Space: 1999 (TV Series) Mission of the Darians (1975) User Reviews

The Moon Base folks get to meet Joan Collins and find out about her beauty secrets!

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 26 April 2010]

This is a pretty good episode of "Space: 1999" and it has the added bonus of featuring a rather hot Joan Collins--though the blonde wig and what appears to be potpourri poured all over her head are NOT the most flattering look for her! At this point in her career (pre-"Dynasty") she was actually very hard up for work--and was forced to work in such dreck as "Empire of the Ants" and "I Don't Want to Be Born". So, it's nice to see her in something better--even if it is 'only sci-fi'. However, Joan Collins and sci-fi is a great combination, as you may remember her from one of the best "Star Trek" episodes, "City on the Edge of Forever".

The show begins with the Moon Base moving to within range of a humongous ship that is 20 kilometers long! Because the ship is emitting a distress signal, Koenig orders an Eagle to go investigate. When they land, they are soon separated. Dr. Russell and a 'red shirt' (actually, his shirt had a purple sleeve--but you know what I mean) go one way and soon the guy is killed by some kooky tribal caveman-ish folks who worship a disintegration chamber! Paul and Carter spend much of their time trying to find Russell and the expendable cast member. And, Commander Koenig and Dr. Bergman soon meet up with some advanced and blonde people who are running the ship. However, 'running' is a relative term. It seems that hundreds of years ago, several of the ship's reactors blew up and slowly killed off many of the crew. Most of the rest became either mutants or lived in a troglodytic society that worshiped the disintegrator! Only a tiny group of mostly blondes remained civilized (of sorts) and knew about the ship's original mission--to act almost like an Ark--to ferry the genetic material for a new race on a distant habitable planet. But, because the journey will take about 1000 years, things have become strange...to say the least. Aside from the weird disintegration cult and mutants, there is another even MORE sinister thing occurring on the ship. Can Koenig and the rest figure out what this is before too late? Or, will they learn how Miss Collins and her blonde friends actually manage to stay so youthful for so long (and, no, it is NOT because Oil of Olay)? Overall, a very good episode--mostly because there are some interesting moral dilemmas in the show. Mainly, just how far will you go to save your species?! Watch it and see...as these folks go really, really far out! Interesting and thought-provoking.

Joan Collins!

[Rrrobert · 8/10 · 17 May 2019]

Joan Collins is the main guest star here. She is fantastic, and looks great. There are several other interesting performances from other members of the guest cast too.

The overall story has a lot going on and is very suspenseful. There are very few scenes on Alpha. Most of the action involves Helena, Victor, John, Paul and Alan who have become split up and involved in differing problems on a large old damaged spaceship that operates a bit like Noah's Ark.

The story did remind me a bit of Doctor Who serial Underworld and some of the religious satire recalls moments from the Planet of the Apes film series. But it is not too derivative and the story unfolds in quite a suspenseful way. The sets here are quite good and I loved the various costumes worn by those on the spaceship.

One of the better first season episodes

[sdvmia · 7/10 · 23 September 2018]

The Alphans come across a huge ship that is the last remnant of a race heading to a new world. Star Trek did their version of this years earlier, twice, but just the basic concept. A closer match to this in many ways was done just a little over 2 years later, the Doctor Who serial Underworld. A lot of the same plot points about a group of people regenerating themselves as they seek to recover the gene bank for their race so they can start anew. In the Doctor Who episode, the gene bank was on another ship which disappeared. The other ship has become a planet with class structures. The comparisons are so close, the author of this Space: 1999 episode could have sued for copyright infringement.

Episode Summary and plot.

