EAGLE ROCK

Time for another Eagle photo shoot, and for this one I decided to create a scene inspired by the second season Space:1999 episode, ‘All That Glisters’.

Yep, that’s right, the infamous intelligent rock story.  I know it’s certainly not a favourite with most fans of the series; in fact it wasn’t popular with the director, Ray Austin, or the cast. So unhappy was Martin Landau with the script that he was tempted to walk off set. However, series producer, Fred Frieberger was happy with the story, and considered it good science fiction, and wouldn’t hear anything against it.

I just thought that nice red sky background  would make a nice change, and an opportunity to take a few (hopefully) interesting  snaps of my Product Enterprise Laboratory Eagle.

The story opens with Laboratory Eagle 4 heading towards an alien planet on the hunt for the mineral, milgonite, a vital component for Alpha’s life support system. The crew consists of John Koenig, Helena, Maya, Alan Carter and Tony Verdeschi . Guest star, Patrick Mower (using a rather dodgy Irish accent) plays David Reilly, a geologist, who for no real reason fancies himself as a cowboy.

Although, there are cloud formations in the sky, the planet is bone dry, with dead vegetation and strange pointed rock formations dotted about.

The Lab Eagle lands and the crew disembark to look for the apparent source of milgonite, but there is no milgonite, only a glowing rock that screams in pain when Reilly  breaks off a part of it.

It soon becomes obvious that this is more than just a rock. It has power, energy, intelligence and purpose, and it needs water to survive – Maya, helpfully points out that humans’ are mostly made up of water!

Green for danger:

Scary stuff eh, just like a Twilight Zone episode. Actually, even though as the story unfolds Tony and  Reilly get turned into a zombies ; Maya nearly becomes a permanent part of the rock,  and there’s a case of taking an Eagle without the owner’s consent , the Alphans’ end up being quite philanthropic at the end. Realising that the rock was only trying to survive they all decide to help out by releasing nucleoid – active crystals into the cloud formations to make it rain – Rock on!