Space: 1999 (TV Series) Death's Other Dominion (1975) User Reviews

Metaphysical implications of the quest for immortality

[gregory_h2 · 8/10 · 23 August 2014]

This is by far the best episode of the entire series. (Two other good episodes are "Dragon's Domain" and "Mission of the Darians".) The theme and orchestral scoring for Season One is much better than the mostly electronic music used for Season Two.

In this episode: Dr. Roland is the scientist determined find the secret of immortality on Ultima Thule at any cost.

The character of Dr. Jack Tanner speaks in riddles and can foretell the future. (His character has a definite Shakepearean quality.)

This underground world they have carved out for themselves seems, at first, to be a utopia; however, Commander Koenig discovers the dark truths of life on Ultima Thule.

Enjoyable Story

[brian_m_hass · 8/10 · 29 August 2015]

In "Death's Other Dominion," Moonbase Alpha receives a signal from people living on a frozen world. When an Eagle's crew visits the surface of the world, they learn that the people are the survivors of a Uranus expedition who have somehow become immortal. A scientist among the people is on a quest to understand the cause of this immortality.

The episode raises some questions which go unanswered. How was the Uranus expedition able to travel the interstellar distances so quickly to reach this other world? What was the source of the people's immortality? Why were so many of the Alphans so eager to move to this frozen world without asking more questions?

This story strongly resembled some from "Star Trek" in which landing parties were lured to worlds by invitations from individuals who later proved to be mad. For this reason, the viewer was often left wondering what was going to happen to the Koenig's Eagle crew.

Overall, the episode was enjoyable. It visited themes which were familiar to science-fiction fans; but, the story's execution was well done. The episode featured interesting characters which were well portrayed. "Death's Other Dominion" is well worth watching.

Gillette World

[weanedon2001 · 8/10 · 17 November 2019]

As is usual with almost every Space:1999 episode, you take the good with the bad. Examples :

Good: Wonderfully detailed set for Ultima Thule indoor world. Bad: Goopy, unconvincing shaving foam snow in outside world.

Good: Performances - right down to the supporting characters. Bad: Barbara Bain's acting on the planet's surface when Helena is lost in the Gillette storm.

Good: Horrifying twist ending. Bad: Victor and Helena's hell bent for leather willingness to embrace eternal life.

It is frustrating being a fan of this series, because even with one of the best episodes in the series like this one, you are smiling one minute, shaking your head the next.

The denouement was shocking to some of us!

[whatch-17931 · 6/10 · 22 January 2021]

In the US, where I lived at least, 1999 was shown as a weekend daytime show, so I saw this when I was well under 10 years old. Mostly I recall the show being very boring for sci-fi, then they pull something like that smoking corpse at the end. Holy cow, that was terrifying. (For the show as a whole, the "dragon" monster was the most terrifying.)

Yikes. This should have been on at 9pm not 3pm.

Watching as an adult, meh. Looks pretty good, and really the snow looks ok to me. I just checked again- it might depend on how much snow you've seen. Sometimes it is wet and gloppy. Likely not at the reported temperatures, though it likely wouldn't snow at all at such low temps, but, alien planet, so whatevs.

But what a contrived plot.

The opening scene is just weird. The word "eye" comes up twice. Maybe I'm missing a reference? But the behavior of these people is bizarre. And once they know it's apparently Earth's moon, Blessed calls them on the radio. I guess it's worth a shot, but the expectation this would work is silly considering how much subjective time has passed for these people. Oh, that, and the strange fact that Earth's moon is flying through space sans Earth.

A little less of the goofy talk and a bit more "how the hell is the moon flying by?" would have helped.

More annoying is when they switch to the Main Mission perspective, the Jack characterization markedly changes. "Stay awaaaaaaaay...".

Enjoyable episode

[Rrrobert · 8/10 · 21 April 2019]

The highlight here is two fantastic performances by guest stars Brian Blessed and John Shrapnel. Their performances, and the dialogue, make this one feel like a Shakespeare play.

I'm not sure why Helena and Victor were suddenly so keen to live forever on the ice world? Perhaps Blessed's character was just that persuasive? This is one of a few questions left hanging at the end. Alan's eagerness to stay I can understand given some of the eye candy on display (including Valerie Leon).

I thought the ice world sets looked good too.

