Friday, March 13, 2026.
Not an unlucky day today for fans of Doctor Who. Two Doctor Who episodes long missing from the BBC Archives and only having been seen by the general public once, on their original airings, have been announced as having been returned to the BBC from the estate of a film collector recently deceased.
And they are not from "historicals", i.e. stories set in Earth's past, with scarcely little science fiction/fantasy content. Nor are they futuristic stories with people in what look like pyjamas or in curtain-resembling fabric wrapped around their middle, or with obscure, "one-off" creatures that never "caught on" with the viewing public. No. They are two episodes from the epic, twelve-part serial, "The Daleks' Master Plan". With the Doctor's foremost foes, the Daleks, and a variety of alien environments, and some aesthetically satisfying Space Age design. It is from William Hartnell's- and the television series'- third season.
Specifically. The inaugurating first episode of the serial. "The Nightmare Begins" being that episode's title. And the third episode of the serial. Title of "Devil's Planet". Which puts the Doctor and company on a penal planet, "setting up" the shocking death of the Doctor's newest companion, Katarina (Adrienne Hill), from Ancient Troy. With episode two, "Day of Armageddon", having already been returned to the BBC in 2004, this makes three episodes in a row of "The Daleks' Master Plan", and of them the three that establish the serial's premise, the stakes, the menace of its antagonists, and the gritty, grim atmosphere of its settings and predicaments.
"The Daleks' Master Plan" was airing in the U.K. in the weeks leading to my birth on Canada's side of the Atlantic, and my earliest weeks of infancy. Starting in November of 1965, and finishing in January, 1966. To be more precise, starting on 13 November and "wrapping up" on 29 January. It aired only once. Its videotape recordings were all wiped, and film copies of it were believed all destroyed. But people defied orders to throw the films onto skips for burning, and brought them to their humble abodes to preserve them. So far, five of the twelve episodes are known to have been saved from the incinerators. And another episode, episode four, is widely thought to have survived, as well, and to be somewhere in some film collector's holdings. At present, there are five of the twelve episodes in the hands of the BBC's archivists. Three that were recovered long before this year, and now these two. Episodes one, two, three, five, and ten.
Yes, I know. Doctor Who had an episode called "Devil's Planet" more than ten years before Space: 1999 did. And also had a story name of "The War Games" some five years beore Space: 1999- "War Games". "Devil's Planet" Doctor Who and "Devil's Planet" Space: 1999 both involved penal worlds. Fancy that. The idea was compelling for the producers of two works of science fiction/fantasy television.
Now, the question that is, or if it is not then it should be, on everyone's lips or keyboard-tapping fingers, is, "When will these two episodes of 'The Daleks' Master Plan', together with the other three, be released on physical media, Blu-Ray and (for the High-Definition-eschewing latter-day Luddites) DVD? And further does one ponder on the capacity by which they would be released. By themselves, with no linking material, as in the LOST IN TIME DVD set of 2004? In a dedicated "Daleks' Master Plan" release with missing episodes supplied with audio and still images (and maybe some A.I.-motion-induced Daleks to give some movement in parts of the "reconstructed" episodes)? Or with the missing episodes animated? And with maybe a college-student-enacted recreation of the "Mission of the Unknown" episode that served as a "prequel" to "The Daleks' Master Plan", to sweeten the pot, as it were? Or maybe a fast-tracking will be done for a release of DOCTOR WHO- THE COLLECTION- SEASON 3, with deluxe treatment given "The Daleks' Master Plan", with all that is missing of it animated, the reenactment of "Mission of the Unknown", and all of what is available of the rest of Season 3. I am sure that right now, as I typewrite this, there are people in London offices having discussions about these exact possibilities.
For people who are believers in "streaming" (I am not), the two returned episodes of "The Daleks' Master Plan" will be avilable next month on BBC iPlayer. I would not expect a physical media release of them until this autumn at the earliest. But these days with physical media under such a shadow of eventual elimination, and sales of it diminishing, it may indeed be that there will be no fast-tracked physical realease of the two episodes, and that fans will have to wait until DOCTOR WHO- THE COLLECTION- SEASON 3 has its turn as had been projected before the return of the two episodes, if it ever comes at all. Or if anyone will be allowed to own nice things at that point in time.
Jerry Beck is displaying some glimpses of LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2 now in his hands. Pictures off of a television screen on which "A-Lad-in His Lamp", "Ain't That Ducky", and "The Daffy Duckaroo" are on display. I expect that early reviews with multitudinous screen captures, will be forthcoming in the next few days.
Someone who evaded my Facebook blocking finger, has opined with the utmost pride, that he was a smart child at ten yars of age, to have regarded Season 2 Space: 1999 as a wretched piece of garbage. And therefore, I presume, that I, also a ten-year-old, who did not perceive that- and who had quite the opposite response, in fact- was not smart. A moron. A defective. Whatever. Someone whose intelligence was deficient while this, this person (I am restraining myself), was most astute. And of course, it's a deluge of reponses in heartfelt unison. Or at least, people placating him while issuing some weak, half-hearted defense of some small fraction of Season 2, and not "pushing back" on the demeaning implication in the person's statement. It just goes on and on and on and on and on. "Gaslighting", "gaslighting", "gaslighting". Legion and unremitting from this group. Here a "gaslight", there a "gaslight", everywhere a "gaslight", "gaslight". There is nothing intelligent in regarding only one style of doing speculative space fiction, as being worthy of respect, and in being blinkered to another style, and the beauty in depiction and archetype of that different style. Being wilfully ignorant and disdainful, is not a level of intelligence to be proud-of.
My Era 2 memoirs have been upated with images of a mid-1970s Douglastown in the late autumn, images of Get Smart, Star Trek- "This Side of Paradise", and a CBCT (CBC's Charlottetown television station) identifier, an image of the Sobeys and Zellers shopping centre along Highway 11 in Chatham, from around 1977, and images of Kraft Toffees, a Wagon Wheel, a Mars wrapper, a Maple Buds wrapper, and a Life-Savers wrapper.
All for today.
Proceeding I do with still another incarnation of my Weblog. Previous incarnations of Kevin McCorry's Weblog are April 16, 2007-to-September 19, 2015, October 4, 2015-to-May 4, 2018, May 5, 2018-to-June 19, 2020, June 20, 2020-to-October 19, 2022, October 21, 2022-to-January 30, 2024, and February 3, 2024-to-November 13, 2025.
Today is Saturday, November 22, 2025.
In 1986, November 22 was a Saturday. I remember seeing "Tree Cornered Tweety" on The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show before going out on my delivery route for The Sunday Herald and encountering my friend, Joey, and my antagonist, Andrew, in his company near the foot of Lilac Crescent. There was a slushy mix of frozen and liquid water on the street as I continued doing my deliveries less than pleased at having seen Andrew with Joey. I was looking forward to seeing and videotaping the Patrick Troughton Doctor Who story, "The Seeds of Death", that evening by way of MPBN. And it aired flawlessly, with my videotape recording free of any blemish.
It has been quite a week this week for Blu-Ray acquisition. It has felt like an old-fashioned McCorry Christmas, when I would be served with an abundance of home video material, or some other vehicle for provided works of imagination for which I yearned to have ownership, to savour over many hours and days. BLAKE'S 7- THE COLLECTION- SEASON 2 arrived at my door on Monday afternoon. I had only delved into about one-third of its contents when, on Tuesday, The New Avengers was delivered when I was at work, at around 2 P.M.. And on Thursday, my replacement Planet of the Apes Blu-Ray was awaiting my return to home after work.
I will not be watching the last of these until I am finished viewing everything on the Blu-Ray discs for the first two, and The New Avengers is receiving higher priority than Blake's 7, as my interest in it is of an older vintage (and a vintage including the final year of second life era of most lofty esteem in which second season Space: 1999 was coming my way for the first time), and as the Blu-Ray discs for it are among the most magnificent of all of the digital videodiscs ever to come into my possession. Every episode is a revelation. A joy to behold. I have never before seen The New Avengers in so crisp, colourful, and detailed a state. As is known to probably every aficionado of the exploits of Steed, Gambit, and Purdey, the picture quality of the 1970s often fantastical espionage television series on DVD, using film-to-analogue-video sources from the 1990s with faults from videotape dropout (some of it screen-spanning), strange moire patterns, excesses of video noise, and what looked like a veil of haziness, was not of a desirable standard. Broadcasts of The New Avengers on Bravo! in Canada in the late 1990s were from those same sources in most cases, and in some from spliced-to-perdition, shorn of scenes, faded 16-millimetre film prints first used way back in 1977 and 1978 by CTV. While the filmed seasons of the 1960s Avengers have long revealed, through the 2000s, 2010s, and first half of 2020s, their gorgeous look by way of digital video transfers from 35-millimetre film, The New Avengers has long been relegated to rehash after rehash after rehash of those deficient 1990s analogue video renderings. For upwards of ten years, I tolerated A & E's DVDs of The New Avengers, which, in addition to the already above mentioned demerits, also suffered from image blurring on movement and shimmery aliasing due to PAL-to-NTSC conversion. A German DVD set offered a better quality, using film-to-analogue-video transfers of a newer variety. But with episode titles in German grafted onto all twenty-six entries of the television series. Since 2018, I have had the German DVD set. Which sometimes switches language from English to German in the middle of the episode, "Sleeper".
The New Avengers never looked impressive on DVD. To say the least. And the leap in quality for it from DVD to Blu-Ray could not be more pronounced than it so stunningly is. Nothing short of dazzling, is the look of the episodes. The detail, the depth of colour, the stability of image, the inky blacks, the pristine main titles and end credits. First episode that I watched in the Blu-Ray set, the television series' opener, "The Eagle's Nest", "blew me away" in first glimpses of the settings in its prologue. The grains of rock in the stone structure. The variations in the wood of a door. The grasses of a field. As the episode progressed, my eyes popped at the colours of the cars. And I marvelled at the minute indentations and droplets of water so clearly visible now on Purdey's wet suit, every individual hair on Joanna Lumley, every pore, every wrinkle, on Peter Cushing's face, and the text on the truck used to abduct Dr. Von Claus (Cushing) that had hitherto always been blurry. The stark reds and shiny greys and deep blacks on the Nazi uniform of Father Trasker (Derek Farr). Purdey's luscious ocean green jumpsuit, with Ferrari red boots, as she is doing ballet moves whilst felling the "bad guys" with kicks and punches. The gold paint on the crashed German aeroplane beneath green leafy camouflage. It is a magnificent triumph in making a near fifty-year-old work of television look as striking as could possibly be imagined. And in so enormous a surpassing over a DVD that, by DVD standards, was woefully sub-par.
Similar experiences were to be had on all other episodes that I have since watched. Comprising most of Season 1 and some of Season 2. The golds and reds in "The Midas Touch". The detail in the intensity in Vladek Sheybal's eyes as his Zacardi character is talking to Purdey in "Cat Amongst the Pigeons". All of the surrealistic statuary and instances of scribbled graffiti in the "shooting gallery" in "Target" and the bright pink of Purdey's clothing as she is moving about in said "shooting gallery". Even "Gnaws", with its dimly lit grey tunnels, is a rewarding viewing experience, the sewers-based action much more vivid, much easier to follow, than before. And the atmosphere of terror in those austerely grey environments unhampered by old problems in determining what is what. The greys are most impressive when juxtaposed with the Russian agent (Jeremy Young)'s red garment on which there is not a trace of colour imperfection of the sort that was normal for reds on analogue NTSC video. Second Season's "Obsession" and "Trap" which looked poorly saturated on the German DVDs, and the latter very blurry and grainy, are perfect on Blu-Ray. Flawless.
And it is not only the episodes that bring delight. Bonus features are plentiful. Commentaries. Episode introductions. Even documentaries of substantial length on the cultural impact of The New Avengers, the restoration of the twenty-six episodes, and especially of the main title sequences on them, and Joanna Lumley (whose involvement in the Blu-Ray set is extensive) and her work on characterisation of Purdey. There is an hour-long archival interview with director Ray Austin, which is of great interest to me not only because he contributed to The New Avengers and its Steed-and-females predecessor of the 1960s, but also due to him having been among the directing talent on Space: 1999. Alas, Space: 1999 does not receive mention. Though Martin Landau does. Mr. Austin doubled for him on Hitchcock's North By Northwest, as Mr. Austin states in the interview. Caroline Munro provides an introduction and audio commentary for "Angels of Death" in which she guest-starred, and is among the numerous persons interviewed for the aforementioned documentary on cultural impact. She is best known for having been a Bond girl (a "baddie" one) in The Spy Who Loved Me, and for leading the acting cast in Roger Corman's Starcrash, as the heroic Stella Star. She says that she had returned to England after filming Starcrash in Italy, prior to her doing "Angels of Death". She also had an appearance in Space: 1999 in a still photograph being looked upon by Tony and Alan in Command Centre in episode "The Seance Spectre". Both Ms. Lumley and Ms. Munro have withstood the ravages of time very, very well. I watched "Gnaws", with a video commentary involving Jonathan Wood and Nicholas Briggs, the video commentary in a box at top right of screen, and enjoyed it. Numerous astute observations on the choices made in the production, and many an interesting anecdote. And I found the documentary on restoration, hosted by Mr. Wood, very informative, very gratifying. It pleases me enormously to finally see The New Avengers receiving loving attention by curators of British archive television, and to note that there was some painstaking work undertaken to bring it to High Definition looking as fetching as possible with all of the twenty-first-century technology at the disposal of said curators. And I did not know that early computer-based live-action-and-drawings "morphing" techniques were employed in the creation of the lion coat of arms main opening. I hugely appreciate that enlightenment conveyed unto me.
I shall be spending this weekend completing my watching of the New Avengers Blu-Ray box set, and bringing my viewing of BLAKE’S 7- THE COLLECTION- SEASON 2 nearer to completion. I must note that I have found the previously mentioned glitch in the new Blake's 7 visual effects, is visible on my Blu-Ray player. It is in episode "Hostage". The screen expands from 4:3 to 16:9 for several video frames. I sigh. It is doubtful that the BBC will address this fault in the Blu-Ray release of its second most popular science fiction/fantasy opus.
There is no good news to share as regard to fortunes for this Website. It continues to wallow in its lowest numbers ever for longer-than-thirty-seconds visits.
All for today.
Monday, November 24, 2025.
In 1977, the twenty-fourth of November was a Thursday. There had been an overnight snow. No more than five centimetres of "the white stuff". My parents that morning spoke of the new friend, David B., I had gained the afternoon before, asking me if I expected that he would "hang out" with me in the school yard. I was unwilling to entertain any hopes for that, and right I was. I was as alone that morning as I awaited entry to Park Street School, as I had been in the 1977 September, October, November school days previous. David and I did "meet up" after school for awhile. And I certainly remember being with him on the Saturday thereafter, as we were passing the hours in wait of the 6 P.M. telecast of Space: 1999's "End of Eternity" episode, which we would watch in our respective houses after dinner.
November 24, 1973 was a Saturday, and the one on which the episode of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour with cartoons "Pre-Hysterical Hare", "Tweet and Sour", "Whoa, Be-Gone!", "Hot Cross Bunny", "Muzzle Tough", "Bugs' Bonnets", and "Out and Out Rout", went out on the television airwaves in Canada on CBC Television, and the Miramichi region of New Brunswick, where I lived, deprived of it because our CBC affiliate, CKCD, had a non-operational transmitter tower at Upsalquitch. I was not to see that episode until the twenty-fifth of the following May.
Yesterday, the cartoon reviewer who this July gave a high rating to "Hyde and Hare", examined and evaluated the 1956 Tweety and Sylvester cartoon, "Tweet and Sour", one of my favourite cartoons of the Tweety-and-Sylvester oeuvre. It garnered a rather favourable standing from same reviewer and one of his colleagues. Here is that review.
Tweet and Sour (1956) Review: Sylvester and The Violin Factory Threat!
All together, now. "Listen, cat. Hands off of this bird. Do you want me to be made into violin strings?"
I love how Sylvester says that, and the timing of the iron-in-the-face gag that follows. Perfection.
It would be nice if "Tweet and Sour" were to receive a Blu-Ray release on LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2, following this quite positive review. It has not been on home video since the days of VHS videotape. One would think that it ought to be due for some presence in the field of the digital videodisc. Nothing new on the subject of LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2, by the way.
I completed my tour in High Definition of the world of The New Avengers this weekend. I finished my watching of first season with a string of episodes on Friday evening, and then committed my Saturday and Sunday to finishing Season 2, and the latter of these two undertakings, was not exactly a complete pleasure. I did not expect that it would be.
First season of The New Avengers had imaginative flair. It dabbled unapologetically in elements of the fantastical. Hitler in suspended animation in a monastery on a remote British isle. A drug that can simulate death. A double agent disabled and mutilated after being ambushed by Steed, Gambit, and Purdey, being turned into a robot man in his thirst for revenge. A scientist with a gold fetish seeking to sell to highest bidder for 24-Karat his creation of a man infected with, but asymptomatic of, every known deadly disease, and whose touch is lethal. A man who can direct birds to attack people. A radioactively mutated giant rat in the London sewer system. A near-instantaneous sleeping gas used by a band of robbers. A device that can transmit thoughts and even consciousness from a person's brain to another. Yes, first season had all of this. And its more realistic episodes had some inventive cinematography and creative witty banter to carry the viewer through them.
I do not know what happened behind the scenes with The New Avengers between its seasons. There was a definite shifting away in Season 2's first half-dozen episodes, from elements of the fantastical, and a steering of the writers more toward non-quirky, mundane espionage. Foreign agents scheming to "frame" Steed in some intrigue, to destabilise the British intelligence network. Or an attempt at "covering up" embezzlement on the part of a corrupt high official, by casting suspicion onto Steed. A narcotics smuggling network needing to be neutralised. Purdey's ex-lover intending to assassinate a Middle Eastern diplomat. The last of these is a highlight episode all the same, exploring the personal life of Purdey, flawlessly and affectingly executed by everyone in front of and behind the camera. And guest-stars Martin Shaw, an actor of gravitas who would later play Captain Scott in The Last Place On Earth. There is no doubt that first season of The New Avengers is the better half of the television show, certainly with regard to maintaining the Avengers flair of fanciful (i.e. less grounded in reality) concepts. And the three characters of Steed, Purdey, and Gambit shine so much better within stories with such concepts. Their banter is so much more amusing there, so much more fun. Maybe because actors and actress were themselves enjoying having fun with the quirkiness of the concepts.
Money became scarcer and scarcer as second season continued, and eventually, production had to move out of the U.K. to other countries, with financial backing by those countries, and using those other countries' resources. Those other countries being France and my native Canada.
The mid-to-late second season two-parter, "K is For Kill", is, in my estimation, the poorest of the New Avengers television series entries. Languid, padded pacing. Many protracted conversation scenes filmed and edited in a pedestrian manner; the French film crew clearly lacked the panache of their British counterparts. Humourless. The Steed, Purdey, and Gambit chemistry scarcely in evidence. Tiresome scenes of Russian soldiers firing machine guns at uninteresting or inconsequential characters. Music lacking the usual New Avengers pizzazz. And even the colour palette is dull. Russians in green or brown uniforms set against the green, yellow, and brown French countryside. No interesting guest stars. No one from Space: 1999 or other British productions of my keen acquaintance. Just French nobodies. Oh, we do have an appearance of Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) early in the first part, yes. By way of old footage from the 1960s Avengers. And someone doing a passable job of imitating her voice on the telephone. But it is just for purposes of padding. It does nothing to advance the leaden story plot. It is a gratuity for fans of Steed-and-Peel. Nothing more. And once our three heroes are in France, bored themselves and playing I-spy-with-my-little-eye to pass the time, the engagement of this viewer with the story becomes strained, and I would rather not continue.
The concept of Russian soldiers in suspended animation is Avengers-worthy, to be sure, but there is not enough story to be extracted from it to fill one hour of compelling television, let alone two. And just how many "old friends" does Steed have, anyway? And why must they always be introduced to be "killed off"? I am not a fan of the other produced-in-France episode, "The Lion and the Unicorn", either, even though it is written by Space: 1999 alumnus John Goldsmith, and features a long, rather exciting car chase in its prologue. It, too, becomes a bore and a chore to sit through, as soon as the scenes set in France begin. The final four New Avengers episodes, filmed and set in Canada, are more enjoyable. Avengers humour makes a comeback, the chemistry in the Steed, Purdey, Gambit trio returns, thankfully, and music and colours are back to being stimulating. There are numerous faces familiar to me as a Canadian, in the guest casts (and in "Complex!" there is Cec Linder from Goldfinger), and filmmaking style and pacing are back to what one had come to expect for The New Avengers. "Complex!" and "Forward Base" can compete with some of the best made-in-Britain episodes. "Emily" is rather an uninspired runaround, and taxes the patience for what seems like an eternity, but it has action (some) and humour in quantity sufficient to surpass the stultifying made-in-France yawners.
The Caroline Munro commentary on "Angels of Death" is beset with audio problems. The other commentaries, some of them audio, some of them video, are technically faultless. All are very enjoyable and informative. "Rounding out" the set are French and German main title sequences, some promotional films, and a documentary on stunt work in the television series. Very nearly an A-plus rating from me, for this box set. "Letting the side down" are cuts to "The Gladiators" (as aforementioned being during a fight scene) and "Faces" (Steed saying that his impostor is enjoying the wine cellar). And some flashes of unwanted colour over the shadows in the car in which Malov has brought the Cybernaut to abduct Professor Mason, in the second act of "The Last of the Cybernauts...??". And one or two scenes of excessive grain in "Three Handed Game". But this is definitely the best of the Blu-Rays of interest to me released this autumn.
I watched Frankenstein in the Dan Curtis Blu-Ray set with the audio commentaries activated, and discovered the audio commentary by Rodney F. Hill to be at least a second out of synchronisation with the video. Audio "mis-synchronisation" (whether or not that is a word, I am using it) is something that again and again plagues the Blu-Ray platters of Kino Lorber, and it just "smacks" to me of sheer carelessness every time that it is manifest (as on The Night Strangler and on the Ant and Aardvark cartoon, "Technology, Phooey"). But Kino Lorber can rest easy, for now, that it does not provide the most egregious example of out-of-synchronisation audio and video. That dubious distinction goes to the commentary on the pilot movie of The Incredible Hulk in Universal's Blu-Ray set of the complete television series of Bill Bixby's Banner and Lou Ferrigno's Hulk. And never is there a mea culpa and a Blu-Ray disc replacement programme.
These are my Website's visitor statistics for November.
And there it is. Twelve thousand, eight hundred, and thirty-five visits for thirty seconds or less. Amounting to 97.1 percent of my Website's traffic for the whole month. Web page visits by which people actually read what I have to say, and/or have a thorough perusal of the images, tally to not even 1 percent for each of the other durations. The highest number among those is for stays of at most fifteen minutes, and as little as five. This covers all Web pages, mind. And is usually a "hit" to only one Web page per visit. A visit to just one of my many Web pages. The Televised Looney Tunes Web pages. Including that for Bugs Bunny and Tweety (which receives the most traffic, most months). The articles on Tweety and Sylvester, "Hyde and Hare", and "Deconstructing" Bugs. The Littlest Hobo. Spiderman, whose titular character is a property of mainstream popular Marvel Comics. The Pink Panther. My tributes to Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones, Bob McKimson. The forlorn Space: 1999. Dallas. This Weblog. All of its incarnations. The seven eras in my life's story. All of that, and more. My university essay on The Day the Earth Stood Still, which is inexplicably more frequently visited than most of my other, more zealous efforts. Sustained time for reading and full image perusal only garnering a paltry 2.9 percent of all visits for usually just one "hit" for just one Web page. And let us remember that several of these "hits" are by me. These numbers are inflated somewhat by that.
And if the trend continues, I expect December to be even worse.
