Destination: Moonbase Alpha (59 page)

Rating:
9/10

2.6

THE TAYBOR

Screenplay by Thom Keyes

Directed by Bob Brooks

Selected Broadcast Dates:

UK
              LWT:

             
Date: 6 November 1976.               Time: 10.55 am

             
Granada:

             
Date: 17 July 1977.

US
              KRON (San Francisco):

             
Date: 25 September 1976.               Time: 7.00 pm

Credited Cast: Martin Landau
(John Koenig),
Barbara Bain
(Helena Russell),
Catherine Schell
(Maya),
Tony Anholt
(Tony Verdeschi),
Jeffery Kissoon
(Ben Vincent),
John Hug
(Bill Fraser),
Yasuko Nagazumi
(Yasko),
Laraine Humphrys
(Karen),
Rita Webb
(Slatternly Woman (Maya)),
Mel Taylor
(Pilot Andrews)

Guest Star: Willoughby Goddard
(Taybor the Trader)

Uncredited Cast: Sarah Bullen
(Operative Kate),
Vicki Michelle
(Barbara),
Jenny Clare
,
Chai Lee
,
Penny Priestley
(Sunbathing Alphans),
Micky Clarke
(Medic),
Glenda Allen
(Technician)

Plot:
An intergalactic trader named Taybor arrives at Alpha in his ship, the
SS Emporium
, and becomes infatuated with Maya. A robot duplicate of the Psychon is created to satisfy him, but the trader only collects originals. Taybor kidnaps Maya and takes her into hyperspace, but Koenig has devised a way to save her.

Quotes:

• Taybor:
  ‘Taybor’s the name, trading’s my game.’
  
• Taybor:
  ‘Just now? I’ve been trading my wares at the Three World’s Fair on Azoth. Or do you mean where do I come from? My natal soil. Soil, did I say? Dust is more the truth of it, if you know Pinvith the Lesser … Sixty parsecs from the notorious Frontier Worlds of Shmagod, on the Inner Vesica Route. You may well wonder at my humble origins, and how a lad from Pinvith the Lesser has dragged himself two hundred thousand parsecs from the wrong side of a dusty world, on the wrong side of the wrong galaxy in the wrong universe. To haul himself up by the gravitron straps, so to speak. And to venture forth in search of beauty, beautiful things, beautiful people …’
  
• Taybor:
  ‘Without beauty surrounding him, a man’s soul corrodes into dust.’
  
• Taybor:
  ‘It’s a big universe; a lonely place to wander in.’
  
• Taybor:
  ‘Nectar, Mr. Verdeschi – pure nectar. Best meal I’ve had since the Rainbow Room on the
  Astra
  , and that merited two starbursts in
  The Gourmet’s Guide to the Galaxy
  .’
  
• Taybor:
  ‘I’ve darkened many a space port of call, Skipper, and while they all have their share of goods to offer, there’s none that will suit you.’
  
• Taybor:
  ‘My home – the old Emporium. Registered in Kantonrek for tax purposes.’
  

On-screen Date:
None.

Filming Dates:
Thursday 15 April – Monday 3 May 1976

Commentary:

Martin Landau:
‘We have an episode called “The Taybor”. He is kind of like a travelling medicine man from the Old West. He is a con man, a magician and a huckster of a certain kind with a lot of flamboyance, and that is a very interesting episode, all the while being terribly menacing.’

Review:
A segment played for amusement, ‘The Taybor’ will be liked or loathed depending upon a viewer’s response to its humour. While there are a number of very good scenes in this script by Thom Keyes, there are also a number that fall flat. The story lacks substance and seems obviously padded with filler material in order to extend it to fill the 52 minutes of screen time.

In a particularly notable example of ‘borrowing’ between science fiction shows, Taybor the Trader has some significant similarities to the character Harcourt Mudd from the original
Star Trek
episodes ‘Mudd’s Women’ and ‘I, Mudd’. Even more significant similarities can be seen between Taybor and the later intergalactic trader Kivas Fajo from the
Star Trek: The Next Generation
episode ‘The Most Toys’, where he encounters the Enterprise-D and kidnaps crewmember Data. While this book has generally avoided listing comparisons between the various incarnations of
Star Trek
and
Space: 1999
, simply to avoid becoming a litany of such examples, this cross-generational instance is one too obvious to ignore.

Physically, Taybor bears striking resemblance to the character Sir John Falstaff, who appeared in three plays by William Shakespeare. Falstaff – apart from being one of the great comic figures in drama – was a fat, vainglorious, lying coward and glutton, given to excessive consumption of alcohol – all of which characteristics will be familiar to viewers of ‘The Taybor’.

Guest Willoughby Goddard, as Taybor, is mildly entertaining, however his role and performance are both rather over-the-top, and his significantly slurred speech is an annoying distraction. He doesn’t so much speak his dialogue as chew it up before allowing it to fall out of his mouth. Goddard was best known for portraying Sir Toby Belch, another not dissimilar Shakespearean character, in productions of
Twelfth Night
.

Alphan characterisation and performances vary from merely acceptable to quite strong: Barbara Bain looks beautiful in her blue gown, and Catherine Schell is especially prominent, providing a depth of charm to Maya that reaches beyond the words of the script.

