[Space: 1999 Metaforms]

Review and Analysis of
Space: 1999 Year Two
(The Y2 Omnibus)

by David Welle

Reviewer's Introduction

I will write this review/analysis a little differently than other reviews/analyses, writing some comments on each chapter of Year Two (the Omnibus) here, each on a separate webpage (for various reasons). These will not be posted all at once, but one or two at a time. This review/analysis is thus IN PROGRESS, and barely begun at this point.

The review portion of each page contains no spoilers. For the analysis portion of each page, which I separate clearly, I will assume everyone has seen the Y2 episodes, and as a result will reserve major "spoiler guards" solely for comments on the bridging aspects built into to Omnibus in regard to other Powys novels, as I do not wish to spoil them. If you have not seen one or more of the episodes, you may want to entirely skip the webpage referring to it/them.

I will not rehash all the interesting details of the episodes, though some may be rehashed anyway. I will instead focus more on comparisons between the Michael Butterworth novelizations and the episodes, or more stand-alone aspects of the novels. Keep in mind that there are inevitably and naturally differences in detail between film and novelizations, and I'm not necessarily being critical or praising when I make note of them, though sometimes I am. I will also sometimes refer to how much I like the teleplay itself, or the novelization itself -- in wholes or parts. I may also make some comparisons to the original 1970's novelizations, though perhaps not very often.

The greater focus is on just reading the Year Two Omnibus almost as if it were a totally new novelization, even though it is not. I have not read the original novelizations in many years. The Omnibus does, however, have updates, and many of those I do explicitly point out where I noticed them or decided to note them here. In some cases, I may not have. So these factors may color this review.

IMPORTANT: Since I am making various kinds of comparisons, however, or otherwise pointing out details of the novelization, these details themselves do constitute mild (or worse?) SPOILERS in the sense you may wish to discover those differences for yourself. In this case, you should may wish skip the review of any particular chapter you have not read, or this review of the Omnibus altogether. I will eventually post a spoiler-free overall review of the Omnibus, however; but that is not present at this time.

Also, I'm not sure if I want to numerically rate individual chapters, because it would be very difficult to separate what I am rating, at such a fine-grained level. I may reserve that for the Omnibus as a whole. If I change my mind, I will note this in some way.

Forgive the length of the explanations/disclaimers above, but it is going to be a little different reviewing this book than most. :-)

Now, onto the first story of Year Two, which being a novelization of my favorite episode, will probably get the longest discussion of any. This chapter/episode is of course....

or go to


[Eagle 44] Review of Powys Novels

R-04/08/10: firstwri