Okay. I will grant that my Website is ancient where Websites go. It is almost thirty years-old. It was mostly crafted, largely written nearly three decades ago, in the twentieth century. It hails from a time when Bugs Bunny and company had compilations of their cartoons on U.S. network television and on many an over-the-air local broadcaster. From a time when there was not as yet a Spider-Man theatrical movie "franchise" and people thought more of the 1960s Spiderman when the super-heroic web-swinger came into consideration. From a time when The Littlest Hobo was being run weekdays on both Showcase and CTV in Canada. From a time when the year, 1999, had not yet happened and Space: 1999 was not as yet completely "out of date", and when, for a day, September 13, 1999 was upon us as a reality. And when there were more people living of the older generations, for whom discourse on vintage entertainment and memory of life in the 1970s and 1980s, had value. And it was before "social media" became the dominant destination on the Internet for the vast majority of people. Times are different now. I grant all of this. But I have worked to keep my Website refreshed. I have been adding occasionally to my existing Web pages, and writing a Weblog entry once a week, on average. And people like the reviewer of the Warner Brothers cartoons to whom I have been Hyperlinking, far exceed, in just one day, the traffic that just one of my Web pages can hope to see in any given month. And considering the population of the planet, these Website visits can only be seen to be abysmally on the low side.
The ton of work that, in recent years, I put into, for example, the broadcast histories for Space: 1999. Hours and hours and hours of work. Does any of that meet with an uptick in my Website's traffic? No. I did same for The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour and The Littlest Hobo. Did that lead to a boost in my Website's visits? No. It is true that I have pulled myself away from writing long Weblog spiels bemoaning the attitudes of Space: 1999 fans. I am not being particularly controversial lately on that subject or with regard to the selections of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies for Blu-Ray or DVD release. This much is certain. Maybe this is what is causing the diminishing of my Website readership. Maybe people want me going on rants on a regular basis. I am afraid that I cannot be obliging there. I am now close to turning sixty and would rather not be spending my hours of my increasingly valuable time on harsh, and futile, tangents. Life really is too short, and it is more abundantly clear to me than ever before, that I am hopelessly surrounded by people who fit the Non-Player-Character description. There is no "getting through" to those people. Nor is there any hope of growing an audience outside of the legions of those Non-Player-Characters. For even beyond that circle, the tendency is to disregard any alternative point of view. To bow to the opinion of the expressive majority that can never, ever be wrong (heaven forbid), and maintain that anyone thinking diffrently should either be "gaslit" into going along with the stream, or marginalised, ostracised. After decades of tiltling at windmills, I am exhausted. I am channelling my energies into pursuits like the broadcast histories and the acquiring and sharing of images of yesteryear. And I, frustratingly, am not succesing in growing my Website's profile from those. Nor from doing reviews on this Weblog, of recent Blu-Ray releases.
And this is where I am at in this, the most depressing time of year. Darkness. Cold. And nothing but bad news on the direction of my country and voter intentions therein. Friends on Facebook are not commnunicating. Thank goodness I did have some new Blu-Rays, however flawed in many cases, to watch in the past couple of months. But there is now nothing to expect in the parcel deliveries. No announcements as yet of anything definitely coming in early 2026. I am feeling the desolation of this time of year and the dire straits of life in my country, to the maximum. I wish that this Website could offer some solace. No. Just the opposite.
My replacement Blu-Ray of Planet of the Apes freezes in the exact same place. What are the odds of that? Is that where the layer change is (why there?)? Such could explain two Blu-Rays of the same title rotting in the same way. If that is the part of the Blu-Ray most likely to corrupt? Or to exhibit early signs of corrupting. Or maybe the encode of the Blu-Ray is particularly tricky for some Blu-Ray players? If it is, then it ought to be experienced by others- and look as I do, I can find no comments by anyone to this effect.
All for today, 1 December, 2025.
Saturday, December 6, 2025.
Fifty years ago today, on 6 December, 1975, Bugs Bunny had his final transmission on the airwaves of the CBC Television network, as half-hour Bugs Bunny Show airings, a thing on Saturdays since the previous September's premiere of Welcome Back, Kotter had heralded the end of The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour on the CBC, were about to be superseded by Laurel and Hardy, and, not long thereafter, by The Lost Islands, with Space: 1999 several months away from its commencement as an attraction on full-network CBC Television.
And Bugs and company are now, today, potentially facing a termination no less devastating. News is that Warner Brothers, all of its divisions, its entire catalogue of entertainment properties, is in the process of being acquired by Netflix. I do not intend this to mean that Netflix is only gaining the distribution rights to Warner Brothers productions. No. Netflix will own outright everything under the Warner Brothers banner, to do with as it pleases. Rather like Disney's acquisition of everything FOX several years ago. And we have seen what that meant for FOX movies and television on physical media. With some notable exceptions like Star Wars, FOX productions ceased to have presence on Blu-Ray and DVD. As I have recently mentioned, the Planet of the Apes movies are no longer in print. And this is the norm across what was the FOX library.
There is much discussion now as to the implications of the "buy-out" of Warner Brothers by Netflix. Nobody knows for sure. Yet. But the very name of the Netflix company implies availability of "flicks", slang for motion pictures, on the Internet, which has for many years now been a Web "streaming" phenomenon. Netflix began as a distributor of movies on DVD to people on a rental basis (why anyone would pay to rent a DVD when he or she could quite affordably own it- and resell it if he or she saw fit to do so, was confounding to me at the time; still is) through the mail. And once broadband Internet had become proliferate and standard, the service model of Netflix was entirely Web "streaming". The head of Netflix is reportedly not supportive of physical media. At all. And the trend over the past ten years has been toward subscription to temporary provisions of Web "streamed" content, as various studios favour not allowing the public to personally possess indefinitely, permanently, any movie or television programme. Rather, have to pay per each viewing and be happy owning nothing. I feel sure that the jowled German octogenarian at Davos who lacks self-awareness to recognise that he looks and talks like a Bond villain, is blushing at this.
But I digress. What do I think Netflix gaining ownership of everything Warner Brothers means for the future for collectors of the cartoons of Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies gang? The probability, by my reckoning, is that what has happened with the FOX library under Disney, will happen with the Warner Brothers vaults under Netflix. And we collectors had best brace ourselves for bad news. For not only will new releases of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies under COLLECTOR'S VAULT come to an end, and not only will the work on bringing The Bugs Bunny Show to Blu-Ray be dead in the water, but everything currently available will go out of print. If this is going to the case, then there is no longer any time for Messrs. Beck and Feltenstein to lose. The sale of Warner Brothers to Netflix will not be finalised until it receives government approval a year or two from now. The releases of the Warner Brothers cartoons onto Blu-Ray must be put back on the front burner now. This is a Red Alert, people. Put the subsequent volumes of COLLECTOR'S VAULT into commission now. While there is still time. All politically acceptable and releasable Bugs Bunnies remaining to be released. Release them in the next volume. Same for Daffy, Sylvester, Tweety (yes, all of those, including those only now available on DVD in Japan), Road Runner, Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy Gonzales, Elmer Fudd. Put the full filmographies of all major characters onto digital videodisc post-haste. Concentrate on complete, or near complete (if there are concerns about political correctness), representation of all of the major characters on the latest two home video formats (Blu-Ray and DVD). And what is left of the minor characters or the "one-shots". Those, too. As a secondary consideration. Then, as a tertiary, everything else. Press the accelerator on The Bugs Bunny Show. And aim for a multitude of releases in 2026 before Netflix "puts" a forevermore "kibosh" on the home video collector.
It follows that I will be most displeased if the listed cartoons for COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2 will consist largely of obscure 1930s material. And if plans for 2026 are again to focus mostly on Hanna-Barbera to the detriment of Bugs and company. First priority has to be the fullest possible release of the filmographies of the major characters. Bugs and the others. Let us have a complete, or as complete as possible, set of those. Collectors want complete sets, right? Is not such what collecting is all about?
While I still have money with value for purchasing power, I will buy the COLLECTOR'S VAULT volumes, and The Bugs Bunny Show. And multiple copies for "back-ups" in the event of defective Blu-Ray discs. We all must do this if the Blu-Rays will fall to out-of-print status, as they probably will, once Netflix has control of the Warner Brothers catalogue. Unless one fancies paying huge sums of money on eBay to "scalpers" for out-of-print material.
In other news, the BBC has announced that the next DOCTOR WHO- THE COLLECTION box set, will be of Season 21. Peter Davison's last season. Containing his swan song, "The Caves of Androzani", his penultimate, "Planet of Fire", his only Dalek story, "Resurrection of the Daleks", his widely "panned" Silurian and Sea Devil story, "Warriors of the Deep" (which I have always liked, the maverick that I usually am), and his rather highly acclaimed "The Awakening" and "Frontios". Plus Colin Baker's first story, the much disappreciated (and rightly so) "The Twin Dilemma". Coming early next year. In March, some people are prognosticating. This box set will consist of a whopping ten Blu-Ray discs. Two for "Warriors of the Deep", two for "Resurrection of the Daleks" (I think), and a bonus Blu-Ray disc.
All for today.
It is now the fifteenth day of the snowy and cold December of 2025. Since Arctic air descended over most of North America early this month, and as it is persisting in Atlantic Canada with no end in sight, hope that winter of 2025-6 might be a mild one, is without much foundation. There are snowfalls every other day, and no melting in between. People wishing for a white Christmas are happy, for sure. I am not one of those people. I like going out for a Christmas Day walk on bare pavement, with greens and browns on either side of me. Walking briskly with no fear of slipping on any patches of ice.
Website updates. I have added writer Pat Silver to the In Memoriam section of The Space: 1999 Page. Pat Silver and her husband, the late Jesse Lasky Jr., wrote the screenplay for Space: 1999's first season episode, "The Full Circle". Now, the entire team of writers for first season Space: 1999 is deceased. Keith Miles, John Goldsmith, and Michael Winder of Season 2's writing talent (and I use that word, talent, unironically, by the way; they were talented) are still with us. As far as I know. I have added some text to The Space: 1999 Page to include mention of Jeffrey Morris' documentary, and I have expanded, in my Era 3 memoirs, my recall of the 1977 Remembrance Day weekend with my best friend, Michael, and our seeing Space: 1999- "Dragon's Domain", and improved upon an image of The New Avengers title card in my Era 2 memoirs.
I have not stopped looking into Space: 1999's showings on U.S. television back in its heyday. By way of newspaper television listings. Fifty years ago this month, viewers of television in North America were seeing the first repeats of Space: 1999 episodes. "Dragon's Domain" and "Death's Other Dominion" being the episodes most often having a December repeat. After three, four months on the television airwaves, Space: 1999 had established for itself a presence in the living rooms and dens of homes in most of North America. Alas, not the McCorry Douglastown house, as yet. But in the television markets wherein people were seeing Cellini fighting the one-eyed, tentacled people-eater, balding, bulbous-headed aliens declaring man to be "a plague of fear", Ian McShane as Anton Zoref freezing people at a touch, Cabot Rowland rapidly ageing into a steaming skeletal mass, and Julian Glover as Jarak in his Greco-Roman silver tights, Space: 1999 was the talk, as I understand it, of many a kitchen dinner table and school playground. But something happened. ITC executives were unsatisfied with the numbers on their spread sheets. Sir Lew Grade sometime in November informed Gerry Anderson and his newly hired American script editor, Fred Freiberger, that Space: 1999 would not go back into production. Anderson and Freiberger had to "come up" with a new angle, or twenty-four would be the final tally of Space: 1999 episodes filmed.
Here is a broadcast history for Space: 1999 in Omaha, Nebraska on CBS-affilated WOWT. After a series of dependable Tuesday evening broadcasts through autumn and early winter, the spectacular space television series was shifted to Sunday afternoons. And there it would be until late summer, with numerous premptions, followed by a fade into oblivion. Second season would not be offered. One wonders why WOWT pulled the proverbial plug on Space: 1999's reliable Tuesday time slot when it did. At a guess, dropping ratings. And eventually, a declining to renew arrangement with ITC for another year. It would appear to me, from this case and numerous others, that network-affiliated U.S. broadcasters who acquired Space: 1999 in September of 1975, were not satisfied with the ratings numbers following some weeks of "heavy curiosity viewing" (to quote Starlog's Science Fiction Aliens), decided that the promise of the television series had not "panned out", and chose not to renew it for second season. So, how could second season have been the sole reason for Space: 1999's demise in the United States? When it had not aired even once on television stations like WOWT, and Maine's WAGM and WABI, and Boston's WCVB? When television stations such as these had already lost confidence in Space: 1999 and chose not to exercise an option for a further year. It would appear that Space: 1999 was, in the U.S., mainly an independent television channel phenomenon for second season, on broadcsters like WLVI- Cambridge, WPIX- New York, KHJ- Los Angeles, WUAB- Lorain-Cleveland, WGN- Chicago, et cetera.
Sadly, Space: 1999 Omaha newspaper television listings with episode synopses, were not consistent through WOWT's run. The smaller the television market, the less likely it is to find newspaper television listings with episode synopses, or titles. I can only provide what I have.
I would be inclined to believe that the decisions by numerous network-affiliated television channels not to renew contract for a second year of Space: 1999, were to some significant extent a factor in the cancelling of Space: 1999 by Sir Lew Grade, Abe Mandell, and others, in October of 1976. It was not public reaction to "talking trees" or "bug-eyed" monsters with rubbery skin, or Stuart Wilson's costume as Vindrus that caused Space: 1999 to recieve "the axe" when it did, by "the suits" of the ITC offices. Those episodes had not aired yet.
Still, there was some consideration of a truncated third season accompanied by a "spin off" with Maya. So, there had to have been some recognition, however abortive, that Space: 1999 might yet be faring well enough in the run of second season, for a stay of its termination, for further episodes to go into production. Money was allocated for that potentiality. But the ITC brass judged that the money was better spent elsewhere, on properties that might garner better returns, on Return of the Saint, Raise the Titanic, or whatever. Was negative public reaction to second season involved there? I do not know, one way or the other. But there is no denying that first season did not fare as it had been hoped to do. It was not the unqualified success that its pundits like to all too obnoxiously proclaim.
But what does it matter what I say? The vaunted cosensus is that Fred Freiberger and "Year 2" killed Space: 1999, and this is all that matters, right?
Anyway, without further preamble, here is that WOWT broadcast history.
WOWT- Omaha, Nebraska (1975-6) Tuesdays Select Station 6- WOWT- Omaha, Nebraska Date Channel Episode Airtime Sept. 9, 1975 6 "Breakaway" 7 P.M. Sept. 16, 1975 6 "End of Eternity" 7 P.M. Sept. 23, 1975 6 "War Games" 7 P.M. Sept. 30, 1975 6 "Guardian of Piri" 7 P.M. Oct. 7, 1975 6 "Voyager's Return" 7 P.M. Oct. 14, 1975 6 "Matter of Life and Death" 7 P.M. Oct. 21, 1975 6 "Dragon's Domain" 7 P.M. Oct. 28, 1975 6 "Collision Course" 7 P.M. Nov. 4, 1975 6 "Force of Life" 7 P.M. Nov. 11, 1975 6 unknown 7 P.M. Nov. 18, 1975 Preemption Nov. 25, 1975 6 "Black Sun" 7 P.M. Dec. 2, 1975 6 unknown 7 P.M. Dec. 9, 1975 6 unknown 7 P.M. Dec. 16, 1975 6 unknown 7 P.M. Dec. 23, 1975 6 unknown 7 P.M. Dec. 30, 1975 6 unknown 7 P.M. Jan. 6, 1976 6 unknown 7 P.M. Jan. 13, 1976 6 unknown 7 P.M. WOWT- Omaha, Nebraska (1975-6) Sundays Select Station 6- WOWT- Omaha, Nebraska Date Channel Episode Airtime Jan. 25, 1976 6 unknown 5 P.M. Feb. 1, 1976 6 unknown 5 P.M. Feb. 8, 1976 6 "The Last Enemy" 5 P.M Feb. 15, 1976 6 unknown 5 P.M. Feb. 22, 1976 6 "Space Brain" 5 P.M. Feb. 29, 1976 6 "The Troubled Spirit" 5 P.M. Mar. 7, 1976 6 "The Testament of Arkadia" 5 P.M. Mar. 14, 1976 6 "Breakaway" (R) 5 P.M. Mar. 21, 1976 6 "War Games" (R) 5 P.M. Mar. 28, 1976 6 "Voyager's Return" (R) 5 P.M. Apr. 4, 1976 6 "Matter of Life and Death" (R) 5 P.M. Apr. 11, 1976 6 "Dragon's Domain" (R) 5 P.M. Apr. 18, 1976 6 "Collision Course" (R) 5 P.M. Apr. 25, 1976 6 "Force of Life" (R) 5 P.M. May 2, 1976 6 "Alpha Child" (R) 5 P.M. May 9, 1976 6 unknown May 16, 1976 6 "Earthbound" (R) 5 P.M. May 23, 1976 6 "Black Sun" (R) 5 P.M. May 30, 1976 6 "Another Time, Another Place (R) 5 P.M. Jun. 6, 1976 Preemption Jun. 13, 1976 6 "Ring Around the Moon (R) 5 P.M. Jun. 20, 1976 6 unknown 1:30 P.M. Jun. 27, 1976 6 "The Troubled Spirit" (R) 5 P.M. Jul. 4, 1976 unknown Jul. 11, 1976 6 "Space Brain" (R) 5 P.M. Jul. 18, 1976 unknown Jul. 25, 1976 unknown Aug. 1, 1976 Preemption Aug. 8, 1976 6 "The Last Enemy" (R) 5 P.M. Aug. 15, 1976 6 "Alpha Child" (R) 5 P.M. Aug. 22, 1976 6 unknown 5 P.M. Aug. 29, 1976 Preemption Sept. 5, 1976 6 "Missing Link" (R) 5 P.M.The cartoon curators at Warner Archive are continuing to give prominence to characters and cartoons of Warner Brothers' rival cartoon studios of olden times, and sidelining Bugs and company. There is still no announcement of a second volume for LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT. Walter Lantz and Universal's Woody Woodpecker is the latest cartoon star outside of the Warner Brothers cartoon history, to be graced with a comprehensive Blu-Ray release. At Warner Archive, if is not MGM's Tom and Jerry, if it is not Popeye, it is Hanna-Barbera's television characters from Huck Hound to Wally Gator to Fred and Barney. I seem to be the only dissenting voice as regards this shunting aside of what had been stated commitment to bring most of what is not yet released on digital videodisc media, of the native Warner Brothers cartoon catalogue, to Blu-Ray, and to supersede the existing DVD iterations of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons with new and better-looking Blu-Ray renderings. The clock is ticking away on what is left of the life of Warner Brothers as its own entity, before absorption into Netflix, or, perhaps, Paramount, with uncertain future for physical media. Am I the only person who sees the urgency here? Am I the only person who thinks it unjust for Tom and Jerry to receive numerous comprehensive releases of their hundred-plus cartoons while Tweety and Sylvester's forty-two cartoon shorts together have yet to see complete representation even once on either DVD or Blu-Ray? I could proclaim similarly about Sylvester solo, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, Foghorn Leghorn, Daffy Duck, Speedy Gonzales, and Bugs Bunny, too. But the injustice is especially felt with regard to Tweety and Sylvester.
There have been no developments on a righting of any of the wrongs in this autumn's Blu-Ray releases. With the known state of Warner Brothers' finances, I would not expect a corrected Peanuts Blu-Ray disc for You're in Love, Charlie Brown. And it looks like the BBC intends to do nothing about the fault in its BLAKE'S 7- THE COLLECTION- SEASON 2's new visual effects. And the complaints over the look of A.I.-adjusted Doctor Who in the Season 13 set are evidently not going to receive a prompt remedy- or maybe no remedy at all.
All for today.
Sunday, 21 December, 2025.
Here is a delightful little gem, from someone who has hitherto eluded my Facebook blocking option.
Such a nice, considerate person. Really helps to put me in the Christmas spirit. Peace and good will to all men, eh? Bull's excrement!!! I needed every ounce of restraint in me not to typewrite the more vulgar wordage. To hell with Christmas.
Oh, but Nick Tate agrees with her. So, that's one feather in her cap. Two, if we do opt to include (I do not) the decline that she oh, so lucidly chronicles of the Space: 1999 Annual. Decline because the people of Britain are so damned parochial that a little bit of Americanisation makes something excrement-like in their narrow minds. Because U.K. broadcasters were so unwilling to give to Season 2 Space: 1999 the steadfast and consistent airtime that the CBC here in my native Canada did. Or maybe, just maybe, the decline came about because the Annuals were not much to write home about in themselves. I have seen them. Dull, uninspiring original stories using photographs of actual episodes. Activities for children that are not much beyond what the Space: 1999 colouring and activity books were on my side of the Atlantic. Quizzes. Board games. Spot the differences in pictures. Humourous, or attempts at being humourous, captioning. Compared to the novels written for both seasons by Messrs. Tubb, Rankine, Ball, and Buterworth, and Tim Heald's The Making of Space: 1999, and the black-and-white Charlton Comics magazines, the Annuals were a trifle. Nice artwork on the covers. That is all that I will say. And that might be overly generous. Maybe they were not selling because they were expensive, hard-covered fluff.
There. Stick that in your foul pipe and smoke it. Space: 1999- "Year 1" was dead after Lew Grade declared it cancelled in November of 1975. It was cancelled because it did not maintain consistent ratings and confidence of many broadcasters in the U.S.. And by all accounts, it was not victorious over its competition on U.K. television. Doctor Who trounced it. Every week bar maybe the first one. Viewers who had not been imprinted by first season, liked what they were seeing with Season 2. They were not going into it with preconceived notions of what it ought to be. Much as I weary of the 2020s pronouncement that has become as widespread in its use as "going forward" was last decade, it is what it is. Or it was what it was. A boldly imaginative, colourful "space opera" with dynamic music, and some of the top acting talent of the U.S. and British sides of the Atlantic. Visually, aesthetically, light-years ahead of its fellow 1976 productions of television science fiction/fantasy. One that captured imaginations such as mine. And I react with the profoundest offence at the statement of this person. She deserves all of the counter-invective that I can "dish out". How dare she defecate on the best year of my childhood, and on my aesthetic sensibilities in my adulthood! And on what ought to be a happy time of the year, even for one such as me whose parents are dead, whose family had for him no siblings, and some of whose friends who enjoyed Space: 1999 with him are also dead!
This may be my last normal Christmas, if predictions for Canada are true, and this despicible lout has spoiled it. A very un-Merry Christmas to her, too.
Tuesday, December 23, 2025.
Looks like the Christmas of 2025 in Fredericton will not be a white one, after all. A couple of days of rain, high wind, and warm temperatures have eliminated all but the snow along the street curbs and edges of driveways, and it is not expected to snow again before Thursday. So, I have been granted one wish. A green Christmas on which I can walk and not fear falling on ice. I wish that the Thursday temperatures could be less cold than they are forecast to be, but as long as there is no wind, they should be manageable.
I am going to comment further on the Facebook posting that "got my dander up" on Sunday. Doubtless, my going back to doing rants is providing some amusement again to people who think my angry statements of offence to be funny, and likely will bring a corresponding increase in traffic to this Weblog. Traffic I would rather do without. But anyways.
An opinion is an opinion is an opinion. It is so if just one person holds it, or if a multitude of people do. I do not care if 99.9 percent of the human beings on this planet are of that same opinion. They could still be wrong. There is such a thing as mass formation psychosis. It happened during the Salem witch hunts, for example. And I would dare say that it happened quite recently on some other matter. And when it comes to human artistic creativity, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Or the unblinkered eye. Opinion on art does not become fact when a vast majority of people espouse it, any more than it does when one person is disseminating it. A person, or a plurality of people, can say that monsters are bad science fiction until he or she is, or they are, blue in the face, but it is not an objective fact. No. Certainly not if there is an artistic expression, whether it be consciously or subconsciously infused into the material. Saying that something is "shite" because some sizable number of people have an unfavourable opinion of it and have rejected it, is being rude (yes, rude!) to the people, however many that there are, who appreciate that something. And it is fallacy to proclaim that opinion to be incontrovertible fact because it is being held by people in numbers large enough to, say, cause to downfall of a line of merchandise. Like the Space: 1999 Annual. There may be a variety of factors involved in that downfall. And I have not stated all of them. People outgrowing their interest in Annuals, for instance. Or Space: 1999 having been off the air for some time and people deciding to spend their money instead on the latest thing, because, "It's new-w-w-w-w!" To quote that little boy who persuaded his mother to buy the Empire Strikes Back comic magazine that I was eyeing to purchase back in 1980.
