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Space 1999, Set 4

Space 1999, Set 4

List Price: $39.95
Your Price: $35.96
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Space 1999 - Great SciFi series
Review: I remember this series as a child. Two major stars from the "Mission Impossible" tv series went after Star Trek--"Holy Shatner!" and gave Star Trek a good run for their money. Good series. If you like SciFi, you will love this series of dvd's.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Trailers, yes. Documentary, no.
Review: It's sure great to get the complete first season on DVD, but even though A and E never said anything about the Season One Documentary, all these other DVD ordering places are. I don't know were they are getting their info, but there is no Documentary on the last season one DVD. I sincerely hope to see the Fanderson Documentary (or whatever) shows up on the future Year 2 DVD sets. The trailers are pretty cool, though. All 24 of them. All four of these box sets are a must have....

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A&E doesn't get DVD
Review: Let me start by saying that the quality of the transfer is top notch, and that I have no problem with Space: 1999 in general. What I'd like to comment on are the 'extras' included on many DVDs. Prior to buying Space:1999 Set 4, I purchased the entire A&E Monty Python 14 DVD boxed set and was disappointed as well. Aside from some live performances, the additional material on each disc is simply taken from another disc in the set, a cheesy move on A&E's part. Apparently they didn't anticipate someone purchasing every disc in the collection, because this is nothing more than duplication. On Space:1999 they followed suit by including still images of the episodes already included on the disc--lame! One or two were behind the scenes, but nothing impressive. The only other additional material included is all the 'previews' of the first season. I even would have prefered the text of an interview with Martin or Barbara over that. Basically, I'm saying that A&E does not put much effort into their DVD releases and that I would look for other DVD publishers before buying theirs (I know Space:1999 episodes are available through a different publisher in England, and the collection includes a wealth of extra material). A&E doesn't get DVD.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Best Just Got Better
Review: Oh joy!!! I thought Sets 1 & 2 were good, I thought set 3 was excellent, but this set has my favourite episodes.

"The Troubled Spirit": An Alpha technician attempts telepathic communication with plants and unleases a leathal supernatural force.

I'm not going to descible this episode in any more detail because I want people who have never seen this before to really enjoy it without any "plot-spoilers". Ok, the idea of talking to plants seems laim, but boy does this episode work. The atmosphere is dark and sinister and the "unusual" music provides a suitable background for this totally original storyline.

"The Space Brain": The moon's path is going to take it through a giant, living, cosmic entity. Like most lifeforms, even something that lives in space has a defence mechanism to protect against foreign infections...

OK, this episode is bad. It's really bad. It's awfull! Someone, somewhere managed to get hold of a foam making machine and sat down and wrote a script around it. This is the result! My best tip for viewing this episode is to drink a 10 pack of beer first (on an empty stomach) and then it makes a pretty good comedy. I have a feeling that because they spent so much money making "War Games" on Set 3, they only had $25 dollars left to make this whole episode.

"The Infernal Machine": An alien spacecraft lands on the moon, seeking help for it's sick occupant. Unfortunately the occupant is simply a "companion" for the living spacecraft and he's about to die. Gwent, the spacecraft, decides to keep Koenig, Russell and Bergman as it's new companions.

Leo McKern is excellent as both the Companion and as the voice of Gwent. Good sets and strong performances by all more than make up for the poor previous episode.

"Mission of the Darians": The moon comes across the distress signal of a 100 square mile spacecraft. Konenig leads a rescue party to the ship and finds it a victim of massive damage and in a state of decay. The party splits up and Helena and a security guard are captured by primitive savages. Koenig and Bergman are found by the surviving crew who ask for Aplha's help to complete their mission to colonise a new world. What is the connection between the ultra-advanced crew and the savage primatives?

Another of my personal favourites (and not because of Joan Collin's short skirt and long legs), this episode examines the results of an overwhelming disaster on a civilized culture and to what lengths people will go to survive (and justify their actions). The actor playing the primitive priest is excellent as he terrorises Dr Russell and Barbara Bain is at her best as she witnesses the murder of one of her party while she ponders over her own chances for survival.

"Dragon's Domain": Eagle pilot Cellini is haunted by memories of a previous encounter with an alien entity while commanding an Earth probe-ship. His fears become stronger when the moon appears to find the same group of abandoned spacecraft that cost him the lives of his crew. Koenig doesn't believe that the ships can be the same ones that his old friend Cellini had described years before. However, Cellini steals and Eagle and heads out into space to confront his old nemesis and extract revenge. As Alpha's course brings it nearer to the ships graveyard, Koenig spots the unmistakable hull of Cellini's old probe-ship docked to an alien vessel...

An action packed story with some nice "flashback" sequences of Cellini, Koenig and Bergman on Earth discussing the failed probe expedition with authorities. As bug-eyed, green monsters go, you can't get much more bug-eyed or greener than this one and the "sterotype" description of the alien is used in the story as proof to Earth authorities that Cellini was covering up for a personal error resulting the deaths of his crew by fabricating an account of his escape from the creature. Seat-gripping stuff!

