History Series / Space1999

* {{Irony}}: Of the Tragic kind. Commissioner Simmonds in "Earthbound" doesn't want to leave to luck his one chance to come back to Earth on an alien ship with only one cryogenic unit left. So, he takes hostage the Alpha base and Captain Zantor to secure his spot. After this goes horribly wrong, Captain Koenig reveals that the one candidate the computer picked for the trip was... Commissioner Simmonds.

* PowerPerversionPotential: Deliberately invoked and [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] by [[VoluntaryShapeshifter Maya]], and played primarily for comedic value.

%% * YouCantFightFate

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!!Trope-based episodes:

* AIIsACrapshoot: "The Infernal Machine", "Brian the Brain", "A Moment Of Humanity".
* AllJustADream: "War Games".
* AncientAstronauts: Implied in [[spoiler: "The Testament of Arcadia"]].
* {{Antimatter}}: "Matter of Life and Death", "A Matter of Balance"
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: "Collision Course"
* [[UnrealisticBlackHole Black Hole]]: "Black Sun"
* BrokenAce: "Dragon's Domain"
* ContemporaryCaveman: "The Full Circle"
* CreepyChild: "Alpha Child"
* DeadManWriting: "Space Warp"
* DerelictGraveyard: "Dragon's Domain"
* DeusExNukina: Averted on "Space Brain"-by the time a solution is formulated which requires nukes to be performed, [[DiabolusExMachina complications happen]] which make said nukes unavailable.
* DiabolusExNihilo: "The Beta Cloud"
* DownerEnding: Oooh boy... Lots of 'em. "Breakaway", "Death's Other Dominion", "Space Brain", "War Games", "Dragon's Domain", "The Testament of Arcadia", "Journey to Where", "The Dorcons" noteworthy examples.
* EldritchAbomination: "Space Brain", "End of Eternity", "Dragon's Domain". How the aliens in "War Games" view the Alphans.
* EvilTwin: "Seed of Destruction"
* {{Gendercide}}: "The Last Enemy"
* TheGreatRepair: The [[TwoLinesNoWaiting Koenig/Verdesci sub-plot]] of "Space Warp".
* GrowBeyondTheirProgramming: "Brian the Brain"
* HarmlessFreezing: "The Mark of Archanon". Subverted in "The Exiles", where the Alphans invoke this trope, unwittingly freeze the MonsterOfTheWeek, and are horrified by it.
* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: "War Games", invoked In-Universe in "The Exiles" and "The Last Sunset".
* HuntingTheMostDangerousGame: "The Rules of Luton"
* ImAHumanitarian: [[spoiler: "Mission of the Darians"]], in a way, also [[spoiler: "The Metamorph"]].
* ImmortalitySeeker: "The Dorcons". Deconstructed in "Death's Other Dominion".
* [[IntrepidMerchant Intrepid Merchants]]: "The Taybor"
* InvoluntaryShapeshifting: "Space Warp"
* MadScientist: "The Metamorph"
* MagicalSecurityCam: in "Black Sun", Main Mission watches a side view of an Eagle, even though it's distant and heading ''away'' from Alpha.
* MushroomSamba: Happens to Paul Morrow on "The Last Sunset", courtesy of alien mushrooms.
* {{Terraform}}: Done to the Moon by aliens on "The Last Sunset". [[YankTheDogsChain Removed by the aliens by the episode's end, once the Alphans are comfortably away from their planet]] (they believe that HumansAreTheRealMonsters ''that'' badly).
* TheMutiny: "The Testament of Arcadia", "The Seance Spectre"
* OurVampiresAreDifferent: "Force of Life", in that Zoref is a heat-seeking one.
* OurWormholesAreDifferent: "Black Sun", "Space Warp"
* PhonyPsychic: The bad guy of "The Seance Spectre" is an Alphan that has not only drawn several people into a cult of personality by making them believe that he is actually capable of listening to spirits that guide him, but has also been driven to madness and believing his own lies, thinking that a DeathWorld that the Moon is about to pass by is the best place to evacuate the Alphans to-and doing anything, including murder and trying to pull off a second [[EarthShatteringKaboom Breakaway]], to make the Alphans go to the planet.
* PlayingWithSyringes: "Missing Link", invoked in "The Metamorph".
* RipVanWinkle: "The Mark of Archanon", [[spoiler: "The Exiles"]].
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: Various episodes, but the one most apparent is "Voyager's Return".
* ShapeshifterSwanSong: Happens to Maya on "Space Warp". The plight of the Alphans then becomes 1) saving her from dying and 2) preventing the highly destructive monsters that she's changing into from wrecking the Moonbase with their rampage.
* SleeperStarship: "Earthbound", "The Exiles", "Dorzak"
* SpaceClouds: "The Beta Cloud", "The Lambda Factor"
* SplitPersonality: Implied in "The Infernal Machine".
* StableTimeLoop:
** The final twist of [[WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue "Message from Moonbase Alpha"]]: [[spoiler: Benes' final report from Alpha, pleading those on Earth to remember them and sent through a boosted carrier wave back to Earth but with the Alphans not knowing when (or ''if'') it would arrive, went back in time and was the Meta Planet's wave, which pretty much was the trigger for ''the whole series''.]]
** [[spoiler: Also the final twist of "The Troubled Spirit", [[YouCantFightFate in a fashion]]: the titular spirit is an Alphan which has been so horribly burned that he is almost unrecognizable and is on a rampage to kill and destroy, and the man who unwillingly brought it into being sacrifices himself by fighting it. At the very end, his wrecked and highly burned body is the spirit's]].
* TimeyWimeyBall: [[spoiler: "The Troubled Spirit"]].
* VoluntaryShapeshifting: "The Metamorph", in particular.
%% WhatCouldHaveBeen is a Trivia trope. It belongs on the Trivia subpage.
* WorthIt: Part of the speech that gives the TitleDrop to "A Moment Of Humanity": for one of the humanoid robots to feel it, it believes as it dies, was worth the destruction of his entire race.
* {{Yandere}}: Shermeen in "A Matter of Balance"
* YouCantFightFate: [[spoiler: "The Troubled Spirit". The man who called the spirit into being was, in the end, the spirit in life -- with his highly-burned body being the final evidence]].

