From: "Petter Ogland" (petter.ogland@dnmi-no) Date: Sat, 30 May 1998 13:04:45 +0000 Subject: Re: Space1999: Re: Freiberger and Friends Dear Ina, I send a copy of this letter to the group as well. Perhaps others have a more detailed understanding of Landau's childhood in Brooklyn. You wrote: > Petter, you wrote: > > Just like Martin Landau seems to draw > > experience from his Brooklyn > > delinquency background, > > I'm wonderring where you got the impression thsat Landau's childhood in > Brooklyn was one of delinquency? Is this from an interview or a > statement that Martin Landau made at some point? Or do you suscribe to > the erroneous misconception thst Brooklyn is one large pit of > misbegotten behaviour? As I've never been to Brooklyn, I don't have much of a conception of it, except that many of my fellow countrymen settled down when immigrating to the USA and seemed to enjoy life there. Martin Landau explains to Tim Heald in "The making of SPACE:1999" how he felt Brooklyn was like in the 1930s and 40s. In the conversation with Heald he talked about being member of something he calls a "club", whose activity seemingly included violent confrontation with other "clubs". As an example tells about a specific incident where he was beaten up and strung up to a pole, I seem to remember. I don't know how tough his neighbourhood was. Landau may of course have dramatised his background somewhat, which I suppose would be a very natural thing for an actor to do, perhaps even necessary as his business is to sell himself. An interesting background could be essential with this in mind. My general impression, however, is that he must have grown up under not too pretty circumstances, as he seems so perfectly natural adding a "street wise" approach both to his work on MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE and on SPACE:1999 where neither of these series would have something like that inherent. The nervously aggressive style add, of course, to making his characters interesting. In the case of SPACE:1999, I think his confrontations with Simmonds, in both BREAKAWAY and EARTHBOUND, shows Koenig's philosophy of diplomacy as to follow the school of gang leaders. Victor, of course, has a completely different approach, but, then again, he is not in a responsible position like Koenig is. That Koenig is a man who likes to shout and dominate seem fairly obvious from my point of view. At the same time as he is getting rid of Simmonds, he has a number of conflicts with Captain Alan Carter. In the early episodes he seems to refer to Alan as Captain, keeping him more at a distance than the more familiar "Alan" would indicate, especially in the abusive sequences, if I remember correctly. I don't know why they decided to change Nick Tate's character to become less questionable of Koenig's tactics. Perhaps Tate found it a bit annoying being shouted at all the time. Anyway, character development is a fine thing, I feel, and in this case the Alan Carter character comes across much better as a diciple of Koenig than attempting to stand up to him all the time. He seemed like too much of an easy-going person to be in conflict with Koenig all the time anyway, at least the way I see it. After the first four episodes he seems much more at peace with the situation, his argument with Koenig at the time of ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE seems pretty lame as compared to the situation in RING AROUND THE MOON, I think. Another person Koenig likes to shout at, it appears, is Kano. Both in THE LAST SUNSET and GUARDIAN OF PIRI he is given a dose of hot temper right up his nose. I can't remember too well, but I think it was in GUARDIAN OF PIRI where Koenig almost seem to smile sadistically after he had given Kano a pretty heavy dose of verbal abuse. I assume Clifton Jones was not used to this "Brooklyn school of drama", and may have looked a bit worried as Landau was at his most intense. Interestingly, nobody in the series seem to like Kano very much. While most of the familiar characters of the non-upper-echelon group are addressed by their first name. Paul is the only one, I believe, who adresses Kano as David. Paul Morrow and Kano seem like very similar types of characters, I feel, both having operational rather than scientific duties. One of the more silly lines in the series is Paul saying "Most of us here are scientists" in THE TROUBLED SPIRIT. Perhaps he is claiming to be a scientist, but from my point of view he seems to be the least probable scientist of all. Well, perhaps this is why Johnny Byrne felt this would be a nice line for him to say. Who knows. Like Landau, Fred Freiberger spent his childhood in Brooklyn, I seem to have read, and they way Tim Heald reports him dealing with writers as the scripts are turned in for approval seem to follow the same type of style as that of Koenig against Simmonds, seemingly trying to break them psychologically by verbal abuse and then try to redirect their thoughts for writing in line of "less plastic relationships", "more honest adventure", "more focus on emotions and dramatic conflict", "more pace", "more humour", etc., which was, apparently, his way of saying "more like Hanna Barbara!" The description of the treatment given to the writer Hawkins by Freiberger in Tim