The 1970’s scifi series ‘Space 1999’ has like many programmes and movies of this genre of this era, not aged well. Most people know so much more about science now that the idea of the Moon being knocked out of Earth’s orbit by an explosion in a lunar nuclear waste dump is less easy to believe. Anybody with even a modicum of scientific knowledge knows that although nuclear waste sites can be hazardous, they are unlikely in the extreme to explode without warning, let alone explode with such force as to knock the moon away from the Earth.

However if we ignore the faulty science and the fact that digital special effects did not exist in 1976 when the programme was aired, some of the storylines do still hold up. One episode from series two called ‘The Exiles’, is not only a damn good story but the plot is looking pretty prescient now.

The storyline of ‘The Exiles’ is this. Whilst hurtling uncontrolled thorough interstellar space, the crew of Moonbase Alpha who are trapped on the Moon, encounter a fleet of what look like escape pods. The Moonbase crew have encountered a number of alien civilisations on their journey, some good, some bad and some a dire threat to the lives of the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha.

The Moonbase inhabitants retrieve one of the pods and find inside a young couple in suspended animation. They are seemingly a nice couple, civilised, friendly and with a very interesting story to tell. The couple, called Cantor and Zova claim that they are refugees from a planet that had been invaded and wish the Alphans to help reanimate and restore their companions.

The problem is that when two members of the senior management of Alpha dig into the background of Cantor and Zova and the reason why they were exiled they find that neither they or their companions are what they have claimed to be. Just as with many of the so called ‘refugees’ that have come to Europe in our time Cantor and Zova did not flee a war and invasion, but were exiled because they were dangerous to their own people. As I said earlier the plotline of this episode of Space 1999 was pretty far sighted in that we also have people coming to our lands and spinning tales of oppression and telling us that they are good even though the reality is the complete opposite.

You can view this episode by clicking on the link below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g3OUDNVs4E&list=PL2bfAX1I91WDDjKdMudlssYoz16xRJNu7&index=2