453 – Space: 1999 – Breakaway (Big Finish)

On September 13th, 2019, Big Finish productions launched a new line of Space: 1999 audio adventures, starting with a re-imagining of the original series pilot, Breakaway. Eugene and John take a listen and decide if our wandering moon’s adventures are beginning again, or should they already be over. Episode Synopsis: The year is 1999 in an alternate timeline without so many Republicans and Earth has a freaking moonbase, near light speed travel and a space program interested in manned spaceflight! John Koenig, the original commander of Moonbase Alpha is returning to take up the post once more during the final phase of the Meta Probe – a manned flight to a planet five light years away. What Koenig does not know is that a strange illness is killing the pilots on Moonbase Alpha, including the flight crew for the Meta Probe.  Koenig has been sent by Commissioner Simmonds to ram through the final stages of the Meta Probe at all cost. On Moonbase Alpha, Dr. Helena Russell has been particularly frustrated with Simmonds and outgoing commander Gorsky.  She has been desperately trying to save lives, but Simmonds and Gorsky have kept her cut off from Earth, unable to consult medical experts.  Simmonds wants no wind of a problem getting out before the Meta Probe launches. Koenig arrives on the base and meets his old friend and colleague Victor Bergman.  Bergman fills him in and Dr.Russell gives him an earful.  She knows Koenig is just another puppet of Simmonds, there to do his dirty work.  What she did not know was that, despite being committed to the Meta Probe, Koenig doesn’t like what he’s finding out and demands Simmonds give Dr. Russell access to the experts. Koenig sets about methodically to try to solve the problem, but it is clear that the situation is very much a threat to the Meta Probe and Simmonds doesn’t care how many people die as long as the probe launches on schedule. Simmonds tries to convince Koenig that it is all worth it by playing for him a top secret recording of a complex signal being sent to Earth from Meta.  There’s signs of water, atmosphere and what appears to be a non-natural signal being set to them.  There’s a strong chance the is intelligent life on Meta. The moonbase is filled with tourists, even schoolchildren, all there to see the Meta Probe launch.  With the deaths mounting up and no clue as to what is causing them,Koenig, against Simmonds wishes, orders the evacuation  all non-essential personnel.  Simmonds removes Koenig of command and heads to the moon to take command himself. One of the tenuous leads was that all the affected pilots routinely visited nuclear waste dump Area 1, and while there is no radiation leakage, a strange rise in heat begins.  Bergman and his team analyze all the data, and the Meta signal and a pattern begins to form. There was a mysterious, off-the-records shipment delivered to Area 1, even though it has been closed for years, and the signal from Meta is not being beamed towards Earth – it’s being beamed directly at the moon.  Somehow, the signal, the mystery boxes and the nuclear waste are creating Exotic Matter and as Simmonds arrives, Area 1 explodes. Now, Area 2, which is massively larger, is beginning to show the same heat rise.  Simmonds allows Koenig to stay in command as the Alphans attempt to break up the nuclear mass in Area 2.  As things get worse in Area 2, Koenig orders the Meta probe to launch early, reasoning that the only answers to this mystery are on Meta and even though it’s 5 years away, it’s their only hope. Something goes wrong.  The Kueller drive aboard the Meta Probe runs at hyper-power, combining somehow with the erupting Area 2 and creating a traversable wormhole, launching the moon out of Earth’s orbit into outer space. With no hope of ever returning, and the real possibility that Earth has been utterly destroyed, the Alphans must make a new home for themselves amongst the stars, their first stop – the planet Meta, which the moon is now approaching.