While the 1960s gave the world the innovation and brilliance of Star Trek, Doctor Who, and The Outer Limits — along with groundbreaking books like Dune — it wasn’t until the 1970s that all that science fiction truly jumped to the mainstream. Star Trek was largely to thank for this shift; the show hit syndication in the early 1970s after its cancellation in 1969 and spawned a fandom larger than the literary geeky establishment of the time. But what would step into Star Trek’s stylish space boots in the 1970s? By 1977, the answer was clear: Star Wars redefined the mainstream nature of sci-fi forever. But before that, in 1975, one strange series — intentionally or not —briefly became the Star Trek of the 1970s.
That show was Space: 1999, an underrated and odd series that, in some alternate dimension, might have enjoyed a longer run and a larger fandom today. On September 5, 1975, the series blasted the Moon out of Earth’s orbit and briefly ruled sci-fi conversations everywhere.
