Space 1999: Review: Devil’s Planet

“Devil’s Planet” is definitely one of the wilder rides from the second season of Space: 1999. The whole setup starts with Commander John Koenig, played by Martin Landau, checking out a distress signal on a planet named Ellna. It turns out a deadly plague completely wiped out the main planet’s population. Koenig ends up crash-landing on its prison moon, Entra, where the inmates and guards are completely clueless that their home world is a graveyard.The vibe of this episode is pure 1970s sci-fi camp. The prison is entirely run by these beautiful women dressed in tight red jumpsuits and carrying electric whips, led by a warden named Elizia, played by Hildegard Neil.

Visually, the contrast between the bleak, rocky landscape and those bright crimson uniforms is pretty striking. It feels less like serious space exploration and more like a low-budget action movie, which is standard for how the show changed in its second season.Where the plot gets interesting is how Elizia maintains control. She runs a twisted game where she hunts prisoners with the promise of freedom, but she’s actually just executioning them because there is no home planet to return to. Koenig spending the first half of the episode just trying to figure out what is going on makes the pacing a bit slow, and some of the fight scenes feel pretty dated and awkward by today’s standards.

The climax saves it when Koenig finally uses his head to expose the truth to everyone. Once the guards and the inmates realize Elizia has been faking the news and that their civilization is dead, they turn on her in a heavy twist. Overall, it is a fun, slightly ridiculous episode that relies heavily on its unique aesthetic rather than airtight logic, making it a memorable piece of vintage sci-fi television.