“The Bringers of Wonder: Part 2” is episode nineteen of season two of Space: 1999.
In the previous episode, “The Bringers of Wonder: Part 1”, Commander Koenig was seeing the people from Earth as monsters. Dr Russell is wondering if the machine she rigged him up to made him worse.
One of the aliens is looming over Koenig when Maya and Dr Russell enter; they see Dr Shaw. When the Shaw alien leaves, Maya and the doctor show Koenig a recording of the pilot ship. He sees an Eagle. The commander asks Maya what she sees. People from Earth. Koenig hoped her brain was different enough. He sees monsters from a different dimension. Maya says one of them must be wrong. The commander asks if she can accept it could be her. Maya says that would mean everyone else was wrong too.
The commander points out he was the only one rigged up to the machine. Maya admits that it was odd that everyone was someone’s friend. And agrees the aliens could have tapped people’s minds to show them what they were seeing. And projected the images into her head. They may need to be present to influence others. Which could explain a couple of things. Something was presumably on the records that were destroyed by Kander. The commander points out they’ve been in space for generations, in Earth terms. Everyone should be hundreds of years older. Maya says that should have occurred to her. Koenig says the aliens didn’t let it. They can’t tell Tony, but Koenig wants Maya to undergo the same process.
Alan, Bartlett and Ehrlich think they are heading to Earth as those in the Command Centre are listening in. Maya’s treatment has finished, and they look into the corridor. Dr Russell sees Dr Shaw and Sandra’s fiancée. Maya sees monsters. Alan and the others think they have landed in New York City. They are actually at the nuclear waste domes. They take equipment into the monitoring station, thinking it’s a hotel. The aliens say that one of the three will stay at the domes whilst the other two will get the trigger.
There’s only one way to find out what the aliens are up to. So, Maya transforms into one. She overhears them saying they are losing energy but once the trigger is energised, they can eat their fill. The humans will die, but they are so ugly. They realise Maya is not one of them, and though it’s a struggle, she’s able to transform back before any aliens find her in their form.
Maya tells the other two that the aliens need radiation to live; their planet ran out and they’re starving. They need the nuclear waste dumps. Koenig is perfectly happy to let them have the dumps. Except the aliens need to blow them up to feed. They can’t do it themselves, lacking the ability to affect things physically, and need to manipulate the Alphans into doing it for them. Bartlett and Ehrlich are nuclear physicists. Koenig turns on the monitor; he and Maya see the Eagle at the domes. Ehrlich and Alan are getting atomic fuel to blow it up. Koenig orders the entrance to the fuel store locked.
The commander heads for an Eagle, but is confronted by Tony and the Shaw alien, and is stunned when Tony thinks he’s attacking. Koenig is taken back to medical, where Tony has a go at Dr Russell, then leaves, leaving only what proves to be an entirely useless guard.
Commander Koenig, Maya and Dr Russell need to somehow break the Alphans free of the aliens’ influence – and the Alphans could kill them without knowing they’re doing so – and then stop Alan, Bartlett and Ehrlich – who will kill everyone without knowing they are doing so.