Another Time, Another Place (Space: 1999)
Encyclopedia
"Another Time, Another Place" is the sixth episode of the first series of Space: 1999
Space: 1999
Space: 1999 is a British science-fiction television series that ran for two seasons and originally aired from 1975 to 1977. In the opening episode, nuclear waste from Earth stored on the Moon's far side explodes in a catastrophic accident on 13 September 1999, knocking the Moon out of orbit and...

. The screenplay was written by Johnny Byrne; the director was David Tomblin
David Tomblin
David Tomblin was a producer and assistant director born in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, England. He was probably best known as the producer, director, and writer of The Prisoner .-Director:...

. The final shooting script is dated 20 January 1974, with blue-page amendments dated 25 January and 1 April 1974. Live-action filming took place Tuesday, 2 April 1974 through Friday, 19 April 1974. Two days of second-unit filming took place Tuesday, 23 April 1974 and Thursday, 25 April 1974 during the production of ‘Missing Link
Missing Link (Space: 1999)
"Missing Link" is the seventh episode of the first series of Space: 1999. The screenplay was written by Edward di Lorenzo; the director was Ray Austin. The final shooting script is dated 5 April 1974...

’.

Story

It is a routine morning on Moonbase Alpha
Moonbase Alpha
Moonbase Alpha is a fictional moon base and the main setting in the science fiction television series Space: 1999.-Moonbase Alpha:Located in the Moon crater Plato and constructed out of quarried rock and ores, Moonbase Alpha is four kilometres in diameter and extends up to one kilometre in areas...

, as Regina Kesslann passes through Main Mission on an errand. The girl pauses, sensing something amiss while, undetected by the instruments, a tremendous, swirling mass of energy looms in the path of the speeding Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...

. Everyone is then sent reeling across the room as the Moon is jerked forward by the intense gravitational force of the anomaly. Plunging into the spiralling centre, velocity readings go off the dial and the overwhelmed sensors short-circuit. Passing through a barrage of multi-coloured energy, the Moon is rocked by violent turbulence.

Regina tries to run from the room, but all motion ceases as the Moon arrives in the still, timeless centre of the anomaly—and everyone acquires a ghostly facsimile. As a duplicate Moon separates from the original, the doppelgängers peel away one by one, each leaving its original with a twinge of angst. At a window, Helena Russell
Helena Russell
Helena Russell is a fictional character from the television series Space: 1999. She was played by Barbara Bain. She is American and apparently in her mid-thirties....

 watches the other Moon speed off into the distance. Finally, everything vanishes in a blaze of white light—

—which fades to find the Moon in normal space and the population of Alpha regaining consciousness. John Koenig
John Koenig
John Koenig is a fictional character from the television series Space: 1999. He was played by Martin Landau. He is American, apparently in his early forties.-Character Biography:...

 organises repair operations and calls a medical team for the still-unconscious Regina. He approaches Victor Bergman
Victor Bergman
Professor Victor Bergman is the name of a recurring character on the UK science fiction television series Space: 1999. The role was portrayed by actor Barry Morse.-Character Biography:...

 for an explanation. The professor is baffled, especially as they are now in a completely different region of space. Koenig joins Helena in the diagnostic unit, where a comatose Regina is not responding to treatment. While all personnel experienced similar symptoms—shock, headaches, double-vision—and recovered, Regina's condition is deteriorating.

The Moon approaches a new solar system. Until sensor repairs are completed, they cannot survey the planets...but even instruments will not tell them how they travelled billions of miles in a matter of seconds to arrive here. Suddenly, Regina awakens, disoriented and talking nonsense: she was up 'there' again...she saw two Moons...how everyone was 'there', including Alan and the Commander...but it must have been a dream, because Alan and the Commander are dead...no, they're not dead. Helena ends this schizophrenic exchange by assuring her the two men are not dead. Relieved, Regina gazes up at the ceiling, commenting on how hot the sun is today. The doctor examines the girl's hand and finds it sunburned.

Koenig meets with Helena for an update on Regina's condition. Aside from the inexplicable sunburn, the girl believes she is living on a planet; from her perspective, her present life on Alpha no longer exists. Helena rejects suggestions that this is déjà vu or a classic case of psychological regression
Regression (psychology)
Regression, according to psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, is a defense mechanism leading to the temporary or long-term reversion of the ego to an earlier stage of development rather than handling unacceptable impulses in a more adult way...

