Dragon's Domain

"Dragon's Domain"

"Dragon's Domain" is the twenty-third episode of the first series of Space: 1999. The screenplay was written by Christopher Penfold; the director was Charles Crichton. The final shooting script dated 21 January 1975, with blue-page amendments dated 29 January 1975 and yellow-page amendments dated 30 January 1975. Live-action filming took place Monday, 27 January 1975 through Monday, 10 February 1975.

Story

It is 877 days after leaving Earth orbit, and the Moon is passing through a stretch of peaceful empty space between galaxies. Doctor Helena Russell is alone in her quarters, typing a report on a World Space Commission Medical Department form regarding the status of one Captain Tony Cellini. Her voice-over narration giving the history of this case leads the viewer into an extended flashback...

Hours earlier, during the simulated 'night-time' on Moonbase Alpha, astronaut Tony Cellini awakens from a fitful sleep in a cold sweat. Sensing danger, he seizes an antique tomahawk from a decorative weapons display. After making several lunges at an imagined enemy (which he perceives as a swirling display of light and an electronic screeching), Cellini ends up hacking the tomahawk deep into the communications post in his quarters.

Medical Computer alerts Helena of Cellini's elevated pulse and metabolic rate. She contacts him and he assures her that it was just a bad dream. After contemplating the space sky from his window, Cellini leaves his quarters—still in his pyjamas—and makes for the Embarkation Area. His entry into this restricted area while off-duty attracts attention: John Koenig, overseeing the night shift in Main Mission, receives the report from Computer. He orders Cellini's commlock cancelled.

Cellini's progress is halted by his now non-operational commlock. He encounters Alan Carter and clobbers him, appropriating his commlock. He uses it to gain access to the stand-by Eagle. By the time the Commander arrives at the launch pad, Cellini is firing up the ship's engines. Koenig overrides the safety protocols and re-connects the boarding tube; the lift-off is automatically aborted by this action. Koenig boards the Eagle and each man grabs a stun-gun from the weapons rack. During the face-off, Cellini says, 'Let me go, John,' and moves for the command module, but is rendered unconscious by the Commander's point-blank stun-blast.

As Helena cares for the unconscious Cellini, she discusses his case with Koenig. She believes that Cellini is mentally unstable and a threat to the safety of himself and others. Koenig will not accept her diagnosis; he is a long-time friend of Cellini, whom he knows to be an accomplished astronaut, athlete and poet. Five years before, he had a traumatic experience during his mission to the planet Ultra, and never recovered. The two quarrel when she reveals that, at the time, she saw Cellini as a patient; her report to the Space Commission may have helped further damage his reputation. As Koenig storms out of Medical, Helena's narration takes the viewer to a flashback within the flashback...

9 March 1996. At Alpha's Technical Section, Astronauts John Koenig and Tony Cellini and Professor Victor Bergman were working out the final details of the Ultra Probe, a high-profile deep-space mission to explore the then-newly discovered planet Ultra. This tenth planet, discovered by Bergman in 1994, showed every indication of being habitable. Cellini and Koenig could not decide which of them would command the mission. Leaving it up to a coin-toss, Cellini won.

The Ultra Probe departed from the Interplanetary Space Station on its seven-month journey on 6 June 1996. Cellini and his crew (astrophysicist Doctor Darwin King, radiation expert Professor Juliet Mackie and medical officer Doctor Monique Bouchere) experienced no difficulty during the voyage. On arriving at Ultra, they marveled at its similarity to Earth and preparations were made for a manned landing. While orbiting behind Ultra—out of direct communication with Alpha mission control—the ship encountered a collection of alien spacecraft. No life signs were detected from any of the derelicts. By consensus, the crew decided to dock with one of the silent vessels. As the airlock opened, there was an unexpected phenomenon—swirling light, strong wind, screeching noise—and King shouted to Cellini to close the airlock.

A screaming creature with prehensile tentacles like those of an octopus, one blazing eye and a fiery maw materialised in the main module. It foiled King's attempt to seal it in the aft compartment; its incredibly strong apendages stopped the emergency bulkheads from closing, which shorted out the ship's auto-systems. The crew's efforts to defend themselves came to naught—one by one, they were hypnotised into inaction by the creature, devoured alive, and their smoking remains regurgitated.

Cellini was trapped in the command module by the system failure. After a hasty repair job, he released the jammed door in time to witness the death of the last of his shipmates: Monique Bouchere. Grabbing a stun-gun, he fired on the creature, without effect. Cellini retreated to the command module, pursued by the monster. Fending off the creature's tentacles with a fire axe, he sealed the doors. He then blasted the command module free from the body of the probe-ship to use as an escape craft.

