SPACE 1999, MAYA THE METAMORPH
AND THE PROSPECT OF SHAPE-CHANGING 

Before there was Odo of Deep Space 9, the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson series Space 1999 (1975-76) explored the increasingly important story element of shape-changing.  Strictly speaking, even this forward-looking multiform character was not the first of its kind.  For example the 1958  film, I Married a Monster From Outer Space had shown an alien, played by Tom Tryon, who was able to assume the physical shape of a human captive in order to infiltrate and subdue the population of Earth.  How the aliens achieve this is not explained and sometimes appears to be a sensory illusion rather than an organic transformation.  Before this movie, such disguises were only partial.  In John W. Campbell's 1938 short story "Who Goes There?" an otherworldly creature in Antarctica can take on the shape and behavior of victims that it assimilates, yet when the tale was filmed in 1951 as The Thing From Another World, Christian Nyby presented the invader was as a "hominid carrot" that had apparently evolved in an anthropomorphic direction but could not change form.  John Carpenter's 1982 refacciamento of the story returned to the original shape-changing concept and enhanced it by making the intruder at times morph into several life-forms at once.  Another early precedent (1956) can be found in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where interstellar spore creatures in their pod stage can mimic the form of nearby sleeping humans and simultaneously absorb their thoughts.  However, this replication, though organic, does not seem to involve an act of conscious will on the part of the "larval" pod. 

To return to Space 1999, the character of Maya, played by Catherine Schell, represents for perhaps the first time in visual media a true, fully conscious shape shifter, independent of the need for illusion or a specific host to aid the transformation.  Moreover, the writers of Space 1999 insist on providing a back story for this process, since Maya was conceived as a new central character for the second season of the series and appears in almost all 26 episodes. When she appears for the first time in "Metamorph" (Schell had previously had a role in a Season One episode, but not as Maya), she is identified as the daughter of Mentor, a rogue member of the Psychon race.  Unlike her treacherous father, who seeks to lobotomize and enslave the Moon colonists, Maya befriends them and eventually turns away from Mentor (Brian Blessed) to join the wandering Earthlings.  In the course of "Metamorph", she transforms into a lion, dove-like bird, a fierce dog, a gorilla, and (unwillingly) into a weird and powerful hominid. Other animals whose form she assumes in later episodes include a caterpillar, a kestrel, a monkey and a ferret.  These transformations present a bit of a plot hole, since it is not explained how she would know what any of the Earth species look like, unless one assumes that Planet Psychon had exactly the same evolutionary track as Earth.  A deeper plot hole results when she manages to transform her inanimate clothing and other objects, along with her own body.  

It is further revealed in later episodes that Maya's transformations operate due to "molecular transformation," a deliberate process requiring special adaptability and training from a master.  This explanation, which seems plausible enough at first glance, nevertheless presents some problems.  Why break down matter all the way to molecules, when a convincing organic recreation could involve changes strictly on the level of cytology?  A physical copy woes not necessitate reorganization below the level of cells, perhaps even in non-carbon-based life forms.  This is the approach we take in the shape changers in our Forlani Saga universe.  Our characters Kelso and Horse, assume shape changing missions in the service of their masters, the Blynthians.  These adventures, rather like those in the original Mission Impossible television series, involve interventions among other cultures and planetary environments in order to deter activities that are harmful to the interests of the inscrutable Blynthians and the sector they seek to protect and manage.  Kelso and Horse require plans and models of their target identities, as well as time to adapt their own cellular makeup and sometimes implants or other physical adjustments, not unlike the wigs or false noses employed by Jim Phelps and his crew of television spies.  Some of their roles demand behavior that they would naturally find inappropriate or even disgusting, which causes the finicky Kelso a great deal more irritation than his more patient sidekick Horse.  But they are professional shape changers, well rewarded by their bosses for their efforts.  In this sense, we feel that they are descendants more of Philip Marlowe or Archie Goodwin than Maya or even Odo.  Still, we owe a tip of the hat to Maya as a precursor to our own experiments with shape changers.