Heald's book is unbelievably crass, I think. Yet, the thing that is the most striking, both in the case of Landau and Freiberger, the way I see it, is not so much their behaviour, which may have something to do with living in neighbourhoods were aggressiveness was perhaps a necessity in order to survive, obviously no more to be associated with Brooklyn than any other tough neibourhood around the world, say Oslo, for example. Oslo is too small to be severly dangerous, I suppose, but there are areas here that I would not prefer to be at certain times of night, and where I suppose the attitudes vaguely displayed in Freiberger and Landau are on the normal agenda of the day. The interesting and striking thing about the behaviour of Koenig and Freiberger is how they seem to have internalised the rough neibourhood attitudes as to use patterns of behaviour based on these attitudes in the proximity of people of a very different culture. In the case of Koenig of Alpha this made spendid entertainment and a great attribution to enhance psychological conflicts and situations. In the case of Freiberger I'm not quite sure whether this was good or bad. While Year One had been run by a group of people, Year Two seem to have been to a much larger extent been influenced by the opinons of one man. It will be interesting to investigate as the Year Two discussions start to try to more deeply understand the influence of Freiberger, for better and for worse. Well, Ina, these are some of my thoughts on Brooklyn, Landau and Freiberger. As I understand you live in Brooklyn, it would be very interesting if you could give some more insight as to how you think the Brooklyn aspect may have influenced SPACE:1999.
Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 01:53:49 +0000 From: Ina Litera (ilitera@idt4tag.net) Subject: Re: Space1999: Re: Freiberger and Friends Dear Petter, I was very interested to read your response. The reason I addressed you on this, is that many people (and lots of films and TV programs have helped propogate this idea) think of Brooklyn as one neighborhood. It's not. There are many of communities within the borough of Brooklyn (also known as Kings County) Some are really bad (Bedford Styvestant, for example) while others are very upscale and exclusive (Brooklyn Heights) The story of Landau getting beaten up as a kid in the 30's sounds plausible. My father grew up in Brooklyn. He used to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge for violin lessons and one day he meet up with some nice young gentelmen who beat him up and broke his nose ( I think this is why he never wanted me to be a string player). On a seperate note though, I'm curious about your reasoning that his rough childhood has (so compleately) influenced how Landau potrays characters. While one's life experience can and does affect how an actor relates to a role, it can't permeate every aspect of every role he (or she) assumes. Surely that would limit the range of parts available. Acting is a skill. You don't need to have your father murdered and have your mother marry your uncle to play Hamlet. Well, that's all for now. Just for accuracy's sake, I do not live in Brooklyn, I live in the Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan, made famous in the musical "West Side Story" and reknowned for its extraordinary restaurants. Later, Ina
From: "Petter Ogland" (petter.ogland@dnmi-no) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 13:01:55 +0000 Subject: Re: Space1999: Re: Freiberger and Friends Ina wrote: > On a seperate note though, I'm curious about your reasoning that his > rough childhood has (so compleately) influenced how Landau potrays > characters. While one's life experience can and does affect how an > actor relates to a role, it can't permeate every aspect of every role he > (or she) assumes. Surely that would limit the range of parts > available. Acting is a skill. You don't need to have your father > murdered and have your mother marry your uncle to play Hamlet. I agree to this, and I enjoyed Kenneth Brannagh's HAMLET very much. On the other hand, Brannagh seemed very different from Mel Gibson a few years back. My impression was that while Gibson used much of his natural nervousness and character, Brannagh displayed his extreme talent for method acting, his extreme command over all kinds of emotions and expressions. While I understand that Landau worked with the group of actors consisting of Marlon Brando, James Dean, Rod Steiger and more in the 50s who were extremely concerned with method acting, and were used to a great extent in the Elia Kazan films of the period, my impression of Landau is more of a type of actor who uses his own experiences and his own character in order to do portrayal, similar to the acting style of Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper, I would say. >From what I've understood, Landau did a number of juvenile delinquents as a young actor and later advanced to do more mature criminals, like in Hitchcock's NORTH BY NORTHWEST. Landau being an expert on delinquents and criminals does not make him less competent as John Koenig, I think. Rather to the contrary, actually, I feel that his often somewhat moody and agressive behaviour adds wonderfully to his role and makes his performance