthy for
those around him. Eventually
though, Koenig manages to question the man about Terra Nova, but Lee warns him
urgently of the planet ... then dies, & the ship's scientist Victor (Barry
Morse) notices that Lee's body is decaying to ... antimatter. All this leads
Koenig to the conclusion that it is safe to land on Terra Nova (if you're
asking what ? at this point, you are of course right), & he & Doc
Russell as well as a survey team of the usual suspects (Sandra [Zienia Merton],
Paul [Prentis Hancock] & pilot Carter [Nick Tate]) go down to the planet
where they find a veritable garden Eden, & Koenig already orders evacuation
of Alpha ... when everything seems to be infected by antimatter, & Paul
shoots himself by a defective laser, the landing ship (with Carter inside)
blows up, then the whole moon explodes (!), Sandra disappears & Koenig is
killed by a landslide. Only doc Russell is still alive, & meets her dead
husband yet again, who explains to her that the planet exists on a peculiar
dimensional plane & from here on it will only get worse, so all humans
should leave to never come back, only he himself has to stay as he has
apparently adapted to the planet. ... & then everybody's alive again, the
spaceship hasn't blown up after all & the moon still exists ... &
Koenig cancels evacuation of the moonbase, with the crew staying aboard, waiting
for the next earthlike planet to show up. From the perspective of
1970's nostalgia, this episode (like the whole series) is of course endearing,
but from a storytelling point of view, it is rather an abomination, with
nothing leading to any consequence (Koenig only presses forward going to the
planet after a number of alarming occurences concerning same planet, Lee
sucking energy from his wife makes no sense, & even Koenig's death is
without consequence when he is suddenly alive again) & a
deus-ex-machina-ending refuses to give any explanation (apart from
sci-fi-babble) about the previous goings-on. & while some points of the
script cry out for a spooky treatment, the direction refuses any attempt at
atmosphere throughout.
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