* VoluntaryShapeshifting: Maya, who has the ability on her own. Her father, who's played by Creator/BrianBlessed, has a computer that can do this to larger objects and, potentially, a whole planet.

** Professor Bergman, who is expected to have answers to any conceivable scientific or philosophical question, and a lot of other questions as well.
** In the second season Maya takes over this role, but she usually limits herself to scientific questions. This is justified by her coming from an old, advanced civilization with a large knowledge base, and being much more intelligent than a typical human.

* SpaceClothes: Not as bad as some examples, but the unisex, beige jumpsuits are [[{{Zeerust}} still very '70s]]. The second season actually manages to tone this aspect down by adding a jacket to the basic moon base uniform.

** Professor Bergman, who is expected to have answers to any conceivable scientific or philosophical question.
** In the second season Maya takes over this role.

** The thin fabric of the first-season uniforms makes it rather obvious that many of the women aren't wearing bras. This is averted in the second season, perhaps because Rudi Grenreich's original, unisex uniform design was abandoned in favour of a more feminine look.

* RoguePlanet: The series deals with the perils the people of Moonbase Alpha endure when a massive nuclear explosion kicks the Moon out of orbit and makes it wander through the galaxy on its own volition, running into wormholes and other phenomena.

** The thin fabric of the first-season uniforms makes it rather obvious that most of the women aren't wearing bras. This seems to be averted in the second season, perhaps because the unisex theme was dropped.

* ReTool: From Season One to Season Two, into a more "action-packed" series and less cerebral plots. Also removing some of the main characters of said first season, [[ChuckCunninghamSyndrome some of them unexplained.]]

** The thin fabric of the first-season uniforms makes it rather obvious that most of the women aren't wearing bras. This is not as noticeable with the thicker uniforms in the second season.

** Most of the female personnel on Alpha seem to be either this or nurses. The only female regulars shown to perform any work of consequence are Dr. Russell, Sandra Benes and (in the second season) Maya. Sandra is clearly working in a subordinate position, though -- and seems to have little to do other than scream, faint or both. She gets a little more to do later in season one and in the second-season episodes where she appears at all.
** Some individual episodes have e.g. female scientists or female aliens playing an important role, but these characters are not recurring parts.

* CrystalSpiresAndTogas: Many of the more advanced civilizations encountered by the Alphans have this esthetics. Alien specships are also often decorated with crystal or abstract stained-glass screens (or perhaps they are not decorations, but advanced technology).

