A Stumble in the Dark: Contextualizing Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s Space: 1999

Abstract

Launched in 1975, the European TV series Space: 1999 can be considered a collective lens bringing together different views on the future. Positive perspectives were juxtaposed with a rather bleak vision of the consequences and implications of space travel. Space: 1999 offers a European take on the ways in which then contemporary problems such as the energy crisis of the 1970s and the fears of a nuclear world war were being debated. The depiction of space exploration as a dangerous endeavor was counterbalanced by frequent hints that outer space holds terrifying and mystical answers to questions humankind has asked since its very beginnings.