The Rules of Luton

Oh no, here it comes.... the killer absolutely-stationary trees!!!

Fred Frieberger was driving past Luton, well-known London suburb, and thought, what a great name for a planet... never mind that everyone in the London area and maybe all of Britain would have heard of Luton the town. He also came up with the Planet of the Trees idea too, I think. I'll bet the ripoff of Trek's "Arena" was his idea too, and it's not as if he has the right to plagiarize because Trek was his show... Arena was season one, when FF was nowhere near Trek.

Innocence is determined by winning a fight? *** I pictured Landau breaking into song: "I talk to the trees, but they don't listen to me...!!" (From Paint Your Wagon) The vegetation poses no threat. It just sits there. One creeping vine and evidence of an animal skeleton, killed by plants... otherwise the plants are very well-behaved. Koenig and Maya don't even take notice of the trees as they walk past and through them-- I'd feel each one looking at me, and would try to win them over or something. They sit on grass, lean against trees....

Hmmm. WW3 was in 1987. His wife was just like Helena--- well, how fortunate for him that he has Helena as a backup!

In this s2 viewing, I wonder if any s1 event is ever referred to in s2, except for the Moon leaving Earth orbit. Again I suspect s2 is a reboot of s1.

I like the planet suddenly appearing to Tony, almost too late.

End credits: David Jackson as "Alien Strong"? Blake's 7's Gan?! The name Roy Marsden is also very familiar.

Does anyone here know where this was filmed? There's a quarry... used in DW at all, ever?

Very bad and silly episode. I want to hit Fred on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.

According to Martin Willey's wonderful Catacombs site The Rules of Luton was filmed at Black Park near Pinewood Studios and H F Warner Limited landfill site in Knowl Hill, Berkshire. Below picture of how it looks today.

http://www.space1999.net/catacombs/main/pguide/w2locblackpark.html

Indeed - and here is the link for further information, map and pictures - see above.

That gives me an idea. Maybe I can casually suggest next summer to the wife and kids that we drive over there for a picnic as it has lovely scenery, (but with the real hidden reason of then being able to check out the lake which John and Maya swam across, the tree location where Maya tended to Koenig's wounds etc etc).

Great idea.

Black Park's a lovely place - it was used in a lot of ITC shows as a
general lake/woodland setting. I went there last year.

Magnus Greel wrote:Hmmm. WW3 was in 1987. His wife was just like
Helena--- well, how fortunate for him that he has Helena as a backup!

In
this s2 viewing, I wonder if any s1 event is ever referred to in s2,
except for the Moon leaving Earth orbit. Again I suspect s2 is a reboot
of s1.

I tend to agree with that - there's also the fact that they redid some
of the stories, but less successfully. "The Exiles" is
essentially a economy pack version of "End of Eternity"; and "Brian the
Brain" riffs on the basic conceit of "The Infernal Machine".

Oh yeah, the third world war. I really find this
unbelievable. It doesn't seem to fit in with the usual Gerry
Anderson vision of the optimistic technological future. The first
series set-up implies a continuing, developing space programme forging
ahead much faster than we got in reality. To imagine that there
was a nuclear war somewhere in that interval - and that the world
rebuilt so quickly as to have a functioning Moonbase and interplanetary
probes within ten years of the event is ludicrous. Given that
it's generally thought a nuclear war would reduce the civilized nations
back to a near-mediaeval level, not to mention the nuclear winter
effect would barely have passed by then. Even if it were only a
very limited nuclear exchange, I think resources would be diverted into
the efforts to rebuild and recover - the space programme would be a
very low priority in such a circumstance. (Thinking about it, I
don't suppose that the episode actually states for certain that it was
a nuclear war - but it's hard to think of a imagined global war in the
1980s being anything but.)

Thanks 1899, for the link. Comm. Koenig, thanks too, but the photo keeps refusing to load for some reason.

AK-- There's one sense in which the WW3 backstory is pure Gerry Anderson: the theme of racism and of humanity moving past it... unexpectedly fast. In UFO he had Straker talk about racism, in 1980, having "burnt itself out five years ago"...! That was some abrupt, tumultuous, total change humanity suddenly went through in 1975!

You're right though, you don't just bounce back from WW3 like that....

SPACE 1899 wrote:That gives me an idea. Maybe I can casually suggest next summer to the wife and kids that we drive over there for a picnic as it has lovely scenery, (but with the real hidden reason of then being able to check out the lake which John and Maya swam across, the tree location where Maya tended to Koenig's wounds etc etc).

Great idea.

Sounds like a good idea to me. Have been looking up Black Park on the net and it certainly looks like a beautiful place and it's in a beautiful part of the UK. Here's the lake Maya and John swam across.

Nice photo, thanks... my edited-for-commercials tape doesn't even have them swimming at all, I think...

Magnus Greel wrote:Nice photo, thanks... my edited-for-commercials tape doesn't even have them swimming at all, I think...

That's a shame, because, as all you blooper experts out there know, in that scene you can see some random people in canoes in the far distance...

Commander Koenig wrote:

SPACE 1899 wrote:That gives me an idea. Maybe I can casually suggest next summer to the wife and kids that we drive over there for a picnic as it has lovely scenery, (but with the real hidden reason of then being able to check out the lake which John and Maya swam across, the tree location where Maya tended to Koenig's wounds etc etc).

Great idea.

Sounds like a good idea to me. Have been looking up Black Park on the net and it certainly looks like a beautiful place and it's in a beautiful part of the UK. Here's the lake Maya and John swam across.

Hmm, maybe I'll take my swimming shorts when I visit

Nice picture of Black Park.

This might also be of interest:

It's Colmers Hill in Symondsbury, West Dorset. Every time I drive
past here, I feel the urge to shout out: "Cannibals! Murderers!
We are the Judges of Luton!" It drives my girlfriend to
distraction.

Yes, those trees have mean looks on their faces.