stupendous in many cases. The episodes where his accent on moral ambiguence comes most to its right is in BREAKAWAY and, even more so, in EARTHBOUND, I think. In both of these episodes, his relationship with his superior Simmonds seems to have elements of a subtle power game. After he has dispatched Simmonds he seems less ruthless, although very often making seemingly desperate or stupid decisions. Victor and Helena often come across as much more sensible persons, but, then again, running a moonbase Alpha sort of establishment does not perhaps always benefit on the most rational person being in charge. The seems to be one of the claims of the episode COLLISION COURSE. Often it seems that the much more sensible views of Victor and Helena turn out to be disasterously wrong, and the intuition of Koenig is the best way out after all. You talk about acting as a skill. My impression is that while all actors taking part in SPACE:1999 are very skilled, some of the directors are also letting them play with the roles, and according to Barry Morse, the roles did not seem to be all that well defined in the first place anyway. The way I see it, Landau, Bain and Morse are using much more of their natural talent in first year SPACE:1999 than their supreme skills, although they also appear supremly skilled, especially in the Crichton episodes where he obviously commands the actors, perhaps contrasting Austin who seem to let them play much more and make episodes like COLLISION COURSE and ALPHA CHILD so wonderful in this respect, not to forget RING AROUND THE MOON, in my opinion the most well-crafted episode of all the Year One efforts. Skill versus talent is also viable as a discriminant for the acting styles of Year One and Year Two. While Year One seem to rely on talent and making sense out of very tense shooting schedules, apparently only having a few hours to learn the material, in Year Two there is a much more theatrical way of acting, I feel, having bad consequences especially in the case of Barbara Bain whose wonderful character Dr. Helena Russell is totally ruined within the new concept. In the case of Landau, I feel the consequence is merly that his two dimentional portrayal becomes tediously one dimentional as a consequence of one dimentional plots. Watching THE METAMORPH in sequence after THE BLACK SUN, as I did yesterday, could perhaps be an illuminating experience. I wonder how one could say something nice about THE METAMORPH in this context. The only thing that makes sense to me is to watch the two seasons as two more or less seperate series. In Year Two both Landan and Bain seem to rely mostly on using their skills, it seems, as the concept does not seem to make much room for the type of acting they were allowed in Year One. Sometimes, watching someone who is very skillful can also be quite fascinating. Perhaps playing the violin could be used as a metaphore on acting. As the violin is one of the most difficult musical instruments to learn, I understand, I suppose it takes an enormous amount of skill in order to make reasonable music. If that amount of skill is achieved, however, I would suppose that the talent of the musician must trancend the mere skills, or else why do we prefer to listen to humans making music in favour of machines?
From: Costopoulos Andre (costopoa@ere-umontreal.ca) Subject: Space1999: Landau's portrayal (was: Freiberger and Friends) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 09:30:02 -0400 (EDT) I agree with Petter Ogland's opinion that Landau's sometimes aggressive and "ruthless" portrayal is dead on. The distance between a truly great criminal and a truly great commander is almost nil. It is moslty a matter of aims and of legitimacy. The illegitimate commander is the criminal. The outstanding trait of both the criminal and the commander is that of not accepting readily one's fate. And of course, that is perfect for the commander of Moonbase alpha who tries to keep the inevitable at bay, as it is perfect for the street punk who attempts to transcend his childhood by becoming a kingpin. Both courses of action sometimes create zero-sum situations. Applying a decision will lead to brilliant success or to utter extinction, hence Koenig's intuitive ruthlessness, compare with Victor's reasoned humanism which will only lead to slow fading of the alphans as a population. Andre Costopoulos Departement d'Anthropologie Universite de Montreal
From: "Petter Ogland" (petter.ogland@dnmi4tag.no) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 13:58:32 +0000 Subject: Space1999: Re: Landau's portrayal (was: Freiberger and Friends) > I agree with Petter Ogland's opinion that > Landau's sometimes aggressive and "ruthless" > portrayal is dead on. The distance between a > truly great criminal and a truly great commander > is almost nil. Wow! Wonderful comments, Andre! Now we have a full antropological investigation of Alpha. Superb! Please contribute more to this! > Applying a decision will lead to brilliant success > or to utter extinction, hence Koenig's intuitive > ruthlessness, compare with Victor's reasoned > humanism which will only lead to slow fading > of the alphans as a population. Yet interesting when Koenig meet the ruthless Victor in MISSING LINK, isn't it? Game for discussing this, Andre?
