| "The Full Circle" | |||
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| Space: 1999 episode | |||
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 15 |
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| Directed by | Bob Kellett | ||
| Written by | Jesse Lasky, Jnr & Pat Silver | ||
| Original air date | 11 December 1975[1] | ||
| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of Space: 1999 episodes | |||
"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. Live-action filming took place Tuesday, 24 September 1974 through Tuesday, 8 October 1974.[2]
Contents |
The Moon is passing within range of a habitable planet the Alpha staff have code-named 'Retha'—an anagram of 'Earth'. A six-man team is dispatched for a preliminary survey. After several hours, radio contact is lost and Eagle Six fails to return on schedule. Flight telemetry shows all ship's systems operating normally, and a worried John Koenig orders it flown back to Moonbase Alpha by remote control. He, Victor Bergman and Helena Russell go to meet the mystery vessel. They can find no one aboard...until Helena spies a primitive stone axe and a hairy hand nearly hidden behind a seat in the passenger module.
A closer look reveals the sole occupant—the dead body of a Stone-Age man. While the bizarre corpse is taken to Medical for a post mortem, Koenig plans a rescue mission. He will lead a search party on the ground, while Alan Carter will overfly the area in Eagle Two in a search pattern centred on the initial landing site. Sandra Benes will accompany him to make a detailed photographic scan. Bergman is left in command of Alpha. As the rescue ships depart, the professor is concerned—there are just three days remaining to sort out the mystery and, if fortunate, complete Operation Exodus before the Moon travels out of range.
Eagle One sets down at the first expedition's landing site, a clearing in a sub-tropical forest. As Carter begins the aerial search, he notes a few pockets of mist through breaks in the forest canopy, but no sign of people—Alphan or otherwise. While the support team reconnoitres the immediate area, Koenig and Helena drive off in a moon buggy, following a series of trail-markers left by the reconnaissance party. Entering the forest, they leave the vehicle and continue on foot.
At a swampy watering hole, they are brought up short by the tracks of a gigantic animal in the boggy soil. Helena perceives movement in the foliage on the far side of the pool and thinks they are being watched. Koenig fires a stun-gun blast into the water to frighten off who or what is in hiding. Hours later, the trail-markers lead them down a ravine blanketed by a dense mist. The surrounding forest is eerily silent as they are obscured by swirling vapour...
The support party finds nothing in the area adjacent to the clearing. They follow the trail and, by sunset, have reached the ravine. The Eagle One co-pilot reports to Carter that they are approaching an area of mist and hope to catch up with Koenig before dark. They, too, walk down the narrow passage and into the mist...
On Moonbase, Bergman attempts to call Koenig, but gets no response. Carter reports that he, too, is unable to contact the Commander. At their geographic latitude, the night will last only two hours; Carter decides to land and commence searching for the others at daybreak. Sandra claims to see something moving in the fading light, but Carter cannot confirm her sighting. As he brings the ship down next to Eagle One and they settle in for the night, a trio of cavemen watches from the bushes outside.
The next morning, Sandra awakens to find herself alone; Carter has left early to scout the area. He has reached Koenig's moon buggy when Sandra calls to express her concern. He jokes that all her fussing will make her boyfriend Paul Morrow jealous. Signing off, he follows the markers, but veers from the designated trail to take a short-cut through the tall grass—and falls head-first into a camouflaged pit. Sandra calls again, but receives no answer. Nervous, she contacts Alpha. Morrow consoles her with the news that Bergman is flying down to lead a new search-and-rescue mission.
The unconscious Carter comes to, trapped at the bottom of a ten-foot-deep pit. After failed attempts to climb out, he begins to dig hand- and foot-holds into the soft clay walls with a large stone. His work is interrupted by the arrival of the three cavemen. Their spear-carrying leader leaps on Carter like a wild animal. In the ensuing brawl, the astronaut is beaten senseless. As the caveman raises his spear to finish him off, he is startled by the buzzing ring-tone of Carter's commlock. Fumbling with the device, the spear-man activates it and sees Sandra's image on the tiny TV monitor. After minutes of no one responding, she stops calling, her sudden ‘absence’ angering the spear-man. He clambers out of the pit using a tree trunk lowered by his comrades and shambles off toward the Eagles.
Ten minutes out from Retha, Bergman calls Sandra from Eagle Three. She is so relieved she does not even mind David Kano's chauvinistic request for her to prepare lunch. After laying out the meal, she opens the hatch to observe their arrival—and is surprised by the spear-man standing directly outside. He darts into the ship. Manhandled, she is carried off by her savage assailant. Carter comes to and climbs out of the pit using the trunk left by the cavemen. He makes for the landing site as Eagle Three sets down. Bergman and Kano enter Eagle Two to find only their lunch waiting for them. Of Sandra, there is no sign...except for evidence of a struggle in the galley.
Sandra and her captor arrive at the caves that house a small tribe of cave-people. As the curious adults (there are no children) crowd around her, she attracts the attention of the caveman chief. After a brief scuffle with the spear-man, the chief claims Sandra for himself and drags her into his private lair, followed by his protesting mate. They lean in close to observe her, and Sandra shrieks. Either she is going mad or the chief and his cave-wife—despite weather-beaten faces, rotten teeth and unkempt hair—are dead ringers for Koenig and Helena.