An opinion may be disregarded as uninformed and therefore as far from being factual as can reasonably be argued. When it is based on a blinkered unwillingness to receive and consider and be persuaded by information provided by a person with insight into the merits in a particular item. And Season 2's detractors are unwilling to absorb any positive commentary on second season. Rather, they become even more entrenched and vociferous in their emnity. And they denounce and attempt to "gaslight" the person advocating for insight into Season 2's artistic qualities. Insights are not mere opinions. They are much closer to being facts. And are, when they are verifiable. And I can assure my readers that the "Provincialism" in Season 2, the etymology in certain names, and the symbolism in certain subject matter in the episodes, are verifiable. And people who will not consider Jung's theories and maintain that art is only ever possible when it is deliberate, are blinkered. And ignorant. And rude, damnably rude, when they call anything created for entertainment and liked or loved by anyone, feces. And I am within my rights to resent and loathe such people, being one who happens to love that which they are calling "shite". Being one whose best year of life was one of many a pleasurable experience with it, and the sharing of it with people whose friendship I treasure.
But worry not. I know right from wrong in our society. I value my freedom and am law-abiding. I am not a violent man. And the disingenuous attempts twenty-five years ago to compare me with someone who was, will have to be accounted-for by the persons who did that, when they eventually meet their maker. That and their lifelong hatred for Mr. Fred Freiberger, a family man doing a job and sincerely trying to preserve the life of a television programme.
I have persisted in my researches into Space: 1999's heyday transmissions in the United States. I have looked into how Space: 1999 fared in the U.S. forty-ninth State. Yes, Space: 1999 did air in Alaska. In Anchorage, on CBS-affiliated KTVA. And I have also put together a broadcast history for Space: 1999 on Stockton and Sacramento, California's ABC affiliate, KOVR. Neither television station aired a single episode of Season 2, only airing first season in the 1975-6 television broadcasting year.
Without further adieu, here is Space: 1999 in Anchorage on KTVA.
KTVA- Anchorage, Alaska Broadcasts (1975-6) Tuesdays Select Station 11- KTVA- Anchorage, Alaska Date Channel Episode Airtime Oct. 7, 1975 11 "Breakaway" 6:30 P.M. Oct. 14, 1975 11 "Matter of Life and Death" 6:30 P.M. Oct. 21, 1975 11 "Alpha Child" 6:30 P.M. Oct. 28, 1975 11 "Force of Life" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 4, 1975 11 "Collision Course" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 11, 1975 11 "Guardian of Piri" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 18, 1975 11 "Death's Other Dominion" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 25, 1975 11 "Dragon's Domain" 6:30 P.M. Dec. 2, 1975 11 "War Games" 6:30 P.M. Dec. 9, 1975 11 "Mission of the Darians" 6:30 P.M. Dec. 16, 1975 11 "Black Sun" 6:30 P.M. Dec. 23, 1975 11 "End of Eternity" 6:30 P.M. Dec. 30, 1975 11 "Voyager's Return" 6:30 P.M. Jan. 6, 1976 11 "The Full Circle" 6:30 P.M. Jan. 13, 1976 11 "Ring Around the Moon" 6:30 P.M. Jan. 20, 1976 11 "The Infernal Machine" 6:30 P.M. Jan. 27, 1976 11 "The Last Enemy" 6:30 P.M. Feb. 3, 1976 11 "Earthbound" 6:30 P.M. Feb. 10, 1976 11 "Another Time, Another Place" 6:30 P.M. Feb. 17, 1976 11 "The Last Sunset" 6:30 P.M. Feb. 24, 1976 11 "Missing Link" 6:30 P.M. Mar. 2, 1976 11 "The Testament of Arkadia" 6:30 P.M. Mar. 9, 1976 11 "The Troubled Spirit" 6:30 P.M. Mar. 16, 1976 11 "Space Brain" 6:30 P.M. Mar. 23, 1976 11 "Breakaway" (R) 6:30 P.M. Mar. 30, 1976 11 "Matter of Life and Death" (R) 6:30 P.M. Apr. 6, 1976 11 "Collision Course" (R) 6:30 P.M. Apr. 13, 1976 11 "Force of Life" (R) 6:30 P.M. Apr. 20, 1976 11 "Alpha Child" (R) 6:30 P.M. Apr. 27, 1976 11 "Guardian of Piri" (R) 6:30 P.M. May 4, 1976 11 "Death's Other Dominion" (R) 6:30 P.M. KTVA- Anchorage, Alaska Broadcasts (1975-6) Saturdays Select Station 11- KTVA- Anchorage, Alaska Date Channel Episode Airtime May 8, 1976 11 "Dragon's Domain" (R) 5 P.M. May 15, 1976 11 "War Games" (R) 5 P.M. May 22, 1976 11 "Mission of the Darians" (R) 5 P.M. May 29, 1976 11 "Black Sun" (R) 5 P.M. Jun. 5, 1976 11 "End of Eternity" (R) 5 P.M. Jun. 12, 1976 11 "Voyager's Return" (R) 5 P.M. Jun. 19, 1976 11 "Matter of Life and Death" (R) 5 P.M. Jun. 26, 1976 11 "The Full Circle" (R) 5 P.M. Jul. 3, 1976 11 "Ring Around the Moon" (R) 5 P.M. Jul. 10, 1976 11 "The Infernal Machine" (R) 5 P.M. Jul. 17, 1976 11 "The Last Enemy" (R) 5 P.M. Jul. 24, 1976 11 "Earthbound" (R) 5 P.M. Jul. 31, 1976 11 "Another Time, Another Place" (R) 5 P.M. Aug. 7, 1976 11 "The Last Sunset" (R) 5 P.M. Aug. 14, 1976 11 "Missing Link" (R) 5 P.M. Aug. 21, 1976 11 "Space Brain" (R) 5 P.M. Aug. 28, 1976 11 "The Troubled Spirit" (R) 5 P.M. Sept. 4, 1976 11 "The Testament of Arkadia" (R) 5 P.M. Sept. 11, 1976 11 "Breakaway" (R) 5 P.M. Sept. 18, 1976 11 "Collision Course" (R) 5 P.M.After September 18, Alaskans would only be able to see Space: 1999 if they were able to receive a Canadian CBC Television station from either the Yukon or northern British Columbia. Cable television may have been available in Anchorage and in Juneau. Elsewhere in Alaska, I doubt it. And with strong Arctic winds and and the west-to-east movements of weather from the Pacific, through Alaska, and then into Canada, over-the-air signals would be dispersed most of the time, I expect, before they could reach Alaska from Canada.
And now, for the good people of the Sacarmento region of California.
KOVR- Sacramento, California Broadcasts (1975-6) Saturdays Select Station 13- KOVR- Sacramento, California Date Channel Episode Airtime Sept. 13, 1975 13 "Breakaway" 6:30 P.M. Sept. 20, 1975 13 "War Games" 6:30 P.M. Sept. 27, 1975 13 "Collision Course" 6:30 P.M. Oct. 4, 1975 Preemption Oct. 11, 1975 13 "Voyager's Return" 6:30 P.M. Oct. 18, 1975 13 "Dragon's Domain" 6:30 P.M. Oct. 25, 1975 13 "Force of Life" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 1, 1975 13 "Death's Other Dominion" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 8, 1975 13 "Alpha Child" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 15, 1975 13 "Mission of the Darians" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 22, 1975 13 "Black Sun" 6:30 P.M. Nov. 29, 1975 13 "End of Eternity" 6:30 P.M. Dec. 6, 1975 13 "Guardian of Piri" 6:30 P.M. Dec. 13, 1975 13 "Missing Link" 6:30 P.M. Dec. 20, 1975 Preemption Dec. 27, 1975 13 "The Last Sunset" 6:30 P.M. Jan. 3, 1976 13 "The Testament of Arkadia" 6:30 P.M. Jan. 10, 1976 13 "The Full Circle" 6:30 P.M. Jan. 17, 1976 13 "Ring Around the Moon" 6:30 P.M. Jan. 24, 1976 13 "Collision Course" (R) 7 P.M. Jan. 31, 1976 13 "The Last Enemy" 7 P.M. Feb. 7, 1976 13 "Another Time, Another Place" 7 P.M. Feb. 14, 1976 13 "The Infernal Machine" 7 P.M. Feb. 21, 1976 13 "Space Brain" 7 P.M. Feb. 28, 1976 13 "The Troubled Spirit" 7 P.M. Mar. 6, 1976 13 "Earthbound" 7 P.M. Mar. 13, 1976 13 "Matter of Life and Death" 7 P.M. Mar. 20, 1976 13 "Breakaway" (R) 7 P.M. Mar. 27, 1976 13 "Voyager's Return" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 3, 1976 13 "Dragon's Domain" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 10, 1976 13 "Force of Life" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 17, 1976 13 "Death's Other Dominion" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 24, 1976 13 "Mission of the Darians" (R) 7 P.M. May 1, 1976 13 "Black Sun" (R) 7 P.M. May 8, 1976 13 "End of Eternity" (R) 7 P.M. May 15, 1976 13 "Guardian of Piri" (R) 7 P.M. May 22, 1976 13 "Alpha Child" (R) 7 P.M. May 29, 1976 13 "Missing Link" (R) 7 P.M. Jun. 5, 1976 13 "The Last Sunset" (R) 7 P.M. Jun. 12, 1976 13 "War Games" (R) 7 P.M. Jun. 19, 1976 Preemption Jun. 26, 1976 13 "Ring Around the Moon" (R) 7 P.M. Jul. 3, 1976 13 "The Testament of Arkadia" (R) 7 P.M. Jul. 10, 1976 13 "The Last Enemy" (R) 8 P.M. Jul. 17, 1976 13 "Another Time, Another Place" (R) 7 P.M. Jul. 24, 1976 13 "The Infernal Machine" (R) 7 P.M. Jul. 31, 1976 13 "Space Brain" (R) 6:30 P.M. Aug. 7, 1976 13 "The Troubled Spirit" (R) 7 P.M. Aug. 14, 1976 13 "Earthbound" (R) 7 P.M. Aug. 21, 1976 13 "Matter of Life and Death" (R) 7 P.M. Aug. 28, 1976 Preemption Sept. 4, 1976 13 "The Full Circle" (R) 10 P.M.And that is all for good old KOVR.
A pattern is becoming very clear, my readers. Network-affiliated television stations were not availing themselves of a further year of Space: 1999 post-summer-of-1976, with the result being that Season 2 was not viewable at all to people of numerous places beyond the range of the independent broadcasters.
The going "narrative" of the past forty-eight years of Space: 1999 fandom, that Season 1 was a smashing success from start to finish, that Sir Lew Grade renewed Space: 1999 without reservation or specification, that the makers of Space: 1999 "fixed" something that was "not broke", and that after some weeks of seeing Season 2, audiences across the U.S. "tuned out" and television stations dropped Space: 1999 midway through "Year 2" or immediately after its episodes all were run, ought now to crack, should it not? How could people form an cancellation-causing, unfavouring opinion of episodes of Season 2 such as "The Rules of Luton", "Brian the Brain", "A Matter of Balance", and "Space Warp", when television stations severed their association with Space: 1999 before the 1976-7 broadcasting season began? With not a single second season episode, not even "The Metamorph", screened for public consumption?
Now, some people might say that the programme managers of the television network affiliates based their decision on previews of Season 2 that they did not assess to be worth gambling-upon in a costly renewal of contract. Maybe. Maybe not. Some of them might simply have said, "No, thank-you," when being offered an episode or two to preview. Some may have declined even a sending to them of the ITC Space: 1999 "Year 2" promotional brochure. They may have said that they were not satisfied with the ratings numbers brought onto their desks by Season 1. They had moved the television series from weekday evening to weekend afternoon in some cases, in reaction, perhaps, to "flagging" viewership. And so, were disinclined to go for a further year of Space: 1999 no matter what the changes. But the decision was ultimately being made at the managerial level of television stations, by men (and women) whose opinions on Space: 1999, either season, were not necessarily representative of those of the general public. And views toward science fiction, any science fiction, being what they were then, the greatest likelihood was that the average programme manager at the average American television station with a network affiliation to maintain, was quite indifferent to the aesthetic properties of any work of the genre, and maybe even regarded the genre with disdain. And with that disdain, or maybe merely an unflinching dispassion, was looking at the drop in ratings for the season previous and making his (or her) decision with the ratings drop as an unalterable consideration.
Falling ratings during Season 2, were not possible if Season 2 were not being shown to start with. As to the independent television stations in the U.S. that did run Season 2, from what I have seen, all of them aired the complete season, and several of them continued showing Space: 1999 after the 1976-7 television broadcast year had concluded. That was certainly so in my native Canada. The British experience with the broadcasting of second season Space: 1999 would appear to be unique. There, yes, Space: 1999's second season's run was truncated. Aborted part of the way through it. And later episodes surfacing much later, and on Saturday morning.
I may never understand, much less appreciate, the British mindset when it comes to television standards and practices. Heck, even Season 1 was shown in the U.K. on Saturday morning, for a time. It would seem to me quite improper to show lustful advances, alcohol consumption, murdered people on a planet's surface, and blood from violent fighting, on Saturday morning. To say nothing of the body horrors in Season 1.
But I will say this. The British reaction to Season 2 Space: 1999 would seem to be an exaggerated revulsion to a few Americanised aspects to Space: 1999 in its second, changed iteration. And there is a bent, apparently, toward treating American content as unsophisticated and childish. I just cannot match my thinking with such. Certainly not where Space: 1999 is concerned. Season 2 still looks and sounds distinctly British to me, when compared to purely U.S. productions of its time. It was filmed by British crews. It had mainly British guest stars. Most of its writers were British. There were British actors and actresses speaking lines of dialogue penned by British writers (yes, I do know that some of them were Freiberger's). It was not as slow-paced and talky as British television might tend to be, but why is that necessarily a bad thing?
But what would I judge to be an acceptable metric for objectively determining a production to be execrable- if that word were to be acceptable to me? Well, obvious ones. Untrained actors and actresses in leading parts "fluffing" their lines in every other sentence. Paper pie plates dangling on wires. Actor tripping over cardboard tombstones that fall over with the sound of cardboard falling over. Villain looking straight into camera and laughing in a most exaggeratingly villainous way. A villain changing his plans in mid-stream with no clear motivation. An antagonist character obligingly dropping a weapon and running away, to be easily dispatched by the hero. A rotund actor in a carrot costume. Anything that "sends up" its genre, shows to it no respect. These sorts of things. Or simply being boring at the same time as being cheaply made. Season 2 Space: 1999 is neither of that. Money was clearly spent on it. Alien environments were convincingly created. Spaceships flew about and crashed or exploded. Keith Wilson and Brian Johnson delivered on their talents. We have a television show that looks better than any other production of its time. And it dared to do things that staid works like the latter-day Star Treks were too pompous to touch. They gave to us family visits, border disputes, interpersonal problems, and without a "pulp" science fiction/fantasy phenomenon of the week underpinning them. Who is "beaming aboard" this week? Is it Picard's brother, Troi's mother, Worf's child, or Riker's ex-girl-friend?
I think that I have had enough of a rant for today. Now, to start preparing for another solitary Christmas. Hopefully not the last Christmas that I will ever see. When one is nearing sixty, and living in a country in which governments can threaten termination of income as punishment for not agreeing to a dangerous injection, one must face the possibility of losing everything, everything (including one's life), sometime within the 365 days hence.
Wednesday, December 24, 2025.
LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2 has been announced at long last! Announced with its full list of content cartoons.
And here they are.
First Blu-Ray disc:
"A-Lad-in His Lamp"
"Ain't That Ducky"
"Bone, Sweet Bone"
"Boston Quackie"
"Boulevardier From the Bronx"
"The Bird Came C.O.D."
"Country Boy"
"The Daffy Duckaroo"
"Dr. Jerkyl's Hide"
"The EGGcited Rooster"
"Fastest With the Mostest"
"Fowl Weather"
"I Taw a Putty Tat"
"I Gopher You"
"I Was a Teenage Thumb"
"Little Blabbermouse"
"Mother Was a Rooster"
"Pests For Guests"
"The Rattled Rooster"
"A Sheep in the Deep"
"Sock a Doodle Do"
"A Street Cat Named Sylvester"
"To Itch His Own"
"A Waggily Tale"
"Woolen Under Where"
"Zoom at the Top"
Second Blu-Ray disc:
"The Awful Orphan"
"A Bird in a Guilty Cage"
"Bowery Bugs"
"Claws For Alarm"
"Crowing Pains"
"Frigid Hare"
"Hare Remover"
"The Heckling Hare"
"Hop and Go"
"Hyde and Hare"
"Jumpin' Jupiter"
"The Last Hungry Cat"
"Mexican Boarders"
"Mouse Menace"
"Odor of the Day"
"Often an Orphan"
"The Pest That Came to Dinner"
"Scent-imental Over You"
"Stop! Look! And Hasten!"
"To Beep or Not to Beep"
"Wagon Heels"
"Whoa, Be-Gone!"
"Wise Quackers"
"You Were Never Duckier"
It looks like the curators have accepted my deal. No more negativity from me on the releases of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies on Blu-Ray (and/or DVD) in exchange for both "Dr. Jerkyl's Hide" and "Hyde and Hare" in this COLLECTOR'S VAULT volume. Both of them are here among the listed cartoons for the Blu-Ray set. And so, I will be a man of my word. A man of integrity. And not say another disparaging word henceforth about any home video release for Bugs and the gang. I have what I want, and then some.
It is easy for me not to be negative, because this Blu-Ray set has scarcely anything about it that I could possibly be negative about. The post-1948 cartoons are prominent, with emphasis on the major characters. What I wanted. And pleasantly surprisingly, both of the remaining Ralph Wolf and Sam Sheepdog cartoons are here. And we have the remaining pre-1964 Road Runners. The Foghorn Leghorn cartoons still to be released on DVD or Blu-Ray, are now down to two. "A-Lad-in His Lamp" will be on shiny digital videodisc, at last. We have "I Gopher You" and "Pests For Guests", meaning that every Goofy Gophers cartoon pre-1964 is now on digital videodisc. And there are some hitherto not on home video "one-shots" given the nod, among them "A Waggily Tale", "To Itch His Own", and "I Was a Teenage Thumb". Plus many new-to-Blu-Ray Road Runners. And, very unexectedly, the coming to Blu-Ray of the problematic-for-political-correctness "Frigid Hare" and "Wise Quackers", and on the same Blu-Ray set as "A-Lad-in His Lamp", to boot! Amazing!
Interesting that "Hare Remover" ("Eh, I think Spencer Tracy did it better. Don't you, folks?") accompanies "Hyde and Hare" on Blu-Ray disc. As does the Dr. Jekyll-referencing "Odor of the Day". Was this deliberate, I wonder? Or unconscious? I love it.
For certain, this has brought a beam to my face for Christmas, even though the Blu-Ray set, its release date 24 March, will likely not be in my hands until early April. It fully offsets the detrimental impact upon my Christmas of that obnoxious Space: 1999 fan's Sunday posting. And I do not feel quite as desperately urgent over the matter of Warner Brothers' pending absorption by Netflix as I was before.
I have an urge to put VOLUME 1 of COLLECTOR'S VAULT into my Blu-Ray player for a spin.
My mother up in heaven is doubtless saying, "There, Kevin. You were kept waiting long, but was the wait worth it?" Yes! Oh, yes!!!
It was a lonesome Christmas for me, as usual. Zero human interaction. The turkey was scrawnier than in the past. I had only enough white meat for two dinners. It was the only bird that I could acquire for a price comparable to what I used to pay. And now I have to purchase groceries or a December 27 dinner that used to be provided with turkey left-overs from Christmas Day.
On Christmas Day, I watched some of my usual selections these past several years. The Six Million Dollar Man- "The Deadly Replay". Indiana Jones and the Last Cusade. And a Webcast with Jerry Beck and George Feltenstein discussing the cartoons chosen to populate LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2. Here is that Webcast.
51 CARTOONS IN HD! LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2
Some observations and no criticisms (I promise, no criticisms). Mr. Feltenstein says that "Hyde and Hare" is a favourite of his, and Mr. Beck then offers a comment about the cartoon directors watching over one another's work and offering input, with a suggestion that Chuck Jones might have contributed to some of the character designs of the cartoon. Perhaps the look of the knuckle-dragging Hyde Bugs, as that is the image being shown whilst Messrs. Beck and Feltenstein are addresssing "Hyde and Hare". Earlier, with "A Bird in a Guilty Cage"'s mention, Mr. Beck acknowledges the popularity of Tweety-and-Sylvester in the 1950s, and lauds the cartoon series for its consistent high quality. Which gives to me hope that maybe, maybe, Tweety-and-Sylvester cartoons will, in COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 3, receive extensive representation, to clear the backlog of 1950s Tweetys as yet unreleased on digital videodisc in North America. And the comments on the inclusion of "Wise Quackers" with its, to some people, objectionable content, suggests that there is some hope of seeing one or two of the less than politically correct Bugs Bunnies released on digital home video media at last. I am hoping at least for "Horse Hare".
By my reckoning, there are only eleven cartoons from The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour- Season 1, yet to be released restored on either DVD or Blu-Ray. They are:
"Trick or Tweet"
"Tweet Dreams"
"The Slick Chick"
"Trip For Tat"
"Tweet and Sour"
"Horse Hare"
"Rushing Roulette"
"Apes of Wrath"
"Run, Run, Sweet Road Runner"
"Tired and Feathered"
"Cats and Bruises"
It is my hope that VOLUME 3 will have on its first Blu-Ray platter every one of these. Yes, every one of them. "Horse Hare" included. Hope, I can do, as long as I am not lamenting or grousing or stingingly criticising if the hope is not met with reality in the cartoon selections for next COLLECTOR'S VAULT volume. I can also put forth a wish list, while emphasising that I am now (or will soon be) satisfied with what I have. I have the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour reconstructions, however poor the video quality may be for portions of them. I have every Looney Tunes DVD and Blu-Ray with cartoons unique to them. And I will have in High Definition, with COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2, the three cartoons most significant in my formative years. The completist in me will always crave more, however. I will indulge my cravings, but to a rigidly self-policed limit. No more agitating. No more editorialising against the choices made, or complaining about the degree and the speed of progress in bringing the cartoon catalogue to physical media.
And so, here is my wish list for VOLUME 3.
First Blu-Ray disc:
"Aqua Duck"
"A Bird in a Bonnet"
"Cats and Bruises"
"Dog Tales"
"Don't Axe Me"
"Fast Buck Duck"
"Feather Bluster"
"Horse Hare"
"Joe Glow, the Firefly"
"Mexican Cat Dance"
"Nothing But the Tooth"
"Pappy's Puppy"
"Rushing Roulette"
"Run, Run, Sweet Road Runner"
"Saps in Chaps"
"The Shell-Shocked Egg"
"The Slick Chick"
"Sport Chumpions"
"Three's a Crowd"
"Tired and Feathered"
"Trick or Tweet"
"Trip For Tat"
"Tweet and Sour"
"Tweet Dreams"
"What's My Lion?"
"Design For Leaving" (bonus)
"The Iceman Ducketh" (bonus)
Second Blu-Ray disc:
"Apes of Wrath"
"Bacall to Arms"
"Bad Ol' Putty Tat"
"Big House Bunny"
"Bunker Hill Bunny"
"Bushy Hare"
"The Ducksters"
"The Film Fan"
"Foxy By Proxy"
"Hare We Go"
"Have You Got Any Castles?"