There are a number of aspects of the episode that don’t fit into the series as a whole, including the
Star Trek
-style association of trading worlds – although in a vast universe, there are bound to be all kinds! But the most glaring is Helena’s ability to create a walking, talking, robotic version of Maya that looks exactly like her. Sure, it’s little more than a moving mannequin, but this is an instance of technology surely well beyond the realm of Moonbase Alpha.

Catherine Schell’s appearance here as a robot version of herself oddly recalls her appearance as the Servant of the Guardian in ‘The Guardian of Piri’, and in both instances the robots she portrays end up with their faces blown apart.

Director Bob Brooks does a serviceable job with ‘The Taybor’, his debut episode for the series, but his style is mostly unremarkable. He would return to helm one additional episode: the vastly superior ‘The Immunity Syndrome’.

Taybor’s ship, the
SS Emporium
, is charming in internal and external design and was inspired by a NASA concept from 1970 for a Mars Excursion Vehicle. His home world also sports one of the most creative planet names in the series: Pinvith the Lesser. Some nice cinematography and special effects shine as highpoints of the episode.

Taybor’s passion for beauty lies at the core of the story and is both his obsession and his downfall, though this is not achieved with any degree of subtlety: it is mentioned countless times throughout the episode. In trying so formidably to get its point across, ‘The Taybor’ only truly succeeds in hitting viewers over the head with something pretty.

‘The Taybor’ could be easily interpreted as commenting rather effectively on materialism and consumerism. The central dichotomy of the episode is that Taybor has lots of beautiful possessions, but he leads an empty existence. It is a valuable commentary on our economically orientated world. Taybor also bears parallels with Companion from ‘The Infernal Machine’ – a solitary being travelling space in a ship – and thus also recalls the themes of that earlier episode: isolation and loneliness. However, these more internal concepts were dealt with more effectively through the serious tone of ‘The Infernal Machine’, rather than the comedic approach found here.

There are a number of delightful lines in Taybor’s dialogue where he refers to various travels he’s had and planets he’s visited. They are referenced so casually it’s clearly just pure habit for him, but he succeeds in entertaining and dumbfounding the Alphans quite often.

‘The Taybor’ is charming fun, but – quite frankly – when a science fiction programme attempts to become a comedy, it has to be better than this. It has to be funny, like
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
, rather than slightly amusing. As something of an amusing romp, ‘The Taybor’ works reasonably well, but it commits the sin of ultimately being boring, and remains an unsatisfactory segment when compared to many other vastly better episodes of
Space: 1999
.

Sadly, ‘The Taybor’ is the first in a stretch of four of the worst episodes of Year Two.

Rating:
5/10

2.7

THE RULES OF LUTON

Screenplay by Charles Woodgrove (Fred Freiberger)

Directed by Val Guest

Selected Broadcast Dates:

UK              LWT:

             
Date: 23 October 1976.               Time: 11.00 am

             
Granada:

             
Date: 3 July 1977.

US
              KRON (San Francisco):

             
Date: 16 October 1976.               Time: 7.00 pm

Credited Cast: Martin Landau
(John Koenig),
Barbara Bain
(Helena Russell),
Catherine Schell
(Maya),
Tony Anholt
(Tony Verdeschi),
David Jackson
(Alien Strong),
Godfrey James
(Alien Transporter),
Roy Marsden
(Alien Invisible),
Yasuko Nagazumi
(Yasko)

Uncredited Cast: David Jackson
(Voice of the Judges of Luton),
Annie Lambert
(Command Centre Operative),
Jenny Cresswell
(Operative L Picard)

Plot:
While exploring the planet Luton, Koenig and Maya pick some flowers and eat some berries and find themselves accused of murder: the dominant species on Luton are plants, not animals! Koenig and Maya must fight to the death against alien beings accused of similar crimes; each endowed with a special power – invisibility, great strength and teleportation.

Quotes:

• Koenig:
  ‘Obviously animals are a lower form of life on this planet. If we all kill each other, it’s acceptable.’
  
• Koenig:
  ‘All right, then I thank the bird for its keen eyesight and the lion for its terrible roar.’
  
• Koenig:
  ‘She was like … Helena.’
  
• Koenig:
  ‘When I’m around, never pick a flower.’
  

On-screen Date:
892 days since leaving Earth orbit.

Filming Dates:
Monday 3 May – Friday 14 May 1976

Commentary:

Martin Landau:
‘We did one episode [“The Rules of Luton”] in which Catherine and I are alone on a planet which is very similar to Earth … We shot that outside and we spent nine days out on location. It is virtually a chase picture.’

Catherine Schell:
‘We were all so ill when we did [“The Rules of Luton”] – we were working with 104 degree fevers. England was suffering a drought and a heat wave, and that had hardly ever existed before. Working in the studios, the studios were obviously air conditioned, but going home or coming to work … The differences in temperature all the time [meant that] everybody came down with a terrible, terrible flu. Some of us had pneumonia, and we were working! So I remember that one, because we were having to work outside and we were sweating and everybody was terribly sick. But that’s all I remember about it.’

Bloopers:
Following Koenig’s instructions to Maya for her to stay on hard ground in order not to leave footprints, watch Maya’s jacket: it mysteriously disappears in one shot while she’s running.