. The world of Regina's delusion is hardly ideal—especially as she is mourning the deaths of Koenig and Alan Carter
Alan Carter (Space 1999)
Alan Carter is a fictional character from the television series Space: 1999. He was played by Nick Tate. He is of Australian origin and is in his early thirties.-Character biography:...

. Bergman speculates since the Moon seems to have travelled faster than the speed of light
Speed of light
The speed of light in vacuum, usually denoted by c, is a physical constant important in many areas of physics. Its value is 299,792,458 metres per second, a figure that is exact since the length of the metre is defined from this constant and the international standard for time...

, time could be a factor. Regina could have accessed a past or future life and is feeling it in the present.

With the repairs completed, scans of the solar system reveal nine planets orbiting a yellow star. Long-range scanners are focused on the third planet. Computer confirms that not only is this planet Earth, but the Moon is slowing down and on a course to re-enter orbit. In private, a sceptical Koenig says that while he can accept that a chance encounter with a spatial anomaly could have shifted them across space, he cannot conceive it placing the Moon on a trajectory to re-establish its former orbit around Earth. Bergman is philosophic; there must be a fundamental sense of order to the universe that even Man's worst blunders (such as blasting the Moon out of orbit
Breakaway (Space: 1999)
"Breakaway" is the first episode of the first series of Space: 1999. The screenplay was written by George Bellak ; the director was Lee H. Katzin. Previous titles include 'Zero-G', 'The Void Ahead' and 'Turning Point'. The final shooting script is dated 22 November 1973...

) cannot alter.

Though still living in her fantasy world, Regina is on the mend. Happily painting a picture, she attributes her recovery to the return of her husband, Alan. The sudden realisation that he has not yet come to visit upsets her. Helena's excuses only makes matters worse. After a moment's thought, the doctor promises he will come. She summons Carter to the Medical Section, interrupting his meeting with the Commander. The astronaut insists on sending a reconnaissance flight to Earth, but Koenig's decision is final: no one will allowed down to the surface until the Moon is safely in orbit.

Reporting to Medical, Carter is stunned when Regina hurls herself into his arms. One minute she is weeping with pleasure at the sight of him, the next she is hysterically screaming he is dead. Helena is forced to sedate her. The doctor informs a bewildered Carter of her intention: to jolt Regina out of her delusion with the shock of seeing him—her dead husband back from the grave. She shows him the picture Regina has painted of her world: a geodesic house sitting in a field of flowers with a cheerful sun in the sky.

Continuous hails to the World Space Commission—or any Earth station—go unanswered. Visual shots are showing major geological changes and the Research staff begins making a detailed radio map of the surface. Koenig makes a base-wide announcement, reporting that Phase One of Operation Exodus (a reconnaissance probe of the surface) will be launched as soon as the Moon has safely settled into Earth orbit. Hearing his words, Regina awakens to a nightmare vision of a black-cloaked figure beckoning to her. She approaches and realises its face to be her own, older and saddened. After experiencing a sharp spasm of pain, she looks again: the face is now a skull.

Terrified, she runs away—to be brought up short by her own reflection in an endless mirror. Screaming, she and lashes out and smashes the mirror. Escaping from the care unit, she encounters a patrolling Security guard. In her madness, she clobbers him and takes his weapon. In Main Mission, the joyous announcement of the Moon's re-entry into Earth orbit is interrupted by Regina, wielding a stun-gun in one hand and holding her pain-wracked head with the other. Hysterical, she rejects all attempts to calm her, having eyes only for Carter. The girl flings herself into his arms, whispering, ‘I knew you didn't die, I knew.’ She convulses in agony, then goes limp, dead.

Later, Bergman informs Koenig that a five-degree deviation in the tilt of Earth's axis has resulted in devastating climate changes—Ice Age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...

 conditions in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 reduced to a radioactive desert. The only habitable site on the planet is an area in southern California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 known as Santa Maria
Santa Maria, California
Santa Maria is a city in Santa Barbara County, on the Central Coast of California. The 2010 census population was 100,062, putting it ahead of Santa Barbara for the first time and making it the largest city in the county...

. Helena joins them with the results of Regina's autopsy. What she thought was a mental condition had an underlying physical cause: the girl's skull contained two separate brains, and the resulting pressure killed her. Further discussion is interrupted by an urgent summons: a celestial object is moving out from behind Earth.