Cellini managed to slingshot around Ultra on a return vector for home. After a six-month journey, he reached Earth barely alive, sustained by survival rations and sheer courage. While recuperating in an Earthside hospital, he was visited by one Helena Russell on behalf of the Space Commission Medical Department to evaulate his competency. During the session, mention of the Ultra Probe incident and the universal disbelief his story had encountered caused him to become physically and verbally agitated. Helena was forced to order sedation as Cellini pleaded with her to believe him.

World Space Commission executive Commissioner Dixon summoned Cellini, Koenig and Bergman to his offices on Earth. He stated bluntly that there was no evidence on the flight recorder of any 'monster'. He judged that Cellini bungled the decompression procedure, killed his crew and refused to either admit or accept the blame. When questioned, Bergman and Koenig tried not to implicate their friend, but were forced to admit there were no facts to support his tale—or refute it, Koenig cheekily rebutted. Dixon ended the interview by stating the ultimate fact was that 'space adventuring' was terrifically expensive. His overwhelming priority was protect the space programme from the financial ruin the probe's failure would bring. Cellini was branded the scapegoat for the failure of the mission. Dixon then grounded Koenig and Bergman as punishment for their support of Cellini and sent Cellini himself for extended psychiatric assessment.

Time passed, and Dixon's tenure as commissioner ended. Bergman was once again welcome on Alpha as a visiting scientist, and Helena was posted there as head of the Medical Section. In September of 1999, Koenig was appointed base commander to resolve the Meta Probe crisis, and he transferred his friend Cellini back to Alpha's Reconnaissance Section. After the Moon's breakaway, all memory of the Ultra Probe incident was obliterated by their struggle to survive in a hostile universe—until Cellini's irrational behaviour on this night revived the controversy...

The viewer returns to the present-day flashback as Koenig and Helena reconcile; Koenig apologises for his temper and presents her with a peace offering—a hyacinth he has managed to grow, in spite of his black thumb. As they discuss Cellini, which almost results in another argument, the man regains consciousness. He tells Koenig and Helena that his attempt to depart Alpha was in response to an unconscious feeling that the Ultra Probe monster was near and he needed to go out and face it. Koenig is unsure what to believe.

An alert from Main Mission calls him away from Medical Centre; waiting for him on the big screen is an image of a jumbled assortment of alien craft. Despite five years' time and a distance of many light-years, Koenig knows it is identical to the spaceship graveyard Cellini had described encountering behind Ultra. Further investigation reveals the main module of the Ultra Probe still docked with one of the derelicts. Koenig agrees to investigate, and Cellini feels redeemed. Helena, though, is concerned by Cellini's unnatural calmness.

Boarding Eagle One, Cellini tells Koenig he is going up front to apologise to Carter for his earlier assault. However, he again knocks Carter unconscious and hijacks the Eagle, leaving the passenger module (and Koenig and company) behind on the launch pad. He radios his old friend, informing him that the beast is his enemy and he must face it—alone.

Koenig orders Eagles Three and Four to pursue Cellini and Eagle Two to pick up his abandoned passenger module. He still supports Cellini, even though his friend's actions could be interpreted as a desperate attempt to destroy evidence. Running three minutes ahead of the posse, Cellini docks Eagle One's command module where the probe-ship's pilot module had been affixed. Taking a fire axe and rope, he enters the eerie darkness of main module and secures his lifeline to a support girder. His presence causes the monster to materialise in full attack mode. After Cellini lands several telling blows with the axe, the monster gets a stranglehold around his neck.

Koenig's Eagle Two docks with the probe-ship; he and the Security team enter the main module to witness the epic battle. Cellini's lifeline is yanked free by the monster and the astronaut is devoured, his ravaged corpse ejected to lie by those of his fallen comrades. Koenig reckons the monster's weakness could be its massive, exposed 'eye', and retrieves Cellini's axe. Evading the flailing tentacles, Koenig dives in and, hacking away at the eye, slays the monster.

Back on Alpha, after the Moon has drifted out of range of the spaceship graveyard, we return to the present. Helena Russell sits at her typewriter, ruminating that when the Alphans finally settle on their new home, they will need a whole new mythology. She suggests to Koenig the tale of Tony Cellini and the Monster. She then hands him the completed report, closing the case and giving the tortured Cellini final vindication.