** When we first see Maya in the first episode of season 2, she is wearing rather extravagant SpaceClothes, but as she joins the doctor as a female lead she dons the same uniform as everybody else. It is, however, cut slightly differently, to look a bit sexier than the standard issue.

** Might have been justified with Maya, who is a VoluntaryShapeshifter, except that she cannot hold a form for long, so her humanoid form is her true form.

* LighterAndSofter: The second season is this compared to the first. This applies not so much to to the individual perils faced by the Alphans (they are just as dire in both seasons), but to the general tone of the series: where the first season is pessimistic with elements of CosmicHorror, the second season is much less philosophical, and more optimistic and positive.

* LighterAndSofter: The second season, to the point of MoodWhiplash for some viewers (given the somewhat pessimistic tone of the first).

** Some of the clothes worn by female aliens, or by female Alpha crewmembers when adopting native dress, are cut in a way that would make it impossible to wear any underwear.

->''"We are Mankind. We came from planet Earth, and we built this base, called Alpha, to learn more about space. But human error blasted this Moon out of the Earth's orbit. And so, we have traveled the Universe searching for a place to live."''

* ArtificialGravity: The moonbase is equipped with "gravity shields" that provide artificial gravity, let spacecraft take off and land on planets without refueling, and allow the moon to fly ''through'' a black hole. The shields stop working every time they would be detrimental to the plot.
* ArtisticLicensePhysics: This series is notorious for this.

* ArtisticLicenseSpace: All exterior shots of the moonbase are illuminated by bright sunlight, and always from the same angle -- even when the moon is in deep space, light years from the nearest star.

** Charlton Comics published both a color comic and an adult-oriented black and white illustrated magazine (noted for copious MsFanservice moments). One episode of the black and white comic is dissected [[http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics444.html here]].

* FashionableAsymmetry: Most Alpha personnel wear off-white uniforms, but with a left sleeve that's a different -- sometimes ''jarringly'' different -- color. This [[JustifiedTrope serves the purpose]] of differentiating various crew categories.

During this catastrophic event, the 300 persons crewing Moonbase Alpha avoid getting smeared into jelly; once things settle down a bit, they make the best of bad situation by surviving for at least three years with no means of support. They also deal with all the usual [[SciFi skiffy]] hackery -- AliensAndMonsters, mysterious events, the works -- without much thought to any serious science (or, often, common sense) in the resulting plots.

* AliensAndMonsters: And a wide variety of NegativeSpaceWedgie flavors to choose from as well. [[TheWorldIsAlwaysDoomed Poor Moonbase Alpha is Always Doomed]].

* ArbitrarySkepticism: After being out in space for so long and seeing all kinds of AliensAndMonsters, the Alphans still spend a good part of the first act of "The Troubled Spirit" finding it hard to believe that there is an honest-to-goodness ''ghost'' running around Alpha killing people, and that such thing as researching the psionic potential of humans is still done back on Earth. It is the fact that one of the Moonbase researcher's skepticism makes him interrupt a seance on the prologue [[NiceJobBreakingItHero that starts the whole mess]].

* ArtisticLicenseAstronomy: All exterior shots of the moonbase are illuminated by bright sunlight, and always from the same angle -- even when the moon is in deep space, light years from the nearest star.

** For instance, Creator/IsaacAsimov complained that an explosion powerful enough to deorbit the Moon would have destroyed it.
** Furthermore, the nuclear waste that exploded was located on the far side of the Moon, which meant that the moon would have been driven into Earth itself. This was ''somewhat'' handled in one episode novelization, which [[{{Retcon}} retconned]] Breakaway from being a [[EarthShatteringKaboom massive nuclear "kaboom"]] to a more rocket-like reaction.
** Also, the way the moon seems to encounter extra-solar planets every few weeks or so would not only have required it to move much faster than light, but on a trajectory with frequent course changes (star systems don't just line up like that) for which no explanation is given, though some episodes such as "The Black Sun" seem to suggest that the moon's trajectory may be influenced by [[OurWormholesAreDifferent wormholes]] and HyperspaceLanes.
** Additionally, despite the vast speeds needed to encounter so many planets, the moon then nearly stops near the planets for long enough to have the adventure of the week.

* BackdoorPilot: Interestingly enough, "Message from Moonbase Alpha" could be seen as one, with Johnny Byrne mentioning that he had a concept in hand for any potential investors about a continuation series focusing on the Alphans and their descendants, 25 years after Operation Exodus when the Moon came orbiting back towards their planet. [[AuthorExistenceFailure Sadly, Byrne passing away]] means that the idea's future is very much unknown.

