Breakaway by Big Finish is now available on Spotify. Be sure to tune in!!

Premiered September 13th 2019 and featured the exclusive behind the scenes video at the Breakaway: 2019 convention in Bethlehem, PA USA, this was the beginning of a new journey and somewhat of a reenergizing of the series, but in audio format. Since then, the producers from Big Finish went on to expand the series with “Volume One” and “Earthbound” Both are very popular with Space: 1999 fans old and new. In this article I won’t go into any details leading up to the release of this edition since it’s already been done, but rather some of my thoughts on the series since I had a chance to listen to it once again on a recent road trip. Breakaway is now on Spotify so you can now listen to is whenever you’d like. Fifteen chapters of gripping high quality professional drama that will leave you on the edge of your seat. There might be a spoiler alert or two in this article, so you’ve been warned.

This re-imagining was somewhat of a breath of fresh air and also a bit of a shock. Now, I have seen Breakaway on television umpteenth times (more than than, actually) and know every sequence of the show. It was 52 minutes of awesomeness since I was nine Sept ’75 when I was lucky enough to see if during my television station’s premier (WEAR Channel 3 Pensacola, FL). Sure, I know they would be using new folks to play the characters, and I know they would probably change up the names for others to participate and mix things up, but what I didn’t know was some of the story telling changes.

There was a lot of emphasis on the Metaprobe and some candid story changes that took me off guard. I expected to go into this story already knowing what the story sequences were, but that was a major mistake (and an awesome job Nicholas Briggs threw in there to keep one guessing). Who knew there was the Queller Drive in that probe? Who knew that Carter was going to be the back up of the back up crew.

An interesting dynamic was throwing in some explanation of the original magnetic radiation to “exotic radiation” with some sort of signal coming from Meta, the nuclear waste and the Quellar drive all mixed in to create this wormhole that threw the moon in another part of the galaxy rather than just blowing the moon out of the Earth orbit. It gives new meaning to the Mysterious Unknown Force and opens up the door “are there aliens that are either trying to communicate or just attack the earthlings”? Also bringing in more of a hardcore news press for interviews really hits home in today’s news versus what we experienced in “the news” back in the mid-70’s.

• Mark Bonnar (Commander John Koenig)
• Maria Teresa Creasey (Dr Helena Russell)
• Timothy Bentinck (Commissioner Simmons)
• Clive Hayward (Professor Victor Bergman)
• Susan Hingley (Sandra Benes / Sian Springer / Alpha Computer)
• Glen McCready (Commander Gorsky / Paul Morrow / Alan Carter)
• Amaka Okafor (Dashka Kano)
• Jules de Jongh (Petra Nordstorm)
• Cover Artist: Tom Webster
• Executive Producer: Nicholas Briggs, Jason Haigh-Ellery
• Music: Benji Clifford
• Producer: David Richardson
• Script Editor: Jamie Anderson
• Sound Design: Iain Meadows
• Written by: Nicholas Briggs
• Theme Music by: Barry Gray

There are a number of other dynamic new directions that the writers/producers took Breakaway. For those that love the original 1975 premier, I think you can appreciate these updates in this very well produced audio series. Now you have more of an automated easier access to this audio drama story on Spotify. Tune in Alphans and lets hope to see more streaming access to the newer episodes.