[rslegion · 27 April 2006]

The crew of Moonbase Alpha find a 20 mile long ship (daria) in space and that it is sending out a call for help, the crew send out an Eagle to aid the ship and are soon split up on-board the massive ship. Cmdr. John Koenig (Martin Landau) meets with the leaders of the ship and uncover that the ship is carrying the last of there species and was damaged 800 years in the past when its nuclear reactors exploded, that the ship is on route to a new planet and that they would like the Moonbase crew to join them. Prof. Victor Bergman (Barry Morse) uncovers that the 14 surviving Darians have been exploiting the surviving people on the ship, using them as food, and organ replacement's and that they have the same in mind for the Moonbase crew, with the help of the Moonbase crew the survivors take over the ship and teach them to live together.

Space Zardoz....

[ptiming · 7/10 · 27 May 2018]

Except instead of the floating head, it's some dudes in silver spacesuits...

Oh yeah, and Joan Collins.

Awesome

[georgemackenziemcrobert · 10/10 · 13 July 2022]

Awesome episode with hot cast and the wild haired lass on the sub level is hot!! A great episode and worth watching. If not for the women for the great storyline yet annoying that alpha team think they are right when under circumstances would have found themselves in a similar situation.

reminded me of the dark ages

[trashgang · 7/10 · 3 September 2014]

Space 1999 so much is said about it but you must agree on one part. They surely knew how to get famous guest stars into the series. here we have Joan Collins, one that I don't need to introduce and look how beautiful and sexy she's walking around.

But guest stars doesn't make a good episode all must I say that this wasn't that bad after all. Maybe if you go a bit deeper in the story you will see that they tried to give a sign to the viewers about religion. maybe I'm going to far with it but it did remind me of the dark ages when people were told about a God and if you don't believe in him you were evil, just look to the paintings of that era. Here we have the same, the Darians creating a God for the people living on their ship. But soon they will realise that it's all a hoax.

Good story, not that much of special effects and if they do it's rather silly because while being on the Darian spaceship when the Alphans are entering big rooms you just could see they were paintings used, and not of the best kind. It's also the first episode that you can spot nudity even as nothing is revealed but still for the time it was made...

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2,5/5 Comedy 0/5

An Ark in Space

[andrew-huggett · 5/10 · 1 February 2022]

An unoriginal idea of an 'Ark' in space taking some survivors to a new 'promised land' (planet) after a long voyage - most of the crew have been reduced to DNA specimens stored in a perspex case. Excellent production design with the use of matte paintings and well designed expansive sets colourfully lit. Part of the crew are elites running the ark led by Joan Collins and the remaining crew have devolved into savages and 'mutants'. There's no food supply and the savages are being 'recycled' by the elite both as a food source and as body part 'spares'. There's several nods to Star Trek - (especially the idea of a disintegration chamber) and the story partly pays homage to the Star Trek episode 'For the World Is Hollow And I Have Touched the Sky', as well as Doctor Who stories 'The Ark' (1966) and 'The Ark In Space' (1975) as well as the 1970 film 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes'. The episode has a nicely effective remastered 5.1 surround soundtrack.

Joan Collins in Space

[StuOz · 8 March 2024]

An ark in space is found.

In my 1970s childhood I saw Joan Collins appear in fantastical TV shows like Batman (1966), Star Trek (1966), The Fantastic Journey (1977) and this. I honestly can't remember what sort of impact she made on me back then. It was not until the following decade with Dynasty (1981) that the name Joan Collins took on a whole new meaning with me.

When looking at Collins in Mission of the Darians today only one thought seems to come to mind - if only she knew what was around the corner (with Dynasty).

Has Collins mentioned Space 1999 in later interviews? I have seen her mention Batman and Star Trek in interviews. Interesting woman. Interesting episode of Space 1999.

Darians, Barbarians, and Alexis Carrington!

[GaryPeterson67 · 4/10 · 12 March 2023]

Oh, what squandered potential. So much promise and potential here, shoved into a disintegration chamber by the producers (likely aided and abetted by the meddling know-nothings at ITC New York).

That fifty-mile-long spaceship was a wonder to behold. Surely many amazing stories aboard it just waited to be told. Well, this one could have waited. Oh, no, not another class warfare conflict, another religion is a ruse to manage the rubes, and another let's dress up like cavemen story. As we limp to the finish line of this first season, haven't we "been there, done that" all before?

