Space: 1999 (TV Series) Catacombs of the Moon (1976) User Reviews

Meh....

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 4 July 2010]

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 Irony Episode

[Flubber69 · 5/10 · 17 September 2021]

Episode opens with Dr. Russell intoning blah blah blah and it's been 1,000 some odd days since the moon left earth orbit. Yet somehow the plot revolves around Patrick & Michelle, a married couple whom we've never seen before, despite there only being 311 people (or less) on Alpha. Never mind! Because the point here is Patrick isn't merely devoted to Michelle, he's utterly besotted with his angelic wife.

Thus making it all the more curious why Tony choose this episode to make a bold sartorial statement by rocking a "wifebeater". Yes, a wifebeater: the classic sleeveless undershirt representing trailer park elegance and timeless misogyny. No matter, Tony's got the guns out even when there can't be any sun out.

I'm just glad that Sandra returned.

[danrs000008 · 7/10 · 18 November 2021]

1. I would prefer to rate this episode a 5, however I give it a 7 just because Zienia Merton (Sandra) is back after missing many of the episodes of season two. I think that this beautiful actress is so awesome! I think it's a shame that she was omitted from most of season two. I may never know the reason. 2. I did not like the Patrick Osgood character. He was too arrogant and dangerous. 3. I thought the story was weak too. 4. I am a happy camper though because of the appearance of Zienia Merton. She's had to take a back seat to Catherine Schell for too long. Also, she looked so great in this episode wearing that little yellow number!

strong dramatic story about religious faith, concept more intelligent than usual

[marcgreenman · 8/10 · 15 December 2019]

I did not find much that was wrong with this story, although there was some dumb dialogue maybe once along with the typical, upbeat conclusion and a joke which actually jars with the rest of the episode, which is much tenser. the final attempt at an explanation is particularly poor. that aside, it all worked for me. we have had faith as the centre of a story before, see year's one's collision course for example, or for another year two's much weaker new adam, new eve. here it leads to some very interesting hallucination scenes which are very surreal, accompanied by some truly aethereal music from derek wadsworth, this is something which i particularly enjoyed. the cloud is an effective threat, though never properly explained. it also does not appear to be very large as the moon flies through it fairly quickly, which seems unlikely. there is a nice tension between the cloud threat and the need to find tiranium to fix a crewmember's heart. this leads to some nice scene contrasts as we switch from one plot to another. you sometimes wonder whether patrick really is telling the truth after all and is contact with some higher power; or is he a lunatic? this is a disturbing question. the cave sets are nice and dark and claustrophobic, which makes them a good place for a hunt and a chase. the ending was the only thing which really let this story down for me, aside from the comedy element it all ends a little happily ever after. from previous stories we might have expected patrick to receive some kind of comeuppance for threatening the safety of others.