"The Hole Idea"
"Kit For Cat"
"Lighthouse Mouse"
"Lumber Jerks"
"Mutiny On the Bunny"
"The Prize Pest"
"Putty Tat Trouble"
"Scrambled Aches"
"There They Go-Go-Go!"
"Tick Tock Tuckered"
"Tweety's S.O.S."
"Two Scent's Worth"
"Weasel While You Work"
"Dime to Retire" (bonus)
"Daffy's Inn Trouble" (bonus)
"Suppressed Duck" (bonus)
I also hope that eventually the remaining Tweety cartoons since the early 2000s only on DVD via the the Japanese I LOVE TWEETY range of DVDs, will be on Blu-Ray in North America. So that those DVDs can be made obsolete. I would like to relieve myself of those DVDs. Those, and the Bugs and Daffy ones, HARE EXTRAORDINAIRE and FRUSTRATED FOWL, with the cropped-for-widescreen cartoons.
All for today, the twenty-seventh day of December of 2025.
New Year's Day. 2026.
And the new year starts with a walloping of New Brunswick by a snowstorm. A snowstorm for which I, and doubtless many fellow New Brunswickers, can ill-afford to pay to have the accursed dropped "white stuff" cleared from driveway. Not a promising start to what looks to be a punishing year for the people of my morally and sensibly and fiscally and economically and Constitutionally errant nation.
So far, apart from my reducing my daily meals from three to two and sometimes one, the dire state of Canada's finances and economy has not impacted me yet. I have managed to stay above it and ahead of it. My savings are intact and continuing to grow. Slowly. I'm making all of the utility and property tax (G-r-r-r-r!) payments on my house. But a winter of payouts every couple of days for snow removal, will "put the squeeze" on my ability to budget "in the black" my living expenses.
I have been thinking recently of my Space: 1999 printed media purchases over the years. 1977 was the year that I first saw and bought Space: 1999 merchandise of any sort. In the first eight months of that year while I was in my Miramichi era of life, I procured whatever Space: 1999 paraphernalia that was to be had in the stores of towns Newcastle and Chatham, and the city of Fredericton visited occasionally in those days by my parents and I. I had the colouring books. I had the Bergman doll and the water gun. I had one of the Power Records albums. I bought the paperback books that came into my orbit, with several not as yet in that orbit. Before I moved to Fredericton, I knew of the existence of some highly desirable toys that my friend, Sandy, had. The Mattel Eagle and the Koenig doll. And I knew some of the paperback books that I yet to find (and would find, very early days in my Fredericton residency). The second season novelisation books post-Planets of Peril were as yet unknown to me. In October, I had The Making of Space: 1999 by Tim Heald.
And I met my first Fredericton friend, David B., one November Wednesday afternoon. He brought me to his house to show to me what he had. He had the Mattel Eagle. And the Koenig doll. Those were impressing of me enough in their own right. And among his holdings were some things hitherto completely unknown to me. He had Charlton Space: 1999 comic books. He had the colour comic books with stories "Gods of the Planet Olympus" and "Flotsam". And most compelling for me was the one issue that he had of the Charlton Comics Space: 1999 black-and-white magazine, the one with Maya, Season 2 Koenig and Helena, and Tony Verdeschi on its front cover, and an adaptation of "The Metamorph" together with an original Season 2 story, "The Primary Life Form", within. It was having an episode from start to finish in pictorial form, that intrigued me. I coveted that magazine even more than I did the Mattel Eagle.
And here is the crazy thing. David did not like Season 2 at all. He would not tolerate a favouring word spoken of it from my lips. And yet, he had that magazine, while I did not. Does not seem at all fair, does it? But such was the hand of cards that I had been dealt. And it stung. And David would not concede to the idea of making a photocopy. Yes, unlike Taybor, I was prepared to accept non-originals. I would have to go without that magazine until such time as I found a copy of it available through mail-order purchase, from a Winnipeg dealer, in 1985. Yes, I was without that magazine for that long. Friendship between David and myself had been quite erstwhile. It did not last beyond the dying days of the 1970s. Disparagement of Season 2 was not endearing to me, and there were other issues of compatibility. When I finally had the magazine, David and I were not associating, and I never did show to him my copy. That copy has since been replaced with another, the first one having deteriorated over years of reading, or satisfying gazing, of its pages. The lower staple had released the front cover. The page edges were becoming frayed. My replacement copy sits on my shelf no doubt gradually degrading from the ravages of time.
I cannot help my acquisitive nature. It was imprinted upon me at quite an early age. And the satisfaction that I feel in possessing something long-sought. It is still with me after so many years of having the thing. Oh, I know, the adaptation of "The Metamorph" diverges extensively from the filmed episode. Koenig's vest is replaced in the comic magazine with his "Year 2" sport jacket with its arms removed, showing his tunic sleeves right up to the shoulders. Command Centre in the comic magazine looks much different. Maya has not the slightest appearance of Catherine Schell. Looks more like actress Kim Zimmer of The Guiding Light television daytime drama. And the dialogue through most of the episode does not match. But on that day in 1977, owning an episode visually was only possible through printed media. Well, for most people, myself included, for whom a videotape recorder was out of financial reach. And I wanted it. I yearned to have it. That magazine was almost as much a Grail for me as The Edge of the Infinite, that long-elusive final book of Season 2 episode novelisations.
And here is the original art for its front cover, together with one of the pages of its "The Metamorph" adaptation.
Frissons has finished its run of Cosmos 1999 with "Le retour des Dorcons", and is not as yet granting to Cosmos 1999 a repeat. Thanks to my friend, Michel, for this information.
Anderson Entertainment's release of Space: 1999- "Breakaway" in Ultra-High Definition, has come. The episode reportedly looks darker, and the Alphan uniforms more khaki, closer to gold, than is the case on standard Blu-Ray. I am afraid that this is all that I have to convey on the subject, and likely will be. Because I have no plans, none, to upgrade to Ultra-High Definition Blu-Ray. Standard Blu-Ray is the end of the line for me as a collector. I have no money allocated to the buying of a UHD television, or a UHD Blu-Ray player. And the media themselves are more prone, from what I have read, to skipping and possible delamination. Not worth the risk. I am hoping that I will have occasion sometime in the near future, to see Space: 1999- 50 Years Out of Orbit. And not through subscribing to a video "streaming" service. Not doing that. Sorry. Physical media or nothing.
The cartoon fans are as predictable as ever. The only cartoons on LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2 to be receiving much enthusiasm from those fans are "The Daffy Duckaroo" and "I Taw a Putty Tat", both of them pre-1948, and "A-Lad-in His Lamp", post-1948 but very close to the demarcation. "Hyde and Hare" and "Dr. Jerkyl's Hide" are receiving scarcely any mention. Nor any of the other 1950s cartoons in the set. By the way, my embargo upon myself to never again criticise a release or the curators, does not extend to the fans. They are open, still, to my rather discordant (at times) pen. Mind, they would not be, if they were a less unappreciative lot, where the Freleng-Jones-McKimson era of cartoons shown on U.S. network television, is concerned. But I am not going to utter another discouraging word on the releases. Or critique any of the earlier cartoons in the mixes. This can be regarded as a New Year's resolution, among a number of others.
All for this first day of 2026.
Saturday, January 3, 2026.
Another U.S. television network affiliate that showed only Season 1 of Space: 1999. Channel 62, Lexington, Kentucky. WTVQ. ABC affiliate. The Moon broke out of Earth orbit on WTVQ on Tuesday, September 9, 1975, as "Breakaway" was transmitted from 7 to 8 P.M.. After being perched on the Tuesday, 7 P.M. airtime for 1975, Space: 1999 was made to jump to Fridays at 7 P.M. for the remainder of its life on WTVQ.
WTVQ- Lexington, Kentucky (1975-6) Tuesdays
Select Station
62- WTVQ- Lexington, Kentucky
Date Channel Episode Airtime
Sept. 9, 1975 62 "Breakaway" 7 P.M.
Sept. 16, 1975 62 "Earthbound" 7 P.M.
Sept. 23, 1975 62 "War Games" 7 P.M.
Sept. 30, 1975 62 "Guardian of Piri" 7 P.M.
Oct. 7, 1975 62 "Alpha Child" 7 P.M.
Oct. 14, 1975 62 "Black Sun" 7 P.M.
Oct. 21, 1975 62 "End of Eternity" 7 P.M.
Oct. 28, 1975 62 "Voyager's Return" 7 P.M.
Nov. 4, 1975 62 "Death's Other Dominion" 7 P.M.
Nov. 11, 1975 62 "Dragon's Domain" 7 P.M.
Nov. 18, 1975 62 "Force in Life" 7 P.M.
Nov. 25, 1975 62 "Matter of Life and Death" 7 P.M.
Dec. 2, 1975 62 "Ring Around the Moon" 7 P.M.
Dec. 9, 1975 62 "Mission of the Darians" 7 P.M.
Dec. 16, 1975 62 "Death's Other Dominion" (R) 7 P.M.
Dec. 23, 1975 62 "The Full Circle" 7 P.M.
Dec. 30, 1975 62 "Collision Course" 7 P.M.
WTVQ- Lexington, Kentucky (1975-6) Fridays
Select Station
62- WTVQ- Lexington, Kentucky
Date Channel Episode Airtime
Jan. 16, 1976 62 "Another Time, Another Place" 7 P.M.
Jan. 23, 1976 62 "The Infernal Machine" 7 P.M.
Jan. 30, 1976 62 "Missing Link" 7 P.M.
Feb. 6, 1976 62 "The Last Sunset" 7 P.M.
Feb. 13, 1976 62 "Space Brain" 7 P.M.
Feb. 20, 1976 62 "The Troubled Spirit" 7 P.M.
Feb. 27, 1976 62 "The Testament of Arkadia" 7 P.M.
Mar. 5, 1976 62 "The Last Enemy" 7 P.M.
Mar. 12, 1976 62 "Breakaway" (R) 7 P.M.
Mar. 19, 1976 62 "War Games" (R) 7 P.M.
Mar. 26, 1976 62 "Force in Life" (R) 7 P.M.
Apr. 2, 1976 62 "Voyager's Return" (R) 7 P.M.
Apr. 9, 1976 62 "Ring Around the Moon" (R) 7 P.M.
Apr. 16, 1976 62 "The Full Circle" (R) 7 P.M.
Apr. 23, 1976 62 "Mission of the Darians" (R) 7 P.M.
Apr. 30, 1976 62 "Guardian of Piri" (R) 7 P.M.
May 7, 1976 62 "End of Eternity" (R) 7 P.M.
May 14, 1976 62 "Black Sun" (R) 7 P.M.
May 21, 1976 62 "Alpha Child" (R) 7 P.M.
May 28, 1976 62 "Matter of Life and Death" (R) 7 P.M.
Jun. 4, 1976 62 "Earthbound" (R) 7 P.M.
Jun. 11, 1976 62 "Missing Link" (R) 7 P.M.
Jun. 18, 1976 62 "Death's Other Dominion" (R) 7 P.M.
Jun. 25, 1976 62 "Dragon's Domain" (R) 7 P.M.
Jul. 2, 1976 62 "Another Time, Another Place" (R) 7 P.M.
Jul. 9, 1976 62 "The Infernal Machine" (R) 7 P.M.
Jul. 16, 1976 Preemption
Jul. 23, 1976 62 "War Games" (R) 7 P.M.
Jul. 30, 1976 Preemption
Aug. 6, 1976 62 "The Troubled Spirit" (R) 7 P.M.
Aug. 13, 1976 62 "The Testament of Arkadia" (R) 7 P.M.
Aug. 20, 1976 62 "The Last Enemy" (R) 7 P.M.
Aug. 27, 1976 62 "Space Brain" (R) 7 P.M.
Sept. 3, 1976 62 "The Last Sunset" (R) 7 P.M.
Sept. 10, 1976 62 "Collision Course" (R) 7 P.M.
And for an inverse to the first-season-only engagement on Kentucky's ABC broadcaster, I offer a full two years' worth of Space: 1999 in Miami, Florida, on CBS-affiliated WTVJ. Channel 4. First season initially occupied the Wednesday at 7 P.M. slot, and eventually found itself airing Fridays at 8 P.M., and second season moved about on Saturday afternoons. The decision by WTVJ to transfer the television show from Prime Time on Friday to Saturday afternoon was made before "The Metamorph" could air once.
WTVJ- Miami, Florida Broadcasts (1975-7) Wednesdays Select Station 4- WTVJ- Miami, Florida Date Channel Episode Airtime Sept. 10, 1975 4 "Breakaway" 7 P.M. Sept. 17, 1975 4 "Dragon's Domain" 7 P.M. Sept. 24, 1975 4 "Death's Other Dominion" 7 P.M. Oct. 1, 1975 4 "Collision Course" 7 P.M. Oct. 8, 1975 4 "Force in Life" 7 P.M. Oct. 15, 1975 4 "Alpha Child" 7 P.M. Oct. 22, 1975 4 "Guardian of Piri" 7 P.M. Oct. 29, 1975 4 "War Games" 7 P.M. Nov. 5, 1975 4 "Mission of the Darians" 7 P.M. Nov. 12, 1975 4 "Black Sun" 7 P.M. Nov. 19, 1975 4 "End of Eternity" 7 P.M. Nov. 26, 1975 4 "Voyager's Return" 7 P.M. Dec. 3, 1975 4 "Matter of Life and Death" 7 P.M. Dec. 10, 1975 4 "The Full Circle" 7 P.M. Dec. 17, 1975 4 "Death's Other Dominion" (R) 7 P.M. Dec. 24, 1975 4 "Ring Around the Moon" 7 P.M. Dec. 31, 1975 4 "Dragon's Domain" (R) 7 P.M. Jan. 7, 1976 4 "Earthbound" 7 P.M. Jan. 14, 1976 4 "Another Time, Another Place" 7 P.M. WTVJ- Miami, Florida Broadcasts (1975-7) Fridays Select Station 4- WTVJ- Miami, Florida Date Channel Episode Airtime Jan. 23, 1976 4 "Breakaway" (R) 8 P.M. Jan. 30, 1976 4 "The Infernal Machine" 8 P.M. Feb. 6, 1976 4 "Missing Link" 8 P.M. Feb. 13, 1976 4 "The Last Sunset" 8 P.M. Feb. 20, 1976 4 "The Troubled Spirit" 8 P.M. Feb. 27, 1976 Preemption Mar. 6, 1976 4 "The Testament of Arkadia" 8 P.M. Mar. 13, 1976 4 "The Last Enemy" 8 P.M. Mar. 20, 1976 Preemption Mar. 27, 1976 4 "Force of Life" (R) 8 P.M. Apr. 3, 1976 4 "Alpha Child" (R) 8 P.M. Apr. 10, 1976 Preemption Apr. 17, 1976 Preemption Apr. 24, 1976 4 "Mission of the Darians" (R) 8 P.M. May 1, 1976 4 "Black Sun" (R) 8 P.M. May 8, 1976 4 "End of Eternity" (R) 8 P.M. May 15, 1976 Preemption May 22, 1976 4 "Matter of Life and Death" (R) 8 P.M. May 29, 1976 Preemption Jun. 4, 1976 4 "Ring Around the Moon (R) 8 P.M. Jun. 11, 1976 4 "The Troubled Spirit" (R) 8 P.M. Jun. 18, 1976 4 "The Testament of Arkadia" (R) 8 P.M. Jun. 25, 1976 Preemption Jul. 2, 1976 Preemption Jul. 9, 1976 Preemption Jul. 16, 1976 4 "The Last Enemy" (R) 8 P.M. Jul. 23, 1976 4 "Missing Link" (R) 8 P.M Jul. 30, 1976 4 "The Last Sunset" (R) 8 P.M. Aug. 6, 1976 Preemption Aug. 13, 1976 4 "Space Brain" 8 P.M. Aug. 20, 1976 4 "Death's Other Dominion" (R) 7 P.M. WTVJ- Miami, Florida Broadcasts (1975-7) Saturdays Select Station 4- WTVJ- Miami, Florida Date Channel Episode Airtime Sept. 18, 1976 4 "The Metamorph" 4:30 P.M. Sept. 25, 1976 4 "The Exiles" 4:30 P.M. Oct. 2, 1976 4 "Journey to Where" 4:30 P.M. Oct. 9, 1976 4 "The Taybor" 4:30 P.M. Oct. 16, 1976 4 "New Adam New Eve" 4:30 P.M. Oct. 23, 1976 4 "The Mark of Archanon" 4:30 P.M. Oct. 30, 1976 4 "Brian the Brain" 4:30 P.M. Nov. 6, 1976 4 "The Rules of Luton" 4:30 P.M. Nov. 13, 1976 4 "The AB Chrysalis" 4:30 P.M. Nov. 20, 1976 4 "Catacombs of the Moon" 5 P.M. Nov. 27, 1976 4 "Seed of Destruction" 5 P.M. Dec. 4, 1976 4 "The Metamorph" (R) 5 P.M. Dec. 11, 1976 4 "The Exiles" (R) 5 P.M. Dec. 18, 1976 4 "Journey to Where" (R) 5 P.M. Dec. 25, 1976 Preemption Jan. 1, 1977 4 "New Adam New Eve" (R) 5 P.M. Jan. 8, 1977 4 "The Mark of Archanon" (R) 5 P.M. Jan. 15, 1977 4 "Brian the Brain" (R) 5 P.M. Jan. 22, 1977 4 "The Rules of Luton" (R) 5 P.M. Jan. 29, 1977 4 "Space Warp" 4 P.M. Feb. 5, 1977 4 "A Matter of Balance" 3:30 P.M. Feb. 12, 1977 4 "The Beta Cloud" 3:30 P.M. Feb. 19, 1977 Preemption Feb. 26, 1977 4 "One Moment of Humanity" 3 P.M. Mar. 5, 1977 Preemption Mar. 12, 1977 4 "The Seance Spectre" 3 P.M. Mar. 19, 1977 4 "The Bringers of Wonder: Pt. 1" 3 P.M. Mar. 26, 1977 4 "The Bringers of Wonder: Pt. 2" 3 P.M. Apr. 2, 1977 4 "Dorzak" 3 P.M. Apr. 9, 1977 4 "The Immunity Syndrome" 3 P.M. Apr. 16, 1977 4 "The Lambda Factor" 2 P.M Apr. 23, 1977 4 "All That Glisters" 3 P.M. Apr. 30, 1977 4 "Devil's Planet" 3 P.M. May 7, 1977 4 "The Dorcons" 3 P.M. May 14, 1977 4 "The Taybor" (R) 3 P.M. May 21, 1977 Preemption May 28, 1977 4 "Catacombs of the Moon" (R) 3 P.M. Jun. 4, 1977 4 "A Matter of Balance" (R) 3 P.M. Jun. 11, 1977 4 "Space Warp" (R) 3 P.M. Jun. 18, 1977 4 "The Beta Cloud" (R) 3 P.M. Jun. 25, 1977 4 "Seed of Destruction" (R) 3 P.M. Jul. 2, 1977 4 "One Moment of Humanity" (R) 3 P.M. Jul. 9, 1977 4 "The Seance Spectre" (R) 3 P.M. Jul. 16, 1977 4 "The Bringers of Wonder: Pt. 1" (R) 3 P.M. Jul. 23, 1977 4 "The Bringers of Wonder: Pt. 2" (R) 3 P.M. Jul. 30, 1977 4 "Dorzak" (R) 3 P.M. Aug. 6, 1977 4 "The AB Chrysalis" (R) 2 P.M. Aug. 13, 1977 4 "The Immunity Syndrome" (R) 3 P.M. Aug. 21, 1977 4 "The Lambda Factor" (R) 3 P.M. Aug. 28, 1977 Preemption Sept. 3, 1977 Preemption Sept. 10, 1977 Preemption Sept. 17, 1977 4 "Devil's Planet" (R) 2:30 P.M. Sept. 24, 1977 4 "The Dorcons" (R) 3:30 P.M.And this is all for today, 2026's first Saturday. I will this evening be watching my Blu-Ray of Doctor Who- "Doctor Who and the Silurians" in commemoration of its troubled Saturday, January 3, 1987 MPBN broadcast.
Monday, January 5, 2026.
The day has come. The day I turn sixty years-old. The birthday that I have been dreading for all of my adult life. I am now incontrovertibly an old man. Not just on the wrong side of middle age (to invoke writer E.C. Tubb's description of Victor Bergman in the Space: 1999 book, Breakaway) but far into that wrong side. I am older than William Hartnell was when he left Doctor Who, unable to continue due to ill health. Someone younger needing to replace him.
Everyone who lives so long, has to deal with the fact of becoming a sexagenarian, and the stigma that our society places on that. Time to be put out to pasture to await death. Dismissed as irrelevant utterly to the world continuing around one. As one's creaky joints become ever more creaky, and frail. One goes to bed every night wondering if maybe "this is it". That one may never awaken. And we increasingly have a culture of death in Canada that could become one of mandatory termination at a certain age, once the money for Old Age Security is no longer available.
Mortality is so much more difficult to put out of mind as one sits to watch a prized Blu-Ray, or typewrite the latest Weblog spiel. I have faced the mortality of my generation already, attending the funerals of friends. Friends going as far back with me as childhood. That mortality is much more personal once one has oneself passed that ultimate barrier into the autumn of life. I wonder how my parents coped with this. Well, they at least had each other. To cope with it together.
I am not having birthday cake this year. But I will go out for dinner, and have some dessert. One dessert. Not the several desserts that a birthday cake would provide.
One good thing about growing old is being able to retire. Which I cannot do, as yet. Maybe never.
But enough about birthday and old age.
How about some more Space: 1999 U.S. television broadcast histories?
We have seen Alaska. How about the fiftieth State? Did Space: 1999 air in Hawaii? Yes, it did. Were both seasons transmitted there? No.
We see it yet again. Only first season is shown, on a U.S. television network affiliate. An ABC affiliate, in this case. Honolulu television station KITV. Channel 4. Frequent preemptions in the summer of 1976. And then, Moonbase Alpha fades away come the autumn. No trace of second season. None. So, the people of Hawaii did not see any of Season 2. No "The Metamorph". No Maya. No Tony Verdeschi. No sport jackets and anoraks. No Derek Wadsworth music. Not even the opening title music inspired by the dynamic main introduction instrumentals of Hawaii Five-O. Space: 1999 is gone in Hawaii after "Year 1". Aloha.
Without further adieu, here is Space: 1999's life in the land of sand and surf.
