Space 1999: Review: Collision Course
Space 1999 is definitely one of those shows that makes you sit back and just process what you just watched, and season one, episode three, “Collision Course,” is the perfect example of that. The whole setup feels like a classic, high-stakes survival story at first. The crew on Moonbase Alpha realizes a massive asteroid is heading straight for them, so they have to use nuclear explosives to blow it up. The execution is chaotic, radiation gets everywhere, and Alan Carter almost gets wiped out in his Eagle. But right when you think they can breathe a sigh of relief, an even bigger problem shows up on the radar: a whole literal planet called Astheria is sitting directly in their path.
What makes this episode stand out is how it completely flips the script from a standard sci-fi action block into something deeply philosophical. Commander John Koenig goes out on a recon mission and runs straight into Arra, the Queen of Astheria, played by Margaret Leighton. Instead of threatening him, she drops this massive revelation that their collision isn’t a tragedy, it is a cosmic destiny meant to trigger a spiritual evolution for her people. She basically tells him that to save everyone, he needs to do absolutely nothing and just have faith. It forces a crazy psychological shift because everything in human nature tells you to fight for survival, yet here he is being told to surrender to the unknown.
The drama back at the base is where the tension really peaks. When Koenig gets back and tells the crew to disarm the space mines and just let the impact happen, everyone thinks he has completely lost his mind. Martin Landau does an amazing job showing a leader tearing himself apart between what logic dictates and what his gut tells him is true. The crew’s mutinous energy feels totally justified because, from their perspective, the commander is acting on pure hallucination and radiation sickness. It is a brilliant look at how fragile authority becomes when logic is thrown out the window in favor of blind faith.
Visually and thematically, the episode is pure 1970s sci-fi at its peak, blending incredible model work with existential dread. The practical special effects for the Eagles and the planetary close-ups still hold a very distinct, nostalgic charm today. When the climax hits and the Moon literally passes straight through the planet without destroying it, it cements the show’s identity as a journey governed by a mysterious, higher cosmic force rather than just raw physics. It is an ambitious, thought-provoking hour of television that proves Space: 1999 was always trying to reach for something much bigger than just simple space battles.