It is the duplicate Moon...from which they receive what sounds like their own Moonbase navigation signal. Bergman muses they have somehow caught up with themselves. Koenig and Carter fly to this other Moon. They find another Moonbase, deserted and stripped of all equipment—the end result of Operation Exodus. Further investigation reveals a downed Eagle straddling the rim of the crater. Boarding the wreck, they find two dead astronauts still strapped in their seats. Wiping dust from their helmet visors, they find themselves face to face with their dead selves. Helena's post mortem reveals the duplicate Koenig and Carter died five years earlier, killed on impact when their Eagle crashed.

Koenig reckons the rest of the duplicate Alphans settled at Santa Maria. Helena agrees, feeling Regina′s ‘delusions’ were telling them that all along. If they encounter their ‘others selves’, she fears what happened to Regina could happen to them all. However, unexpected events force Koenig to initiate Operation Exodus. The duplicate Moon has increased velocity—moving in the same orbit as theirs, it will collide with them in less than two days. With evacuation to Earth now a necessity, they must quickly assess the situation. Helena insists that only Koenig and Carter should go, as their other selves are dead—though she, too, must go to study the medical implications.

They arrive at Santa Maria in the middle of the night, finding a settlement in a desolate valley. They land a distance and continue on foot, Helena plagued by a nameless anxiety. On arrival, they see dwellings identical to those in Regina's painting. Sending the others out to reconnoitre, Koenig approaches the nearest geodesic house. He watches a figure making observations with a telescope
Telescope
A telescope is an instrument that aids in the observation of remote objects by collecting electromagnetic radiation . The first known practical telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 1600s , using glass lenses...

. It is a duplicate Bergman. The older man seems troubled by the Moon he sees, as if it were in the wrong part of the sky; he keeps looking to the other side of the sky...where the other Moon emerges from behind a cloud bank. When Koenig steps out of the shadows, Earth Bergman does not seem at all surprised.

At another living unit, Carter peeks through a window. He sees an older Sandra
Sandra Benes
Sandra Benes is a recurring character in the British science-fiction television series Space: 1999. She is of Western European/Burmese origin and is in her late twenties. Her role was played by actress Zienia Merton.-Character Biography:...

 and another woman preparing a meal. He is startled by the identity of the other woman and tries to prevent Helena from looking. She is drawn to the window—and sees her older self. The two identical women lock eyes. Sandra shrieks in horror, bringing the other settlers out in force to confront some very familiar intruders.

At daybreak, Bergman putters in his garden while conversing with Koenig. He tells him that this is Earth, but not the world they knew. It is a past or future Earth, perhaps one where they never existed. Apart for their community, the planet is empty (aside from artefacts of an extinct civilisation). They are interrupted by the antics of two children—Paul and Sandra Morrow's offspring. Koenig admires the settlers' fortitude and commends the decision to bring back life to this dead world. Bergman wryly replies Koenig should approve: he made it in the first place.

Carter visits Earth Regina's grave. Earth Morrow
Paul Morrow
Paul Morrow is a fictional character who first appeared in 'Breakaway', the premiere episode of the science fiction television show Space: 1999, and was portrayed by Prentis Hancock. He is a British national who appears to be in his early thirties....

 informs him that she died after an unnaturally violent storm. Carter reckons that was when they came into orbit and his Regina died, too. Morrow does not feel this is a coincidence. During this, the two Helenas meet. They reflect on how they were once one person, but are now two separate individuals existing at the same time. Earth Helena accepts the existence of her duplicate and knows her time here is at an end. 'Death' means returning to herself and to those she loves—especially her husband, John Koenig. She leaves the living unit to find him. Without a word, she walks up to him and they share one tender kiss before she dies in his arms.

Enraged by this latest death, the Earth settlers demand that the Alphans leave at once. Koenig tries to reason with them—his Alphans will settle elsewhere, but they must leave their Moon before the collision. Weapons are drawn and Bergman intercedes. He warns Koenig that should the Alpha people set foot on Earth, chaos and disaster will result; Regina and Helena's deaths would be only the beginning. They are the same people trapped in different times. However, the coming collision will restore normality...leaving one Moon, one community, one time. He ominously concludes if they are not on their own Moon when time corrects itself, they will have nowhere to die.