From: "Atomic Possum" (atomicpossum@toast4it.net) Subject: Re: Space1999: Landau's portrayal (was: Freiberger and Friends) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 09:04:19 -0500 A nice point regarding the ruthlessness sometimes demanded by leadership. If everything is on the line, a decision must be made that may not seem fair to all parties--Koenig, after all, represents Alpha. His decisions should reflect nothing but the best interest of Alpha, even if that might mean being forced to engage in 'non-heroic' behavior. Consider (sorry to bring it up) 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' episode "I Borg," wherein Jean-Luc Picard has the power to possibly destroy the Borg, but can't bring himself to do it because there is one person in the way. He evaluates this one person as being more important than protecting the human race from the threat of the Borg: A nice warm fuzzy moral, maybe, but the next time the Borg roll in to Earth space and decimate the human race, Old Jean-Luc should have the blame placed right on his shiny head. Picard should have been removed from command and court martialled when his superiors found out about it. Koenig seems to be written with a better understanding of command responsibilties. You don't take chances when survival is on the line. While I personally think his character was written to be a bit, well, whacko on occasion, there is at least the proper tone given to his understanding of what his decisions mean. Koenig seems almost a bit reckless at times, but can at least be shown to be decisive. "The Last Enemy" is a very good example of this...giving Dione every chance he can, he then takes an active role in the conflict, seeing that the only chance of protecting his people is drastic action. Given the Alphans situation, this characteristic provides an important underpinning for much of the show. They know there's no help out there for them, and if they act too late, or too timidly, they can lose and have no way to recover.... (Of course, there's Voyager, where the situation is similar, yet, somehow those hard decisions just never seem to be made....) Jon "Mr. Wonderful" Stadter
From: "Petter Ogland" (petter.ogland@dnmi4tag.no) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 14:38:02 +0000 Subject: Re: Space1999: Landau's portrayal (was: Freiberger and Friends) > Koenig seems to be written with a better understanding of command > responsibilties. You don't take chances when survival is on the line. > While I personally think his character was written to be a bit, well, whacko > on occasion, Heh heh! Well said, Jon! In some episodes more whacko than others perhaps, but COLLSION COURSE sums it pretty well off, I think. Completely whacko in that one, and a very interesting episode in that respect! Another interesting episode in regard of this is THE SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION, in which writer John Goldsmith is making a paraphrase about the evil double of Koenig it seems, perhaps in order to flush out some of his less trustwordy sides. If this episode had been made within the context of Year One we could perhaps have had a very interesting display of Alpha in total confusion under the obviously strained Koenig, perhaps benefiting from giving off Koenig's dark side more in the style of what they did with Paul Morrow in THE LAST SUNSET. There were some interesting ideas floating around in Year Two, I think, sadly not making too much sense due to format changes, but nevertheless interesting. Another episode, also investigating the strain on people living under severe pressure on Alpha, was THE SEANCE SPECTRE. This episode reminds me much of the E.C. Tubb class-against-class struggle in it, not too unlike EARTHBOUND, and could perhaps have become quite interesting were it to have developed in a less tongue-in-cheek style. > there is at least the proper tone given to his understanding of > what his decisions mean. Koenig seems almost a bit reckless at times, but > can at least be shown to be decisive. "The Last Enemy" is a very good > example of this...giving Dione every chance he can, he then takes an active > role in the conflict, seeing that the only chance of protecting his people > is drastic action. I see your point, Jon, although I would perhaps prefer to use the conflict in THE END OF ETERINTY with Balor rather than the one of Dione to illustrate it. To me THE LAST ENEMY seem too much of a travesty on the maternal difficulties on the set than to have anything to do with the SPACE:1999 epic. To me THE LAST ENEMY seems to have been conveived and written more like a parody than an actual chapter in the series. Too bad they didn't stick with the original OTHER SEX script, which seemed much more witty and insightful.