Adding to the weight of crushing disappointment was the underutilized Joan Collins, appearing herein as Kara. She brought both STAR TREK and MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE creds to the episode, along with other ample assets, and that distinct and impeccably accented voice that immediately evoked in the minds of DYNASTY fans Alexis Carrington Colby scheming yet another scheme.

Hey, maybe a catfight between Joan and Barbara Bain would have enlivened the episode? No. This one was doomed from the start. I mean, it was bad enough this series swiped themes from ZARDOZ in "Death's Other Dominion," but then they go and swipe from it again! The closing scenes of the "Brutals" storming the "Vortex" and wantonly killing an "Eternal" were pages torn right from John Boorman's screenplay. Brutals gonna brute, right? The genetic history of a million-year-old civilization destroyed, but Koenig is more concerned with playing Captain Kirk in "The Cloudminders," preaching diversity, equity and inclusion to a people and culture he will never have to live in. No, he's on the first Eagle outta that hot mess.

Koenig may never have channeled his inner Kirk more obviously than in his closing smartass quip to Carter. Absolutely insufferable was Koenig's smarmy self-righteousness. I wanted to give him the back of my hand like he was poised to do to Kara. Y'know, for all Koenig's ham-fisted and pompous pronouncements about "civilization," when he sees Helena literally laid out like a side of beef he defaults to primitive violence, and against a woman no less. Physician, heal thyself!

That revelation of the Darians depending on the nutrient-rich bodkins of the barbarian hordes for sustenance just had to have sprung to the minds of viewers an iconic Charlton Heston flick from just two years earlier (or for cinema-shunning literati, Swift's Modest Proposal).

Random observation. Lowry had "red shirt" written all over him, right? No surprise when he got shoved into that disintegration chamber ITC picked up for pence on the dollar at Desilu's fire sale after STAR TREK already employed the device to greater effect (and less ear-piercingly) in "A Taste of Armageddon."

But let us not wink and nod at TREK, because we know it borrowed liberally from FORBIDDEN PLANET, which is what I immediately thought of in those impressive matte shots of the characters walking that red footpath amid the incredible vastness of the ship. That was well done, as were the shots of the spaceship overgrown with 900 years' worth of jungle foliage.

The dwarf couple added considerable pathos to the story, but I cynically wondered how they eluded for this long being turned into Neman's Own Ken-L-Rations. Kara did say mutants were among the first to be made into delectable morsels.

As Koenig and Carter blithely upended a culture, I wondered, what about the Prime Directive? Oh, wait, Koenig isn't straitjacketed by that law (and yeah, Kirk broke it with abandon), so I had no stones to cast at the commander. Enter impotent vexation . . .

Did anyone notice the Darians' genetic storehouse resembled the ephod worn by the High Priest of Ancient Israel? The multi-colored "gems" laid out on a bed of silver? Considering the religious theme, I suspected it was intentional. Maybe Neman and Kara were a space-age Ahab and Jezebel with Koenig as Elijah?

Knowing the end was drawing nigh on this first season, I was at once glad to see Prentis Hancock get some long-deserved and substantial screen time before he was handed his pink slip, but also disappointed Kano got what amounted to a cameo. I miss him already and how he says "Computer" as if it were a real, near and dear colleague and friend (and it was).

Soapbox: 1999. On the subject of Series One vs. Series Two, I know many/most serious SPACE: 1999 fans heap accolades on the first and scorn upon the second. But I'm wondering if we romanticize this opening season? I made this grievous mistake with the near-contemporaneous WONDER WOMAN series. For so long I praised the first WWII-set season and bemoaned the misfired second and third seasons set in the '70s. Then I rewatched that first season and the scales fell from my eyes. Those same scales have slipped as I press through this first season of SPACE: 1999 after having not watched it in decades. The duds and disappointments are rivalling the number of hits and homeruns. Onward to see if the final two shows of the season can tip the scales.