KITV- Honolulu, Hawaii Broadcasts (1975-6) Sundays Select Station 4- KITV- Honolulu, Hawaii Date Channel Episode Airtime Sept. 14, 1975 4 "Breakaway" 7 P.M. Sept. 21, 1975 4 "War Games" 7 P.M. Sept. 28, 1975 4 "Death's Other Dominion" 7 P.M. Oct. 5, 1975 4 "Dragon's Domain" 7 P.M. Oct. 12, 1975 4 "Collision Course" 7 P.M. Oct. 19, 1975 4 "Force in Life" 7 P.M. Oct. 26, 1975 4 "Alpha Child" 7 P.M. Nov. 2, 1975 4 "Guardian of Piri" 7 P.M. Nov. 9, 1975 4 "Black Sun" 7 P.M. Nov. 16, 1975 4 "Matter of Life and Death" 7 P.M. Nov. 23, 1975 4 "Voyager's Return" 7 P.M. Nov. 30, 1975 4 "Mission of the Darians" 7 P.M. Dec. 7, 1975 4 "War Games" (R) 7 P.M. Dec. 14, 1975 4 "Ring Around the Moon" 7 P.M. Dec. 21, 1975 4 "Missing Link" 7 P.M. Dec. 28, 1975 4 "Dragon's Domain" (R) 7 P.M. Jan. 4, 1976 4 "Space Brain" 7 P.M. Jan. 11, 1976 4 "The Troubled Spirit" 7 P.M. Jan. 18, 1976 4 "Earthbound" 7 P.M. Jan. 25, 1976 4 "The Full Circle" 7 P.M. Feb. 1, 1976 4 "The Last Enemy" 6 P.M. Feb. 8, 1976 4 "End of Eternity" 7 P.M. Feb. 15, 1976 4 "Another Time, Another Place" 7 P.M. Feb. 22, 1976 4 "The Infernal Machine" 7 P.M. Feb. 29, 1976 Preemption Mar. 7, 1976 4 "The Last Sunset" 7 P.M. Mar. 14, 1976 4 "The Testament of Arkadia" 7 P.M. Mar. 21, 1976 4 "Dragon's Domain" (R) 7 P.M. Mar. 28, 1976 4 "Mission of the Darians" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 4, 1976 4 "Black Sun" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 11, 1976 4 "Voyager's Return" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 18, 1976 4 "Ring Around the Moon" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 25, 1976 4 "Missing Link" (R) 7 P.M. May 2, 1976 4 "Collision Course" (R) 7 P.M. May 9, 1976 4 "Guardian of Piri" (R) 7 P.M. May 16, 1976 Preemption May 23, 1976 4 "Alpha Child" (R) 5 P.M. May 30, 1976 4 "Matter of Life and Death" (R) 7 P.M. Jun. 6, 1976 4 "Death's Other Dominion" (R) 7 P.M. Jun. 13, 1976 4 "Earthbound" (R) 7 P.M. Jun. 20, 1976 4 "The Troubled Spirit" (R) 7 P.M. Jun. 27, 1976 4 "End of Eternity" (R) 7 P.M. Jul. 4, 1976 4 "Space Brain" (R) 7 P.M. Jul. 11, 1976 4 "The Testament of Arkadia" (R) 7 P.M. Jul. 18, 1976 4 "The Last Enemy" (R) 7 P.M. Jul. 25, 1976 Preemption Aug. 1, 1976 Preemption Aug. 8, 1976 Preemption Aug. 15, 1976 Preemption Aug. 22, 1976 Preemption Aug. 29, 1976 4 "Dragon's Domain" (R) 7 P.M. Sept. 5, 1976 Preemption Sept. 12, 1976 4 "War Games" (R) 7 P.M. Sept. 19, 1976 4 "The Last Sunset" (R) 7 P.M. Sept. 26, 1976 4 "The Full Circle" (R) 7 P.M.A couple of observations. "Dragon's Domain" was aired four times, and some other episodes, including "Breakaway", telecast only once. Showings of Space: 1999's first season in smaller television markets, show a greater variability in the sequence of episodes run than what was the norm for broadcasters in major American metropolitan centres such as New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Chicago.
And while I am on the subject of variability in the order of broadcast of episodes, I propose to provide another broadcast history for Space: 1999 in the U.S.. For another television network affiliate. Another television network affiliate balking at a continuation of its arrangement with ITC post-Season 1. WLWI. Channel 13. Indianapolis. WLWI was another affiliate of ABC. "End of Eternity" was episode two on WLWI, and "Voyager's Return" episode three. Quite the cogent divergence from other broadcasters.
And here it is. Space: 1999 in Indianapolis.
WLWI- Indianapolis, Indiana Broadcasts (1975-6) Saturdays Select Station 13- WLWI - Indianapolis, Indiana Date Channel Episode Airtime Sept. 13, 1975 13 "Breakaway" 6 P.M. Sept. 20, 1975 13 "End of Eternity" 6 P.M. Sept. 27, 1975 13 "Voyager's Return" 6 P.M. Oct. 4, 1975 13 "Dragon's Domain" 6 P.M. Oct. 11, 1975 13 "Death's Other Dominion" 6 P.M. Oct. 18, 1975 13 "Collision Course" 6 P.M. Oct. 25, 1975 13 "Force in Life" 6 P.M. Nov. 1, 1975 13 "Alpha Child" 7 P.M. Nov. 8, 1975 13 "Guardian of Piri" 7 P.M. Nov. 15, 1975 13 "War Games" 7 P.M. Nov. 22, 1975 13 "Mission of the Darians" 7 P.M. Nov. 29, 1975 13 "Black Sun" 7 P.M. Dec. 6, 1975 13 "Voyager's Return" (R) 7 P.M. Dec. 13, 1975 13 "The Last Enemy" 7 P.M. Dec. 20, 1975 13 "Dragon's Domain" (R) 7 P.M. Dec. 27, 1975 13 "The Full Circle" 7 P.M. Jan. 3, 1976 13 "Death's Other Dominion" (R) 7 P.M. Jan. 10, 1976 13 "Ring Around the Moon" 7 P.M. Jan. 17, 1976 13 "Matter of Life and Death" 7 P.M. Jan. 24, 1976 13 "Earthbound" 7 P.M. Jan. 31, 1976 13 "Another Time, Another Place" 7 P.M. Feb. 7, 1976 13 "The Infernal Machine" 7 P.M. Feb. 14, 1976 13 "Missing Link" 7 P.M. Feb. 21, 1976 13 "The Last Sunset" 7 P.M. Feb. 28, 1976 13 "Space Brain" 7 P.M. Mar. 6, 1976 13 "The Troubled Spirit" 7 P.M. Mar. 13, 1976 13 "Breakaway" (R) 7 P.M. Mar. 20, 1976 13 "Force in Life" (R) 7 P.M. Mar. 27, 1976 13 "Alpha Child" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 3, 1976 13 "Guardian of Piri" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 10, 1976 13 "War Games" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 17, 1976 13 "Mission of the Darians" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 24, 1976 13 "Black Sun" (R) 7 P.M. May 1, 1976 13 "Space Brain" (R) 6 P.M. May 8, 1976 13 "The Troubled Spirit" (R) 6 P.M. May 15, 1976 13 "The Testament of Arkadia" 6 P.M. May 22, 1976 13 "The Last Enemy" (R) 6 P.M. May 29, 1976 13 "Ring Around the Moon" (R) 6 P.M. Jun. 5, 1976 13 "Earthbound" (R) 6 P.M. Jun. 12, 1976 13 "The Full Circle" (R) 6 P.M. Jun. 19, 1976 13 "Matter of Life and Death" (R) 6 P.M. Jun. 26, 1976 13 "The Infernal Machine" (R) 6 P.M. Jul. 3, 1976 13 "Missing Link" (R) 6 P.M. Jul. 10, 1976 13 "Another Time, Another Place" (R) 6 P.M. Jul. 17, 1976 13 "The Last Sunset" (R) 6 P.M. Jul. 24, 1976 13 "Space Brain" (R) 6 P.M. Jul. 31, 1976 Preemption Aug. 7, 1976 13 "The Testament of Arkadia" (R) 6 P.M. Aug. 14, 1976 13 "War Games" (R) 6 P.M. Aug. 21, 1976 13 "Collision Course" (R) 6 P.M. Aug. 28, 1976 13 "Breakaway" (R) 6 P.M. Sept. 4, 1976 13 "Death's Other Dominion" (R) 6 P.M. Sept. 11, 1976 13 "The Troubled Spirit" (R) 6:30 P.M.And Space: 1999 came to an end in Indianapolis with "The Troubled Spirit". That was the final episode aired on the full CBC Television network in Canada also.
Is it not becoming increasingly apparent that second season of Space: 1999 was not given a chance to prove itself worthy of viewer loyalty across swaths of the United States outside of the range of independent broadcasters like WPIX, KHJ, WLVI, WGN, and WUAB? With so many U.S. television stations opting out of showing anything post-Season 1, after Grade had green-lit Season 2's production in hopes of maintaining Space: 1999's marketability in the U.S., is it any wonder that Grade and his team of motion picture and television industry magnates declined the production of a third season, promptly cancelling Space: 1999 in mid-October of 1976? No responsible executive at a television production company would do otherwise.
Fred Freiberger memorably said something in, I think, his interview with Starlog, along the lines of some influential individuals in the U.S. television industry having said, in early autumn of 1976, "Gee, the show's vastly improved, but it's too late to save it." This resonates, as I continue to log broadcasting of Space: 1999 not continuing beyond Season 1. It would seem to me that it was Season 1, not Season 2, that "got" Space: 1999 cancelled. Ultimately. And I do not say so happily, as I do in fact love Season 1 (no matter how much that some people would contend otherwise). Though I do feel some satisfaction in disproving the refrains of the arrogant, obnoxious louts who wail "show killer Freddy!", and, "'Year 2' and its rubber monsters and Vindrus' diaper were the death knell for Space: 1999!" And who revel as Nick Tate denounces Fred Freiberger as that "prick who destroyed our series".
Space: 1999's fate was sealed when all of those television stations in the U.S. walked away from it. Walked away from it before Season 2 reached the television airwaves in my native Canada on the CBC and in New England on WPIX- New York City and WLVI- Cambridge. And before (yes, before) the British public turned up their noses at "Brian the Brain", "The Taybor", "All That Glisters", and "The Rules of Luton". Those balking U.S. broadcasters were not impressed with the ratings for Season 1 and were not interested in investing in the changes for Season 2. They had "given up" on Space: 1999 and were looking elsewhere for programming to entice sponsors to pay for advertising time. Something more current. Something more "hip". Stalwart interest in Space: 1999 on the part of independent broadcasters just was not enough to warrant continuation of production of Space: 1999. And we Canadians were very small potatoes. Whether the spectacular space television show was successful on CBC Television or not. The inverse of the American experience did happen in Canada. Space: 1999 increased its range of viewership from Season 1 to Season 2. When the CBC made it full-network. But that was not enough to satisfy Sir Lew Grade.
People in Alaska, Hawaii, Indiana, southern Florida, Sacramento, and eastern Maine were not being given occasion to see any of Season 2. Any. Unless, say, there was cable television access to our CBC, as eastern Maine had. This is not me smoking a "crack pipe". Nor is it me having a "senior's moment". It is a fact. And I suspect the same to be true in numerous places elsewhere.
But establishing which season is responsible for the cancellation, is not an indictment against the artistic value of either one. Abandonment of Space: 1999 by a certain sizable percentage of its viewers, whether that be during Season 1 or Season 2, does not indicate artistic valuelessness. As I have said before, 99.5 percent of the population rejecting a work, and only 0.5 percent of people regarding that work favourably, does not mean that that work is comparable to excrement. Recognition and appreciation of artistic expression is not a majority-rules affair. And I doubt that most people who "tuned in" in the early weeks of the 1975-6 television broadcast season to watch Space: 1999 were doing so because the television show caught their fancy aesthetically. They were curious about the new, most expensive television series produced to date. The first few carefully curated episodes and their visceral thrills likely did entice those people back to the television channels airing the odyssey of Moonbase Alpha, for a time. But as less exciting episodes began to circulate, or as character development seemed to viewers to be lacking as episodes of later first season were increasingly mixed with earlier ones, a critical mass of people did not feel compelled to continue "tuning in". And that was that. Space: 1999- "Year 1"'s more steadfast viewers, most of them I believe were quite young (the average age of the Space: 1999 fan today is sixty), were not sufficient a ratings cohort for U.S. television-network-affiliated broadcasters to continue airing Space: 1999 past summer of 1976.
And so, Season 2 was handicapped straight out of the gate, as it were, when many a U.S. television station declined to air a single second season episode. And, yes, the public reaction to Season 2 where it did air, was not uniformly of an approving nature. It was positive in my area, but, then, we in northern New Brunswick had not seen first season first. People who had been loyal viewers of Season 1 did stop watching Space: 1999 during Season 2. That is a fact, of which people all too obnoxiously make me aware. But how much of a factor was that in the decision by Mr. Grade, et al., to not grant a third season to Space: 1999? Not as much a factor, I would be inclined to believe, as numerous U.S. television stations dropping Space: 1999 following Season 1. And it is not a factor at all, in assessing Space: 1999, either season, as an artistic work. For that is a matter of insight, and of what ought to be universally recognisble story arcs, patternings, etymologies, symbolisms, etcetera. Not mere opinion. Whether that opinion be multitudinous or sparse.
I have also logged the broadcasts of independent television stations such as WPIX and WLVI that did not discontinue airing Space: 1999 during or immediately after second season. It could not have been faring so badly as to prompt a removal of Space: 1999 from the air. Not in those places. Not in Canada. In Britain, yes. But, then, Space: 1999 was "up against" Doctor Who in the U.K.. And British viewers had an aversion to the more American nature of second season. Still, the decision to cancel came little more than a month after Space: 1999 had shed a not-inconsequential number of U.S. disseminators of it, post-Season 1. The British "Year 2" situation was "early days" at that point in time (mid-October, 1976).
I do not propose to go on haranguing on this subject through my senior years. I do not want to be viewing myself as having cause to do so, and to that end, I continue to block people on Facebook. I do not want to have to anymore see the cliched and downright fallacious (fallacious, as I have proved) assaults on Season 2, its producer, and its aficionados. To have to witness attempts to "gaslight" others (as certain people endeavoured to "gaslight" me) with high numbers of "Year 2"-hating fans utilised to portray the second season's enthusiast as delusional and a garbage human being unless he or she sees the purported error of his or her ways. Such is the way of things now in fandom. All the time. I wish no longer to feel compelled or obliged to respond to such. What time I have left to me, should be spent on more enjoyable activities. Or just "taking it easy". No? Surely I have "paid my dues", and then some.
There is another actor to add, sadly, to the In Memoriam section of The Space: 1999 Page. Gregory de Polnay, who played Pete Garforth in "The Lambda Factor", has died at the age of 82. He also played robot D84 in the 1977 Doctor Who serial, "The Robots of Death", with Tom Baker and Louise Jameson.
And Gil Gerard has died. The actor who brought Buck Rogers to life for the imaginative members of my generation, and those of the Baby Boomer generation before mine. I cannot envisage any other actor in the role. Not even Buster Crabbe. Gil Gerard was Buck Rogers. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century did not air during the better school years of my youth. Indeed, it aired during the worst. My heart was still with Space: 1999, though it was not then any longer being shown in English or in French, where I lived. For space explorations and spaceships in battle on my television, what I had were Buck Rogers and Star Blazers- and Buck Rogers delivered a mix of both of those, plus some James Bond-in-space exploits, battling villains who would not be out of place in a Bond movie. A Space Age vampire also appeared, giving a nod of science fiction/horror. A production that was as Hollywood as they came, and so very removed from the British science fiction/fantasy sensibility and style that had impressed me with Space: 1999, it did give to me some imaginative escape from days of disagreeable school experiences whilst Space: 1999 was most exceedingly elusive. Rest in peace, Mr. Gerard.
We also this past month lost Anthony Geary of General Hospital and Rob Reiner of All in the Family. I do not share the latter's politics, and if he said during the "jab" mandates what people are saying that he said, I am not at all in accordance with him on matters of personal autonomy and individual rights. But wishes for a peaceful final rest for both of them also. Mr. Geary was the quintessential daytime drama action hero, Luke Spencer, doing battle with Mikkos Cassadine (John Colicos) to spare the people of "Port Chuck" (as Luke called it) from frozen death.
It is certainly another sign of ageing when the actors playing the heroic personages of my young years, are dying. And there are not many of them left.
All for today. My sixtieth birthday.
Thursday, January 8, 2026.
Eight days into 2026. Three days into my sixties. The presence and best wishes of friends helped to ease the sting of turning sixty, and now I must endure another year of protracted and colder-than-normal winter, of going to a lonely workplace and contending with Fredericton traffic to procure lunch in an abbreviated respite from my solitary duties, of working in a windowless basement to after 6 P.M., of delaying my retirement for yet another year as banked savings continue to lose their buying power, of wondering what Canada's nobility will do next to push the middle class toward "own-nussing-und-be-happy".
Well, I do have LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2 to which to look forward. One ought to be able to pre-order it any day now. It and DOCTOR WHO: THE COLLECTION: SEASON 21 will be mine come spring.
I am remembering early January of 1983. When I added The Spy Who Loved Me to my videocassette collection on my birthday, and was videotaping Spiderman each weekday at 4:30. I was watching episodes of The Edge of Night that my videocassette recorder had captured for me from morning WVII broadcast while I was in school. I was walking the sidewalk of Prospect Street to Wendy's for a chili lunch, or going to Burger King for a chicken sandwich lunch, crossing soccer and football fields to reach there. Returning to Fredericton High School for my first of two afternoon classes, History 112, and my teacher, Mrs. Carson, imparting the Reign of Terror, Napoleon's conquests and Waterloo, and quizzing us on French Revolution and Napoleon, as my mind wandered occasionally to what episode of Spiderman would be offered by CHSJ later that afternoon. My father and my cat, Frosty, there at home as I walked into our house with my bookbag at approximately 3:40. Oh, do I long to be in those days again! Yes, even old VHS videotape and CHSJ with its blotches of black tape, hairs in the gate, and poor quality film prints on an ageing telecine. Even having to go to school. To be in a simpler, far less worrisome world, with my parents alive, and to be young, with my whole adult life ahead of me.
I have another couple of Space: 1999 broadcast histories today.
I have found a U.S. television network affiliate that showed Season 2. And one that did so on a weekday evening, no less. Not on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. That television station was KATU, the Portland, Oregon ABC affiliate. Channel 2. And not only did KATU air Season 2 Space: 1999 on a weekday evening, during prime advertising time, but it transmitted Season 1 on Sundays outside of the more desirable-for-sponsorship hours of 7 to 11 P.M.. Yes, Space: 1999 received an upgrade in its KATU airtime in the transition from Season 1 to Season 2.
The finding of this came at an apt time, as I was wishing to provide a happier broadcast history for a change. Happier for persons like myself who happen to like, if not love, the second season of Space: 1999. After so many broadcast histories of Season 2 being "given the shaft".
And here it is.
KATU- Portland, Oregon Broadcasts (1975-6) Sundays Select Station 2- KATU- Portland, Oregon Date Channel Episode Airtime Sept. 14, 1975 2 "Breakaway" 6 P.M. Sept. 21, 1975 2 "Dragon's Domain" 6 P.M. Sept. 28, 1975 2 "Collision Course" 6 P.M. Oct. 5, 1975 2 "Force of Life" 6 P.M. Oct. 12, 1975 2 "Alpha Child" 6 P.M. Oct. 19, 1975 2 "Mission of the Darians" 6 P.M. Oct. 26, 1975 2 "Black Sun" 6 P.M. Nov. 2, 1975 2 "Death's Other Dominion" 6 P.M. Nov. 9, 1975 2 "War Games" 6 P.M. Nov. 16, 1975 2 "End of Eternity" 6 P.M. Nov. 23, 1975 2 "Voyager's Return" 6 P.M. Nov. 30, 1975 2 "Matter of Life and Death" 6 P.M. Dec. 7, 1975 Preemption Dec. 14, 1975 2 "The Infernal Machine" 6 P.M. Dec. 21, 1975 2 "Collision Course" (R) 6 P.M. Dec. 28, 1975 2 "Another Time, Another Place" 6 P.M. Jan. 4, 1976 2 "Force of Life" (R) 6 P.M. Jan. 11, 1976 2 "Space Brain" 6 P.M. Jan. 18, 1976 2 "The Troubled Spirit" 6 P.M. Jan. 25, 1976 2 "The Testament of Arkadia" 6 P.M. Feb. 1, 1976 2 "The Last Enemy" 6 P.M. Feb. 8, 1976 Preemption Feb. 15, 1976 Preemption Feb. 22, 1976 2 "Ring Around the Moon" 6 P.M. Feb, 29, 1976 2 "The Full Circle" 6 P.M. Mar. 7, 1976 Preemption Mar. 14, 1976 2 "Dragon's Domain" (R) 6 P.M. Mar. 21, 1976 2 "Mission of the Darians" (R) 6 P.M. Mar. 28, 1976 2 "Breakaway" (R) 6 P.M. Apr. 4, 1976 2 "Black Sun" (R) 6 P.M. Apr. 11, 1976 2 "Death's Other Dominion" (R) 6 P.M. Apr. 18, 1976 Preemption Apr. 25, 1976 2 "Earthbound" 6 P.M. May 2, 1976 2 "Guardian of Piri" 6 P.M. May 9, 1976 2 "Missing Link" 6 P.M. May 16, 1976 2 "The Last Sunset" 6 P.M. May 23, 1976 2 "Matter of Life and Death" (R) 6 P.M. May 30, 1976 2 "End of Eternity" (R) 6 P.M. Jun. 6, 1976 2 "Voyager's Return" (R) 6 P.M. Jun. 13, 1976 2 "War Games" (R) 6 P.M. Jun. 20, 1976 2 "Another Time, Another Place" (R) 6 P.M. Jun. 27, 1976 Preemption Jul. 4, 1976 2 "The Troubled Spirit" (R) 6 P.M. Jul. 11, 1976 2 "The Testament of Arkadia" (R) 6 P.M. Jul. 18, 1976 2 "The Last Enemy" (R) 6 P.M. Jul. 25, 1976 2 "Space Brain" (R) 6 P.M. Aug. 1, 1976 2 "Ring Around the Moon" (R) 7 P.M. Aug. 8, 1976 2 "The Infernal Machine" (R) 6 P.M. Aug. 15, 1976 2 "Earthbound" (R) 6 P.M. Aug. 22. 1976 2 "Guardian of Piri" (R) 6 P.M. Aug. 29, 1976 2 "Missing Link" (R) 6 P.M. Sept. 5, 1976 2 "The Last Sunset" (R) 6 P.M. KATU- Portland, Oregon Broadcasts (1976-7) Mondays Select Station 2- KATU- Portland, Oregon Date Channel Episode Airtime Sept. 21, 1976 2 "The Metamorph" 10:00 P.M. Sept. 27, 1976 2 "The Exiles" 10:00 P.M. Oct. 4, 1976 2 "The Mark of Archanon" 10:00 P.M. Oct. 11, 1976 2 "One Moment of Humanity" 10:00 P.M. Oct. 18, 1976 2 "All That Glisters" 10:00 P.M. Oct. 25, 1976 2 "Journey to Where" 10:00 P.M. Nov. 1, 1976 2 "The Taybor" 10:00 P.M. Nov. 8, 1976 2 "New Adam New Eve" 10:00 P.M. Nov. 15, 1976 2 "The Rules of Luton" 10:00 P.M. Nov. 22, 1976 2 "Brian the Brain" 10:00 P.M. Nov. 29, 1976 2 "Catacombs of the Moon" 10:00 P.M. Dec. 6, 1976 2 "The Mark of Archanon" (R) 10:00 P.M. Dec. 13, 1976 2 "One Moment of Humanity" (R) 7 P.M. Dec. 20, 1976 2 "The Metamorph" (R) 10:00 P.M. Dec. 27, 1976 2 "The Exiles" (R) 10:00 P.M. Jan. 3, 1977 2 "Space Warp" 7 P.M. Jan. 10, 1977 2 "The AB Chrysalis" 7 P.M. Jan. 17, 1977 2 "Seed of Destruction" 10:00 P.M. Jan. 24, 1977 2 "A Matter of Balance" 7 P.M. Jan. 31, 1977 2 "The Beta Cloud" 7 P.M. Feb. 7, 1977 2 "The Lambda Factor" 7 P.M. Feb. 14, 1977 2 "The Seance Spectre" 7 P.M. Feb. 21, 1977 2 "The Bringers of Wonder: Pt. 1" 7 P.M. Feb. 28, 1977 2 "The Bringers of Wonder: Pt. 2" 7 P.M. Mar. 7, 1977 2 "Dorzak" 7 P.M. Mar. 14, 1977 2 "The Immunity Syndrome" 7 P.M. Mar. 21, 1977 2 "Devil's Planet" 7 P.M. Mar. 28, 1977 Preemption Apr. 4, 1977 2 "All That Glisters" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 11, 1977 2 "Journey to Where" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 18, 1977 2 "The Taybor" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 25, 1977 2 "New Adam New Eve" (R) 7 P.M. May 2, 1977 2 "Brian the Brain" (R) 7 P.M. May 9, 1977 2 "The Rules of Luton" (R) 7 P.M. May 16, 1977 Preemption May 23, 1977 2 "Catacombs of the Moon" (R) 7 P.M. May 30, 1977 2 "Space Warp" (R) 7 P.M. Jun. 6, 1977 2 "The Beta Cloud" (R) 7 P.M. Jun. 13, 1977 2 "Seed of Destruction" (R) 7 P.M. Jun. 20, 1977 2 "A Matter of Balance" (R) 7 P.M. Jun. 27, 1977 2 "The Lambda Factor" (R) 7 P.M. Jul. 4, 1977 2 "The Seance Spectre" (R) 7 P.M. Jul. 11, 1977 2 "The Bringers of Wonder: Pt. 1" (R) 7 P.M. Jul. 18, 1977 2 "The Bringers of Wonder: Pt. 2" (R) 7 P.M. Jul. 25, 1977 2 "Dorzak" (R) 7 P.M. Aug. 1, 1977 2 "The Immunity Syndrome" (R) 7 P.M. Aug. 8, 1977 2 "Devil's Planet" (R) 7 P.M. Aug. 15, 1977 2 "The Dorcons" 7 P.M. Aug. 22, 1977 2 "The Mark of Archanon" (R) 7 P.M. Aug. 29, 1977 2 "One Moment of Humanity" (R) 7 P.M. Sept. 5, 1977 2 "The Exiles" (R) 7 P.M. Sept. 12, 1977 2 "The AB Chrysalis" (R) 7 P.M.Now, "that's more like it", eh?
