I’m really not sure I understand how the production crew operated at the time of this series.  The first half felt like another excuse to get Commander Belligerent off the station but about half-way through the episode, the focus shifted.  This ends up giving us what feels very much like a double feature but with each episode running about half the time of a normal one.

So the opening shows that a spaceship has appeared out of nowhere which Koenig and Tony go to investigate in case… no idea what the thinking is here but… in case it has something to do with Maya’s sudden fever!  Maya’s sickness has her seeing the destruction of her homeworld over and over and she’s determined to get back to it to save her father (who died in the season 2 opener).  While Koenig and Tony are heading to the spaceship, the moon coasts into a Space Warp sending them 5 lightyears away.  Tony and Koenig are effectively lost.  Even if they could find the opening to the space warp (read: wormhole), they won’t be able to catch up with the moon as it drifts away.

The story around Maya is, unsurprisingly, the interesting one.  Her fever means she’s capable of transforming and going on a rampage, which is exactly what she does.  When her first victim is Helena, who is knocked out cold, no one else on the base realizes the monster running amok is Maya so acting commander Alan Carter issues a kill order.  Helena comes to and confronts Maya with another Emmy worthy performance (he says in jest) by saying “Listen to me” over and over, but not actually saying anything else.  Am I missing something?  Shouldn’t that be followed up with an actual message??  Maya eventually gets into an Eagle but Alan has it lowered into the hanger bay giving us a really good view of the area.  Maya still launches and, unable to go anywhere, the ship flips over and destroys a large part of the hangar bay.  She still manages to get out and escapes onto the surface where Helena and Alan chase her down.  (During an attack, Alan’s helmet visor pops up but I’ll accept that it could be a two-layered thing and the other side stayed intact, or I’d think he’d have died.  Forget the actual production of the show, let’s just stick with in-episode logic here!)  Oh wait.  Right after that, this happens…

We’ve heard in the Arena episode, Rulers of Luxor, that Maya could only hold her shape for 1 hour.  Seems entirely random but when she transforms, her entire cellular structure changes so as she’s on the operating table, no one knows how to operate on her to save her.  I’d have thought that was the same thing even as a Psychon for the very reason that she is able to utterly change her entire physical makeup, down to her mass.  Meanwhile in Admiral Argument’s side of the space warp…

Koenig and Tony find the derelict spaceship and board it in the hopes that it might offer some advice on locating the space warp.  Luckily, another alien race speaks English (albeit in whispers) and labels their records with simple numbers.  They give advice on what has to happen to locate the warp.  Go get this device and hook it up to your ship, then plug in this equation and you’ll be good.  Tony, knowing time is short, reads each number very slowly.  1….2…a…b..  Why he couldn’t say 12a b14, etc is anyone’s guess!  Anyhow, they get through the wormhole and Alpha had sent a resupply ship to meet Koenig; they made it through at the very limit of their ability to catch up.  With their return, Maya’s fever suddenly breaks and she transforms back just before her hour was up.  Literally.

The music in this show is terrible and I think if they had better music, it might have improved the story even if there were some terribly dull moments (mostly around Koenig).  The double feature allowed for one story to be pretty strong making me believe this show would have been superior as a half-hour production.  I’m still very much enjoying my romp through the series because I really have no idea what to expect from episode to episode.  At least this seems to be the furthest out we’ve come chronologically with them; Helena says they are now 1807 days out putting this around August of 2004.  If all the subsequent episodes take place after this point, at least there will be more tension around who might actually be in danger.  Although I suspect, no one was really paying attention at the time so the suspense wanes.  If you really want to see this episode in a condensed and outrageously enjoyable format, check out the youtube link for Space: 1899.  ML