Bell bottoms in space
So I’m watching “Space 1999" tonight, and there is poor Martin Landau doing a jigsaw puzzle to pass the time. Not only that, but the opening shots of the episode make it clear that a whole bunch of people are doing jigsaw puzzles to pass the time.
Wow, I thought. You guys would kill for “Grand Theft Auto.”
Leaving aside the question of why a man would watch “1999" on a Saturday night anyway, the whole experience of watching the episode (and I watched the whole thing, hoping it would get better) brought up some thoughts I’ve had about the crew of Moonbase Alpha for all these years.
The whole jigsaw puzzle thing, for one. You’d think that producers who spent so much money on sets and costumes ( noted fashion designer Rudi Gernreich was responsible for those infamous bell bottoms in space), gave no thought at all to how people might entertain themselves in their off hours.
And the costumes, with the whole zipper on the left side of the body thing? This probably meant that folks with bowel or bladder issues probably didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of getting transferred to Moonbase Alpha - which was a pretty cool name, actually.
But hey, it was the 1970s - it was either that or “The Six Million Dollar Man” if you were looking for SF on TV.
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Moonbase Beta?
So if there was a Moonbase Alpha, is it possible that there might have been - maybe at the bottom of a really deep crater - a Moonbase Beta?
I like to think it would have been an anti-Alpha type of base. The cool (and stuck up) kids get to go to Moonbase Alpha, while Moonbase Beta is more like . . . F Troop.
Works for me.
I’ll bet they had video games.