Having provided this and definitely feeling more upbeat for having done so, I have to acknowledge that my researches thus far have shown this television-network-affiliated broadcaster to be a rarity. An outlier. The common practice of affiliates of U.S. television networks, was to drop Space: 1999 before a single second season episode could have occasion to fill cathode ray tube's screen.
And I am now going to follow the good news of a television station granting to Space: 1999's two seasons a complete, untruncated run, with the contrary. Bad news, I am afraid. A television station that not only did not engage with Season 2, but which also abandoned Season 1 after showing just eight (yes, eight) episodes. And this despite the spectacular television series having had the coveted distinction of being pictured by itself on a local newspaper's television guide's cover (for the week of its premiere) and having the local newspaper's television columnist promoting and lauding it.
Space: 1999 in Houston, Texas, on NBC affiliate KPRC, was very short-lived. Abortive. Vanishing without trace before November's darkening days could be replaced with December Christmas cheer. One week, it was there, and the next week, gone, never to return. Preempted one week by a special, and then replaced by another regular television programme. Try as I have, I have not found evidence of it "turning up" at some other airtime. It is certainly an easy broadcast history to typewrite, this. Ten weeks, with two preemptions within that span. That is all.
Before I proceed with the broadcast history, here is a representation of the front cover to that above-mentioned newspaper television guide. That of The Houston Post for the week of Sunday, September 21, 1975 to Saturday, September 27, 1975. And here also, in the interest of being thorough, is the article of the aforementioned columnist.
And now, the sad broadcast history itself.
KPRC- Houston, Texas Broadcasts (1975-6) Mondays Select Station 2- KPRC- Houston, Texas Date Channel Episode Airtime Sept. 22, 1975 2 "Breakaway" 7 P.M. Sept. 29, 1975 2 "Dragon's Domain" 7 P.M. Oct. 6, 1975 2 "Death's Other Dominion" 7 P.M. Oct. 13, 1975 2 "Collision Course" 7 P.M. Oct. 20, 1975 2 "Force in Life" 7 P.M. Oct. 27, 1975 2 "Alpha Child" 7 P.M. Nov. 3, 1975 2 "Guardian of Piri" 7 P.M. Nov. 10, 1975 Preemption Nov. 17, 1975 Preemption Nov. 24, 1975 2 "War Games" 7 P.M.I doubt that Mr. Grade was feeling edified by news of this. I believe that the decision in 1975 by Sir Lew Grade and ITC to cancel had already come before KPRC came to its early decision to not any more give airtime to the odyssey of Alpha Moonbase. But this KPRC debacle must have been on the spreadsheet shown to Mr. Grade when the choice was made in October of 1976 not to put any more Space: 1999 before the cameras after Season 2 was "a wrap". It and all of the other U.S. television stations opting not to continue Space: 1999 post-Season 1.
All for today.
Sunday, January 18, 2026.
Nothing like an unforecast snowstorm to bring joy to my weekend. Not.
Before I go outside to tackle the snow fallen upon my car and driveway, and plowed into my driveway's outermost section, I will do another Weblog entry. Though I find myself asking why I should bother. Almost nobody is reading what I write here. Most of the visitors to my Weblog, what scant numbers of them that there are, are going to my Weblog's last incarnation and proceeding no further.
As yet, no ordering in advance is possible for LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2.
The cartoon fans are indulging flights of fancy involving releases in chronological order of all Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. Never going to happen, that. And even if it did, I would not be happy to have to buy the bulk of the catalogue again (at an exorbitant price), just to acquire the remaining couple of dozen cartoons that I continue to seek. They are also sharing lists of cartoons that they desire to see in Ultra-High Definition. Are we not "getting ahead of ourselves" here? Concentrate on finishing with regular Blu-Ray first. And that includes Blu-Ray releases of every cartoon on DVD.
I am more inclined to be realistic on the subject, than I am to be fanciful. We will be lucky to see three, maybe four, volumes of COLLECTOR'S VAULT before the range stops. Before the Netflix purchase of Warner Brothers starts being felt. I am hopeful that those additional one or two COLLECTOR'S VAULT volumes will enable all remaining 1948-to-1964 cartoons not on DVD or Blu-Ray, to see Blu-Ray release, and for a much wider swath of cartoons from the DVDs to reach Blu-Ray. So far, there is no talk of a VOLUME 3 in the autumn this year. In saying this, I am not being critical of the curators. Just reporting what I know. And what I realistically expect.
I have come upon a photograph of the Fredericton K-Mart Plaza and Burger King from 1989. Sometime in the summer, judging from the foliage. Summer of 1989. When I would go to Burger King for a chicken sandwich and onion rings and sit in the car reading The Daily Gleaner's comics page, and the Spider-Man syndicated comic strip which around that time had an amnesiac Peter Parker thinking that he is a petty criminal name of Rolf Trask, regaining his memory and marrying Mary Jane, and he and Mary Jane meeting Bruce Banner and the Hulk. And after reading newsprint and eating my Burger King feast, I would saunter over to National Video to look at the videotape boxes on display, including the one for the newly-released-to-VHS-videocassette Daffy Duck's Quackbusters, or to K-Mart which had on sale in a bargain bin numerous cheaply made, LP-mode videotapes, including those of The Fugitive's final episode, and Encounter With the Unknown.
Here is the photograph.
I have yet to find a photograph of the Plaza Cinemas. Or one of the Nashwaaksis Twin Cinemas. I have found images of just about every other location mentioned in my autobiogaphy. These continue to be frustratingly elusive.
The Eagle: 1976 spaceship is still being awaited. I have decided to buy the new Making of Space: 1999 book, but its release is still pending, also.
Blocking of obnoxious Space: 1999 fans continues. New ones keep "popping out of the woodwork" to pollute people's Facebook postings with the usual foul slurs of second season, its producer, and anyone who expresses a liking for it. Laughter icons will appear under the occasional second-season-complimenting post. The sort of things that one would expect from a teenager. Not an adult in his or her late fifties or early sixties. But I have ruminated on this subject before. No need to do so again. Just "keep on blockin'".
I am afraid that the well has dried where comprehensive, episode-titles-inclusive broadcast histories for Space: 1999 are concerned. I have scoured available newspaper televison listings in hope of doing more of those. But, alas, all that I can now provide are broadcast histories with a fraction of episodes shown identified, or others with zero episodes specified for the telecasts logged.
What such further researches do yield is more documentation of Space: 1999 not being continued into "Year 2" by American broadcasters with television network affiliation. And showings of "Year 1" in the spring and summer months of 1976 either "tailing off" or being "shunted off" to a weekend afternoon after previously enjoying Prime Time exposure. A clear indication of reduced broadcaster confidence in the television programme's ratings potential. "Year 1" was not (I say again, not) an unqualified success in the United States.
I propose to begin today with WAGM- Presque Isle, Maine. Channel 8. A television station available to cable television customers in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, in the 1970s and 1980s. One that had multiple television network affiliations. Affiliations with CBS, ABC, NBC. It was primarily CBS-affiliated, with favour given to some of the top-rated Prime Time television programmes of ABC and NBC. Starting autumn of 1975, WAGM was Space: 1999's foothold in Maine's northeast. For awhile, WAGM ran Space: 1999 simultaneous with its fellow Maine broadcaster, Bangor's WABI, channel 5, a CBS affiliate, on Friday evenings in Prime Time. A few months into the run, WABI moved Space: 1999 to Mondays, leaving WAGM as the stalwart Friday transmiiter of Moonbase Alpha's encounters. Stalwart until September of 1976, that was.
Here is the broadcast history for Space: 1999 on WAGM, with all of the episode information that I have been able to accumulate.
WAGM- Presque Isle, Maine Broadcasts (1975-6) Fridays Select Station 8- WAGM- Presque Isle, Maine Date Channel Episode Airtime Sept. 19, 1975 8 "Breakaway" 7:30 P.M. Sept. 26, 1975 8 "War Games" 7:30 P.M. Oct. 3, 1975 8 "Death's Other Dominion" 7:30 P.M. Oct. 10, 1975 8 "Matter of Life and Death" 7:30 P.M. Oct. 17, 1975 8 "Collision Course" 7:30 P.M. Oct. 24, 1975 8 "Force of Life" 7:30 P.M. Oct. 31, 1975 8 "Alpha Child" 7:30 P.M. Nov. 7, 1975 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Nov. 14, 1975 8 "Dragon's Domain" 7:30 P.M. Nov. 21, 1975 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Nov. 28, 1975 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Dec. 5, 1975 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Dec. 12, 1975 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Dec. 19, 1975 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Dec. 26, 1975 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Jan. 2, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Jan. 9, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Jan. 16, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Jan. 23, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Jan. 30, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Feb. 6, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Feb. 13, 1976 8 "Missing Link" 7:30 P.M. Feb, 20, 1976 8 "The Last Sunset" 7:30 P.M. Feb. 27, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Mar. 5, 1976 Preemption Mar. 12, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Mar. 19, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Mar. 26, 1976 Preemption Apr. 2, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Apr. 9, 1976 8 unknown 7 P.M. Apr. 16, 1976 Preemption Apr. 23, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Apr. 30, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. May 7, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. May 14, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. May 21, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. May 28, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Jun. 4, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Jun. 11, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Jun. 18, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Jun. 25, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Jul. 2, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Jul. 9, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Jul. 16, 1976 Preemption Jul. 23, 1976 Preemption Jul. 30, 1976 Preemption Aug. 6, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Aug. 13, 1976 8 unknown 7 P.M. Aug. 20, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Aug. 27, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M. Sept. 3, 1976 8 unknown 7:30 P.M.Yes, WAGM, like many another network-affiliated U.S. television station, discontinued Space: 1999 without showing the merest glimmer of "The Metamorph" or any episodes subsequent. Same notation for WABI. The inhabitants of eastern Maine would require cable television access to New Brunswick's CHSJ in order to see any of Season 2.
Next, in North Dakota, Space: 1999 was viewable on CBS-affiliated KXJB out of Horace. Cable television customers in the Great Plains state could also find Alpha adrift in space on Winnipeg, Manitoba's CBWT. North Dakotans would need CBWT to have any possibility of watching second season, because KXJB was yet another of those U.S. television channels choosing to abandon Space: 1999 pre-"Year 2".
KXJB- Horace, North Dakota Broadcasts (1975-6) Fridays Select Station 4- KXJB- Horace, North Dakota Date Channel Episode Airtime Sept. 19, 1975 4 unknown 7 P.M. Sept. 26, 1975 4 unknown 7 P.M. Oct. 3, 1975 4 unknown 7 P.M. Oct. 10, 1975 4 unknown 7 P.M. Oct. 17, 1975 4 unknown 7 P.M. Oct. 24, 1975 4 unknown 7 P.M. Oct. 31, 1975 4 unknown 7 P.M. Nov. 7, 1975 4 unknown 7 P.M. Nov. 14, 1975 4 unknown 7 P.M. Nov. 21, 1975 4 unknown 7 P.M. Nov. 28, 1975 4 unknown 7 P.M. Dec. 5, 1975 4 unknown 7 P.M. Dec. 12, 1975 4 unknown 7 P.M. Dec. 19, 1975 4 unknown 7 P.M. Dec. 26, 1975 4 unknown 7 P.M. Jan. 2, 1976 Preemption Jan. 9, 1976 Preemption Jsn. 16, 1976 4 unknown 7 P.M. Jan. 23, 1976 4 unknown 7 P.M. Jan. 30, 1976 4 unknown 7 P.M. Feb. 6, 1976 4 unknown 7 P.M. Feb. 13, 1976 4 unknown 7 P.M. Feb. 20, 1976 Preemption Feb. 27, 1976 4 unknown 7 P.M. Mar. 5, 1976 4 unknown 7 P.M. Mar. 12, 1976 4 unknown 11 P.M. Mar. 19, 1976 4 unknown 11 P.M. Mar. 26, 1976 4 unknown 7 P.M. Mar. 26, 1976 4 unknown 11 P.M. Apr. 2, 1976 4 unknown 7 P.M. Apr. 2, 1976 4 unknown 11 P.M. Apr. 9, 1976 4 unknown 7 P.M. Apr. 9, 1976 4 unknown 11 P.M. KXJB- Horace, North Dakota Broadcasts (1975-6) Fridays and Saturdays Select Station 4- KXJB- Horace, North Dakota Date Channel Episode Airtime Apr. 16, 1976 4 unknown 11 P.M. Apr. 17, 1976 4 unknown 1 P.M. Apr. 23, 1976 4 unknown 11 P.M. Apr. 24, 1976 Preemption Apr. 30, 1976 4 unknown 11 P.M. KXJB- Horace, North Dakota Broadcasts (1975-6) Saturdays Select Station 4- KXJB- Horace, North Dakota Date Channel Episode Airtime May 1, 1976 4 unknown 2 P.M. May 8, 1976 4 unknown 2 P.M. May 15, 1976 4 unknown 2 P.M. May 22, 1976 4 unknown 2 P.M. May 29, 1976 4 unknown 2 P.M. Jun. 5, 1976 4 unknown 2 P.M. Jun. 12, 1976 4 unknown 2 P.M. Jun. 19, 1976 4 unknown 2 P.M. Jun. 26, 1976 4 unknown 2 P.M. Jul. 3, 1976 4 unknown 2 P.M. Jul. 10, 1976 4 unknown 2 P.M. Jul. 17, 1976 4 unknown 2 P.M. Jul. 24, 1976 4 unknown 2 P.M. Jul. 31, 1976 4 unknown 2 P.M. Aug. 7, 1976 4 unknown 2 P.M. Aug. 14, 1976 4 unknown 2 P.M.And this is all for today.
Tuesday, January 20, 2026.
It is Tom Baker MBE's birthday today. Mr. Baker, player of the Fourth Doctor in Doctor Who, has now completed 92 orbits of the Solar System's yellow dwarf star. I reckon that I will give to one or two of his Doctor Who serials a watch on this bitterly cold winter night. Maybe the first one of those that I ever watched from start to finish. 1979's "City of Death", with guest stars Julian Glover and Catherine Schell. It and one other.
LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2 is now available for pre-order at Amazon.com. But not to me. I am in the hermit state known as Canada, whose hapless inhabitants are evidently now denied the right to order merchandise from an American company. Just one more process of immiseration being visited upon we unfortunates who happened to be born into this damned country, whose undefeatable, desiring-to-be-as-autocratic-as-Communist China federal government looks determined to isolate us from our country's traditionally most important trading partner. Being unable to order from Amazon may be the first (of many of them, I am sure) personal frustration in this wretched state of affairs. None of which I ever, ever voted-for.
So, am I not going to have "Dr. Jerkyl's Hide" and "Hyde and Hare" in High Definition, after all? "It figures," I say, as I roll my eyes and clench my teeth. Does it not? Karmic curse, again. Only this time with the added demerit of having been begat in the wrong place.
I have one more Space: 1999 broadcast history to proffer. Yet another in which a U.S. television network affiliate showed only first season, and starting airing it in weekday Prime Time and shuffling it to weekend afternoon before pulling the proverbial plug on it before a single film frame of "The Metamorph" could appear on the television screen.
The latest television station to bask in the scarcely existent limelight of my sparsely visited Weblog, is New Haven, Connecticut's WTNH. Channel 8. ABC-affiliated. This time, I am able to provide a broadcast history with all episode titles indicated. Airings of Space: 1999 on WTNH were from September of 1975 to September of 1976. Some while ago, I provided a TV Guide magazine listing for Space: 1999 on WTNH, with a synopsis for episode "Force of Life".
And here is Space: 1999 on WTNH, from beginning to end.
WTNH- New Haven, Connecticut (1975-6) Tuesdays Select Station 8- WTNH- New Haven, Connecticut Date Channel Episode Airtime Sept. 9, 1975 8 "Breakaway" 7:30 P.M. Sept. 16, 1975 8 "Dragon's Domain" 7:30 P.M. Sept. 23, 1975 8 "Matter of Life and Death" 7:30 P.M. Sept. 30, 1975 8 "Death's Other Dominion" 7:30 P.M. Oct. 7, 1975 8 "Collision Course" 7:30 P.M. Oct. 14, 1975 8 "Force of Life" 7:30 P.M. Oct. 21, 1975 8 "Alpha Child" 7:30 P.M. Oct. 28, 1975 8 "Guardian of Piri" 7:30 P.M. Nov. 4, 1975 8 "War Games" 7:30 P.M. Nov. 11, 1975 8 "Mission of the Darians" 7:30 P.M. Nov. 18, 1975 8 "Black Sun" 7:30 P.M. Nov. 25, 1975 8 "End of Eternity" 7:30 P.M. Dec. 2, 1975 8 "Voyager's Return" 7:30 P.M. Dec. 9, 1975 Preemption Dec. 16, 1975 8 "The Full Circle" 7:30 P.M. Dec. 23, 1975 8 "Death's Other Dominion" (R) 7:30 P.M. Dec. 30, 1975 8 "Ring Around the Moon" 7:30 P.M. Jan. 6, 1976 8 "Earthbound" 7:30 P.M. Jan. 13, 1976 8 "Another Time, Another Place" 7:30 P.M. Jan. 20, 1976 8 "The Infernal Machine" 7:30 P.M. Jan. 27, 1976 8 "Missing Link" 7:30 P.M. WTNH- New Haven, Connecticut (1975-6) Fridays Select Station 8- WTNH- New Haven, Connecticut Date Channel Episode Airtime Jan. 30, 1976 8 "The Last Enemy" 7 P.M. Feb. 6, 1976 8 "The Last Sunset" 7 P.M. Feb. 13, 1976 8 "Space Brain" 7 P.M. Feb, 20, 1976 8 "The Troubled Spirit" 7 P.M. Feb. 27, 1976 8 "The Testament of Arkadia" 7 P.M. Mar. 5, 1976 8 "End of Eternity" (R) 7 P.M. Mar. 12, 1976 8 "Breakaway" (R) 7 P.M. Mar. 19, 1976 8 "Matter of Life and Death" (R) 7 P.M. Mar. 26, 1976 Preemption Apr. 2, 1976 8 "Force of Life" (R) 7 P.M. Apr. 9, 1976 8 "Alpha Child" (R) 7 P.M. WTNH- New Haven, Connecticut (1975-6) Saturdays Select Station 8- WTNH- New Haven, Connecticut Date Channel Episode Airtime Apr. 10, 1976 8 "Guardian of Piri" (R) 2 P.M. Apr. 17, 1976 8 "Mission of the Darians" (R) 2 P.M. Apr. 24, 1976 8 "War Games" (R) 2 P.M. May 1, 1976 8 "Voyager's Return" (R) 2 P.M. May 8, 1975 8 "The Full Circle" (R) 2 P.M. May 15, 1976 8 "Ring Around the Moon" (R) 2 P.M. May 22, 1976 8 "Earthbound" (R) 2 P.M. May 29, 1976 Preemption Jun. 5, 1976 8 "The Infernal Machine" (R) 2 P.M. Jun. 12, 1976 8 "Missing Link" (R) 2 P.M. Jun. 19, 1976 8 "The Last Sunset" (R) 2 P.M. Jun. 26, 1976 8 "Space Brain" (R) 2 P.M. Jul. 3, 1976 8 "The Troubled Spirit" (R) 2 P.M. Jul. 10, 1976 8 "The Testament of Arkadia" (R) 2 P.M. Jul. 17, 1976 Preemption Jul. 24, 1976 Preemption Jul. 31, 1976 8 "The Last Enemy" (R) 2 P.M. Aug. 7, 1976 8 "End of Eternity" (R) 2 P.M. Aug. 14, 1976 8 "Dragon's Domain" (R) 2 P.M. Aug. 21, 1976 8 "Collision Course" (R) 2 P.M. Aug. 28, 1976 8 "Another Time, Another Place" (R) 2 P.M. Sept. 4, 1976 8 "Black Sun" (R) 2 P.M.And I come to the end of another one.
Thursday, January 22, 2026.
Another unforecasted snowfall today. The snowbanks are growing, and Fredericton is not yet in what tends to be its snowiest month of the year. February.
Still no joy at trying to order LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2. The back cover of it clearly states that it is authorised for sale in Canada. And Amazon's listing says that it can be shipped to Canada. But I am blocked from ordering it to my Canadian address in the Province of New Brunswick. All of this nonsense of blocking sales to countries by Amazon started in 2020. That awful year that launched this despicable decade. The 2010s saw the death of my parents and so much tribulation in the world. And yet, I wish that I was back in that decade. Or better still, the decade before it, and the decade before that, and the decade before that, and the decade before that. Provided that I can have my current home video media collection with me, and all of my current friends in addition to the old.
I have added an image of the front cover to the Space: 1999 paperback book, Android Planet, to my memories of my earliest days of living in Fredericton, in my Era 3 memoirs. For some variety in the images for that remembered time of my life. And Gregory de Polnay is now in the In Memoriam section of The Space: 1999 Page.
Imprint has announced its Blu-Ray release of The New Avengers for March. It does not appear to have anything new in the way of value-added material on its Blu-Ray discs. The packaging looks to be of a higher, more durable standard than that utilised by StudioCanal for its release of the Avenger trio's twenty-six episodes. But that by itself would not justify doing a second "dip" in the acquisition of the exploits of Steed, Purdey, and Gambit. I am happy with the set that I have.
Well, the traffic to this Weblog has sunk to almost zero. Such could be because my fixation of late on broadcasts of Space: 1999 in the United States, is not particularly enticing to the readers that my Weblog has tended to attract. Much as I am a creature of compulsive thoroughness, I am going to relent from this latest activity of mine, and leave things as they stand. Why continue, if it interests no one but me?
Before I "call it a day" and leave aside Space: 1999's heyday in the fifty U.S. states, I will provide the results of my last researches. I have come upon a comprehensive cache of information of Space: 1999's life in the sunny city of Philadelphia. The city of the Liberty Bell, the Franklin Institute, the Museum of Art, and the television situation comedy, Angie. Angie, with Donna Pescow and a pre-Airplane! Robert Hays, and Maureen McGovern singing, "Let the time flow,. Let the love grow." Philadelphia, like New York City and Boston, was, in the 1970s, a television market of U.S. television network affiliates and an independent television broadcaster or two. And there, as in many a place elsewhere, Space: 1999 "hit the airwaves" in the autumn of 1975 with no small amount of promotion. A television network affiliate, WPVI, broadcast it on Friday evenings at 7 P.M., preceding the Friday Prime Time fare of ABC that included Mobile One, Donny and Marie, and The ABC Friday Night Movie. And as in many another place, Space: 1999 was gone from its originally slotted airtime by the start of February. And in this case, no moving to a weekend for spring and summer. Total mid-winter termination. The good people of "Philly" had not even had occasion to see all twenty-four first season episodes. If indeed first season Space: 1999 was the unqualified success in the U.S. that it is said to be, this should not have occurred.