Ice Planet Zardoz

[GaryPeterson67 · 9/10 · 14 January 2023]

An outstanding episode that captures all that was excellent about this series. The fascinating premise of chancing upon a thought-lost earth mission alive and well and living on Ultima Thule! Bombastic characters you care about and can't fully figure out. A simmering conflict that keeps revealing the inconvenient cracks in this prima facie paradise. Couple all that with a beautiful big-budget set, beautiful big-busted women, and stepped-up special effects.

Okay, so the whole damn thing was swiped wholesale from ZARDOZ. Who cares? If you're gonna plunder a plot, steal from the best, right? And ZARDOZ was arguably the smartest science-fiction film of 1974, the year preceding this episode's Fall '75 broadcast.

The Eternals of ZARDOZ are the immortal Thulians here. The Apathetics have their parallel in the Revered Ones, and the Brutals are the hapless mortals of Moonbase Alpha who, like Sean Connery's Zed, are lured into this faux-Paradise by a gregarious man with a nefarious plan.

The beautiful women on screens both big and small were scantily clad, baring ample bosoms. I thought of the Sirens leading lusty sailors to their peril. Alan goes all far-out space nut in the presence of such feminine pulchritude, ready to abandon ship and drop anchor on this barren but bodacious-babe-laden planet.

Reminding me of Ian Anderson sans flute, Mad Jack Tanner the erstwhile commander of the expedition plays the fool but is the wisest one of all. Like Arthur Frayn and Friend in ZARDOZ, Jack leads Zed/Koenig down a yellow-brick road to revelation, pulling back the curtain on the man with the booming voice.

Commander Koenig plays the boy who saw the emperor was naked, even when trusted friends insisted to the contrary. I was stunned at Victor and Helena's uncritical embrace of Rowland and his claims. In the presence of this outer-space Svengali, they appeared mesmerized, Helena all but swooning, Victor moronically grinning. Even after Koenig sprung the spasmodically shaking Victor from that phone booth of doom, Victor's faith in Rowland remained unswayed.

Conversely, Koenig saw clearly the horror of what unbridled science had wrought and the imminent danger it posed. Calling the failed guinea pigs of Rowland's insane experimentation "Revered Ones" was simply spin, a euphemism to salve the consciences of the perpetrators and tamp down the terror such Josef Mengelesque experiments should have provoked in the castaways of Ultima Thule. Not content to accept the immortality thrust upon them, Rowland and his scientist cohort are compelled to know exactly how it works. Why? For the betterment of humanity? No, so they can "bottle it," so to speak, then leave this world and conquer others.

"Wait for it," I thought, in the conclusion I knew was coming, even had Mad Jack not prophesied the jealous planet's not letting its people go. If anyone argues this episode wasn't lifted from ZARDOZ, the ending would be the trump card to triumphantly slap down. A man and woman holding hands when death comes a'calling. Coincidental? I say thee nay!

This was an awesome episode in almost every way--but only almost! The soap-sud snow was a misfire, and certainly looked worse in bluray than it did on my old rabbit-eared TV back in the '70s (where every show appeared to have been filmed on snowy Ultima Thule!). And hey, I'm no Alan Alda, but even I was wincing at how women were portrayed here. I mean, after 800-plus years the one thing these women are encouraged to do is sit around leisurely in cleavage-revealing outfits (on an ice planet, no less!) while men like Alan leap from one to the other ogling them?

That 800-plus-year reveal suffered under scrutiny. Surely the radio equipment and monitors would have worn out after a few centuries. And after almost a millennium, Rowland instantly recalls by name Moonbase Alpha? That would literally be ancient history for Rowland. And Victor and Helena's immediate recollection of this mission being lost in 1986 was also dubious, as was the dazed and just-thawed-out Helena being suddenly awed by Rowland, of course knowing exactly who he was. Why not just exclaim he was required reading at the Academy?

Those are all just quibbles and nitpicks, however. I thoroughly enjoyed this one, and I enjoyed it all the more thanks to the twin titanic talents of Brian Blessed and John Shrapnel.

PS: As the credits rolled, did you wonder as I did who got the unenviable call back at Alpha: "Cleanup in Eagle One!"??

A piece of gore towards the end

[trashgang · 8/10 · 24 August 2014]

Another great episode for a few reasons. There's suspense in the fact that the Eagle has to land on the planet they are doing some research. But things go wrong once they left the spacecraft searching where the sign came from that came from the planet.

