Episode Guide: Year One
Title: "Alpha Child"
Within this page: Overview | Backplot | Plot Synopsis | Unanswered Questions | Analyses/Observations | Comments | Memorable Lines
Overview
The first human child is born on the Moon -- or is it alien?
Production Number: 010 (Season One)
- filmed Monday, July 8 - Monday, July 22, 1974
Original U.K. airing week: 16 October 1975 (ATV Midlands)
Original U.S. airing week: 28 November 1975 (syndication)
Written by Christopher Penfold (originally written by Edward di Lorenzo)
Directed by Ray Austin
Backplot
- In the year 1999, lunar nuclear waste storage dumps have exploded, due to magnetic radiation, sending Earth's moon into interstellar space. The inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha, unable to escape, are seeking a new home.
Plot Synopsis
(From the original ITC Press Release.)
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The first baby is born on the moon, but terrifying events follow with an outer space battle between spaceships deciding the fates of hundreds.
Cynthia Crawford (CYD HAYMAN) is the first woman on the moon to become a mother, but terror is soon to follow the birth of her baby, Jackie. Within hours, he grows into a five-year-old boy, alert and intelligent but a deaf mute. Cynthia is reduced to a state of shock and Commander Koenig (MARTIN LANDAU) and Helena Russell (BARBARA BAIN) wonder if the fantastic growth is a form of mutation caused by the artificial environment on Alpha. They are puzzled and intrigued by the skill with which the boy draws an amazingly detailed picture of an advanced spaceship and then, alarmingly, a green light in the space sky materializes into a craft identical to the one Jackie has drawn, a little later to be joined by three others.
The alien ships hover menacingly just above the moon's surface. Computer records some form of life inside, but it is not human. Attempts to bombard one of the craft with laser fire are in vain: the rays are defected.
Koenig takes quick action, putting into operation a four-pronged attack, but as he does so another startling transformation takes place in Jackie. In minutes, he grows into a man (JULIAN GLOVER). His name, he says, is Jarak, and he forced Helena to contact Koenig with the warning that, unless he calls off the new attack, Alpha will be destroyed.
He then demands to be taken to Cynthia Cawford. She dies as she sees him but is immediately revitalized into a ravishingly beautiful creature who greets Jarak passionately. He addresses her as Rena and explains that they are involuntary travellers through space, seeking a physical form which to conceal their own identities. On their planet, they faced extermination because they were different and now 120 of them are running away form the ruthlessly imposed genetic conformity.
Their plan is to take over the bodies of those on Moonbase. The moments of birth and death are ideally suited to this purpose and the birth of Jackie Crawford gave Jarak his chance. Now there will be more deaths as Jarak's companions in the hovering spaceships transfer themselves to dying Moonbase Alpha bodies that have been selected.
But a blinding flash is a warning to Jarak that his people's enemies have caught up with them. Six more space ships have arrived and the war of the spaceships is not raging. The outcome will decide that fate of Moonbase Alpha and its people and of Jarak and Rena.
SCREENPLAY BY CHRISTOPHER PENFOLD
DIRECTED BY RAY AUSTIN
Guest Artists
JULIAN GLOVER
CYD HAYMAN
with
PRENTIS HANCOCK as PAUL MORROW
CLIFTON JONES as DAVID KANO
ZIENIA MERTON as SANDRA BENES
ANTON PHILLIPS as DR. MATHIAS
NICK TATE as ALAN CARTER
WAYNE BROOKS as JACKIE
Unanswered Questions
- What specifically happened to Jack Crawford (Cynthia Crawford's husband, Jackie's father) to cause his death seven months earlier?
- What became of Jackie Crawford? (One possibility: Read "Space: 1999 - Resurrection" by William Latham from Powys Media.)
- How was Jarak able to make Jackie grow, such as he did? Were there any after-effects from the possessions of either Jackie or Cynthia?
Analyses/Observations
Comments
- "Alpha Child" is commonly referred to as the "Rosemary's Baby" episode, based on the chilling 1968 movie about an angelic, pregnant woman's decline into madness over the possibility of her carrying the Devil's child.
- Actor Julian Glover (Jarak) made his debut as Lt. Matherton in the Oscar-winning "Tom Jones" (1963). Other roles include Kristatos in the James Bond film, "For Your Eyes Only" (1977); General Veers in "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980); King Richard in the made-for-TV "Ivanhoe" (1982); Walter Donahue in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (1989), among other productions.
- Statistically, Moonbase Alpha shows increasing signs of widows: Dr. Helena Russell (Lee Russell - "Matter of Life and Death"); Eva Zoref (Anton Zoref - "Force of Life"); and now Cynthia Crawford from months earlier (husband Jack Crawford), revealed in this episode.
Memorable Lines
"It's a boy. Mother and son doing just fine. Seven pounds, eleven ounces. Dark hair, blue eyes. He's beautiful." - Helena Russell
"My baby. What happened to my baby?" - Cynthia Crawford
"Look, I'll give Cyn all the help she needs. I think we've got to give him the best chance we can." - Helena Russell
"Ah, yes. He's bright enough alright. And, as far as I can tell, a perfectly normal kid." - Victor Bergman "Is he, Victor? I think all our inquiring minds have been just a little charmed with young Jackie." - John Koenig
"Look, we've got to stop calling that 'Jackie,' but rather some...some alien power amongst us which, sooner or later, we may have to destroy." - John Koenig
"Ah...uh.. Mm..Mm... Ahh... My... name... is... Jarak.. For... as... long... as... you... know me... I shall retain this form. I require to know what has been happening during the period of my growth." - Jarak
I like the intuitive quality of your mind, Commander. I like the unpredictability of your human emotions. I like the differences between you people. But on our planet we faced extermination because we were different." - Jarak
"We shall have begun our new life as inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha." - Jarak
"Do you think they gave themselves up?" - Helena Russell "It's a nice thought, Helena. I don't think they had any choice." - John Koenig
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