Electing to return to Alpha, Koenig and company solemnly await the collision. The two Moons touch—and slip through the resulting space-time schism back into the huge churning mass of the anomaly. Amid the chaos, the Moons merge to form a single Moon. Everything again vanishes in a burst of white light—which fades as the Alphans awaken to find they are again in a different part of space. Carter wonders if the duplicate Alphans also survived. Koenig questions if they ever really existed. Helena reaches down and retrieves something that had fallen to the floor—a bouquet of roses given to her by Earth Bergman from his garden.

Starring

  • Martin Landau
    Martin Landau
    Martin Landau is an American film and television actor. Landau began his career in the 1950s. His early films include a supporting role in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest . He played continuing roles in the television series Mission: Impossible and Space:1999...

     — Commander John Koenig
    John Koenig
    John Koenig is a fictional character from the television series Space: 1999. He was played by Martin Landau. He is American, apparently in his early forties.-Character Biography:...

  • Barbara Bain
    Barbara Bain
    Millicent Fogel , known professionally as Barbara Bain, is an American actress.-Early life:Bain was born in Chicago. She graduated from the University of Illinois with a bachelor's degree in sociology. She moved to New York City, where she was a dancer and high fashion model. Bain studied with...

     — Doctor Helena Russell
    Helena Russell
    Helena Russell is a fictional character from the television series Space: 1999. She was played by Barbara Bain. She is American and apparently in her mid-thirties....


Featuring

  • Prentis Hancock
    Prentis Hancock
    Prentis Hancock is a British actor, best known for his television roles.He was a regular cast member of the first season of science fiction series Space: 1999 as Paul Morrow, and also appeared in a number of Doctor Who stories throughout the 1970s - Spearhead from Space and Planet of the Daleks...

     — Controller Paul Morrow
    Paul Morrow
    Paul Morrow is a fictional character who first appeared in 'Breakaway', the premiere episode of the science fiction television show Space: 1999, and was portrayed by Prentis Hancock. He is a British national who appears to be in his early thirties....

  • Clifton Jones
    Clifton Jones
    Clifton Jones is an actor, mostly known for his roles on British television.His most prominent role is probably that of David Kano during the first season of the science fiction series Space: 1999....

     — David Kano
    David Kano (Space 1999)
    David Kano is a fictional character who regularly appeared during the first season of the science fiction television series Space: 1999. He is of Jamaican origin and in his mid-thirties. He was played by actor Clifton Jones.-Character biography:...

  • Zienia Merton
    Zienia Merton
    Zienia Merton is a British actress born in Burma. Her mother was Burmese, and her father half English, half French. She was raised in Singapore, Borneo, Portugal, and England....

     — Sandra Benes
    Sandra Benes
    Sandra Benes is a recurring character in the British science-fiction television series Space: 1999. She is of Western European/Burmese origin and is in her late twenties. Her role was played by actress Zienia Merton.-Character Biography:...

  • Anton Phillips
    Anton Phillips
    Anton Phillips is an actor who found success appearing in British television. He remains best known for his role as Dr. Bob Mathias in the science fiction series Space 1999.-Early life and education:...

     — Doctor Bob Mathias
    Bob Mathias (Space: 1999)
    Bob Mathias is a fictional character from the British science-fiction television series Space: 1999. He is played by actor Anton Phillips.-Character Biography:...

  • Nick Tate
    Nick Tate
    Nicholas John "Nick" Tate is an Australian actor best known for his role as Eagle pilot Alan Carter in both seasons of the 1970s science fiction television series Space: 1999, as well as for playing the role of Gordon Hamilton's errant brother James in the 1980's soap opera "Sons and...

     — Captain Alan Carter
    Alan Carter (Space 1999)
    Alan Carter is a fictional character from the television series Space: 1999. He was played by Nick Tate. He is of Australian origin and is in his early thirties.-Character biography:...


Uncredited Artists

  • Suzanne Roquette
    Suzanne Roquette
    Suzanne Roquette is an actress, who remains best known for her role as Tanya Alexander in the science fiction television series Space 1999....

     — Tanya
    Tanya Alexander
    Tanya Alexander is the name of a semi-recurring character on the UK science fiction television series Space: 1999. The role was portrayed by German actress Suzanne Roquette.-Character Biography:...

  • Tony Allyn — Security Guard
  • Alan Roberto — Morrow Boy
  • Claire McLellan — Morrow Girl
  • Barbara Kelly
    Barbara Kelly
    Barbara Kelly was a Canadian-born actress, possibly best-known for her television roles in the United Kingdom opposite her husband Bernard Braden in the 1950s and 1960s and for many appearances as a panelist on the British version of What's My Line?.-Early years:Barbara Kelly was born in...