Another thing that surprised me were the women living on that planet. Most of them didn't wear any bra but don't get me wrong, there's no nudity to see, but still they doesn't wear that much for the time this was shot.

Of course when they find out that the people also came from earth but are living for eternal, they are all over 800 years old, the question is asked to life together.

Be sure to watch it until the end, not only the women are worth mentioning but the gory effect towards the end is also worth picking up.

For me one of the best episodes.

Gore 1/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

Disappointing...

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 24 April 2010]

Despite the presence of the excellent and most enjoyable British actor Brian Blessed, this episode fell pretty flat. It seems that after a promising start to "Space: 1999", the show started to fall pretty flat. Fortunately, at least, this one is still a big improvement over the previous (yuck!) episode.

The show begins as Alpha drift towards another planet. Oddly, there happen to be humans on this planet--humans from a lost expedition to Uranus (insert juvenile joke here). However, when a landing party lands, the place is amazingly inhospitable--with temperatures of minus 70--and that's the warmest part of the day!! When the four left the Eagle ship, I was actually quite surprised, as the special effects for this ice planet were simply awful. Given that this show had a HUGE budget for the time, I was surprised that the snow looked exactly like a gloppy version of cheap spray snow (the type you might spray on Christmas trees or on windows) mixed with foam. It looked bizarre and so unlike real snow that I laughed--especially as it started sticking on them! Pretty weird.

Eventually, three of the four are found by the natives while the fourth (Carter) makes his way back to the ship and to Moon Base. However, eventually it becomes pretty obvious something akin to "The Island of Dr. Moreau" is going on here. While the people living on the planet have not aged (though this made no sense--they'd only been gone 14 years yet they said they could live forever and had been there over 800 years?!). What also didn't make much sense is that the top scientist (Blessed) was doing genetic experiments on the people and turning many of them into living vegetables (not like a zucchini--just mentally scrambled). It was never that clear why he was doing this, why his people went along with this (especially since he didn't use force) and why he was so intent on getting the Moon Base folks there so he could mess with their DNA.

While the idea of the crew having to choose whether to live on a crappy world or continue searching for another more hospitable one is interesting, the show didn't impress me that much due to the many, many unanswered questions, plot points that made little sense and the annoying character of the guy with ESP. I did, however, like the unrealistic but thoroughly nasty final scene with Blessed when he rode aboard and Eagle--pretty cool. Overall, a very mixed bag. Worth seeing but a bit disappointing.

Faux Shakespeare in space

[briginsh · 4/10 · 23 December 2018]

Hard to know where to start with this mess. The basic premise, including the not so shocking denouement, could be summarized on the back of a postage stamp. To summarize the indignities inflicted on the poor benighted cast by the clueless scriptwriters would take longer. Absurdities abound - the Alphans head out into -75 temperatures attired for a minor snowstorm, then much of the away team is apparently lost and Paul tells Alan there's nothing he can do, before launching a rescue mission in the next scene. There's more, but I risk spoiling what surprises there are.

Brian Blessed's comedic talents are now well appreciated, and it's a pity that he was required to recite his ridiculous lines straight. John Shrapnel, as an intergalactic Shakespearean fool, has an almost impossible task with this material, but Shrapnel and Landau do manage to conjure two or three moments of real feeling. In general, the cast acquit themselves well against almost impossible odds. The 4 is for them.

Abismal.

[simon-894 · 3/10 · 16 October 2019]

Wetter and colder than the fake snow which actually looks suspiciously like gallons of soapy suds. This episode is a real yawn. The opening scene is long and drawn out for no real purpose and it goes downhill from there.

Episode Summary and plot.

[rslegion · 26 April 2006]

The crew of Moonbase Alpha are contact by the leader of the planet Ultima Thuly Dr. Cabot Rowland (Brian Blessed) the planet is an ice world and the people on the planet are Humans who crashed on the planet from the Uranus Expiditon launched from earth in 1986, Soon the crew discover that the people on the planet are immortal and have living on that planet for 884 years in that time they have been doing experiments on members of there party and now want to experiment on members of the Alpha crew, the experiment have left the Ultima Thuly members with brain damage, but Dr Rowland offers the Alpha crew the chance to join the Ultima Thuly members to find the secret of immortality and then leave there planet with this knowledge and Dr. Rowland decides to offer this to all the member of Moonbase Alpha but when he tries to leave the planet he ages to death in seconds.