Death's Other Dominion (14 Nov. 1975)

On the ice world of Ultima Thule the Alphans encounter members of lost earth expedition who have achieved immortality- but at a price!

Director:

Charles Crichton

Writers:

Gerry Anderson (creator), Sylvia Anderson (creator),

Stars:

Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, Barry Morse

Cast

Episode cast overview:
Martin Landau	...	Commander John Koenig
Barbara Bain	...	Dr. Helena Russell
Barry Morse	...	Prof. Victor Bergman
Brian Blessed	...	Dr. Cabot Rowland
John Shrapnel	...	Capt. Jack Tanner
Prentis Hancock	...	Paul Morrow
Clifton Jones	...	David Kano
Zienia Merton	...	Sandra Benes
Anton Phillips	...	Dr. Mathias
Nick Tate	...	Alan Carter
Mary Miller	...	Freda

Storyline

On the ice world of Ultima Thule the Alphans encounter members of lost earth expedition who have achieved immortality- but at a price!

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | Sci-Fi

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Details

Language:

English

Release Date:

14 November 1975 (UK)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Incorporated Television Company (ITC)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

60 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Quotes

[first lines]
Capt. Jack Tanner: Say I was right. Admit that I, Jack Tanner, did foretell, did prophesy, long before you heard from that eyeless instrument.
Dr. Cabot Rowland: Yes, Jack, you were absolutely right.

User Reviews

Disappointing...

Despite the presence of the excellent and most enjoyable British actor Brian Blessed, this episode fell pretty flat. It seems that after a promising start to "Space: 1999", the show started to fall pretty flat. Fortunately, at least, this one is still a big improvement over the previous (yuck!) episode.

The show begins as Alpha drift towards another planet. Oddly, there happen to be humans on this planet--humans from a lost expedition to Uranus (insert juvenile joke here). However, when a landing party lands, the place is amazingly inhospitable--with temperatures of minus 70--and that's the warmest part of the day!! When the four left the Eagle ship, I was actually quite surprised, as the special effects for this ice planet were simply awful. Given that this show had a HUGE budget for the time, I was surprised that the snow looked exactly like a gloppy version of cheap spray snow (the type you might spray on Christmas trees or on windows) mixed with foam. It looked bizarre and so unlike real snow that I laughed--especially as it started sticking on them! Pretty weird.

Eventually, three of the four are found by the natives while the fourth (Carter) makes his way back to the ship and to Moon Base. However, eventually it becomes pretty obvious something akin to "The Island of Dr. Moreau" is going on here. While the people living on the planet have not aged (though this made no sense--they'd only been gone 14 years yet they said they could live forever and had been there over 800 years?!). What also didn't make much sense is that the top scientist (Blessed) was doing genetic experiments on the people and turning many of them into living vegetables (not like a zucchini--just mentally scrambled). It was never that clear why he was doing this, why his people went along with this (especially since he didn't use force) and why he was so intent on getting the Moon Base folks there so he could mess with their DNA.

While the idea of the crew having to choose whether to live on a crappy world or continue searching for another more hospitable one is interesting, the show didn't impress me that much due to the many, many unanswered questions, plot points that made little sense and the annoying character of the guy with ESP. I did, however, like the unrealistic but thoroughly nasty final scene with Blessed when he rode aboard and Eagle--pretty cool. Overall, a very mixed bag. Worth seeing but a bit disappointing.