How The Metamorph Reinvents Space: 1999

Despite its state-of-the-art special effects, appealing dual star leads, and spectacular cosmic adventure (along with its astronomical budget), Space: 1999's first series had failed to land with audiences and TV networks that Group Three Productions and Lew Grade had hoped. Syphoned off to local TV stations in America after failing to secure a lucrative network broadcaster and facing a hostile reception from UK audiences for being seen as little more than unsubstantial American import (despite its UK-based production), Space: 1999 only secured its second series through hard-earned victories.

While the first series' mixture of philosophical musings and metaphysical adventure met with success from audiences and critics, the powers that be demanded that these precise qualities be toned down in favour of more approachable elements such as comedy and romance. After much reinvention thanks to Gerry Anderson's hiring of former Star Trek producer, Fred Freiberger, Year 2 debuted in September 1976 with The Metamorph. Rather than pick up where the intelligently-charged The Testament of Arkadia left off, The Metamorph propelled Moonbase Alpha into a renewed direction for the series. Let's investigate how the episode reinvents Space: 1999!

For all of the drastic reinventions presented by The Metamorph, it's an episode that at least boasts familiar faces in front of and behind the camera. Year 1 guest stars Brian Blessed and Catherine Schell return as new characters, and the episode was written by Year 1 script editor Johnny Byrne, a reassuring advocate of Space: 1999's cosmic philosophising. Director Charles Crichton helms the episode, having directed such Year 1 classics as War Games, Dragon's Domain and Guardian of Piri. Byrne's original script, entitled The Biological Soul, was one of three scripts composed at the tail end of the Year 1 era, ostensibly preparing for the supposed new series of Space: 1999, but prior to Freiberger's arrival and his drastic reinventions.

As such, the original outline for The Biological Soul is rooted much deeper in the traditionally morose Year 1 moods, even though the broad premise of the alien Mentor ensnaring the passing Alphans to drain them of their mental qualities to revitalise his dying home world would remain the same. Byrne's other two scripts would undergo different fates. The Immunity Syndrome would emerge mostly unscathed and sit within Year 2 as a darkly violent example of how this second series still owed a debt to Year 1. Children of the Gods would be abandoned in favour of the middling The Dorcons.

Byrne's original outline of The Biological Soul would have placed Metor's demented experiments in rebirthing his dying world front and centre, blurring the lines between where a soul ends the physical world and meets the metaphysical. So far, so very Year 1. Mentor doesn't appear to have any offspring here, commanding a solitary presence. Later entitled The Biological Computer, the script was overhauled between late 1975 and early 1976 into becoming The Metamorph, the change in title encapsulating what the episode would now focus on.

The Metamorph would now be hardwired to accommodate a newly written character - Maya, the shapeshifting daughter of Mentor. Maya's transformative ability to change into any creature and comically romantic on-off relationship with new Alphan head of security, Tony Verdeschi, are defining aspects of Year 2. Rather than be written in as another episode-exclusive guest character, Maya would go onto become a series regular. In a telling sign of the drastic surgery needed to Byrne's script, Maya's presence in the script amounts to little substantive character-driven impact. Remove her and the story plays out much the same. However, she undeniably injects a sense of fun and warmth to the episode, starting as sharing in her father's disdain of their Alphan captives, but gradually revealing a sympathetic side when helping the Alphans make their escape from Mentor's captivity. 

Her presence also provokes welcome characterisation from Mentor, who demands that the Alphans save Maya when the planet begins to disintegrate. In a final act of fatherly love, it's his daughter who is saved rather than his beloved and macabre mechanical instruments. Maya's lingering trauma at believing she's the last living Psychon would prove to be a tantalising narrative thread interspersed throughout several Year 2 episodes, puncturing the surface-level reputation Year 2 has come to endure.

The episode's production values signify other changes and more traditional aspects. Derek Wadsworth impatient orchestral surges are a world away from the graceful audio soundscapes of Barry Gray. They're faster that matches the episode's swift pacing, another tangible difference between the two series. Production designer Keith Wilson and special effects director Brian Johnson were two behind-the-scenes individuals who worked across both of Space: 1999's divisive years. For all of the tonal separation crowbarred between the two series, the sustained presence of both Wilson and Johnson ensures that The Metamorph still at least looks like it belongs to Space: 1999. The planet Psychon is a thrillingly colourful design, the inclusion of several other decaying spaceships as a visual indicator of Mentor's capturing of other lifeforms is a devilishly handsome touch. Wilsons design of Psyche, Mentor's vast biological computer, is equally vibrant and eye-catchingly unusual in its implied functionality.

However, speaking of visual appeal, there's the cosmic elephant in the room of why Moonbase Alpha's Main Mission set is no longer the Main Mission set. Redesigned and renamed as simply the Command Center, this second take goes unexplained in-universe - a firm example of how Year 2 wasn't entirely concerned with too much connection to Year 1.

As Year 2 would proceed, Space: 1999's increased comedic directions and rapid-fire pacing would be more explicitly felt across further episodes. The Metamorph would emerge as one of Year 2's most straight-forwardly enjoyable adventures. Untethered to any philosophical musings which so regularly end any given Year 1 adventure, The Metamorph stands as a bracingly direct and visually compelling second beginning for Space: 1999.

Celebrate Space: 1999's enduring legacy by exploring our Breakaway Collection of fantastic releases from the world of Moonbase Alpha! Stand by for the imminent release of the definitive series guidebook, All Sections Alpha: The Making of Space: 1999 (on course for release this summer), and be sure to stay tuned for the exciting announcement of further releases in our growing 4K collection of classic Gerry Anderson episodes restored in ultra high-definition!