THE LANDAU GENTRY - JOHN KOENIG AND THE MOONBASE ALPHA FLASHBACK

For the greater good of Toobworld, only part of the events of 'Space: 1999' actually took place.

You basically know this.  Think of all the times you've seen the moon in the sky like a big pizza pie on your favorite TV shows since 1999.

I wrote about this on Martin Landau's 84th birthday a few years ago:

Also, for those who didn't already know, there's a splainin why the events of 'Space: 1999' (another Landau series) never happened in the main Toobworld.

Up to a point, they did. There was a Moonbase Alpha, kept secret from the general public. In fact, there are still several moon bases in operation on the Moon. Commander John Koenig was in charge of the facility when the nuclear waste dumps on the dark side of the Moon exploded. But that did not trigger the cataclysm of the Moon leaving the Earth's orbit.

Everything we saw from that point on in the series all took place in the coma dream of Koenig, who had been seriously injured in the blast. That way we can keep the series' basics in the main TV Universe.

I brought it up again after the death of Sir Christopher Lee:

A sleeper ship of alien pacifists crash-landed near Moonbase Alpha and one of the lunar colony's commissioners plotted to take one of their suspended animation chambers for himself when they relaunched for Earth.

The captain of that space-faring vessel was Zandor, played by Christopher Lee.

I have established in the past that everything that occurred in 'Space: 1999' after the explosions at the nuclear fuel dumps on the far side of the Moon never actually happened.  If the Moon had been thrust out of its orbit by those explosions in 1999, it never would have been seen again in other TV shows.  And Toobworld itself would have been devestated by seismic disruptions.

So, my splainin?  Commander Koenig was thrown into a coma in which he dreamed the events and characters who would appear in the episodes to follow.  So the Psychon metamorph Maya, Raan of Zenno, and the huge spacecraft Delmer Plebus Powells Gwent and its Companion Gwent, all were products of Koenig's sub-conscious.  And that included Captain Zandor.

That's fine as far as it goes, but where did Koenig's imagination come up with the image of Zandor?  I think the alien was based on Christopher Lee himself.

The televersion of the British thespian, known for his horror roles, would have been the same in both worlds.  We saw evidence of this in several TV series.

It's a theory which I just can't seem to let go.......

SAMANTHA CARTER:

I was hoping that we could go over the plans for the new moonbase.

JACK O'NEAL:

What moonbase?

Even though the timeline was disrupted by Ba'al until it was set right by the SG-1 team, it was basically happening in 2008, the year in which the video came out.  Nine years earlier, Moonbase Alpha suffered severe damage when the nuclear waste dump on the far side of the Moon exploded.  (As you probably know, this happened in the first episode of 'Space: 1999'.)

So when Sam mentioned "the new moonbase", that determiner suggests that there was at least one previous moonbase.  And a moratorium on building a new moonbase which lasted about nine years seems about right.

Now some of you might think that there shouldn't be any moonbase without a moon.  But that's because you must think everything that happened after that explosion as seen in 'Space: 1999' actually took place.  But in the grand scheme of things in the Toobworld Dynamic, Commander Koenig of Moonbase Alpha had been seriously injured in the explosion and everything we saw in the show was part of his coma dream.

So the Moon has always been up there and this relieves the Dynamic of such an astral Zonk.  Except for the beginning, 'Space: 1999' was a dream series like 'Newhart' which only had its reality in the ending.

That explosion of the waste-fuel dumps near Moonbase Alpha was nearly eighteen years ago. Commander John Koenig was 42 years old by Toobworld reckoning at the time of the explosion (born March 17,1957).  This makes him five years younger than Landau at the time of filming.  

I don't think Koenig was in that coma for too long, perhaps only six months.  But it was more than enough time for him to experience all of those bizarre dream adventures which we saw as the future episodes of 'Space:1999'.

Despite having almost lost his life in the explosions, Koenig was quietly denied the opportunity to resume his command of the moonbase.  Instead, he accepted his discharge from the World Space Commission and returned to civilian life.

But what would he have done with himself to fill his life at such a relatively young age to retire?  We never saw him again in Toobworld after the turn of the new Millennium, and I don't think he changed his name to engage in other adventures.  (Logistically this would have been difficult from a production perspective.  The difference in ages between Landau and Koenig was such that any appearance by the actor in TV shows after 2000 was radically older than Koenig.  And we can't really ascribe that to physical impairment caused by the explosions even if we wanted to conflate such roles into Koenig.)

I think he may have been approached by an agent or agents unknown from "UNReal" to write books about his experiences as the head of Moonbase Alpha.  But not the actual truth - what they were interested in was transcribing his vivid coma dreams and presenting them as sci-fi stories.  (UNReal had access to those transcripts of Koenig's sessions with his psychiatrist - there was nothing which could be safeguarded against their intrusion.)

More bemused by the notion than offended by their prying into his life, Koenig took an active role in the writing and publishing of these novels and short stories by Whitestone Press, where his book editor was Martin Tupper.  Eventually UNReal arranged for the book series to be made into a few low-budget movies and even into a TV series.  The pervasive effect got the same result as with all of the other UNReal projects - when faced with the possible evidence that the moon colonies really did exist, the general public dismissed it as the rantings of fanatics swept up in the fiction of the books, movies and TV show.  

By the way, the first actual mention of 'Space: 1999' by another TV show which actually shared the same Toobworld did not occur until 'Malcolm In The Middle' in 2001.  (As far as I can tell.)  So that jives with the timeline.

John Koenig turned 60 years old on St. Patrick's Day in Toobworld this year.  Even though we haven't seen him on our screens lately, I feel confident he should be still alive.  Then again, people of that age haven't done so well this past year so far - Furst, Paxton, Ferrer, Headley....

But as I would do with any other character, I think Koenig should enjoy the same lifespan as his portrayer, Martin Landau.  Therefore, at some point in the summer of 2046, John Koenig will go on the Big Hiatus.

John Koenig circa 2045

No.  Scratch that.  I'd like for John Koenig to live into his nineties, long enough to be able to see the Moon hatch in 2049.

(Yeah.....  That's a 'Doctor Who' plot problem I will have to address one day for Toobworld's sake.  What happened to the moon colonies by then for starters.  And really?  The Moon is an egg???)

In the meantime, good night and may God bless Martin Landau.....

O'Bservation:

We'll have two more short posts about Landau's characters over the weekend and then return to the topic during our TV Western celebration in August.

Does that sound like something you would be interested in?