Online Alpha

Mailing List
Name:	Online Alpha
Date(s):	24 July 2000 -
Moderated:	Yes
Moderators/List Maintainers:	Anthony (atd1999), Doug Bailey
Type:	Discussion
Fandom:	Space 1999
Scope:	Canon discussion
URL:	http://tv.groups.yahoo.com:80/group/OnlineAlpha/ https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/OnlineAlpha/ Facebook Group
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Online Alpha was a Yahoo!Group that had open membership and posting, with 1,046 members at its close. It was linked to the website Space1999.net. The group was most active in the first six years after its founding, with between 200-500 messages a month. Activity was sporadic thereafter but remained fairly constant throughout its time at Yahoo with occasional bursts of discussion of episodes. With the closure of Yahoo!Groups, Online Alpha members currently meet on Facebook in a public group.

Description

Online Alpha is devoted to the discussion of the epic 1970's SF series Space:1999, created by Gerry & Sylvia Anderson.

Premiering worldwide in 1975, Space:1999 starred Martin Landau, Barbara Bain & Barry Morse & featured groundbreaking SFX by Brian Johnson.

Space:1999 lasted 2 seasons following the exploits of 311 men & women on Moonbase Alpha cast adrift in the Universe after a massive nuclear explosion ripped the Moon from Earth's orbit.

Online Alpha is the oldest & largest Space:1999 email list, tracing its roots back to January, 1993. Today, over 900 fans worldwide discuss all aspects of Space:1999, including cast/crew, collectibles, Cons & more! Come join today’s Alphans & learn something new about this often overlooked SF-TV gem.

Sample Posts

July 25, 2000

I couldn't resist jumping the gun and being the first to post here to the new OnlineAlpha list. I'm glad to see it moved over to eGroups, where I can access the list as well as GBA via the web from anywhere, including my office. *Sigh.* How will I get ANY work done?

July 26, 2000

I'm on vacation and catching up on email. The Space:1999 list I was on just switched over to this location and I wanted to say hi to people whose posts I've been reading for years and to those I haven't yet met. I might as well re-introduce myself to those from the last list because I've been on LURK mode for so long I might as well have left. :)

Space:1999, Star Trek, Mission:Impossible, and Emergency! were some of my favorites when I was a young adult. When I watch reruns of these shows I remember some of what I felt and thought at that time. I also get to see these shows through older eyes and reinterpret the messages of the creators/actors/writers in a more mature way. So, I get more than just simple enjoyment when I watch a show -- I get to revisit childhood in a way.

I can't wait to read the posts. I have high hopes of finding the conversations just as interesting as they were on the last list.

As for the debate over certain episodes being better than the others or one season being better than the other, I can't really add much. I have favorite scenes in varying episodes. I think I can find something to like about each episode (i.e. a guest star, the music, the directing, the acting, a concept, a special effect, etc). The same applies to each season. I look at the whole concept of Space:1999 with pleasure (as well as the other favorites I listed above).

March 3, 2015

Shana: "I will make you like season 2 by the time I’m done!"

Hahaha!! You must be a terrific teacher. If your behaviour in the class room is comparable with your behaviour on this dicussion forum, your students must be extremely fortunate. I think there have been two major events in the world of SPACE 1999 in recent time. One even was Dr. Liardet's structuralist analysis of the series, where he builds on the ideas of Fageolle (1996), but suggets, against the wisdom of everbody else in the world, that there is actually of merit in Y2. The second event is you joining this forum and saying the same thing, although using very different arguments.

I don't know how it is possible for anybody to say the kind of things you two are saying when considering Nick Tate's reflections over the kind of dilemmas Gerry Anderson was facing: "ITC came to Gerry late and said, "Look - as you know, we're not going to go ahead with this series the way it was. But we've decided we will do a new version of the series - but we have to do it our way. We'll send out a man to you who will take over and show you what we want. And these are the things we want..." And they told him and Gerry apparently accepted" (Wood, 2010, 416-7).

Gerry Anderson commented on the situation in the following manner: "I think that if, as a producer, you do exactly what you want to do, it can be said that you're a strong personality, and you know exactly where you're going. Equally, it can be said that you're pigheaded and are totally ignoring the advice of the eople who know the market. I decided that, since I was not in America, I really should take the advice of the people who were there on a day-to-day basis." (Wood, 2010, p. 444)

So, what ITC made Gerry Anderson "an offer he could not refuse" and sent FF to destroy SPACE 1999. Johnny Byrne was suspecting that there was some kind of white washing of money going on here because why else would they deliberately try to destroy a show that had been reaonsably successful. Unfortunately I cannot find on which page in Wood's book Byrne is saying this, but I clearly remember reading it. This, of course, is only the tip of the iceberg as what defines all serious SPACE 1999 literature is a genuine hatred for FF and Y2. It is impossible to understand SPACE 1999 without hating FF and Y2. I think that runs like an echo in your mind if you read any of the books and papers I keep referring to, and the reasons are valid and multitude. Only an idiot could like Y2. That is the message I get when listening to the people who made SPACE 1999.

Nevertheless, I think both you and Liardet are showing us ways to think about SPACE 1999 in new and interesting ways. Liardet makes intellectual arguments, showing how the political essence of SPACE 1999 was mostly contained and even allowed to some extent to develop in the second series, despite the universal agreement that Y2 was crap. You, on the other hand, appeal to kindness and ask us to take another look at episode and question ourselves if we have really understood what they are all about. I like this very much. In fact, I liked the idea so much that I spent last evening watching interviews with Naomi Klein talking about her latest book THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING: CAPITALSM VS. THE CLIMATE as a way of seriously trying to understand what an episode like ALL THAT GLISTERS actually deals with, at the deepest level.

The more I listen to you, Shana, the more you convince me.

October 21, 2019

The most common thing other groups are doing is to make a new one on groups.io. The messages here can be saved different ways, either by having groups.io do it (they do charge a fee), by using an app somebody sells, or by using an extension for the Chrome browser. I used the Chrome extension and saved several groups so far.

---In [email protected], <atd1999@...> wrote :

Hi all,

In case you haven't heard, Yahoo!Groups is essentially shutting down starting October 28. You can keep your "stuff" by checking out the following information from Yahoo!

https://help.yahoo.com/kb/groups/SLN31010.html

It seems we can still communicate on here via email but I guess the site will be severely restricted after December.

As a reminder, we have an ongoing Facebook group here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/936597043119723/

or search for "Space:1999 - Online Alpha" on Facebook - there are several Space:1999 groups on Facebook to join.

It has been a fun 20 years!

1999 Lives (on Facebook), Anthony