While digging around YouTube I came across a TV Show I vaguely remember called ‘Space Maidens’ so I knuckled down to watch a few episodes to refresh my memory. From a brief search I found out it was an Anglo-German production consisting of 13 half-hour episodes aired in 1976.
On the planet Medusa, men know their place, under the boots of the rulers. The woman rule the planet. While the men are kept for doing hard physical work, and providing sexual services to the women, which sounds pretty ok to me if you have the right job.
When a comet hits Medusa, it is thrown out of its own orbit and towards Earth. The leaders want at all cost to avoid contact with Earth where men are seen to be dominant but equal. Although the Medusans had the ability of space travel, they felt no reason to make contact with Earth.
Rumour of Earth and the standing of the male species has reached the outlawed Men’s Liberation Movement of Medusa. A plot to steal a ship to reach earth is under consideration then when two make the break for a ship to reach earth warning bells ring out to the Medusan leadership. Supreme Councillor Fulvia (Judy Geeson) and security chief Octavia (Christiane Krüger) set off for Earth to recapture the two runaways and return them to Medusa.
Contact is now established between the two planets. It is friendly if slightly uneasy and you know the contact between the two worlds will eventually shake Medusan society to its foundations. The action switches back and forth between Earth and Medusa, with a couple of human characters on Medusa and several Medusans on Earth.
Having only seen a few episodes I will seek out more soon hopefully all 13 but I doubt this series will be a shoot ’em up kind of science fiction stuff I normally go for. The models were right out of the school of other British series of the same vintage such as UFO and Space: 1999, but they are imaginative and fun. There have been quite a few films where woman have rule the world but my all-time favourite was one of the serial stories on ‘The Two Ronnie’s’ called ‘The Worm That Turned’. Where woman ruled Britain with men only free in Wales.
There is a lot of eye candy for us fellas back then and it still counts today. Judy Geeson as Fulvia and German actress Christiane Krüger as Octavia both get to wear bizarre makeup and outlandish clothes and to look rather glamorous in a very - very 1970s sort of way. The leading earth women was Lisa Harrow as Dr Liz Becker another of the actress of that time I had a major crush on.
The acting is the biggest surprise in such an obviously low budget program. It is pretty decent, and Geeson (in full-on sex kitten mode) and Krüger are very good. In addition, you get a pre-Blake’s 7 Gareth Thomas. A bit of trivia - Christiane Krüger is the daughter of famed German actor Hardy (The one at got Away) Krüger.
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