The Mackem and the Manc: Space: 1999 watch-through

Welcome to the Christmas Special* Space: 1999 Mackem and the Manc Podcast. Now, we at TMATM love a spurious link and this is a doozy. For some reason Yorkshire TV in the UK, in 1977, the announced the Year 2 episode The Taybor as a Christmas special - despite the fact that apart from them being a big lad with a beard giving gifts, on the surface this has nothing to do with the big day. Not one to...

A really fun, tight episode sees a couple of young whipper snappers with red spots and lycra circus outfits terrorise Moonbase Alpha with plans of revenge on their wise elders. Peter Duncan is in it, although with a terrible voice over. His ageing 100 years in a minute is well worth it though. Kids programme remember... The rule book goes straight out of the window with the Health and Safety boys...

So it's Season 2! How will Katie react to the massive changes to the Year 2 crew, cast, sets and storylines? Badly I'd imagine seeing as Victor was her favourite character. Colin sits back and tries to answer 18 questions a minute. The actual episode is quite a good one, there's Brian Blessed back for a second time, the introduction of Maya the wow-factor, BDSM nappy-wearing aliens, roofie brain s...

Strap yourselves in Big Boys for the ride of your life. Yes, it's Bonus Pod time and Sybil Danning shows you a whole new meaning to The Big Bang Theory. Having done all 24 episodes of Year 1 of Space: 1999, we discover there is enough in the can to do a bonus pod. Split into three, we first of all enjoy Sybil Danning and her wonderful introductions to the Space: 1999 movies as part of the Adventur...

It's the last episode of Season One, and it ends and a gentle meander through well trodden Sci-Fi territory.  All the good and not so good shows have a "life on Earth began out there" panspermia episode and Space: 1999 is no exception.  But the Mackem and the Manc not being your average podcast, we go one stage further and discuss the MUF - the thing that does (or doesn't) tie all the Season One e...

Nothing shouts the most popular episode of Space: 1999 of either seasons as much as Mr. Bronson from Grange Hill being eaten by a glowing tentacle bumhole monster. This one has the lot - Earth-based flashbacks, foxy brunettes bringing cups of tea, backstory of why Bergman was grounded and a wonder take on the old myth of George and the Dragon. It's top of the pile for many very good reasons. What...

Mutants!  We have our last colossal guest star episode, and without it being an out-and-out horror episode, it certainly has the overtones of one. We have cannibalism, Aubrey Morris being mad, Joan Collins and her legs, Barbara and her jealousy and Colin trying to be politically correct about little people.  The main male guest star is a cross between Zeus and Oliver Reed, Big Ron is a sort of BDS...

It's Gwent, the wig, amazing sets and immortality for about the 100th time in a quiet colossal guest star episode. Leo McKern I hope got paid twice for playing 2 different characters. Or did he? Koenig never got his rest, put at least in real life Paul/Prentis was alright. What happens when someone who's never seen classic 70s sci-fi watches it with their other half who's a total geek for it? Will...

So we are now into Episode 20 and it's a foam party! Before it became all the rage, the population of Moonbase Alpha are gearing up for a night of disco lights and foam party goodness. Somewhere along the lines there is a serious plot about macro space beings and the moon being a virus, but it all goes to shit in the last 10 minutes when Her Majesty's Fire and Rescue dump 16 million kilos of soap...

Katie has the joy of the first Horror Space:1999 episode - her favourite genre - and also her first Italian one, Mamma Mia! Colin makes references to sitars far too many times that are strictly required. We enjoy the leading man having three nipples, yet another posh foxy brunette, pyschic plants and Bergman's hair getting longer by each episode. On a serious note, this is one of the best and is p...

Oh dear, it's a bad science episode. Will a bunch of Suzi Quatro's beat the planet of the single middle-aged man who can't open his eyes? And will they work out the basics of newtonian gravity? Katie likes one of the girls hair and Colin thinks he is Brian Cox (the science dude, not the actor). We work out why you can people from Alpha, Beta and Delta (but not Gamma) and Katie really wants Dionne'...

It's a pod from a pod! The Manc and Mackem are on holiday, but that doesn't stop them recording a special episode of the pod(cast) from a pod(glamping) in sunny Scotland. The most expensive episode of British TV ever made - even though it wasn't even the most expensive episode of Space: 1999. Colin's going with this one regardless of things like facts. Back to the episode it's a real two-parter. T...