WPVI- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1975-6) Fridays Select Station 6- WPVI- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Date Channel Episode Airtime Sept. 12, 1975 6 "Breakaway" 7 P.M. Sept. 19, 1975 6 "Dragon's Domain" 7 P.M. Sept. 26, 1975 6 "Death's Other Dominion" 7 P.M. Oct. 3, 1975 6 "Collision Course" 7 P.M. Oct. 10, 1975 6 "Force of Life" 7 P.M. Oct. 17, 1975 6 "Alpha Child" 7 P.M. Oct. 24, 1975 6 "Guardian of Piri" 7 P.M. Oct. 31, 1975 6 "War Games" 7 P.M. Nov. 7, 1975 6 "Mission of the Darians" 7 P.M. Nov. 21, 1975 6 "End of Eternity" 7 P.M. Nov. 28, 1975 6 "Voyager's Return" 7 P.M. Dec. 5, 1975 6 "Death's Other Dominion" (R) 7 P.M. Dec. 12, 1975 6 "Ring Around the Moon" 7 P.M. Dec. 19, 1975 6 "Dragon's Domain" (R) 7 P.M. Dec. 26, 1975 6 "The Full Circle" 7 P.M. Jan. 2, 1976 6 "The Last Enemy" 7 P.M. Jan. 9, 1976 6 "The Testament of Arkadia" 7 P.M. Jan. 16, 1976 6 "The Troubled Spirit" 7 P.M. Jan. 23, 1976 6 "Space Brain" 7 P.M. Jan. 30, 1976 6 "Missing Link" 7 P.M.Yes, as January, 1976 was coming to an end, WPVI stopped its run of Space: 1999 without even showing every first season episode once. There was no rescheduling of Space: 1999 to the weekend. Moonbase Alpha was gone from the City of Brotherly Love's ABC affiliate from the start of February, 1976.
Happily, independent Philadelphian television channel WPHL, a channel 17, stepped into the breach- but not until it was time to commence with running Season 2, as the 1976-7 television broadcasting year was already under way. WPHL would be Space: 1999's broadcaster in most of Pennsylvania from October of 1976 to September of 1978. Second season would be shown three times (with some of its episodes airing four times, and one episode, "Dorzak", being telecast only twice) and first season disseminated only once. It is important to note, that this was another case of Space: 1999 staying on the air at least twelve months after the 1976-7 television broadcast year had concluded. Not bad for a television show whose second and last season is routinely said to be excrement and unfit for broadcast.
WPHL- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1976-8) Saturdays Select Station 17- WPHL- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Date Channel Episode Airtime Oct. 2, 1976 17 "The Metamorph" 6 P.M. Oct. 9, 1976 17 "The Exiles" 6 P.M. Oct. 16, 1976 17 "Journey to Where" 6 P.M. Oct. 23, 1976 17 "The Taybor" 6 P.M. Oct. 30, 1976 17 "New Adam New Eve" 6 P.M. Nov. 6, 1976 17 "The Mark of Archanon" 6 P.M. Nov. 13, 1976 17 "Brian the Brain" 6 P.M. Nov. 20, 1976 17 "The Rules of Luton" 6 P.M. Nov. 27, 1976 17 "The AB Chrysalis" 6 P.M. Dec. 4, 1976 17 "Catacombs of the Moon" 6 P.M. Dec. 11, 1976 17 "The Metamorph" (R) 6 P.M. Dec. 18, 1978 17 "Journey to Where" (R) 6 P.M. Dec. 25, 1976 Preemption Jan. 1, 1977 17 "The Exiles" (R) 6 P.M. Jan. 8, 1977 17 "Seed of Destruction" 6 P.M. Jan. 15, 1977 17 "Space Warp" 6 P.M. Jan. 22, 1977 17 "A Matter of Balance" 6 P.M. Jan. 29, 1977 17 "The Beta Cloud" 6 P.M. Feb. 5, 1977 17 "The Lambda Factor" 6 P.M. Feb. 12, 1977 17 "One Moment of Humanity" 6 P.M. Feb. 19, 1977 17 "All That Glisters" 6 P.M. Feb. 26, 1977 17 "The Seance Spectre" 6 P.M. Mar. 5, 1977 17 "The Bringers of Wonder: Pt. 1" 6 P.M. Mar. 12, 1977 17 "The Bringers of Wonder: Pt. 2" 6 P.M. Mar. 19, 1977 17 "Dorzak" 6 P.M. Mar. 26, 1977 17 "The Immunity Syndrome" 6 P.M. Apr. 2, 1977 17 "Devil's Planet" 6 P.M. Apr. 9, 1977 17 "The Dorcons" 6 P.M. Apr. 16, 1977 17 "Seed of Destruction" (R) 6 P.M. Apr. 23, 1977 17 "New Adam New Eve" (R) 6 P.M. Apr. 30, 1977 Preemption May 7, 1977 17 "Brian the Brain" (R) 6 P.M. May 14, 1977 17 "The Rules of Luton" (R) 6 P.M. May 21, 1977 17 "The AB Chrysalis" (R) 6 P.M. May 28, 1977 17 "Catacombs of the Moon" (R) 6 P.M. Jun. 4, 1977 17 "Space Warp" (R) 6 P.M. Jun. 11, 1977 17 "A Matter of Balance" (R) 6 P.M. Jun. 18, 1977 17 "The Beta Cloud" (R) 6 P.M. Jun. 25, 1977 17 "The Lambda Factor" (R) 6 P.M. Jul. 2, 1977 17 "The Seance Spectre" (R) 6 P.M. Jul. 9, 1977 17 "The Bringers of Wonder: Pt. 1" (R) 6 P.M. Jul. 16, 1977 17 "The Bringers of Wonder: Pt. 2" (R) 6 P.M. Jul. 23, 1977 Preemption Jul. 30, 1977 17 "The Immunity Syndrome" (R) 6 P.M. Aug. 6, 1977 17 "Devil's Planet" (R) 6 P.M. Aug. 13, 1977 17 "The Dorcons" (R) 6 P.M. Aug. 20, 1977 17 "One Moment of Humanity" (R) 6 P.M. Aug. 27, 1977 17 "All That Glisters" (R) 6 P.M. Sept. 3, 1977 17 "The Mark of Archanon" (R) 6 P.M. Sept. 10, 1977 17 "The Taybor" (R) 6 P.M. Sept. 17, 1977 17 "The Metamorph" (R) 6 P.M. Sept. 24, 1977 17 "The Exiles" (R) 6 P.M. Oct. 1, 1977 17 "Journey to Where" (R) 6 P.M. Oct. 8, 1977 17 "Breakaway" 6 P.M. Oct. 15, 1977 17 "War Games" 6 P.M. Oct. 22, 1977 17 "Death's Other Dominion" 6 P.M. Oct. 29, 1977 17 "Collision Course" 6 P.M. Nov. 6, 1977 17 "Force of Life" 6 P.M Nov. 13, 1977 17 "Alpha Child" 6 P.M. Nov. 20, 1977 17 "Guardian of Piri" 6 P.M. Nov. 27, 1977 17 "Dragon's Domain" 6 P.M. Dec. 3, 1977 17 "Mission of the Darians" 6 P.M. Dec. 10, 1977 17 "Black Sun" 6 P.M. Dec. 17, 1977 17 "End of Eternity" 6 P.M. Dec. 24, 1977 17 "Voyager's Return" 6 P.M. Dec. 31, 1977 17 "Matter of Life and Death" 7 P.M. Jan. 7, 1978 17 "Earthbound" 6 P.M. Jan. 14, 1978 17 "The Full Circle" 6 P.M. Jan. 21, 1978 17 "Another Time, Another Place" 6 P.M. Jan. 28, 1978 17 "The Infernal Machine" 6 P.M. Feb. 4, 1978 17 "Ring Around the Moon" 6 P.M. Feb. 11, 1978 17 "Missing Link" 6 P.M. Feb. 18, 1978 17 "The Last Sunset" 6 P.M. Feb. 25, 1978 17 "Space Brain" 6 P.M. Mar. 4, 1978 17 "The Troubled Spirit" 6 P.M. Mar. 11, 1978 17 "The Testament of Arkadia" 6 P.M. Mar. 18, 1978 17 "The Last Enemy" 6 P.M. Mar. 25, 1978 17 "The Metamorph" (R) 6 P.M. Apr. 1, 1978 17 "The AB Chrysalis" (R) 6 P.M. Apr. 8, 1978 17 "Brian the Brain" (R) 6 P.M. Apr. 15, 1978 17 "The Exiles" (R) 6 P.M. Apr. 22, 1978 17 "Journey to Where" (R) 6 P.M. Apr. 29, 1978 17 "The Taybor" (R) 6 P.M. May 6, 1978 17 "New Adam New Eve" (R) 6 P.M. May 13, 1978 17 "Space Warp" (R) 6 P.M. May 20, 1978 17 "The Mark of Archanon" (R) 6 P.M. May 27, 1978 17 "Seed of Destruction" (R) 6 P.M. Jun. 3, 1978 17 "The Rules of Luton" (R) 6 P.M. Jun. 10, 1978 17 "Catacombs of the Moon" (R) 6 P.M. Jun. 17, 1978 17 "The Bringers of Wonder: Pt. 1" (R) 6 P.M. Jun. 24, 1978 17 "The Bringers of Wonder: Pt. 2" (R) 6 P.M. Jul. 1, 1978 17 "Devil's Planet" (R) 6 P.M. Jul. 8, 1978 17 "The Dorcons" (R) 6 P.M. Jul. 15, 1978 17 "A Matter of Balance" (R) 6 P.M. Jul. 22, 1978 17 "The Beta Cloud" (R) 6 P.M. Jul. 29, 1978 17 "The Lambda Factor" (R) 6 P.M. Aug. 5, 1978 17 "One Moment of Humanity" (R) 6 P.M. Aug. 12, 1978 17 "All That Glisters" (R) 6 P.M. Aug. 19, 1978 17 "The Seance Spectre" (R) 6 P.M. Aug. 26, 1978 17 "Dorzak" (R) 6 P.M. Sept. 2, 1978 Preemption Sept. 9, 1978 17 "The Immunity Syndrome" (R) 6 P.M.And I propose to provide a broadcast history for Space: 1999 in the state of Memphis and Nashville. On NBC-affiliated WMC, Space: 1999 commenced airing on 8 September, 1975 on Monday evenings at 7 o'clock. And did not survive on WMC long enough to see 1976. It was gone before the "folk" of the U.S. state of the popular county music song, could see the playing of a sitar in "The Troubled Spirit", before Alpha could be inundated with foam in "Space Brain", before Koenig could meet Raan and fall in love with Vana, and before Paul could have his "trip" with the "mushrooms". Such an ignominy was to be had for the likes of Planet of the Apes and Logan's Run. Imaginative opuses for the television screen that met an untimely end due to poor ratings. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the pundits of first season Space: 1999's contention that all was well in "Year 1"'s run on U.S. television.
WMC- Memphis, Tennessee (1975-6) Mondays Select Station 5- WMC- Memphis, Tennessee Date Channel Episode Airtime Sept. 8, 1975 5 "Breakaway" 7 P.M. Sept. 15, 1975 5 "End of Eternity" 7 P.M. Sept. 22, 1975 5 "Black Sun" 7 P.M. Sept. 29, 1975 5 "Mission of the Darians" 7 P.M. Oct. 6, 1975 5 "Matter of Life and Death" 7 P.M. Oct. 13, 1975 5 "Collision Course" 7 P.M. Oct. 20, 1975 5 "Dragon's Domain" 7 P.M. Oct. 27, 1975 5 "War Games" 7 P.M. Nov. 3, 1975 5 "Force of Life" 7 P.M. Nov. 10, 1975 5 "Alpha Child" 7 P.M. Nov. 17, 1975 Preemption Nov. 24, 1975 5 "Guardian of Piri" 7 P.M. Dec. 1, 1975 5 "The Full Circle" 7 P.M. Dec. 8, 1975 5 "Dragon's Domain" (R) 7 P.M. Dec. 15, 1975 5 "Ring Around the Moon" 7 P.M. Dec. 22, 1975 Preemption Dec. 29, 1975 5 "Voyager's Return" 7 P.M.All right. These are the U.S. television network affiliates that "bailed" from showing Space: 1999 at either the end of the 1975-6 television broadcast year or sometime earlier.
KITV, KOVR, KPRC, KTVA, KXJB, WAGM, WABI, WCVB, WLWI, WMC, WOWT, WPVI, WTNH, WTVQ.
These are the ones I know about, from research. And I doubt that this list is exhaustive. The people in fandom who branded me a delusional "flake" have egg on their faces, and that, at least, pleases me. I have no other pleasure in logging the struggle of first season Space: 1999 on U.S. television channels. And I do in fact have the pleasure in providing broadcast histories showing Season 2 as not only lasting the television 1976-7 broadcast year but also being aired months beyond that.
And now, I do promise to stop with the Space: 1999 broadcast histories, and hope that whatever else that it will be that I write, will bring back this Weblog's lost readers.
Thursday, January 29, 2026.
Almost finished with January. Just two more days of it after today. Two more days for snow added to what it already on the ground. Two more days of bone-chilling temperatures and high heating bills.
Yesterday marked forty years since the explosion of Space Shuttle Challenger. Oh, I remember that day so vividly. It was a Tuesday. I had my Arts 1000 tutorial that afternoon from 1:30 to 2:30 in University of New Brunswick's MacLaggan Hall, room 109. As I was stepping into the classroom, walking toward my desk, dropping my book bag, and preparing to sit down, people were talking of the Space Shuttle having exploded, and my mind went immediately to news reports that I had seen that morning, of the first civilian ever to go into space, school teacher Christa McAuliffe. It was so horrible. None of us could think much about that day's curriculum. Whatever it was. I walked home in overcast, not very cold weather after 2:20 dismissal and stepped into our house as my father was watching the news coverage of the disaster, with a playing over and over again of the tragic end of that day's Space Shuttle flight. There was a package of videotapes on our kitchen table, and on them copies of the Space: 1999 episodes, "Earthbound", "Another Time, Another Place", "Missing Link", "Guardian of Piri", "The Testament of Arkadia" (all of those complete from a PBS affiliate's showing of them in Ohio), and "Devil's Planet" (off of KICU- San Jose), and 1982 Space: 1999 Springfield, Massachusetts convention footage, from a contact whom I had in Peoria, Illinois. I alternately watched my videotapes and the newscasts. Forty years ago. When I was twenty years-old, and my father was fifty-eight. He is dead now, and I am two years senior to what age he was at then.
Amazon is continuing to prevent me from ordering LOONEY TUNES THE COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2. So, I have gone to a company called MovieZyng, and ordered it from there. If Amazon does, sometime between now and release date, stop the blocking of Canadians such as myself, from buying the upcoming COLLECTOR'S VAULT bearing "Dr. Jerkyl's Hide' and "Hyde and Hare", I will purchase a second copy of it from Amazon.
I am adhering to my resolution last Weblog entry to do no more U.S. broadcast histories for Space: 1999. Traffic to my Weblog continues to flounder, and I am hoping that writing on other subjects might lead to a return to Weblog "hit" levels of last summer, prior to Space: 1999's fiftieth anniversary for its television presence. So, what do I have to write about today other than Space: 1999's showings on television five decades ago? Not very much. The cartoon fans continue to indulge their fantasies of an all-encompassing release to Blu-Ray or Ultra-High Definition Blu-Ray, of the Warner Brothers cartoons. That or further several volumes of COLLECTOR'S VAULT heavy with the cartoons of the 1930s. I am sidestepping the saying of anything on the subject of those cartoons, as I do not wish to appear to be reneging on my determination never again to cast aspersion on curators' decisions- including their possible future decisions. Of course, I do hope that Bugs and the gang have a long future ahead yet, on physical media. But hope and realism are seldom fully harmonious companions.
It occurred to me this week that the DVDs of Spiderman will this year be twenty-two years-old. Yes, they were released in 2004, close to the premiere in movie theatres of Spider-Man 2. It is so difficult to believe that so much time has since passed. My first set of Spiderman DVDs to appear to have withstood the ravages of time. I say that as I knock my knuckles on the nearest piece of wood. It would be so very nice to have a Blu-Ray set of Spiderman. But as long as Disney holds the rights to Spiderman, such is a forlorn hope. Those DVDs have to endure.
Space: 1999 is this week receiving another fifty-year recognition. I have come upon a discussion of "The Metamorph" undertaken with it now being a half-century since Space: 1999's second season premiere episode first went before the cameras at Pinewood Studios. The less that I say about one of the discussion participants, the better. But the tone of the discussion was, on the whole, positive. There was a "dig" or two at Mr. Fred Freiberger. And something about "The Beta Cloud" making no sense. But overall, the discussion was not inducing of disapproval, harsh or mild, on my part. But. But. There was one digression in the banter, away from episode content and toward the order of episodes broadcast back in Space: 1999's heyday, where my nostrils did twitch and flare, and my eyes rolled.
My old nemesis out in Calgary was referenced. Never a delightful thing for me, that. And I heard that he is contradicting my memories and my researches regarding CBC Television's national telecasting of Space: 1999 in the 1970s. Once again, more than thirty years after my disagreeable encounter with him in Calgary and Regina and the exceedingly long road in between, I find myself in conflict with that person. His contention is that his despised "The Mark of Archanon" aired four weeks in a row (yes, four weeks in a row) in that CBC coast-to-coast transmission of the television series of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and Fred Freiberger production. Hogwash! Absolute hogwash! The idea that not just a television station but a national television network would be so confoundedly inept as to air a particular episode of a television series four times in four weeks running, is patently ridiculous. It ought to be for any sane person living in what used to be one of the most advanced, least backward countries on planet Earth. Not even New Brunswick's CHSJ would be so absurdly clumsy as to do that. My memories and every piece of documentation that I have at my disposal, attest to "The Mark of Archanon" airing twice, just twice (as was the case for just about every other episode), on full-network CBC Television betwixt 1976 and 1978. The first time on 23 October, 1976. And a repeat on 9 April, 1977 (on Easter weekend, to be precise; quite apt, that, with the Passover symbolism in the episode). Other episodes aired on several weeks preceding and subsequent. Naturally they did. Even if we include the Radio-Canada showing of "La planete Archanon" in this peculiar consideration, there is no possible corroborating of my nemesis' claim. "La planete Archanon" was shown on Radio-Canada on January 1, 1977. Far away from either of the two aforementioned CBC broadcasts of the English "The Mark of Archanon". His assertion is utter, unmitigated poppycock.
Now, it is true that I do have scant documentation (and, of course, no memory, being as I did not live there) of episodes shown in CBRT Calgary's local rerun of Space: 1999 in the early 1980s. Maybe "The Mark of Archanon" was shown to excess then. Maybe. Maybe. But four times in four consecutive weeks? I shake my head. Too much of a strain on credulity, that. Not even CHSJ in my New Brunswick, would be so abysmally lacking in competence. Indeed, I have never in all of my born days seen a broadcaster, television network or individual television channel, air the same, full episode of a television show two times in a row. Let alone four times in a row. Or three. A filler six-minute cartoon, might have been given the nod to be in the offering a couple of weeks, or days, running. Maybe. But not a full, hour-long episode. Honestly, that person's hatred for "The Mark of Archanon" borders on the pathological. He is "making up" extremely tall tales in a laboured attempt to "pass himself off" as a man of keenest astuteness and wittiest repartee in his denunciations of it. And if a "zinger" (so he may think) of a contradiction may be lofted into my work, why not?
I categorically state that "The Mark of Archanon" did not air two weeks in a row, three weeks in a row, or four weeks in a row, between September, 1976 and September, 1978, on the full CBC Television network. I do not remember it doing so. And all documentation that I have, supports my memory.
Damn, I wish that he would find something else to do. "Move on" to do something else with his life. As so many a Space: 1999 follower of yesteryear, has done. Rather than continue to latch himself onto this fifty-year-old television series, it and only it, it and its talent, for his imperious renown. He has nothing of substance to add to the discussion. Never really did, if one were to ask me. But he sure did make use of those of us who did have insights to contribute.
Does anyone know if "The Mark of Archanon" did air four times in a row? Or three? Or two? Anywhere in Canada. Or anywhere on our planet.
Heck, "The Mark of Archanon" is not even a favourite episode of mine. It is probably my least favourite. But I do not equate the watching of it with having hot pokers thrust into the eyes- as he does. I do not keep routinely invoking it as an indictment against the season to which it belongs, and persons responsible for its commissioning and making.
Returning to the subject of "The Metamorph". Martin Landau's U-Matic videotape of an early edit of it, has been made available on YouTube for public consumption. Word is that people of the U.K. and the U.S. are blocked from viewing it. But I can see it, and my fellow Canadians may be able to see it. It has an alternate main opening titles, different look of Maya's eyes and the images in them, preceding transformation, Maya turning into a orange tree, and additional explosions preceding Psychon's demise. Plus some slightly different incidental music arrangement in a couple of places. Frankly, I prefer how the main titles are done in this edit, and I quite fancy how Maya's eyes are depicted.
"The Metamorph"- Alternate Version- Lost Martin Landau U-Matic Copy
And I have found one of the promotions of Space: 1999 on CBHT (and CBIT and CBCT) on Sunday mornings in 1983. That for the November 20, 1983 showing of episode "The Exiles". I actually had that promotion on one of the videotapes sent to me by my benefactor in Dartmouth. It and the promotion for "Force of Life" on June 26, 1983, were the only episode-specific promotions for Space: 1999 on CBHT/CBIT/CBCT that I saw. I believe that most, maybe all, episodes had promotions of a similar design. Will more come to light? Maybe. The person who uploaded it to YouTube has a cornucopia of CBHT 1980s material. Including promotions for and excerpts from Sunday morning Switchback.
Here is that CBHT, CBIT, CBCT promotion for Space: 1999- "The Exiles".
CBHT- Space: 1999 Airing Promo 1983
I will always love Space: 1999. It was an important part of my formative years. I have tons (tons!) of nostalgia for the times in my life in which it was an integral part. A large chunk of my Website and the time I invest into it, is held by Space: 1999. But I do have other interests. And I have a professional life apart from it. I am not going about constantly crusading against certain episodes, to curry the favour of like-minded fans, or people involved in the making of it. My appreciation for it, is steadfast, and not focused solely on technical production, or on what very-important-persons think. I have not written a book on it, or on anything else. I have a professional life separate from my appreciation of it, which is a pastime, a keen pastime, not a career. I am not a "career fan" of anything. Someone said to me once that I am one of the greatest fans of Space: 1999, and I give most heartfelt thanks for the compliment. But my fandom for Space: 1999 is not what sustains me financially, or sends me around the world on a regular basis. I have not built an empire for myself around it. My former associate out there in Alberta's southern metropolis. Such is his "baby".
This is all that I have to say today.
Monday, February 2, 2026.
Groundhog Day. The groundhog did not see his shadow this morning where I live, as the whole of Atlantic Canada is under an intense low pressure weather system, with cloud cover concealing the Sun being total. One may make of this what one will, based on how much credence that one is willing to give to the notion of a marmot seeing or not seeing his shadow being an indicator of timing for springtime warmth.
This Groundhog Day is significant for it marking fifty years since the Groundhog Day Gale of 1976. A massive low pressure weather system bearing rain and high winds that day struck the eastern Maritimes of Canada. I remember that morning very clearly, even though it was a half-century ago. My father had already gone to work before the announcement on the radio of school being cancelled. My mother made an urgent telephone call to arrange for a sitter for me for the day before she had to go to work. My friend Michael came up my back driveway, braving the wind, to spend the day with me, as my mother was leaving and my sitter was on site at our place. Michael and I watched from my dining room window as the wind sent Michael's family's Christmas tree down the back road toward the bank to the Hutchinson Brook. Michael brought his Jaws book, and we talked about that for awhile as the wind howled outside. At noon hour, Michael, my sitter, and I watched Spiderman (episode "The Winged Thing"/"Conner's Reptiles") and The Flintstones (episode "Room For Two", or, as ten-year-old me called it, "The Boss Room", the episode with Fred and Barney adding a room to Fred's house, only to discover that some of it is on Barney's property). Power was lost by mid-afternoon, and Michael and I talked and played in candlelight. After my parents were home, power was back, Michael had left, and we had dinner. Teenagers were on the Hutchinson Brook bridge frolicking in the wind. There was a sound of our television antenna tower buckling, as our television reception deteriorated. What a wild day!