From: "Atomic Possum" (atomicpossum@toast2ti.net) Subject: Re: Space1999: Landau's portrayal (was: Freiberger and Friends) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 10:46:54 -0500 >Heh heh! Well said, Jon! In some episodes more whacko than others >perhaps, but COLLSION COURSE sums it pretty well off, I think. Completely >whacko in that one, and a very interesting episode in that respect! Actually, I like COLLISION COURSE for what it does with the interactions of the characters. The story plays entirely on the matter of faith. Koenig's (and Alan's) faith in Arra to mean what she has said, and belief that she would not deceive them. And the Alphans, who would normally have complete faith in John Koenig, cannot trust him. Then they convince Koenig that they believe him, but are lying: faith betrayed. Then the culmination: Koenig thinks, at the last moment, that Arra has betrayed him. There's a lot of examination of the dynamics between the Alphans and their leader, between friends, and even faith in greater powers (Arra). I actually don't think there is a finer (or more subtle) episode about the COMMUNITY of Alpha in the whole show. >Another interesting episode in regard of this is THE SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION, >in which writer John Goldsmith is making a paraphrase about the evil >double of Koenig it seems, perhaps in order to flush out some of his less >trustwordy sides. I never got the impression that this was a 'double' of Koenig. I thought it was simply a Calthon intelligence that copies his form. It never seemed particularly Koenig to me, and seemed completely oriented toward the Calthonian motives. It impersonated Koenig, but I never got the impression that it was in any meansure really John Koenig. Actually, I thought Koenig was perhaps more reactionary in this episode thatn most others. He seemed to simply adopt a contrarian attitude, ie Calthon wants to live, therefore I don't want it to. I thought the ending might have been stronger if there had been some middle ground presented, making the Calthonians desperate rather than just conveniently evil. Sometimes it's nice when Koenig tries to understand, rather than simply destroy (The Immunity Syndrome?). To me THE LAST ENEMY seem too much of a travesty on the maternal >difficulties on the set than to have anything to do with the SPACE:1999 >epic. To me THE LAST ENEMY seems to have been conveived and written more >like a parody than an actual chapter in the series. Too bad they didn't >stick with the original OTHER SEX script, which seemed much more witty and >insightful. I've never seen it that way, or even as a 'War of the Sexes' story. If we had seen a ship from the other planet, and it was crewed by all men, we wouldn't neccessarily draw the conclusion of a sex vs. sex conflict. Since that was never presented in the story, I've never viewed it as that. I always saw it more as two vast powers threatening to crush Alpha underfoot like an ant, blinded as they are by their own conflict. Of course, the payoff to this episode for me is that the ant rises up and sets off a nuclear bomb. :-) Jon "Mr. Wonderful" Stadter
From: "Mark Meskin" (plastic.gravity@new1021rock.com) Subject: Re: Space1999: Landau's portrayal (was: Freiberger and Friends) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 12:10:16 -0500 > (Of course, there's Voyager, where the situation is similar, yet, > somehow those hard decisions just never seem to be made....) Why do you even need to make those "tough" deciscions, when if something ends up baddly, you just press the reset button..........and viola! evertything is back to normal. Mark
From: "Atomic Possum" (atomicpossum@toast20.net) Subject: Re: Space1999: Landau's portrayal (was: Freiberger and Friends) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 12:30:54 -0500 Well, that does sound a little bit like "War Games" or "Matter of Life and Death..." :-) Mark, we don't get Voyager here anymore (I didn't watch anyway). Is this something they've actually introduced?
From: "Brian Dowling" (brian@hellion-prestel-co.uk) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 21:29:05 +0100 Subject: Re: Space1999: Landau's portrayal (was: Freiberger and Friends) Hi folks, Black Sun is on right now, and the "this episode" teasers are intact! [EDITOR'S NOTE: A reference to the BBC broadcasting the series?] Jon wrote: > A nice point regarding the ruthlessness sometimes demanded by > leadership. If everything is on the line, a decision must be made that may > not seem fair to all parties--Koenig, after all, represents Alpha. His > decisions should reflect nothing but the best interest of Alpha, even if > that might mean being forced to engage in 'non-heroic' behavior. It's often when the leader's back is against the wall that the performer's real talent shows. Take Tom Baker's finest performance as The Doctor in 'Genesis Of The Daleks', as he is crouched opposite the lab with the two wires in his hand ready to destroy the Kaled mutant creatures... "Touch these strands together and the Daleks are finished... Do I have that right?" "You can't doubt it!" "But I do" > (sorry to bring it up) 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' episode "I Borg," > wherein Jean-Luc Picard has the power to possibly destroy the Borg, but > can't bring himself to do it because there is one person in the way. He > evaluates this one person as being more important than protecting the human > race from the threat of the Borg: A nice warm fuzzy moral, maybe, but the > next time the Borg roll in to Earth space and decimate the human race, Old > Jean-Luc should have the blame [....] Yes, a little too preachy and Starfleet for me. And compare the doubting, moralistic Doctor above to the judgemental, obviously alien being we see in Remembrance of The Daleks where he programs the Hand Of Omega to travel back in time and turn Skaro's sun supernova, taking out the peaceful Thals with the Kaleds. > Koenig seems to be written with a better understanding of command > responsibilties. You don't take chances when survival is on the line. > While I personally think his character was written to be a bit, well, whacko > on occasion, there is at least the proper tone given to his understanding of > what his decisions mean. Some of his actions may seem a little odd, certainly, but there is little doubt that he has only one priority underlying everything in his command decisions - the survival of Alpha.
