Seldom Seen review | ALTERNATIVE 3

America’s going back to outer space! We’re building a launch site on the moon’s dark side and rocketing off to Mars free of Earth’s brawny gravitational pull. It’s happening in YOUR lifetime!

Seriously. Does anyone else remember this?

Welcome back to 2004, can I take your coat? For a myriad of reasons we won’t delve into here, the U.S. government went a little bonkers with its claims of interstellar mastery and promised a feasible, near-future travel solution between here and the Angry Red Planet almost three years ago now. Whether or not you recall it, you know how it turned out – we’re all still here, and aren’t going anywhere special anytime soon. Or are we?

There are some people who will tell you the above is already happening - and has been for some time. Before we were promised fodder for future incarnations of Expedia, the best and brightest from around the globe were being plucked from the work-a-day world and whisked across the cosmos in a last-ditch effort to save some remnant of a global society threatening to collapse under its own diseased, polluted, overpopulated weight. There was even a name for the plan enacted: “Alternative 3.”

The folks at Norwich’s Anglia Television (part of ITV) would tell you something similar, albeit with a reasonably-sized caveat – that it’s not true, and was only intended as part of a large-scale April Fool’s day joke back in 1977. Presented as the concluding episode in the fact-based series “Science Report,” the hour-long segment subtitled “Alternative 3” played straight the above tale of a global conspiracy, hidden behind the sociological phenomena of “brain drain,” which would leave the bulk of us here to rot while our top minds tailgated on the south face of Olympus Monds.

Intended for broadcast on April 1st in 1977 (which the creators believed would help make clear their ruse), “3” didn’t actually air until June 20th of that year due in part to internal issues at Anglia. Retaining “Science Report’s” usual host Tim Brinton and the show’s visual trappings, “3” begins with Brinton informing the viewer his team had set out to produce a program highlighting the on-going “brain drain,” the exodus of mental talent from the UK abroad. What they uncovered through their efforts was unexpected, a frightening possible truth which spanned the globe in its machinations and revealed both a forecast for global doom and radical advancements in space travel technology hidden from the public for years.

While never wholly convincing in its presentation of the “facts” surrounding its central conspiracy, “Alternative 3” remains a snarky, transgressive anachronism that, during its higher points, doles out disinformation with chilly, deadpan aplomb. That the show spawned several books (the author of one sanctioned spin-off would later claim the concept hit upon a sort of “secret truth”) and continues to inspire conspiracy buffs today probably speaks more to elements of that oft-referenced “human condition” than anything the show manages to pull from its hat - still, “Alternative 3” has endured and deserves a fate better than banishment to filmic Purgatory.

What makes “Alternative 3” work is its general precision in adhering to documentary mores. The need to stick to the established “Science Report” model obviously helped keep the presentation of some of the more outlandish material in check, but “3’s” creators should be commended for keeping the story balanced between the realms of science fiction and fact. The cast – actors instead of “Science Report’s” usual correspondents (save for host Brinton) – are all game, though a few of the interview segments go a little over the top. The tonal score (early work from Brian Eno) adds menace in appropriate dosages.

As with most “hoax” pieces (Welles’ “War of the Worlds,” BBC’s “Ghostwatch,” “Without Warning”) it’s difficult to see how anyone could have been snookered into believing what they were seeing / hearing was real. Context aside, what’s presented is simply too outlandish. Still, Anglia was inundated with calls and letters following the broadcast, many demanding clarification about whether what they had seen was real or not. “Alternative 3” lacked the feigned immediacy of some of the above examples, a storytelling element which could help hook less-than-vigilant auds into believing what they’re seeing, but thanks to its place within the “Science Report” cannon, possessed an upfront credibility one-off specials cannot.

Its attachment to an established truth-based series sets “3” aside from other “hoax” pieces, but also raises issues of responsibility / lack thereof with regard to the ways in which such materials are presented. “Ghostwatch” did something similar, populating its tale of a haunted house investigation gone wrong with known TV personalities in recognizable roles, but “3” takes the notion of using familiar elements to lend unfamiliar situations credence degrees further by hijacking the very concept of serialized investigative TV(!). Whether its creators intended the effect or not, this renders “3” a solid, on-target swipe at blind allegiance to visual iconography – be it a face, name, or style of editing or photography. It offers the most unbelievable of tales in the most comfortable of settings, something shown time and again to get the public’s collective goose. The shocking degree of comfort with which we approach media-sanctioned information should be called for what it is as frequently as possible. “Alternative 3” isn’t a socio-psychological watershed and it won’t stem the tide of willful ignorance festering throughout society, but can raise some hackles when considered even in passing.

Due at least in part to its dicey PR history, “Alternative 3” was never re-broadcast after its initial airing. I contacted two individuals at ITV, and neither could find any record of a print still existing in their archives, which bolsters the rumor that the film has actually disappeared from their vaults. The only widely-available copy has taken the form of an nth-generation bootleg. If an original print still exists somewhere, it should be passed into the right hands no questions asked and allowed its day in the sun.

You know, before the sun burns out and we’re all left to fend for ourselves while Stephen Hawking and Dr. Phil get to tear-ass through a Martian canyon in a sweet dune buggy.