     — Computer Voice

Music

An original score was composed for this episode by Barry Gray
Barry Gray
Barry Gray was a British musician and composer who is best known for his work for Gerry Anderson.-Life:...

. Tracks from this episode are used more often than those from any of the other four Gray compositions when scoring subsequent episodes. During the meeting of the two Helenas on Earth, a track of electronic music from UFO
UFO (TV series)
UFO is a 1970-1971 British television science fiction series about an alien invasion of Earth, created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson with Reg Hill, and produced by the Andersons and Lew Grade's Century 21 Productions for Grade's ITC Entertainment company.UFO first aired in the UK and Canada...

(also by Gray) can be heard.

Production notes

  • 'Another Time, Another Place' was Johnny Byrne's first original script for the series after his original six-week stint on the Space: 1999 production staff was extended to full-time script editor. He started with the concept of the worst thing he could imagine happening to the Alphans: hitting a 'mad cloud or particle storm in space' that causes their bodies to separate into duplicates. With that concept forming the episode's hook, he then had to conceive the next four acts of storyline to reach the conclusion of the Alphans coming face-to-face with themselves. The story would highlight the cyclic nature of human experience—the catastrophic failure of the 20th Century 'techno-man' resulting in a new beginning of the process emerging from the ashes; this idea would be featured in several of Byrne's scripts for the series.

  • The final shooting script contained an unfilmed scene where Koenig, Helena and Carter, making their way to the settlement, encounter the top twenty metres of the Santa Maria satellite tower sticking out of the ashy soil, thus establishing this Earth as their own after the occurrence of some great holocaust. There is also a reference in the first act to the solar system containing eleven planets; this was changed to nine in the revised draft to make the dénouement of their being back in our solar system more obvious to the viewer.

  • The 'This Episode' montage in the episode's opening credits contains an unused effects shot: two strange, glowing geodesic domes surrounded by small metallic pods sitting on the devastated Earth surface. No mention of this shot is found in the script, leaving viewers to speculate if these were meant to be structures built by the Earth settlers (greenhouses, perhaps) or some of the mysterious ruins of the vanished civilisation Bergman mentioned.

  • With its alternate-future setting, the episode showed the logical progression of the series' two ongoing relationships: the marriage of Koenig and Helena, whose understated 'love-at-first-sight' romance originated in 'Breakaway
    Breakaway (Space: 1999)
    "Breakaway" is the first episode of the first series of Space: 1999. The screenplay was written by George Bellak ; the director was Lee H. Katzin. Previous titles include 'Zero-G', 'The Void Ahead' and 'Turning Point'. The final shooting script is dated 22 November 1973...

    ', as well as Morrow and Sandra, whose chaste affair began during 'Black Sun' after the death of Sandra's astronaut beau.

Novelisation

The episode was adapted in the second Year One Space: 1999 novel Moon Odyssey by John Rankine
John Rankine
John Rankine is a British science fiction author, who has written books as John Rankine and Douglas R. Mason...

, published in 1975.

External links


Last produced:
"Earthbound
Earthbound (Space: 1999)
"Earthbound" is the fifth episode of the first series of Space: 1999. The screenplay was written by Anthony Terpiloff; the director was Charles Crichton. The final shooting script is undated...

"
List of Space: 1999 episodes Next produced:
"Missing Link
Missing Link (Space: 1999)
"Missing Link" is the seventh episode of the first series of Space: 1999. The screenplay was written by Edward di Lorenzo; the director was Ray Austin. The final shooting script is dated 5 April 1974...

"
Last transmitted:
"The Full Circle
The Full Circle
"The Full Circle" is the fifteenth episode of the first series of Space: 1999. The screenplay was written by Jesse Lasky, Jnr and Pat Silver; the director was Bob Kellett. The final shooting script is dated 17 September 1974...

"
Next transmitted:
"The Last Sunset
The Last Sunset (Space: 1999)
"The Last Sunset" is the eleventh episode of the first series of Space: 1999. The screenplay was written by Christopher Penfold; the director was Charles Crichton. The final shooting script is dated 21 July 1974, with blue-page amendments dated 22 July 1974 and pink-page amendments dated 23 July...

"
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