From: "Mark Meskin" (plastic.gravity@new1201rock.com) Subject: Re: Space1999: Landau's portrayal (was: Freiberger and Friends) Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 17:16:13 -0500 Its not just a Voyager trademaark, its neaarly the whole plot. The show was dumped from my town recently, and no big loss as far as I'm concerned. Althought the RB is a big plot hole fixer that get used way too often, they've had two real good episodes where they hit the reset button ruining all that came before it. The first was the Brog eps, in which Voyager had these massive modifications made to her, and then by the end of the episode the ship is all back to normal. If like they were just taking the Packers Flag off the car they put on just for the superbowl or something. The other one happenned at the end of the shifting timeline episode. The ship is nearly destriyed, literrally falling to pieces and Janeway destroys it slamming into a timeship(or somthing) and POOF the Voyager is insstantly recreated in perfect condition. Boy, if that only worked for cars........want a new one just destroy the old one. The reset button started early in the 1st season I believe, and someone has been leaning on it ever since. Mark
From: "Petter Ogland" (petter.ogland@dnmi-no) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 08:32:45 +0000 Subject: Re: Space1999: Landau's portrayal (was: Freiberger and Friends) > Actually, I like COLLISION COURSE for what it does with the > interactions of the characters. The story plays entirely on the matter of > faith. Koenig's (and Alan's) faith in Arra to mean what she has said, and > belief that she would not deceive them. And the Alphans, who would normally > have complete faith in John Koenig, cannot trust him. I agree very much with this, Jon. One of the interesting aspects of COLLISION COURSE, from my point of view, is that while Koenig and Alan believe completely in Arra, to the Alphans and perhaps even to the viewers, to me at least, one tends to wonder if they are experiencing this for real or if they in fact are hallucinating. I feel director Ray Austin contributes into making the latter plausible. With this in mind, I don't find it too unreasonable to consider Koenig a bit whacko. What would you do, anyway, if you were Helena or Victor, having made up a technical scheme for solving the collision problem and then have a superior officer suddenly talking incoherrently about someone called Arra and wanting to abort all previous plans in order to "do nothing"? Even the name Arra makes me suspicious, sounding as if he had been talking to a parrot. > I never got the impression that this was a 'double' of Koenig. I > thought it was simply a Calthon intelligence that copies his form. It never > seemed particularly Koenig to me, and seemed completely oriented toward the > Calthonian motives. It impersonated Koenig, but I never got the impression > that it was in any meansure really John Koenig. I agree that on the surface this may be read like this. My impression at first seeing the episode, however, was that this seemed to be an experiment of displaying the darker sides to Koenig, much like COLLISION COURSE was a vehicle for showing Koenig in a confused state. Very much like COLLISION COURSE and MISSING LINK, THE SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION seem to concentrate on how vulnerable the Alpha community is within its present hierarcical organization. This makes Koenig continous solo efforts seem even worse, perhaps a point Edward di Lorenzo was trying to promote in his MISSING LINK. In COLLISION COURSE they try to make sense out of the situation. In THE SEEDS OF DESTRUCTION, which sadly a much weaker episode as it is being played much more like a caricature, they are, interestingly though, having a same type of conflict although they seem less sure that he has turned whacko in this one. I assume it is easier to believe in someone who appears strong and consistent than someone who is more weak and sensitive even if they both are equally whacko and fatally dangerous for the society at large.