We have a complete cast-against-type episode and a colossal guest star in this fab story about an immortal alien who loves nothing more to torture us mere humans by throwing us around Big Daddy style and strangling foxy nurses. What a catch. Today's epsiode is trope-central, from undead vampires to a bit of Alien airlock action. There's an update on Sherlock Dog and a kinky story involving today's...

The cast of Moonbase Alpha go full caveman in this episode. One of the more amusing editions sees Kaput and Helena turn into cavemen, Alan gets lost, Sandra goes Wilma Flintstone cosplay, and someone nearly gets spit-roasted. Now now calm down it is not that type of show. We further discuss the work of Richard Harding Gardner, and look to see if we can find a mug with Xenia on it. Even though it s...

Fittingly we are back on Breakaway Day - specifically 25 years since we lost the Moon and the 300 brave souls travelling the cosmos on Moonbase Alpha. And today's episode is a cracker - Brian Blessed on an ice planet, Alan being useless once more, formaldehyde ice sets and Valerie Leon's wobbly bits are just some of the highlights. We also start the episode enjoying the alternative theme t...

Colin hates this one, like really hates it. And he never shuts up moaning about it. Katie does her best to cheer people up. So to lighten the mood he goes through the funny titles given to episodes over the world to the episodes such as "Bizarre! A Birth of Space Child" and "Space Destroyer, Nuclear Bomb Ship". God bless Japan. We also finally find a film that Katie remembers w...

We're back from our little break to Piri to resume the podcast! Episode 12 sees us enjoy the story of Voyager's Return. This fab episode sees us move from the high Sci-Fi of neutron drives and interstellar travel, to the silliness of an unmanned ship with seatbelts and buttock-shaped spacecraft. The highlight is Jeremey Kemp who puts in a star turn as the guilt-ridden scientist who's a...

Well Colin described this as a fun episode! What's not the like about Paul the Moustache getting a Jesus complex and being off his tits on magic mushrooms, whilst an eagle's worth of people face starvation and dying of thirst? To his defence, there is at least badminton and Alan in a vest. A planet finds it really easy to put off the men and women of Moonbase Alpha by teasing them with gas...

Well what does this episode not have? It has incest, a story line ripped off by Star Trek, a quasi-Omen young boy, a bad guy who nearly got the better of James Bond and Indiana Jones (to name but a few) and the most amazing silver shorts for our leading man. There's not only a collasal guest star™ in this episode, but our now regular foxy posh brunettes. We get a few spaceships, a twist ending...

Before we get to the colossal™ guest star and the famous Solarium scene, Colin spends 10 minutes telling the audience all about the crazyness of ITV television scheduling during the 1970's. So fast forward to 10:25 if you want to just hear about this mad episode. Ian McShane wanders through MoonBase Alpha, killing people with either amazing beards or being a foxy posh brunette. There's no...

It's Katie's first sexy episode, as Catherine Schell walks around in amazing shoes and next to nothing teasing Koenig. John, on the other hand, takes joy in walking around an abandoned Moonbase Alpha for the second episode. There's fembots, too-much male chest hair and Computer Kano getting plugged into the mainframe. Hope someone remembers the USB-C cable. And there's the joy that...

It's a colossal guest star™ episode as the other famous one from Hammer Horror wears a terrible wig and turban. It's Koenig's turn to get the spotlight, and he and his manhood are the only thing that will save the day. There's the story of prosecco, soft focus land, the death button, ceefax, hitchhiking on the moon, Cushing getting a spray tan and the joys of peach melbas. Only in...

Paul has a beard. Victor is a Jedi. Regina goes batshit, has rice krispies on her face, and then dies. Helena is both dead and not dead. But she at least has a loom. One of the more ethereal (i.e. crackers) episode of '99 sees the crew finds their doppelganger on a future, buggered-up earth. Still, at least Medical comes with free paint and canvases. What happens when someone who's never s...

Colin gets all fanboy as he watches his episode. He promises the first "Colossal Guest Star" of the show to Katie, who gets him straight away. Christopher Lee is a lovely space hippie, instead of being a tall monster sith lord frankenstein man with a golden gun. The triple ending gets Katie right where it matters, as it does Simmonds. #Space1999 #GeekyCouples #Podcasters #Space1999Fans #...

So it's an eyeball planet this week, as poor Ted Clifford gets his brain taken over by a sound effect. Helena does ABBA before ABBA, Alan shows off his chest hair and people don't type really fast on letterless keyboards. Colin can't remember much about this episode apart from the scary sound effect. What happens when someone who's never seen classic 70s sci-fi watches it with thei...