Cast

Starring

• Martin Landau — Commander John Koenig
• Barbara Bain — Doctor Helena Russell

Also Starring

• Barry Morse — Professor Victor Bergman

Guest Artists

• Gianni Garko — Captain Tony Cellini
• Douglas Wilmer — Commissioner Dixon

Featuring

• Prentis Hancock — Controller Paul Morrow
• Clifton Jones — David Kano
• Zienia Merton — Sandra Benes
• Anton Phillips — Doctor Bob Mathias
• Nick Tate — Captain Alan Carter
• Barbara Kellerman — Doctor Monique Bouchere
• Michael Sheard — Doctor Darwin King
• Susan Jameson — Professor Juliet Mackie

Uncredited Artists

• Suzanne Roquette — Tanya
• James Fagan — Astronaut Pete Johnson
• Bob Sherman — 'Space News' Newsreader
• Gwen Taylor — Earth Hospital Nurse

Music

In addition to the regular Barry Gray score (drawn primarily from 'Matter of Life and Death' and 'Another Time, Another Place'), Tomaso Albinoni's composition 'Adiago in G Minor for Strings and Organ in G Minor' is played over the flight sequences of the Ultra Probe and the 'space horror music' composed by Vic Elms and Alan Willis for 'Ring Around the Moon' is used during the encounters with the monster.

Production Notes

• The story, a take on Saint George and the Dragon, was originally conceived as a vehicle for Nick Tate with Alan Carter having commanded the Ultra Probe and vindicating himself in this story by slaying the beast. Reports indicate that Martin Landau (always cautious of his male castmates—especially Tate—receiving any significant exposure) influenced the production staff to rewrite the part as a one-off guest role. Story consultant Christopher Penfold had already resigned from the show and, knowing that he himself did not, script editor Johnny Byrne presumes the rewriting was performed by executive producer Gerry Anderson and Landau himself.

• In the final shooting script dated 21 January 1975, the Tony Cellini character is named 'Jim Calder' and Doctor Monique Bouchere is 'Olga Vishenskaya'. The scene in Act One where the viewer sees Cellini and Monique alone in the Ultra Probe command module under Helena's off-screen narration has dialogue that the script intended to be heard: Monique mentions the beauty of planet Ultra and Cellini reckons if habitable, it could offer Mankind a second chance. This draft had no reference to Koenig, Bergman and Dixon mentioning evidence about the spaceship graveyard or the Ultra Probe's docking with the alien ship apart from the scanner contacts and Cellini's testimony. (This dialogue must have been part of the last-minute script changes: in the final cut, it seems a little odd that Dixon says they have only a series of unidentifiable bleeps on the scanner, but then Koenig states that the black box recorded a tight docking seal and a breathable atmosphere inside the alien spaceship.)

• Fulfilling their agreement with RAI, the Italian production company co-funding the first series, Italian actor Gianni Garko would be cast in the role of the tortured astronaut; Jim Calder would be re-christened Tony Cellini. Garko, though a talented actor, was not a fluent speaker of the English language and, in a ironic twist, asked Nick Tate to help teach him his lines in English.

• Many of the spacecraft miniatures seen in the graveyard sequences had been used before in the series: the Sidon ship from 'Voyager's Return', the Atherian ship from 'Collision Course', the battleship used in 'Alpha Child' and 'War Games' and the front piece used to transform the battleship into the Deltan gunship in 'The Last Enemy'. Reports indicated that the visual effects crew shot a sequence including Star Trek's USS Enterprise and Doctor Who's TARDIS, but saner heads prevailed and the shot was never used.

• The blue quilted nylon jacket worn by Bergman would be used in the second series as Alan Carter's excursion jacket. The orange versions of the jacket seen on Koenig and Cellini would be worn next episode by Security personnel and later, in series two, by Maya and a variety of guest artists. The older-style computer banks seen in the main module of the Ultra Probe ship originated in SHADO Control from the Andersons' previous live-action science-ficton series UFO. Commissioner Dixon's office on Earth was a redress of M's office from the James Bond film series. The signature red-leather padded door can be seen at the top of the scene.

Novelisation

The episode was adapted in the sixth Year One Space: 1999 novel Astral Quest by John Rankine published in 1975. In the novel, the characters Tony Cellini and Monique Bouchere retain their original names Jim Calder and Olga Vishenskaya.

External links

• Space: 1999 - 'Dragon's Domain' - The Catacombs episode guide
• Space: 1999 - 'Dragon's Domain' - Moonbase Alpha's Space: 1999 page