Episode Guide: Year One
Title: "Force of Life"
Within this page: Overview | Backplot | Plot Synopsis | Unanswered Questions | Analyses/Observations | Comments | Memorable Lines
Overview
A mysterious alien force possesses one of the Alphans -- with murderous results.
Production Number: 009 (Season One)
- filmed Wednesday, May 29 - Friday, June 7, 1974; Monday, July 1 - Friday, July 5, 1974
Original U.K. airing week: 11 September 1975 (ATV Midlands)
Original U.S. airing week: 24 October 1975 (syndication)
Written by Johnny Byrne
Directed by David Tomblin
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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A terrifying force from Outer Space brings freezing death to Alpha personnel. One man has been chosen as the instrument of destruction.
A strange ball of blue light appears in the space sky, coming towards Moonbase Alpha. Technician Anton Zoref (IAN McSHANE) shivers with cold although his pretty young wife Eva (GAY HAMILTON) complains of feeling hot. And when Zoref approaches Main Mission, Commander Koenig (MARTIN LANDAU), Dr. Helena Russell (Barbara Bain) and other personnel are suddenly frozen still like statues. Zoref enters the generating area. A blue light zooms towards him. He clutches his head, screams and collapses.
The others come to life again; Zoref is still un-conscious. And when Helena takes him to the medical monitoring system, it fails through what Professor Bergman (BARRY MORSE) later explains as being through it's receiving a massive discharge of energy.
Whatever has happened, Zoref appear to have recovered, but from now onwards he is a man possessed with a terrifying need for heat. Whatever alien force it is that has gripped him, it is consuming heat and he will withdraw heat from any source, human or otherwise. Everything he touches freezes instantly. A lamp turns to solid ice. Two of his colleagues are frozen to death. He is like a rampaging animal and no one dare get near him.
Koenig orders power supplies to be cut from the reactors, even though this will endanger patients in the medical section dependent of machines. Only by taking away any source of light and warmth can the man who has become a human instrument of destruction be himself destroyed.
His wife's love for him is so great that she rushes towards him, and it is only because of the appearance and quick action on the part of astronaut Carter (NICK TATE) that she is saved. He forces her back and Zoref staggers after them in his urgent need for heat.
He is weakening through the lack of power. Despairingly, he tries to reach the generating room but finds he has got to force his way past Koenig. Summoning his last reserves of energy, he hurls himself at the Commander, who is also saved by Carter when he fires his laser gun and sees Zoref topple forward, charred to the bone.
Then Zoref's blackened, burned-out body begins to pulsate with light. The laser has re-generated him. With colossal strength, for forces open the doors to the generating area and as Koenig orders power to be restored, the wreck of a man moves into the white light. As he does so, it intensifies. A massive fission explosion occurs... and from the top of the explosion emerges a swirling comet of blue light which heads out into the space sky.
SCREENPLAY BY JOHNNY BYRNE
DIRECTED BY DAVID TOMBLIN
Guest Star
IAN McSHANE
Guest Artist
GAY HAMILTON
with
PRENTIS HANCOCK as PAUL MORROW
CLIFTON JONES as DAVID KANO
ZIENIA MERTON as SANDRA BENES
ANTON PHILLIPS as DR. MATHIAS
Unanswered Questions
- Where did the blue energy come from... and where is it going?
Analyses/Observations
Comments
- 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").
- Actress Gay Hamilton (who played wife Eva Zoref) previously had a recurring role on Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's UFO series.
- In an interview with John K. Muir, writer/script editor Johnny Byrne discussed some insights into "Force of Life":
Muir: "Your next episode, 'Force of Life' is my all-time favorite. Yet this is one that seems to be criticized by the media and fans of other franchises. Why do you think that is?"
Byrne: "I'm not sure. It was a very simple story, really. This was a process of a lifeforce traveling through space, chyrsalis into butterfly. That's entirely all it was. Why can't people see that? Just last night, I was watching this program about the universe, about the incredible ways life can survive. These scientists study these tiny microbes found on Mars, or learn how life can survive literally anywhere. It's incredible. I didn't know about these things when I wrote 'Force of Life', but it is the same thing. The lifeforce had it's own agenda, and there were no philosophical discussions to be had. It couldn't express itself verbally, because it was very different from the Alphans. I mean, was it going to pop in and say 'charge me up and send me on my way?' That would have been ridiculous."
Muir: "The direction [by David Tomblin] is stunning."
Byrne: "The way it looked took some thought, and was beautifully expressed by David. I don't understand why people don't get it. I tried to express this universal thought of life developing, in a very simple form, and it found Zoref because it was homing in on his area of the base and he was the first form it found. I think that during the course of the story, it was spelled out pretty clearly."
Memorable Lines
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