"Beyond the Farthest Star" tie-ins

As far as I can remember, "Beyond the Farthest Star" was the first episode I ever saw of this series, back about 1972. Perhaps for this reason, it has always been among my favorites.

Even back then I noticed that the episode bore a resemblance, at least in some ways, to and old Italian Sci-Fi movie called "Planet of the Vampires." In particular, both the episode and the movie involve the protagonists finding and boarding a long-destroyed alien ship and finding the remains of one of that ship's crew, only to find that some malevolent life force is aboard the derelict ship, seeking new victims.

Fast forward seven years, and I'm in a theater watching the then-new movie, "Alien." The crew finds an old alien ship with a dead alien aboard, and find out there is a malevolent force aboard seeing new victims. I've seen this before!

I've seen "Planet of the Vampires" and "It! The Terror From Beyond Space" mentioned as inspirations for "Alien," but I think "Beyond the Farthest Star" belongs on that list, too. I've never seen anything written about this, so I'm curious if anyone out there has made this same connection.



"He was running around like a rooster in a barnyard full of ducks."--Pat Novak