Next day at school, my friend Evie told to me the wind had blown his television antenna tower to the ground. The wind had eliminated most of the snow on the ground, and a flash freeze coming later that day was threatening to turn slush to ice. My father had established a pair of rabbit ears on top of our living room television until such time as the antenna tower could be repaired, and with those rabbit ears, I watched Spiderman's "Trouble With Snow"/"Spiderman Vs. Desperado" while at home for lunch.
A half century ago today was that Groundhog Day Gale. Needless to say, the groundhog did not see his shadow. And winter weather did not persist into late March, or April. And the spring of 1976 was sunny, warm, and lush.
I called "Room For Two" "The Boss Room" because of bossy Fred. Fred was always bossing Barney around, and was doing so more than usual in that episode.
I was totally unaware then of the existence of Space: 1999 or its Francophone version, Cosmos 1999. But it would be remiss of me to not note 2 February, 1976 as the day that "Le Domaine du Dragon" (French version of "Dragon's Domain") first was aired in Canada on Radio-Canada, CBC French. It aired at 6 P.M. Atlantic Time on CJBR- Rimouski and CHAU- Carleton. The latter of these broadcasters might have been receivable in the Miramichi region where I lived. If it had not been put off the air by the gale-force winds. Curious that the monster with the intensely windy breath was a phenomenon of the day of the Groundhog Day Gale. CBAFT- Moncton delayed "Le Domaine du Dragon" to the next day, February 3, at 12:30 P.M.. Again, I was not at all cognizant of Space: 1999 and Cosmos 1999, then. If I were, I would have been on my way back to school after lunch, in the school yard, or inside school as CBAFT was airing most of the Cosmos 1999 episode with the tentacled, one-eyed people-eater, and thusly not having occasion then for viewing most of it. The most I would have seen of it would have been the first act of it. Before the encounter with the monster.
Moving onward to other matters.
LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2 can now be ordered by Canadians from Amazon.com. I placed an order, and now I have two copies of this highly anticipated volume in the newest range of physical media for Looney Tunes ad Merrie Melodies, coming my way in late March.
The dominant discussion this past week among cartoon fans on the Internet is regarding Turner Classic Movies having become a broadcast medium for the Warner Brothers cartoons. This is good news for people who still watch the cartoons on broadcast television. I am not one of them.
Returning to the ludricous account of my nemesis of yesteryear, of "The Mark of Archanon" airing four weeks in a row. I propose to add further fuel to my position that what is being said by him, and by his buddy participating in "The Metamorph" discussion, is poppycock.
I have a job in television broadcasting, in addition to being, in my spare time, an avid researcher and logger of showings on television of chrished works. I understand how the industry functions.
CBC airs "The Mark of Archanon" on a given Saturday. Right. If the episode sent by ITC for the Saturday thereafter were not to arrive in time for broadcast, the standard procedure would be to make an announcement on air to this effect, and show something else. Something entirely else. "Filler", pulled off of the shelf. Usually, in Saturday's case, something involving sports. I can present an actual instance of such a happening. On the CBC. And involving Space: 1999. "Voyager's Return" was scheduled for transmission on Saturday, July 1, 1978, at 3 P.M.. But the CBC declared on air that Space: 1999 was not available for broadcast, and an hour-long sports television programme concerning speedboating, was shown in its stead. I will never forget how upset that made me.
It was normal practice. Airing the previous week's episode was not a consideration. One, because it would have been already returned to ITC, in all likelihood. And two, because any broadcaster worth its salt, certainly the CBC, would dare not risk losing sponsorship, or a reputation for risking losing sponsorship, by airing the same episode two weeks in a row. See, advertisers want their "sales pitches" seen. And organisations putting forth Public Service Announcements (PSAs); they, also, want to be certain that their material will be watched. And if people "tune in" to a television show and discover quickly that they are seeing the same episode that they had viewed just a week earlier, what are they going to do? They are going to switch channels. Or turn off the television and commit time to the doing of something else. And the advertisements or announcements would not be seen. No competent broadcaster would risk losing its sponsors. Or its associations with charitable institutions. No competent broadcaster. The very idea that such a faux-pas would be committed three times on three consecutive weeks, by Canada's top television network, is far, far beyond the realm of possibility.
I know for a fact that it did not happen with "The Mark of Archanon" or any other Space: 1999 episode, between the Septembers of 1976 and 1978. And I cannot envisage CBRT doing it in the early 1980s. As I say, if an episode were not to arrive on time for broadcast, Space: 1999 would be preempted on the day, something completely different airing instead. Surely, the CBC had some constants, in all of its regions, in its broadcast protocols.
From "boss rooms" to domains of dragons to marks of Archanons, I bring this Groundhog Day entry to my Weblog to a close.
Sunday, February 8, 2026.
The eighth of February. The day in 1975 when I had my harrowing experience in C.F.B. Chatham swimming pool. So difficult it is to believe that that experience was fifty-one years ago. So difficult it is to believe that I am now sixty years-old.
I have added some images to my Era 3 memoirs. They are all to do with the Fredericton Gaiety Theatre. A photograph of the interior, of the lobby as viewed from the stairs to the main cinema room, and some images of movies that I saw at the Gaiety, A Boy Named Charlie Brown, The Jerk, Shane, and The Final Countdown.
I am told that many Hollywood blockbusters had their screening at the Gaiety before I came to live in Fredericton. Planet of the Apes, The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, Earthquake, and Jaws. The coming of Star Wars to the Gaiety in 1977 was another in a long series of Gaiety Theatre engagements with the most popular output of the big-budget "dream factory" of Hollywood. And one of the last of such. Fredericton North's Nashwaaksis Twin Cinemas would become the purveyor in Fredericton of Hollywood's most heralded productions for several years, and then the Plaza Cinemas would gain that distinction. I never did see an evening showing of a movie at the Gaiety. Matinees only. I wish that I could have had at least one evening movie experience at the Gaiety. I think that downtown Fredericton parking was an issue with my parents. Much easier for my father to "drop me off" at the theatre for a matinee, than for the three of us to go to the Gaiety to see a movie from 7 to 9 P.M.. They did not like to have to walk several city blocks from car to theatre and vice versa. Both the Nashwaaksis Twin and the Plaza had their own parking lots.
While I am on the subject of Fredericton of yesteryear, I propose to share an image of Regent Street, Fredericton, from late 1973. Regent Street approaching Dundonald and Beaverbrook, with the outskirts of a CN rail yard, the newly opened Harvey's Hamburgers, and a Fina gasoline station visible.
That was around the time that my grandparents moved fom Fredericton's West Plat to Skyline Acres. We did not often pass through this particular part of town, the section of Regent Street between Brunswick and Dundonald and Beaverbrook, when we were visiting my Fredericton-residing grandparents in the pre-1977 years. Before or after their move to Skyline Acres. I do not believe that I was aware of the Fredericton Harvey's existence (or the existence of any Harvey's) until after we moved to Fredericton in 1977. My grandfather worked in a building along Queen's Park nearly adjacent Regent. We were only there a couple of times, and if I remember rightly, we reached there by way of Saint John Street, not Regent.
Still, it is pleasing to see any glimpse of the New Brunswick municipalities of my life in the early-to-mid-1970s. The time when The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour was on CBC on Saturdays at 6 P.M., when Spiderman and Rocket Robin Hood and 1960s Littlest Hobo were on ATV on Saturday mornings, when I had my friends and my activities in garage and house in Douglastown, and when I was at Douglastown Elementary School in the only school years I had in which I had a sense of belonging. And when my parents were living.
And before Space: 1999 and the unending sorties against half of its episodes from its fandom.
I still cannot block enough people on Facebook to be free from the derisive postings of people for whom appreciation of Season 2 Space: 1999 is something to be laughed-at again and again and again and again.
I came upon this a couple of days ago.
"One of my biggest pet peeves of the Second Season is the 'dumbing down' of the sets. Why did a rack of stun guns have to be labelled 'Weapons Rack'? You would think that the cast would know what that is, or where they are within the base. Such labels weren't needed in 'Year 1'."
I am in a "stroppy" mood this morning, and this person is sullying my Sunday with his fandom's-dark-side-fuelling "peeves".
Ah, the peevish fans. A half-century of this invective still is not enough. Maybe a century will be. I am happy to promise that I will not be on this mortal coil long enough to be subject to a full further fifty years of this disagreeable attitude, and the subsequent "gaslighting" attempts citing the numbers of people wielding that attitude.
Why not do the labelling? Alpha is adrift in space for weeks, for months, encountering nothing. Nothing for Services personnel to do on an average workday. Why not add labels to the hardware? A make-work project? A beautification project, with everything having nice labels? And not everyone on the Moonbase has specialisation with every item of equipment, and may someday need to operate an unfamiliar station as part of a "skeleton crew". Why not facilitate their work? Why not minimise their time spent in finding equipment?
And there are labels in "Year 1". Look at the lettering in the Generating Area in "Force of Life", and outside of it. Look at the button that Paul has in "Collision Course" to arm the nuclear charges. Look at the nuclear charges in "Space Brain". Look at the danger signs in the Ultra Probe. Trained astronauts would not need those adorning the space probe that they were selected to man.
Why have "pet peeves" of a television show of one's favour? Accept it for what it is, and love it. Why the compulsion to express "pet peeves", "fifty years on"? And why watch Season 2 at all if is it not in one's favour?
Griping about the labels and the identification badges, is so 2016. It is so yesterday. And for this, at least, I have no nostalgia. None. Zilch.
And my "goat was gotten" when I made the injudicious decision to watch another video review of a Season 2 Space: 1999 episode. Some different panellists on this occasion. And decidedly less inclination to "rise above" the tendency to negativity and hostility toward Space: 1999's latter twenty-four episodes. "The Exiles" was the focus of discussion this go-around. And the discussion, in its textual description, called "The Exiles" a fan favourite. Well, if that is the case, there is precious little to show for it in the banter.
Practically every scene in the episode was attacked. Several of the attacks I have dealt-with before. Including that old chestnut. Landau decrying Koenig's stunning of Cantar. Yes, that one again. And there are some that are novel.
Let us establish some things. When the Alphans discover the objects in space, they believe them to be missiles. The objects look like missiles. Koenig orders the use of Experimental Section's underground cave a distance away from the bulk of the structure of Moonbase Alpha, to be the site of an attempt to penetrate and open one of the objects. There are two men on station, one of them played by stuntman Frank Maher, to do the work of opening the object. They are garbed in silver protective suits. Protective against the dangers of liquid nitrogen used by them to flood the inside of the object and freeze any mechanism inside, or to stop a fire that might be triggered in the laser penetration of the object. The suits are not bio-hazard protective garments. The men remove the head piece between labours on the object. There are no respirators in the head piece. The suits are only there to serve as protection against accidental spillage of liquid nitrogen.
One of the discussion's participants believed that he was "making hay" of the fact that Koenig and Maya do not don P.P.E. when they step into same room as the two silver-suited workers, arguing that Koenig was purposefully endangering himself and Maya with whatever viruses, bacteria, or whatever there may be with the object, after having required that the two workers be in P.P.E.. One may quibble over Koenig's risky decision not to "suit up" himself and Maya, and the two men, with bio-hazard clothing. But there is not an inconsistency from person to person in that room. No one is garbed with bio-hazard attire. Protective suits for liquid nitrogen are not medical P.P.E..
Now, how much of a risk is Koenig undertaking? Some. But at the start of the scene, Helena says, "We've safeguarded against the obvious dangers. Bacteria. Toxic chemicals. All the rest is guesswork." So, some pre-scene work was presumably done to decontaminate the outside of the object at least. The belief at this point in time, among Koenig and the team, still is that the object is a missile. That there is no humanoid therein. With Cantar in cryogenic suspended animation, sensors have not detected him. As far as Koenig and company are concerned, there is nothing living inside the object. Nothing living. Nothing carrying active viruses. Residual bacteria, maybe. Long inactive. Chemicals, maybe. Once the object is penetrated, there are risks, but Koenig assumes them, and Maya is willing to assume them. The workers have removed their head gear. Seconds after stepping with Maya into the room, Koenig asks Helena for "computer reaction", and Helena reads that there has been no bacteriological change, and also that there is no toxic chemical presence. Sufficient information for Koenig to stay with Maya where he is now situated. A mechanism is heard inside the object. And Koenig orders the liquid nitrogen flooded into it, and the men fully "suit up" again. Koenig and Maya are in the background, still in the room. The object explodes, knocking them off of their feet. Should Koenig and Maya have vacated, gone into the other room with Helena and Mathias, while the object was being flooded? Oh, probably. But they did not. Koenig evidently assumed that liquid nitrogen would be effective in swiftly freezing the mechanism. He was not expecting any sort of "booby trap". A lapse on Koenig's part? Perhaps. He is human, after all. The sound of the mechanism might have triggered him to momentarily lose his impluse for self-protection. Or maybe he reckoned that if the device were to explode, it would not matter which of the two rooms that he and Maya were in. The entire team would be dead. Bringing the object into the Experimental Section cave, was a risk that had to be undertaken for Alpha to know what the objects are, and how to deal with them. Everyone present assumed the risk.
The commenter declared that something like this would never have happened in Season 1. Really? Is anyone at the Travel Tube reception wearing P.P.E. when Balor is wheeled into Alpha in "End of Eternity"? No. Do Helena, Mathias, and the nurse have face protection against splatter when they are moving to perform an autopsy on the supposedly dead alien? No. Are the Alphans wearing P.P.E. when they are stepping onto the disaster-ravaged S.S. Daria in "Mission of the Darians"? No. In "Dragon's Domain", Tony Cellini sends his crew to board a presumed lifeform-less alien spaceship, wearing no protection at all from whatever might have killed the occupants. Chemicals, bacteria, or whatever. They are six to eight months from Earth, from any help, if someone contracts something. In "The Last Sunset", Koenig orders the Ariel object into the heart of Technical Section, not into an underground cave. And he, Helena, Alan, and Victor are standing around it, talking, no protective garments worn. "Composition, still unknown," says Bergman, as they are talking. I rest my case. Why "single out" "The Exiles"? Why use "Year 1" against "Year 2"? Why must I be obligated, in reverence to the import of Season 2 in my life's history, to respond?
One of the commenters said oh, so blithely, oh, so matter-of-factly, to no objection from the others, that Season 2 was made with five-year-olds in mind. Oh, right. A planet's surface strewn with dead bodies, a bloody fight ending in a death by laser beam to the chest, lustful advances, and beer consumption are the fare for pre-schoolers, are they? Being told that my tastes in speculative fiction, are those of five-year-old. Is that meant to be insulting? It is definitely, whether or not such was the intent. The fact that no one present in the discussion countered it, is all that is needed to ascertain the mindset of everyone involved, and the likely participants in further of these reviews.
Well, I have watched all of these video-conferencing reviews of Space: 1999 episodes that I am going to watch. "One Moment of Humanity" is next to go under the microscope, and I can predict all of the usual "barbs". And then "All That Glisters". Oh, boys! Thanks but no thanks.
All for today.
Saturday, February 21, 2026.
A sunny day. Not very cold. High daytime temperatures of late have been reaching the freezing mark, maybe a degree or two above. The calendar is now past the transition to day-lit after-dinner walks. And the midday sun is increasing in its brightness. This much is a definite boost to my spirits after a long, dark, intensely cold mid-winter.
I am counting down the days to the release of LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2. Just over a month away. There has been nothing new on the subject of Warner Brothers cartoons on Blu-Ray. Discussion forum banter continues to be insipid rehashes of unrealistic wishings for a complete, chronologically-ordered collection of the cartoons, and musings, with nary a factual basis behind them, of Ultra-High Definition Blu-Rays of cartoons already on Blu-Ray (and DVD). And the usual, tiresome refrains of let-us-have-the-"Censored-Eleven" and more-Tex Avery. I have stopped looking at those discussion "threads". There will be nothing of interest to me in them until early reviews of LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2 start appearing. Possibly in a couple of weeks.
Discussion videos for Space: 1999 second season episodes "One Moment of Humanity" and "All That Glisters" have "popped up" in my YouTube algorithm, and against my better judgement, I gave to them some cursory glances. Uh-huh. The oh, so predictable denunciations of the former for unsatisfying (not to me) story technicalities (concepts and visual beauty, be damned), and an irreverent examination of the latter with mockings of, "Red is death!" and some of the other lines of dialogue, and the ever so dependable Landau-hated-it and mention for the umpeenth, umpteenth time, of the Eagle "blooper". And statements that the rock cannot possibly do this or that. Why cannot it? If metaphysical alien quantities in first season can do all that they do, why cannot the rock do what it does? There was some appreciation expressed at least for the production design. I suppose that I ought to be grateful for small mercies.
I found, at last, a picture of the Sobeys and Zellers shopping centre along Highway 11, Chatham, from sometime mid-to-late-1970s. Not a frame-grab from a video but an actual photograph. With the shopping centre in full view, in full splendour, in core of the picture. It is in my Era 2 memoirs amid my memories of the summer of 1977. I have also added, along with it, some images of The Spy Who Loved Me and Pop-Tarts.
The BBC has announced the release of a fully-remastered-from-original-film elements Doctor Who Paul McGann 1996 television movie on Blu-Ray and Ultra-High Definition Blu-Ray, in celebration of its thirtieth anniversary, in May of this year. This is the only novel piece of home video information I have now.
Nothing more today.
Sunday, March 1, 2026.
March came in like a lamb, as weather. As my daily grind with hostility in a world of peevish people, not so much.
Fans of Space: 1999. Of course, it is them who blight the first day of my least favourite month. I just cannot block enough of them on Facebook to purge my life of their blood-pressure-raising, invective-spewing presence. They cannot recognise Barry Morse's birthday without using that as a springboard for assailing Season 2.
Facebook posting by Sci-Fi and Fantasy Universe.
"Happy posthumous birthday, Barry Morse (1918-2008), who played Prof. Victor Bergman in Space: 1999, Keith in The Invaders, Phobos in The Outer Limits, Fitzgerald Fortune and Frank in The Twilight Zone, Peter Hathaway in The Martian Chronicles, Prof. Kittridge in TekWar, and much more."
Responses include these delightful gems.
"Loved him in the first series of Space: 1999 but ruined it when they got rid of the character from the second one."
Horribly written, this. But I will overlook that. And put the question. Was Barry Morse the only quality element of Space: 1999? What about Landau and Bain? What about the depictive production design and visual effects work of Keith Wilson and Brian Johnson? What about the costume designers? What about the imagination of the writing department? Was Barry Morse's character of Bergman the only non-ruinous quantity in Space: 1999? Of course, the answer to all of this, is no. To anyone with a mind that is not closed to the wealth of artistic expression in both seasons of Space: 1999. Barry Morse, God bless him, was not all that there was of appeal in Space: 1999.
"Always bothered me how he vanished in S2."
"Always bothered" by something that was done with a television show that had to undergo changes in order to survive? Much as I do hesitate to resort to a cliche, and a colloquially worded one at that, I will say, "Get over it!" It has been a half-century, for Christ's sake. And bothered, why? It was not stated that he met a grisly end, or indeed an end at all. Has this person no imagination to posit scenarios by which the character of Victor Bergman might still be alive?
"The best part of Space: 1999; 2nd season was crappy."
"Crappy" only in this person's blinkered ignorance. And shame on him/her for using Barry Morse's birthday as a platform from which to fling such a vulgar and insulting put-down. Doubtless, my detractors of years ago would wield these comments as "gaslighting" weapons. Be damned to them, and to all who weaponsise Barry Morse. Who was a man of class, unlike these cretinous louts. Cretinous louts. I do love that expression. I found it in an episode of UFO, by the way.
I appreciate the Bergman character. My old friend, associate, whatever, Tony, hated him. I appreciate him. He was not all that there was to Space: 1999, however. Certainly not. To say that, is to ignore the talent and the work of so many other people.
I would say, "Happy birthday, Barry Morse," if it were really his birthday. But it is not. His birthday is in June. On June 10, to be more precise.
Staying on the subject of Space: 1999, and looking back to happier days than those today when here, there, and everywhere, my fascination with Space: 1999 is beleaguered with slurs, slurs upon all second season phenomena and taste of all who appreciate that phenomena, I have come upon a CBHT "playbill", i.e. listing of day's television programming, that was read on air on 8 April, 1984, and that included Space: 1999, between Gunsmoke and Meeting Place. That day's episode of Space: 1999 on CBHT was "Earthbound". I remember that day. In Fredericton, it was snowy and misty, temperatures around the freezing mark. I had that afternoon a video show of Space: 1999 episodes "The Metamorph" and "The Exiles" in my television room. Episodes that had been videotape-recorded off of CBHT in the previous late autumn.
Here is that "playbill".
CBHT Halifax- Weather, News, Programming Lineup, 1984 (Partial)
I had the April 8, 1984 showing of "Earthbound" videotaped and sent to me, along with the next week's "All That Glisters", by a father-and-son team in Sydney, off of CBIT (which aired all of CBHT's Sunday line-up). That videotape was in my hands on Wednesday, April 18, and my best friend, Joey, watched "All That Glisters" with me that evening. "Earthbound" was cut by CBHT to remove everything between, "Commissioner, right now I need a doctor and a scientist out there, not a politician," and the rescue Eagle coming to landing alongside the alien spaceship. And a chunk of Act 4 from its start to Koenig and company sitting in a darkened Main Mission, discussing their options.
Oh, how I wish I could have had access every week to CBHT back then to see not only the Space: 1999 episodes themselves as they "went out live" on Sundays after Switchback and Gunsmoke and before Meeting Place, but all of the thirty-second promotions, all of the "playbills" stating that Space: 1999 was to be broadcast, and even the commercials within the episodes! CBHT is available now on cable television in Fredericton in one of the upper-tier packages. "Big deal," I sarcastically say. Now that CBC Television stations across the country have very little on them to distinguish them from each other. Even the call letters are no longer stated. And now that CBC Television is unwatchable to anyone with a smidgen of awareness of the country's post-2015's direction and problems. For which the CBC bears responsibility for being so much in the ring, as it were, for Justin Trudeau and his increasingly Leftist party. Which, really, has undergone little to no change in its social engineering preoccupations and disaster-courting lack of fiscal prudence, since the baton of leadership was passed from Trudeau the Lesser to Karl Marx-admiring Mark Carney, the globalist banker.
The days when provision of CBHT to me in Fredericton would have had me walking on air, are long past.
The release of LOONEY TUNES COLLECTOR'S VAULT: VOLUME 2 is later this month. In the week before its first day of availability, will be the release date for DOCTOR WHO- THE COLLECTION- SEASON 21. I trust that should March be either a lamb or a lion when it departs, I will be enjoying some long-awaited Blu-Ray discs, and delighting in the satisfaction of having all three of Friz Freleng's Jekyll-and-Hydes in High Definition on Blu-Ray.
There has been a new development on the fate of the Warner Brothers entertainment catalogue. It seems that the sale of Warner Brothers to Netflix has been thwarted, as a higher bid by Paramount was not contested by Netflix, and the sale of Warner Brothers, if it is to proceed, will be to Paramount. Unlike other aficionados of cartoons, I regard this with optimism. Some. Optimism. It is a better outcome than Netflix, which is an Internet "streaming" platform only, acquiring everything Warner Brothers. There are, it seems to me, some prospects of some continued life for physical media with Paramount, whereas Netflix would kill the physical media market dead. Promptly.
I have nothing more to say today.
