Episode Guide: Year One
Title: "Death's Other Dominion"
Within this page: Overview | Backplot | Plot Synopsis | Unanswered Questions | Analyses/Observations | Comments | Memorable Lines
Overview
The Alphans survey a ice planet -- where the survivors of an earlier Earth expedition have crash-landed... and unlocked the secrets of immortality.
Production Number: 014 (Season One)
- filmed Wednesday, September 11 - Monday, September 23, 1974
Original U.K. airing week: 2 October 1975 (ATV Midlands)
Original U.S. airing week: 14 November 1975 (syndication)
Written by Anthony Terpiloff and Elizabeth Barrows
Directed by Charles Crichton
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.)
Commander Koenig and his colleagues speed through space and time into a chilling world of ice - and meet former inhabitants of Earth.
The codename given to the planet which has come into view is "The Ice Planet" because of the computer readings that it has atmosphere, but temperatures Moonbase Alpha personnel would find intolerable, dropping at night right down to 200 degrees below. Its gravitational pull is so strong that it is affecting the Moon's trajectory.
Then, surprisingly and dramatically, a signal is received. It is a human voice, and it is reporting "We have life here, a long life that you could share... Ultima Thule is a lost paradise! Come!"
For Commander Koenig (MARTIN LANDAU), the prospect is so interesting that he decides to investigate. Accompanying him in the reconnaissance Eagle are Dr. Helena Russell (BARBARA BAIN), Professor Bergman (BARRY MORSE) and Alan Carter (NICK TATE) at the controls.
They land. The planet's surface is deep in snow and ice, hidden in an impenetrably thick mist, the wind howling. They are able to identify where the signals are coming from. For a time, they get separated. Carter manages to get back to the Eagle; the others succeed in getting together, fighting what seems to be a losing battle.
The cast of "Death's Other Dominion" includes John Shrapnel, David Ellison and all the regulars of the series, with a great deal of the action centered on Nick Tate.
The episode is very much of a husband-and-wife effort. Producers are Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Stars Martin Landau and Barbara Bain are married. And the screenplay is by husband-and-wife Anthony Terpiloff and Elizabeth Barrows.
SCREENPLAY BY ANTHONY TERPILOFF AND ELIZABETH BARROWS
DIRECTED BY CHARLES CRICHTON
Guest Star
BRIAN BLESSED
Guest Artist
JOHN SHRAPNELL
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
MARY MILLER as FREDA
View the script for "Death's Other Dominion."
Unanswered Questions
- What became of the Thulians? Did they restore the Revered Ones? (The Thulians who had been experimented on by Dr. Rowland.)
- Why were so many crew members participating in the Uranus Probe mission? How extension was the original mission?
- Jack Tanner appears to have some form of enhanced psychic ability, such as foretelling the arrival of Earth's moon at Ultima Thule (as commented by Dr. Rowland). Tanner also comments, "(Rowland) envies my new psychic abilities."
- The charred skeletal/tissue remains of Doctor Cabot Rowland in the Moon-bound Eagle were both exceptionally horrific and grotesque, especially for the 1970s television audience. In 1970s U.S. television markets, the episode aired without censorship.
- Brian Blessed returned in another role as Mentor, Maya's father, in the Space: 1999 episode, "The Metamorph."
Analyses/Observations
Comments
Memorable Lines
"Come on, you beautiful bird. Lift off. Lift off!" - Alan Carter
"You must not stay here. There is nothing for you. We are living people frozen in eternity. You must go home to Alpha." - Frieda "But Alpha isn't home. It's a barracks, on a barren rock flying endlessly through space. We're looking for a real home, a place to live, to raise children." - Helena Russell
"Oh yes. The doctor. But he hasn't told you, yet, that here, we live forever, that we've been here for eight hundred and eighty years. That we haven't aged since we landed, that we are the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. And that the price of immortal life is impotence! No growth, no future, no end! Just ever and a day... this!" - Jack Tanner
"Commander Koenig. The blight of human life has been death. The most brilliant lives cut off. Progress held back. We have lived on Thule for eight hundred years. We have immortality. I have tried to analyse the difference between what we are now and what we once were on Earth. For in the difference lies the secret of eternal life. Now with that secret uncovered we shall leave Thule. There will be no end. Only better and better beginnings. Nothing will hold us back. We shall find... Paradise. So far my experiments have been unsuccessful." - Cabot Rowland
"And ladies and gentlemen, who'll make the first bid for Doctor Rowland's magic elixir? Huh? Do I hear one million souls? Two?" - Jack Tanner
"But this, this is mere technology. I want you to join me, now, in this last experiment. And then together we'll step forward into the greatest scientific adventure in the whole history of man. Unencumbered by death, we shall leap from planet to planet, from solar system to solar system, from galaxy to galaxy! We shall be as gods in the Universe!" - Cabot Rowland
"Right now, you're as sane as I am." - John Koenig "It comes and goes." - Jack Tanner
"John. Don't forget we are talking about the conquest of death. The greatest medical challenge conceivable!" - Helena Russell "Everything mankind has ever desired." - Victor Bergman "Except humanity." - John Koenig
"No! You shan't go! And nor should you! By all disheveled wandering stars, I tell you... death has dominion." - Jack Tanner
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