"Testament of Arkadia": The Alphans find a dead planet that once supported life. Two members of the landing party discover a cave which seems to contain the decayed remains of humans and a stone message enscribed with an ancient Earth language. Later, they same two people start to have strange visions...

I'm still not sure whether this episode is a pure classic or just a well made romp through an old "life on Earth started in outer space" script. Either way, it's entertaining stuff with some good performances. A good end to an excellent season which should have remained the template for the next season.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Main Mission - Do You Copy!
Review: Okay, you bought set 1, 2, and 3 - you've got to have number 4!

The eagles alone are worth watching and in this set you can see Joan Collins in a not so pretty light. Yes Joan Collins of Dynasty. She did the original Star Trek and Space:1999.

Barry Greys theme and accompaning score are wonderful. The old animated laser blasts are kind of funny, but much more sophisticated than the sparks and wires we saw in the original Flash Gordon serials.

Get this one too!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: "You Must Not Touch My Brain!"
Review: Set 4 of the Space:1999 rounds out the final 6 episodes from the first season. There are some memorable stories, such as Space Brain and fan favorite Dragon's Domain. The stories still have a pedestrian pace, the dialogue is atrocious and some of the acting questionable. But the production and special effects are top notch.
Though, I have to question about the actual prints. Overall, they look great, but episodes like the Testament of Arkadia has a very dark look to it, almost if the transfer from film to DVD wasn't done properly. Or was it always this dark? Also, very few extras. It's a shame really, as Space:1999 DVDs released in the UK and Japan have far more extras, and the selection screens far more creative. France has just released the entire series on one huge boxset with loads of extras, including an episode of UFO. Still, without A&E's release of this program, I probably wouldn't have been drawn back into it. It's stills loads of mindless fun...

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Disappointed
Review: Space: 1999 was and still is my favotite television show. For years I've waited impatiently for its relesaes on video, especially the episodes Dragon's Domain and War Games. However, I'm rather disappointed with the final product released by A&E. My main gripe is the inferior quality of the picture, especially during scenes of space flight. The color may be green, half black, red or blue, or red and blue together! This is irritating. When one should be concentrating on Brian Johnson's great special effects, one is distracted by a truncated picture that inhibits suspension of disbelief. (Some episodes are either free of this problem or are marginally affected. Unfortunately, War Games is not one of the unaffected episodes and Dragon's Domain is passable.)Secondly, A&E says up to twelve minutes not shown when the series was first broadcast are included in the new videos. I can't find the new scenes? However, I'm old enough to remember scenes from the original broadcasts of the show that aren't in A&Es videos (In fact, in the trailer to BREAKAWAY several scenes of an Eagle slamming it's tethered nuclear waste containment canister into the laser barrier are not in the episode itself, and I remember those scenes from the original broadcast in '75). I hope A&E will fix these problems in the near future.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: space:1999 set 4
Review: thank god this series is being released on dvd. only on dvd can you appreciate the incredible effects. even after 26 years they are incredible.great cast great plots star trek does not come close. say what you will about space it is truly a classic.i can only hope that all of gerry anderson's series are relased on dvd

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The best of Space 1999!
Review: That one-eyed monster scared me to death!

Granted it's funny to watch now, but even today the special effects hold up well. The moonbase only looks slightly like a miniaturized model, you can't see any wires on the Eagles, the spaceflights and planets looked realistic. Quite frankly, the series looks a lot more "real" than a lot of the computer generated images you see today. Imagine what they were like back in 1975. I can remember...

I was very young when I saw "Dragon's Domain", arguably the most memorable and celebrated episode. It was the only Space 1999 episode I watched as a child that I can still remember to this day. To see that screaming monster hypnotizing the crew members, sucking them into who-knows-what, and spitting out their charred remains. Then to see both Koenig and Tony Ceilini hacking away at this thing, with blood pouring out and Koenig's axe going straight into the monster's glowing eyeball. I can't remember an episode of any television program that was so graphic. I had nightmares for weeks!

It's *so* unfortunate the second season was so incredibly bad. This was truly sci-fi at it's best!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The best of Space 1999!
Review: That one-eyed monster scared me to death!

Granted it's funny to watch now, but even today the special effects hold up well. The moonbase only looks slightly like a miniaturized model, you can't see any wires on the Eagles, the spaceflights and planets looked realistic. Quite frankly, the series looks a lot more "real" than a lot of the computer generated images you see today. Imagine what they were like back in 1975. I can remember...

I was very young when I saw "Dragon's Domain", arguably the most memorable and celebrated episode. It was the only Space 1999 episode I watched as a child that I can still remember to this day. To see that screaming monster hypnotizing the crew members, sucking them into who-knows-what, and spitting out their charred remains. Then to see both Koenig and Tony Ceilini hacking away at this thing, with blood pouring out and Koenig's axe going straight into the monster's glowing eyeball. I can't remember an episode of any television program that was so graphic. I had nightmares for weeks!

It's *so* unfortunate the second season was so incredibly bad. This was truly sci-fi at it's best!


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