Episode Guide: Year Two
Title: "Brian The Brain"
Within this page: Overview | Backplot | Plot Synopsis | Unanswered Questions | Analyses/Observations | Comments | Memorable Lines
Overview
A Swift spacecraft, launched from Earth years ago, intercepts the wayward moon. An artificial intelligence is at the helm... and there is no sign of the Earth crew. Further trouble ensues as Koenig and Russell are kidnapped.
Production Number: 009 (Season Two)
Original U.K. airing week: 2 October 1976 (ATV Midlands)
Original U.S. airing week: 1 October 1976 (syndication)
Written by Jack Ronder
Directed by Kevin Connor
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.
- In the previous episode, "The Mark of Archanon," two beings were discovered in suspended animation within the catacombs under Moonbase Alpha.
Plot Synopsis
(From the original ITC Press Release.)
Hijacked by a robot - a living machine with a brain, a human voice and a terrifying secret.
The voice is racily U.S. American. It comes from a spaceship which is approaching the Moon just as Commander John Koenig (MARTIN LANDAU) has ordered evacuation procedure because of a mysterious gravity pull and the sighting of a small planet.
The voice from the spaceship identifies the ship as one of four Swifts which took off from Earth in 1996, with a mothership, on a mission which disappeared without trace. On this score, his facts are accurate. But when he meets up with it, Koenig discovers to his astonishment that the voice belongs to a machine - living, intelligent, human in everything except for it's construction: a self-programming, self-monitoring computer.
Koenig is so intrigued that he accepts an invitation for Dr. Helena Russell (BARBARA BAIN) and himself to go aboard the Swift. The machine's name is Brian because the first word he ever said was "Brain" but got it wrong and said "Brian" instead. So Brian's as good a name as anything for him.
In the Command Centre, there is sudden alarm. The monitor screen is blank. No contact can be made with Koenig or Helena... and the Swift has taken off. On the Swift, the abducted Koenig and Helena are allowed to make contact with Eagles that have gone in search of them, but Koenig is forced to order them back.
It is now clear that the Swift is making for the small planet, and one of the Eagles, containing Tony Verdeschi (TONY ANHOLT) and Maya (CATHERINE SCHELL), ignores instructions and lands on the planet first. When the Swift lands, Brian the Brain orders Koenig to don a spacesuit and go to the old Mothership, unload the fuel store, return with it and install it in his storage tanks. There's enough nuclear fuel to last Brian a billion years - and he wants to live forever.
Sickened by the sight of the corpses of the dead crew, Koenig steps into the Mothership and comes face to face with Tony and Michael. The dead body of Captain Michael is sitting at the Command Desk and Koenig guesses what Brian is actually telling Helena: that it was Captain Michael who made him, taught him to speak, to live. Why then, did he deliberately plan the deaths of his creator and the other members of the crew?
The presence of Maya is sufficient for Koenig to work out a plan to beat Brian by confusing him to the extent that he won't know what he is doing. Captain Michael will live again, thanks to Maya's miraculous powers of transformation.
Back on the ship Koenig, with sudden intuition, tells Brian that he knows why he killed the man who created him. Captain Michael was working on an advanced version of him, and he would have been scrapped. And Brian the Brain panics when suddenly confronted by Maya in the shape of Captain Michael. He is defeated. But what is to become of him?
"SPACE 1999" - SERIES II
CAST LIST
EPISODE NO. 9 - "BRIAN THE BRAIN"
DIRECTOR: KEVIN CONNOR
KOENIG - MARTIN LANDAU
HELENA - BARBARA BAIN
MAYA - CATHERINE SCHELL
YASKO - YASUKO NAGAZUMI
1ST OPERATIVE - ANNIE LAMBERT
EAGLE ONE PILOT - JOHN HUG
MICHAEL - BERNARD CRIBBINS
SECURITY LIEUTENANT - MARK ZUBER
TONY VERDESCHI - TONY ANHOLT
BRIAN/ROBOT - MICHAEL SHARVILL-MARTIN
Unanswered Questions
Analyses/Observations
Comments
Memorable Lines
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