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Commander Koenig (Martin Landau) and alien shapeshifter Maya (Catherine
Schell) of Moonbase Alpha on earth's runaway moon land on the planet Luton
for a survey mission - and are promptly condemned to death for picking
some flowers and eating some berries ... because you know, the dominant,
the intelligent species on Luton are plants, and therefore the judges are
all trees. But the judges know at least rudimentary mercy, and pit Koenig
and Maya against three evil (non-plant) aliens who have also been
condemned, for a fight for life - problem is, the Lutons have given the
aliens superpowers, one (David Jackson) has superstrength, the other
teleporting abilities (Godfrey James), while the third can render himself
invisible (Roy Marsden), while Koenig and Maya have to only relie on their
wits - oh, and Maya's shapeshifting abilities, naturally. Anyways, it
doesn't take our heroes long to take out Mr Teleporter and Mr Invisible
(Maya just turns into a dog to sniff that one out, actually), but then
Koenig is injured and starts getting delirious - and while turning into a
bird to look for water, Maya is caught by Mr Strong. And even though the
two of them don't want to fight each other, Mr Strong and Koenig, well,
fight. And even though not quite the healthiest, Koenig defeats the
strongman with a DIY primitive weapon ... but refrains from killing him,
even if the judges ask him to - instead he tells the judges that they
could have stopped him and Maya from picking flowers and eating berries,
thus saved lives instead of sending the perpetrators to death. Now all
plants revolt against the judges, who grudgingly let Koenig and Maya go
... In writing, all of this might sound great, intelligent
plants revolting, tree judges and the like. On screen, all of this looks
disappointing, because the plants are not doing anything much. The trees
are actual trees that just, well, stand there, the revolting plants just
wave their leaves around a little, and there are next to no plant-related
special effects (buit at least a few expectedly great miniature effects).
So no, the episode isn't half as trippy and/or outrageous as it could have
been, and furthermore it's rather badly paced, with a long sequence of
Koenig and Maya reminiscing taking the steam out of the proceedings, and
some rather badly made up aliens on top of it. Not really worth your
while, actually!
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