Episode 10: ALPHA CHILD
A central element in ALPHA CHILD is how Jarak, the alter ego of di Lorenzo perhaps, is fleeing from rigorously imposed genetic conformity, which was probably another way of describing how he felt Anderson was meddling with his scripts. Jarak then makes an effort of taking over Alpha, wanting to put the psychology and soul of the kind of writing di Lorenzo was contribution to the series into what he perhaps felt was stereotype characters, or at least would soon become much more stereotype as the series continued, and certainly after the demise of di Lorenzo in the SPACE:1999 universe.
Exactly when di Lorenzo was forced to leave SPACE:1999 production does not appear quite certain, ALPHA CHILD exists in at least two drafts, the finally produced version credited to Christopher Penfold only, who was sad to see di Lorenzo leave he explains, although Penfold too seem to have been of the opinion that di Lorenzo wasn't making the sort of contributions that were needed for the show. Anyway, Penfold was the one who had to do most of the rewriting in order to please Gerry Anderson and, perhaps more importantly, the executives of ITC New York.
Di Lorenzo was the second writer forced to leave the premises, George Bellak, who made the original INTO THE VOID script which ended up as the BREAKAWAY pilot, was the first to get uneven with Gerry Anderson, he was not sufficiently committed to the series we are told, meaning that Christopher Penfold would have more to do. During the production of the final episodes, the pressure became to much even for Penfold and he was forced to leave as well, after committing his SPACE BRAIN script.
ALPHA CHILD is a nice final part of the di Lorenzo triology, however, not as obviously or explicitly linked with MISSING LINK, perhaps, as that was a further elaboration of the brilliant RING AROUND THE MOON, but, nevertheless, a very interesting reuse and elaboration of ideas he developed with Mel Wells for LADY FRANKENSTEIN (1972), the Italian made hommage to the Hammer Frankenstein series and profound techno-critisism in the style of Jacques Ellul.
Apparently, for di Lorenzo the whole SPACE: 1999 thing was becoming more and more of a Frankenstein monster, and what really makes ALPHA CHILD excell is how di Lorenzo makes advantage of these frustrations and frictions in an integrated attempt to explain or at least illustrate how modern technological society derides artistic creativity.
If it seemed reasonable to compare Johnny Byrne with radical postmodern thinkers such as Beaudrillard and Lyotard, di Lorenzo seems to a much greater extent to echo the earlier generation of modernists such as Walter Benjamin and T.W. Adorno in his attempts to look for the spirit or aura of art in a modern world. The extremely fine tuned psychology, that make the di Lorenzo contributions so totally fascinating, seem to follow the same path of development as Adorno's negative dialectics, i.e. his elaboration of the differences between science and art, his exhibits of how art must naturally be a part of science, his persistence on using artistic forms in presenting scientific material.
The Frankenstein element in Di Lorenzo's writing is captured nicely in Keith Wilson's choice of costumes as the alien philosopher Jarak appears, apparently greatly inspired by ROCKY HORROR SHOW which was a theatrical success at this time before it got filmed in 1975, around the same time as ALPHA CHILD.
Penfold's philosopher DORZAK ows much to Jarak, I believe, although DORZAK borrows from the Dracula mythology, where di Lorenzo borrows from Frankenstein, in order to investigate use and misuse of power in the 20th century, a la Foucault and perhaps even more Lacan because of the psychological aspects of the script, showing how power and corruptness is a natural consequence of man's need to survive, but this is, of course, another story.
The brillianse of ALPHA CHILD apart, if we ignore the context of how the episode developed, what is it that makes it so fascinating today? What is it's essential message? In a way, on a moral level, ALPHA CHILD does not seem all that different from previous masterpieces such as RING AROUND THE MOON and MISSING LINK, as problems of awareness and selfunderstanding are focal elements.
The joy of the Alphans of being able to live a normal life on Alpha, by having children, is, in a similar way to how related matters are handled in the very interesting LAST SUNSET, soon blown away as they discover that the only kind of children they can breed in this environment are machines and psychopaths. In a way ALPHA CHILD seem to have been a major influence on Byrne's famously unproduced CHILDREN OF THE GODS, which was supposed to have been a highlight of the second series if they had not been forced to work for a new producer who wanted to make his own SPACE:1999 based SCOOBY-DOO and his experience with Saturday morning cartoons than with anything having to do with the original series.
In ALPHA CHILD, however, the Alphans are lost in the world of modernity, symbolised by the rigid command structure and "technical world of Gerry Anderson" as di Lorenzo probably would have put it, although, ironically, far more breathable than what happend when Anderson decided to have other people run the show. While not giving an explicit solution to the problems dealt with in ALPHA CHILD, the point that di Lorenzo seems to be making is that on one hand we are free to live our own free lives, Jarak is giving up on himself in the end, wanting to live a normal life among the Alphans, but on the other hand, society puts restrictions on our lives which puts limits to what we can achieve.
In a way, this ties ALPHA CHILD nicely in with MISSING LINK, the episode more than any other that makes an effort out of discussing intellects vs. emotions from a philosophical point of view, concluding with the perfect ballance of the two being more important than finding either one more important than the other.
At the end of ALPHA CHILD we a nice exchange of words between Helena and John, summarising the episode in the same way that di Lorenzo framed his earlier efforts.
HELENA: "Do you think they gave themselves up?"
KOENIG: "It's a nice thought, Helena. I don't
think they had any choice."