** The thin fabric of the first-season uniforms makes it rather obvious that most of the women aren't wearing bras. This is not played for fanservice, and is not as noticeable with the thicker uniforms in the second season.
** In one episode, Sandra suffers ClothingDamage that shows that she isn't wearing anything under her uniform.

** Some of the clothes worn by female aliens, or by female Alpha crewmembers when adopting native dress, are cut in a way that implies this.

''Space:1999'' holds the dubious distinction of being the only TV show referenced by the United States Supreme Court in which watching it could be considered a form of torture. In ''Hudson v. [=McMillian=]'', 503 U.S. 1 (1992), Justice Thomas wrote,
->Many things—beating with a rubber truncheon, water torture, electric shock, incessant noise, reruns of ''Space: 1999''—may cause agony as they occur, yet leave no enduring injury. The state is not free to inflict such pains without cause just so long as it is careful to leave no marks.

''Space:1999'' holds the dubious distinction of being the only TV show in which watching it could be considered a form of torture by the United States upreme Court. In ''Hudson v. [=McMillian=]'', 503 U.S. 1 (1992), Justice Thomas wrote,

''Space:1999'' holds the dubious distinction of being the only TV show in which watching it could be a form of torture by the United States upreme Court. In ''Hudson v. [=McMillian=]'', 503 U.S. 1 (1992), Justice Thomas wrote,

* BackForTheDead: Commissioner Simmonds appears in the pilot as the Earth liaison, but after Moonbase Alpha gets knocked out of the solar system, there is no longer an Earth to liaise with and nothing for him to do. He disappears for the first half of season one until the writers remember him, bring him back for “Earthbound”, repeatedly call him useless, then give him an AndIMustScream exit.

* BackForTheDead: Commissioner Simmonds appears in the pilot as the Earth liaison, but after Moonbase Alpha gets knocked out of the solar system, there is no longer an Earth to liaise with and he becomes useless for plot purposes. He disappears for the first half of season one until the writers remember him, bring him back for “Earthbound”, repeatedly call him useless, then give him an AndIMustScream exit.

* ExpandedUniverse: Adaptations of the episodes were straight {{Novelization}}s at first (with multiple changes to make them both fit together within a novel and also some changes done between final shooting script and broadcasted episode), then swinging towards expanding the universe as they went on with multiple original stories set between Breakaway and "Message From Moonbase Alpha". A trilogy of books ("Survival", "Alpha" and "Omega") even go as far as work on bringing Professor Bergman BackFromTheDead (making the deleted line from "The Metamorph" canonical but performing changes about the situation where it happened) and stranding him away from Alpha for a while, making him the P.O.V. character of a conflict between an alien race and an invasion of the "dragons" from the episode "Dragon's Domain". The novels also expand the mythology of the "cosmic intelligence" encountered on "Black Sun" and referred to on other episodes (like "War Games").

** The final twist of [[WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue "Message From Moonbase Alpha"]]: [[spoiler: Benes' final report from Alpha, pleading those on Earth to remember them and sent through a boosted carrier wave back to Earth but with the Alphans not knowing when (or ''if'') it would arrive, went back in time and was the Meta Planet's wave, which pretty much was the trigger for ''the whole series''.]]

* ExpandedUniverse: Adaptations of the episodes were straight {{Novelization}}s at first (with multiple changes to make them both fit together within a novel and also some changes done between final shooting script and broadcasted episode), then swinging towards expanding the universe as they went on with multiple original stories set between Breakaway and "Message From Moonbase Alpha". A trilogy ofbooks ("Survival", "Alpha" and "Omega") even go as far as work on bringing Professor Bergman BackFromTheDead (making the deleted line from "The Metamorph" canonical but performing changes about the situation where it happened) and stranding him away from Alpha for a while, making him the P.O.V. character of a conflict between an alien race and an invasion of the "dragons" from the episode "Dragon's Domain". The novels also expand the mythology of the "cosmic intelligence" encountered on "Black Sun" and referred to on other episodes (like "War Games").

* DiabloExNihilo: "The Beta Cloud"

* GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere: "The Beta Cloud"

** David Kano, Moonbase Alpha's computer expert in the rest of the first season. He averts his "mere token" status fairly well for a '70s series, and he certainly gets a lot more to do per episode than, say, Lt. Uhura.