That night, the spear-man steals across the cave to see Sandra. He presents her with a leopard skin, which she refuses. His offer becomes more vigorous and, in his attempt to make her to wear the skin, he tears off her uniform tunic. Her screams wake the chief, who charges out to do battle with the presumptuous spear-man. A vicious struggle ends with the chief lifting the spear-man over his head and hurling him into the fire pit. As the victor claims his prize, his mate—also the tribe's medicine woman—tends to the spear-man's burns.
The chief finds Sandra has fashioned the pelt into a serviceable garment. He stalks her with amorous intent, but is distracted by the shiny medical monitor on her wrist. She takes this opportunity to bash him in the head with a rock and slip away into the night. The cave-wife, sensing something amiss, finds her mate alone, battered and insensate. Wailing, she gestures with Sandra's tunic—stained with his blood—and sends the men out to hunt down the escapee.
Morning finds Bergman and party searching the forest. As they approach the mystery ravine, Carter grabs the moon buggy's control stick and swerves just before they enter the wall of mist. He reckons it must be involved in the disappearances. Everyone has passed this way, entered the mist and vanished. They opt to go around; on the other side, they come across the cave and hear a moaning dirge. The cave chief stands swaying before a shallow grave, half-dead and covered with gore, as his mate prepares him for burial.
The arrival of the Alpha party disrupts the funeral ritual. The women hide as the chief clumsily charges at the intruders. Bergman, struck by the uncanny resemblance of the wounded chief to John Koenig, prevents Carter from shooting him. Startled by the laser blast, the chief runs off. Carter goes ballistic when he finds Sandra's blood-stained tunic. He vows to search the entire network of caves for her—and God help the savages if she has been harmed.
Bergman and Kano take off after the chief, the professor convinced the resemblance is more than a coincidence. Tracks lead into the ravine and the men go round each way. Meeting up on the other side, they are shocked to find Koenig, sporting an ugly head contusion, sprawled unconscious on the ground just beyond the curtain of mist. Fearing cerebral haemorrhage, Bergman rushes Koenig up to Alpha; fortunately, it is nothing more serious than severe concussion. When the Commander regains consciousness, a relieved Bergman makes light of his suspicion of the cave chief being Koenig.
Bob Mathias presents the results of the caveman's autopsy. He died of heart failure, frightened literally to death when trapped inside Eagle Six during lift-off. The doctor first thought him similar to Cro-Magnon man—until discovering his capped teeth. Further examination revealed his identity to be the reconnaissance team's pilot, Sandos...devolved 40,000 years by some phenomenon. They realise the professor may have been correct: if some force was responsible for making Sandos a caveman, it could also have transformed Koenig into the cave chief. Ignoring doctor's orders, the Commander flies back down to Retha to save Helena and the other transformed Alphans from Carter′s wrath.
During this, the cave-wife and her entourage have been skilfully evading Carter in the maze of tunnels. She returns to the main cavern in time to see that her posse has re-captured Sandra and are tying her spread-eagled to a frame used to dry animal skins. She howls in triumph. Carter follows the noise, and finds the vengeful cave-wife preparing to murder Sandra with a crude obsidian blade. Ignorant of her true identity, the astronaut sets his gun to kill, takes aim—and is pole-axed by Koenig's stun-blast.
Koenig and a rescue party barge in, collect Sandra and Carter, and quickly withdraw. Led by the shrieking cave-wife, the cavemen pursue. Consumed by blood-lust, they are easily decoyed to the mysterious ravine, where Koenig and Bergman have prepared an ambush. Knowing the answer must lie within the mist, they fire repeated near-misses at the cave-people to drive them into it. The cave-wife is the last to enter. As the vapour engulfs her, she peers at Koenig with recognition and utters her first intelligible word—‘John’. Going round to the other side, Koenig watches as restored Alphans, led by Helena, emerge from the mist.
Back at Alpha, all the affected personnel are given medical exams, showing no effect of the experience. As the Moon is well past Retha, there is no further chance to study the phenomenon. They speculate the ravine was the nexus of a time warp; the temporal field in the mist regressed their bodies (clothes and equipment included) to an earlier stage of evolutionary development. To Bergman's annoyance, no one has retained any memory of being a Stone-Age person. He had hoped to learn how the human psyche has evolved after 40,000 years. Sandra's debriefing shows the inability to communicate fostered fear and anger. Helena admits the cave-wife expressed feelings of jealousy and vengeance for the same reasons she would. Bergman ruminates if man ever will change...
An original score was composed for this episode by Barry Gray. The primitive, percussive compositions would be supplemented with his work from previous Space: 1999 episodes (especially 'Another Time, Another Place') and a track from the film Thunderbird 6.[3] This would be Gray's last contribution to the programme or any future Gerry Anderson production. After this, the two men went their separate ways, ending an eighteen-year collaboration.[4]
The episode was adapted in the first Year One Space: 1999 novel Collision Course by E.C. Tubb, published in 1975. Tubb would make several changes to fit the story into the narrative of his novel: (1) As this story immediately follows 'Collision Course', Retha would appear from behind Atheria after that world's disappearance. It was suggested by Tubb that Atheria was an illusion, modelled on Retha and created as a recognisable point of reference by the non-corporeal Arra; (2) Carter and Sandra were romantically involved after her previous (unseen) break-up with Morrow; (3) The temporally-transformative mist was not confined to one area; when Koenig fired into the ground to frighten away whatever was watching him and Helena, mist rose up from the hole blasted in the soil and engulfed the pair.[8]
| Last produced: "Death's Other Dominion" |
List of Space: 1999 episodes | Next produced: "End of Eternity" |
| Last transmitted: "Earthbound" |
Next transmitted: "Another Time, Another Place" |
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