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Message From A Star

Synopsis:
Signals received from Alpha Centauri anticipate the arrival of Irya, a being from the planet Delta in that star system. Irya offers to add a special power unit to a Galasphere so that a trip can be made back but Haggarty is concerned that the ship will not stand the stress of travel at faster than light speeds. Raeburn ignores the warning and Galasphere 347 is despatched on Mankind’s first mission beyond the solar system. But on arrival at planet Delta, the meson power unit fails and an absense of metal means there is no way to repair it... or return to Earth !

Message From A Star
Cast
Captain Larry Dart
Husky
Slim
Colonel Raeburn
Marla
Professor Haggarty
Cassie
Professor Zeffer
Zeffer's Assistant
Irya
General Smith
Rocket Base
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 Dick Vosburgh
Ronnie Stevens
Ronnie Stevens
Murray Kash
Libby Morris
Ronnie Stevens
Libby Morris
Dick Vosburgh
Ronnie Stevens
Libby Morris
Dick Vosburgh
Ronnie Stevens
And The Moral Is:
• Look Before You Leap To Faster Than Light Travel.

Today I Will Be Mostly Learning... :
• The nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is four and a half light years away, and it would normally take a Galasphere over three thousand years to reach it.

Huskyisms:
• “Now we’re really in the home shrink.” (He means ‘home stretch’)

“Don’t Call Me Pop!”:
• “Rubbish, piffle piffle and nonsense! All this talk about travelling faster than light.”

Is This A Joke ?:
• Raeburn, just before Irya arrives in his office, thinks it may be a trick of some sort.

Riding Along In My Monobile... ‘:
• Raeburn is robbed of a monobile ride by the teleporting Irya.

‘I’m An Alien!‘:
• Irya can teleport over vast distances and communicates telepathically.
• The Deltees absorb food from the ground, like plants.
• Wood and metal are unknown on the planet Delta.
• The kamakolia lizards live at the north pole of the planet Delta.

Ooh, Bitch... :
• Haggarty of Irya “Me ? Jealous of a batlike, wormlike, legless, mouthless, noseless creature like that!”
• Dart’s comment to Irya “I can’t tell you what I think of you.” seems somewhat double edged...

Continuity:
• It seems curious that everyone reacts if Irya were the first interstellar visitor, suggesting this episode should perhaps be seen before The Planet Of Light and The Talking Bell.
• It would take three and a half thousand years to reach Alpha Centauri in a Galasphere.
• The United Galactic Building is 100 miles away from the space port being used to test faster rockets.

Plot Device:
• At least they didn’t cop out too much but how much like metal was the lizard horn ?

Haven’t I Seen... ?:
• Irya’s home is the top of the Space Headquarters building, seen in darkness and lit from within.

Take A Break:
• As Husky tells Dart that the Meson Unit has collapsed, Dart replies "It must be metal fatigue. That's what Professor Haggarty was afraid of".

"The power units are broken, and the best Space Patrol crew
I ever had are stuck on Delta forever."
Colonel Raeburn


Astro Viewer Working:
• Even though the journey to Alpha Centauri takes weeks, there is no indication that the crew use the freezer, or what Irya would have done if they had.
• Slim describes Delta as being like Venus.

Hoorah!:
• For once, Haggarty isn’t played for laughs. When his warnings prove true, his reply to Raeburn’s “You have the last laugh.” is “I don’t feel like laughing”, which conveys a real sense of frustration and sadness.
• It is also good that the physics is adhered to and when a means to return is found, Earth cannot warn Dart as a message won’t travel fast enough.

Boo!:
• Slim uses the same lever throughout the flight to boost the delta power and switch between drives.
• Irya seems to be the only inhabitant of his planet.
• When Dart says ‘Odd?’ refering to the failed meson unit, his lips don’t move.
• The reptile is conveniently placed in a cave so we only get to see its head.
• The collapse of Galasphere 347 is only heard, not seen.

Computer Central:
• First screened: September 8th 1963 (ABC Midlands)
• Running time: 24 minutes 43 seconds
• BFCC Classified - 24th February 1998. The notes regarding violence state 'once, mild', referring to the killing of the kamakolia lizard.
• VHS - Volume 4
• DVD - Complete Series Box Set, Disk 3

Listings
• London, January 23rd 1964:
No one believes Professor Zeffer when he tells them that he has picked up a message from Alpha Centauri, the nearest Star to our solar system. But when a strange being lands on Earth, it seems that the Professor’s story is not so fantastic.

Ready To Lift ?:
An interesting episode with a nice sense of drama that maroons the Galasphere on an alien world with no hope of returning. Regrettably, it is somewhat watered down by a somewhat shoddy solution and the Galasphere’s collapse being downplayed (as well as unseen).






On to the next episode
Episode Guide Series One
Episode Guide Series One
The Planet Of Thought
The Glowing Eggs Of Titan
The Planet Of Light
Time Stands Still
Husky Becomes Invisible
The Walking Lake Of Jupiter
The New Planet
The Human Fish
The Invisible Invasion
The Talking Bell
The Buried Spaceship
Message From A Star
Explosion On The Sun
Episode Guide Series Two
Episode Guide Series Two
We close on the blazing sun in space before fading to a view of ringed planet Saturn. A gyroscope-like ship, enclosed in a flickering bubble of energy, speeds past us and beyond accompanied by almost musical radiophonic tones. We see it pass the Moon before spinning away to the twilight of the Earth's curved horizon... As we hear a grinding rhythmic electronic score, we see scenes of a futuristic city under a dramatic sky. Some buildings and antennae rotate, light pours from other structures as bullet-shaped and spherical vehicles move rapidly back and forth... 'This is Earth - the year 2100. New York is the headquarters of Space Patrol and men from Earth, Mars and Venus live and work there as guardians of peace. This is the story of those men, whose courage and daring make the universe safe for us all.'
We close on the blazing sun in space before fading to a view of ringed planet Saturn. A gyroscope-like ship, enclosed in a flickering bubble of energy, speeds past us and beyond accompanied by almost musical radiophonic tones. We see it pass the Moon before spinning away to the twilight of the Earth's curved horizon... As we hear a grinding rhythmic electronic score, we see scenes of a futuristic city under a dramatic sky. Some buildings and antennae rotate, light pours from other structures as bullet-shaped and spherical vehicles move rapidly back and forth... 'This is Earth - the year 2100. New York is the headquarters of Space Patrol and men from Earth, Mars and Venus live and work there as guardians of peace. This is the story of those men, whose courage and daring make the universe safe for us all.'
We close on the blazing sun in space before fading to a view of ringed planet Saturn. A gyroscope-like ship, enclosed in a flickering bubble of energy, speeds past us and beyond accompanied by almost musical radiophonic tones. We see it pass the Moon before spinning away to the twilight of the Earth's curved horizon... As we hear a grinding rhythmic electronic score, we see scenes of a futuristic city under a dramatic sky. Some buildings and antennae rotate, light pours from other structures as bullet-shaped and spherical vehicles move rapidly back and forth... 'This is Earth - the year 2100. New York is the headquarters of Space Patrol and men from Earth, Mars and Venus live and work there as guardians of peace. This is the story of those men, whose courage and daring make the universe safe for us all.'