Space 1999: Space Warp

'Space Warp' is an episode of 'Space 1999' from 1977. It's an interesting one because shape shifting, sideburn lady alien Maya takes centre stage, albeit in a variety of shoddy alter ego transformations.

The action kicks off when Moonbase Alpha, i.e. the Moon with a holiday complex and offices on it that travels from place to place like an interplanetary Littlest Hobo, is sucked into a space warp. This fascinating and completely made up cosmological phenomena is accurately represented by some camera wobble, a ripple effect, and spinning the picture 360 degrees while everyone grabs hold of something and goes 'wooh'. Commander Koeing and Tony Verdeschi are out on an Eagle and become separated from the base, which hurled five light years away by the awesome power of the wobbly, warpy 'wooh' thing.

Maya, for reasons that are never adequately explained but are probably down to her being alien and that, flips out and starts cycling through the various creatures she is able to turn into. For another unexplained reason these creatures are all extremely hostile and desperate to escape Moonbase, and are fully prepared to trash everything and everybody on their way out. 

After a comical forty minutes where stuntmen in adapted gorilla suits and plastic monster heads chuck people about in slow motion, all is resolved happily as Maya calms the fuck down and Koening and Tony make their way home using some robbed alien technology.

Here's a short clip that perhaps sums up how ridiculous this episode is, and what a lot of fun.