Devil's Planet

The second season of Space 1999 was much weaker and cheaper than the first. Fred Freiberger, also producer of the cheesy 3rd season of Star Trek, was criticized for his production of the 2nd series. "Fred Freiberger helped in some respects, but, overall, I don't think he helped the show, I think he brought a much more ordinary, mundane approach to the series," said Landau.

Devil's Planet is a generic title that could have applied to any script about a planet. It utilized one of the oldest schticks in science fiction, a civilization run by stacked Amazons in tight costumes (Catwomen of the Moon, Abbott & Costello Go To Mars, Missile To The Moon, Queen of Outer Space and numerous pulp magazine tales). Koenig crashes on their planet and the queen is hot for him. At this point in the series, Landau was either alone or the crew was without him in other stories, like Dorzak, so the production team could shoot faster but this cost cutting technique damaged the individual stories. The rest of the story is about him escaping. A lot of questions are left unanswered. A good portion of the cinematography is aimed at the Amazons' buttocks. The cheaply designed transporter box they use to beam the prisoners to the planet Elena looks like a turnpike toll booth. The second season music is mainly horrible, a mix of TV disco and Love American Style garbage.

Koenig: "We do not commit mindless violence." Elizia: "Then you do deprive yourself of pleasure."

What a line. And with this episode, Space: 1999 meets Roger Corman (...while anticipating similarly red-spandexed-clad-female warriors of Octopussy... surely, I'm not the only one to notice?). So many of these season two episodes harkened back to the previous season one themes ("The Troubled Spirit" = "The Lambda Effect," "Guardian of Piri" = "The Bringers of Wonder"), this might be seen as a companion piece to season one's similarly suggestive male-vs-female, "The Last Enemy." This was one of the more memorable season two episodes, especially considering it consists entirely of just Koenig, an alien guest cast and the Alpha "B" cast of red jackets. The "night shift" Alpha actors shine here; Ed, Bill & Alibe all make an impression (Ed's Sam Dastor is the only link between the previous "Dorzak" episode and this, John Hug pretty much steals every season two scene he's in, while Alibe makes us cry despite of the fact we haven't seen her before). Perhaps due to necessity, the alien culture here is given a complex nuance that we rarely see in other episodes. Overall, another welcome uptick in quality seen the underrated second half of season two.