Imagine being adrift, or worse -- spinning -- in outer space, with no terra firma to grab a hold of.
The Academy-Award winning film, Gravity (2013) demonstrated quite ably -- and viscerally -- the dangers inherent in space walks, or EVA (extra-vehicular-activity).
Cult-television programming has been doing the same thing since the mid-1960s.
That's when Lost in Space's (1965 -1968) John Robinson (Guy Williams) exited the Jupiter 2 to attempt repairs to the craft near the conclusion of the premiere episode, "The Reluctant Stowaway."
When John became un-tethered, his wife, Maureen (June Lockhart) had to suit up too, and take a dangerous space-walk to rescue him.
Because of its dangers, the space walk is often an act of last resort in TV space dramas.
For instance, the Canadian series The Starlost (1973-1974) also featured one. In the episode "Farthing's Comet," Devon (Keir Dullea) had to leave the Earthship Ark, tethered to a small ship piloted by Rachel and Garth, and conduct repairs on the Ark's reactors. If he wasn't successful in this operation, the giant ship would be pulped in the tail of a comet.
Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Space:1999 (1975 - 1977) featured space walks occasionally, as well.
In the Year One episode "Space Brain," an astronaut named Kelly (Shane Rimmer) exited an Eagle to get a better look at a weird space phenomenon. This turned out to be a bad idea, as the space brain soon took control over his mind.
And in the Year Two story, "The Exiles," Commander Koenig (Martin Landau) and Maya (Catherine Schell) exited their Eagle on a space walk in an attempt to retrieve several small missile-like objects that had unexpectedly taken up orbit around Earth's errant moon.
In Battlestar Galactica (1979 - 1980), a space-walk became necessary for Captain Apollo (Richard Hatch) and Lt. Starbuck (Dirk Benedict) in "Fire in Space," when a huge swath of their battlestar began to burn (in a variation of The Towering Inferno).
Episodes of Firefly (2002) have also featured EVA maneuvers, namely "Objects in Space," which sees a bounty hunter silently and secretly leave his ship in a spacesuit and board Serenity for nefarious purposes.
Meanwhile, Astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browder) performed one of the most dangerous space walks in TV history in the three-part "Look at the Princess" episode, because he did so without benefit of a space suit! Talk about harrowing...this is Event Horizon (1997) territory!
Finally, the TARDIS has often protected the Doctor and his companions on their space walks in the new Doctor Who, as well, negating the requirement for a space suit.
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