I Got It In.

As I mentioned in  my previous post I planned to watch "The Dorcons" for Breakaway Day.  And I did in the last hour of September 13th.  So I watched both the first and last episodes of Space: 1999 on September 13th.

Watching "The Dorcons" the thought came to mind that they're a bit like Stargate: SG1's Goa'uld.  Incredibly dangerous if you face them at a distance, but not so dangerous close in because of their arrogance.  After all the Dorcon ship apparently has no way of tracking down intruders other than having security goons look for them on foot, which implies it's been a long time since anyone has dared to stand up to them.  Especially when you consider that the ship is carrying the equivalent of an emperor.  And Malik, the out and out villain of the episode, almost succeeds because Counselor Varda isn't willing to deal with him as harshly as she should. 

The obvious question is whether the Dorcons would have returned if a Year 3 of the series had been filmed.  After all Maya describes them as the most powerful civilisation in the galaxy.  Apparently there was consideration during the later stages of filming Year 2 that a Maya spinoff series might be developed, and that possibly she wouldn't be seen in Year 3, so perhaps the Dorcons might have shown up in that spinoff.  (The fact the proposed spinoff, and for that matter Year 3 itself, was only supposed to be 13 episodes might have made it a hard sell in the North American market, which expected 24 episodes a season for a drama in those days.)

The episode really doesn't work as a closure to the series.  When filming ended in December of '76 Gerry Anderson and ITC still thought there was a chance of new episodes.  Besides, TV shows weren't as likely to have definite endings in those days as they have in recent years.