Space: 1999

When I was eight, I asked for a Space:1999 Eagle-One Lander for Christmas. It was a massive thing and I wanted it more than I wanted a puppy or even a radio.

We were at Mom's place that holiday and arrived for our stay a few days before Christmas. I was certain that she'd done all her shopping already. I made a quick, discrete search of the apartment and determined that there we no hidden gifts anywhere…
They had to be back in the car.
So I told Mom I'd forgotten something in the Datsun and could I have the keys to go get it? She gave them to me. I went out alone and opened the trunk. To my victorious delight, there it was, still unwrapped. The EAGLE-One Lander of Space:1999 in all its boxed majestic glory!!! Elated, I returned inside.

A few days later, Christmas morning, it was wrapped under the tree. Opening, it was just as I had seen it in the trunk, exactly what I wanted and asked for. And I burst into miserable, confessional tears. I had spoiled the joy of surprise. I already knew what I was getting. I knew what my brother was getting, and Christmas morning was grey and drained of light.

My life doubled in years before I parted with the Eagle-One in a pyrotechnic fireworks battle with the MilleniumFalcon. But the lesson has remained. Since that Christmas day, I never feel the slightest curiosity at the prospect of destroying my own surprises.

Space 1999 - Eagle Transporter

While Space 1999 was often not quite the sum of it's parts, it did have some very good parts. The Eagle Transport was and still is , one of the few really brilliant, functional spaceship designs. Unlike every other spaceship out there, which was designed to look like a derivative of an aeroplane, with nonsensical aerodynamics and streamlining, the Eagle looks like what it is, a whopping great SpaceTruck.
Brian Johnson , it's designer, was one of the key concept guys behind 2001, so had given the realities of living and working in space and low gravity a good deal of though. It shows.
 Since the advent of StarWars and Science-Fantasy , near future hard Sci-Fi has gotten short shrift , which I think is an enormous shame. The very hard and uncompromising challenges of real space exploration are much more compelling to me than zapping bug eyed monsters and half-arsed mysticism.
But 1999 was 12 years ago, so I guess I'm just old fashioned.