Pizza: 1999

I used to watch the classic sci-fi TV series Space: 1999 as a kid and I always thought it was more than a bit slow: it was leisurely paced, compared to say Star Trek, episodes were often filmed with heavy shadows on the sets, and lead actor Martin Landau whispered his dialogue when he wasn't shouting it.

But I have had the pleasure of re-watching the episodes online with a group of like-minded folks and they are often a laff riot!

Take this episode, for example:

The moonbase crew, most of them anyway, sit down for an evening of sitar music (why the sitar? why not, said the producers). While the man-bunned electric sitar player strums his heart out, a small group of Alphans just happen to hold a seance in the botany lab -- that's right, they are trying to "make contact" with the plants! Oh, the '70s was full of really far out ideas. Well of course things go terribly wrong in short order, people start seeing a weird apparition, and Alphans start dying.

The man with the plant plan is Italian doctor Dan Mateo, or should-a I say-a "Doctor-a Dan-a Mateo". Yes, kids, he's-a one-a those-a Italian actors who put-a "a" at the end-a most-a his words-a. (I think I might have broken the "a" on my keyboard. Mama Mia!)


This episode is tailor made for people who like to riff on (with love, of course) the movies or TV shows they loved as a kid, with Dr. Chef Boyardee, the psychic plant seance, burn monster apparitions, Barry Morse's antler like sideburns, and Martin Landau's "I'd rather be back on Mission: Impossible" acting choices.