Damn space 1999 looked good,for that time period on television nothing else even came close to it in terms of quality.I can remember watching the show as a five year old and being totally blown away just by the first few minutes of the first episode,what were your first impression on the first viewing?
I'm working through the season one box set very slowly and having very mixed views which I will blog when I get to the end of the episodes. There is a sameness to a lot of the stories but some that have blown me away in later life that didn't stand out the first time around. All that aside it looks amazing and I do have a very distinct memory of sitting down to watch the first episode and thinking it was just fantastic. I was 6 or 7 I think. And there was definite running around the playground pretending to be Carter or Koenig, shooting lazers at dinner ladies/invisible aliens, which is praise indeed when you are that young.
It became a big crisis on a Saturday evening, as you now had to make a choice between either Doctor Who on BBC 1, OR Space:1999 on ITV. In the days LONG before VCRs.
We didn't have that clash - it depends which ITV network you got as to which days it was shown. I did however have a small scale civil war with my brother over me watching Doctor Who and him wanting to watch Buck Rogers. My mothers solution was the judgement of Solomon, cutting the baby in half. - Alternate weeks - which worked fine for Buck but killed a four part Doctor Who story meaning you either missed the first or last episode!
I'd pretty much committed to the flashier looking Buck Rogers over Who by that point. I wanted to stay true to Who, but the wobbly cardboard sets when placed next to the more Star Wars-looking Buck or Battlestar Galactica couldn't keep up. Of course comparing them in retrospect, there's so much more to love in the old Who, particularly as it was, maybe not GOLDEN age Tom Baker, but Baker none the less.
Damn space 1999 looked good,for that time period on television nothing else even came close to it in terms of quality.I can remember watching the show as a five year old and being totally blown away just by the first few minutes of the first episode,what were your first impression on the first viewing?
ReplyDeleteI'm working through the season one box set very slowly and having very mixed views which I will blog when I get to the end of the episodes. There is a sameness to a lot of the stories but some that have blown me away in later life that didn't stand out the first time around. All that aside it looks amazing and I do have a very distinct memory of sitting down to watch the first episode and thinking it was just fantastic. I was 6 or 7 I think. And there was definite running around the playground pretending to be Carter or Koenig, shooting lazers at dinner ladies/invisible aliens, which is praise indeed when you are that young.
DeleteIt became a big crisis on a Saturday evening, as you now had to make a choice between either Doctor Who on BBC 1, OR Space:1999 on ITV. In the days LONG before VCRs.
ReplyDeleteWe didn't have that clash - it depends which ITV network you got as to which days it was shown. I did however have a small scale civil war with my brother over me watching Doctor Who and him wanting to watch Buck Rogers. My mothers solution was the judgement of Solomon, cutting the baby in half. - Alternate weeks - which worked fine for Buck but killed a four part Doctor Who story meaning you either missed the first or last episode!
DeleteI'd pretty much committed to the flashier looking Buck Rogers over Who by that point. I wanted to stay true to Who, but the wobbly cardboard sets when placed next to the more Star Wars-looking Buck or Battlestar Galactica couldn't keep up. Of course comparing them in retrospect, there's so much more to love in the old Who, particularly as it was, maybe not GOLDEN age Tom Baker, but Baker none the less.
ReplyDeleteabsolutely agree with all of those points
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