ALAN CARTER — CHIEF EAGLE PILOT

THE ANDERSON COLLECTION (MASTER REPLICAS)

In the ‘60s, producer Gerry Anderson made his name in TV with his “Supermarionation” shows, most famously Thunderbirds, which made use of advanced marionette-style puppets to tell generally kid-oriented adventure stories.  By the end of the decade, Supermarionation was winding down, and Anderson moved into live action shows aimed at a slightly older audience.  His first fully live-action show was UFO, released in 1970 with a single 26 episode season.  Success of the show in US-based syndication led to plans for a continuation, but things ultimately shifted, and the second series was scrapped.  Not wishing to lose all the work that had been done, Anderson retooled the concept into a separate show, Space: 1999.  Set in the far off year of 1999, the show followed the residents of Moonbase Alpha after a cataclysmic event shot the Moon out of Earth’s orbit and hurtling through the cosmos.  Space: 1999’s first season was rather high concept, and deeply pondering of the human condition and what exactly “survival” was.  So, of course, the second season ditched a bunch of the cast, and made it a fun romp through space, with all sorts of zany adventures and antics, and ended every episode with a sly wink to the audience and a borderline “everyone laughs” ending (I say this, by the way, as someone who is a staunch defender of the show’s second season).  One of the show’s breakout characters was Chief Eagle Pilot Alan Carter.  Actor Nick Tate was originally brought in to play a one-off pilot in the show’s…pilot, but the producers were impressed with him and created a larger role, eventually bumping him up to series regular.  Tate wasn’t originally coming back for the second season, but he was receiving the most fan mail of all the actors, and Alan was a favorite character of one of the producers’ daughters, so they kept him on the show.  And also he got some action figures!  Alright!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Alan Carter is part of Collection 2 of Master Replicas’ The Anderson Collection, a comprehensive line covering several of Anderson’s projects.  Alan is the line’s second Space: 1999 figure, following up on the John Koenig figure released in the first collection.  He’s a Season 1 Alan, sporting his standard Moonbase uniform, sans any space or planet exploring gear.  The figure stands just shy of 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  The line is *supposedly* 1/18 scale, but generally trends a bit smaller, so Alan’s the slightest bit under-scaled, especially when compared to the likes of, say modern, or even ‘90s era Star Wars.  Compared to vintage stuff, he scales a little more favorably, though, as you can see from the photo with Han.  The sculpt is sort of trying to thread the needle between proper vintage figure and modern detailing, and I think it does that pretty well.  The proportions are generally well balanced.  His torso’s slightly boxy, but the limbs are more on the natural side.   The outfit’s pretty well detailed, if maybe slightly soft in some sections.  That said, it’s not like the uniforms were exactly crazy textured, so this is about right.  There’s some nice work making the clothes look like they’re hanging on a real person, with folds and wrinkles.  The head sculpt is a strong offering.  There’s a lot of Tate in that sculpt, for sure, and the detailing on the hair is pretty sharp, and finely tuned.  I will say the sculpt is the slightest bit let down by the color work, especially when it comes to the head.  It’s molded in an almost translucent skin tone, and a lot of the sculpted detail is hard to see if you’re not looking closely.  There’s definitely a Tate likeness there, but so many of the smaller details get a little lost.  They do at least offset a little bit with some painted accents, and what’s on the face is pretty clean.  The main body is a little better, mainly focussing on base work.  There’s a little slop on the zippers for mine, especially the one on his arm, but overall, they look pretty good.  Alan is packed with his stun gun and communicator.  Both can be either held or stowed on his belt.  The stun gun seems like it’s maybe a little under-scaled for the line, since it should run the entire length of his fingers.  The sculpted work is good for the size, as are the painted details on both, though.  Alan also includes a clear display stand, which is nice, even though he has very little trouble standing on his own.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Space: 1999 wrapped up 15 years before I was born, so it’s probably a little surprising that I’m into it.  Well, mostly I blame my father, who was a huge fan, and who owned *a lot* of the show on LaserDisc.  Yes, LaserDisc.  I turned 7 in the actual 1999, and by that point, I’d seen most of the show’s run at least in some capacity.  It was certainly enough to identify Alan as my favorite character.  My Dad had the Mattel Eagle, which I would play with from time to time (very gently), but I was always a little bummed by it’s inclusion only of the “main trio” of John, Helena, and Victor.  My Dad and I made plans to properly crew his Mattel Eagle with custom figures made from Power of the Force figures, but it never quite came to fruition.  I did have a bendy Luke Skywalker, which I’d painted the left arm gold on, so that he could be an Alan Carter, and that was really the closest I got for a while.  In 2019, my Dad and I attended Breakaway, a Space: 1999 fan con, where I spent most of my time assuring everyone else there that yes, despite being a good two decades younger than every other person there, I really was there for the Space: 1999 convention.  Nick Tate was in attendance that year as well, so I got to meet the real Alan Carter, which was very exciting for me, and it was also exciting enough for him to meet me, a fan 20 years younger than everyone else there, that when I asked for a photo on my phone, he agreed and then asked if he could take one with his camera as well. Right, where was I going with this?  Well, I’m a big fan of Alan, and I didn’t have a proper figure of him, so when these got shown off, my Dad made sure to order me one.  It’s been a bit of a wait, but he’s here.  He’s not perfect, but he’s really nifty, and checks a lot of boxes for me, and I do like having an Alan Carter action figure, especially at this scale, after all these years.  I sure do like having a nifty Alan Carter figure.