“The Troubled Spirit” is episode twenty-two of season one of Space: 1999.
A room of Alphans are listening to a man playing a guitar (Big Jim Sullivan; a noted session musician – the music is used as a soundtrack for the episode). In Hydroponic Unit 2, four people are sat around a table with plants on it, holding hands. One man is sweating and starting to shake as something is happening. An older man comes in and stops whatever is going on, and a wind blows through Alpha. Unusual in a sealed environment. The man is now unconscious.
The doctors wheel the man, Mateo, out. The commander and Victor want to know what happened. They’re told the other three were helping Mateo with his experiment. The older man, Warren, says he warned Mateo. A woman, Laura, tells Warren he had no right to interfere; he could have killed Mateo. Warren tells Koenig he said the experiment was dangerous. Laura says it was scientific, what they were doing. Paul contacts the commander from Main Mission; there was a temperature drop across Alpha originating in that section.
Mateo comes around in medical. Victor tells Koenig that Mateo believes humans can communicate with plants and that’s the aim of his experiment. Victor doesn’t know what happened.
Mateo is explaining to Dr Russell that this was the first time he’d used the mental resources of others. He felt the difference immediately. Laura comes in and startles the doctor. She kisses Mateo and tells him Warren wants to stop the experiments because they are dangerous. Mateo thinks they are only dangerous to Warren’s job. Laura wants him to stop too; she’s scared.
In Main Mission, the commander and Victor are told the temperature drop hasn’t happened again and computer can’t trace the source. Mateo tells Laura he isn’t going to stop. If she won’t help, he’ll do it alone. The doctor comes in to sedate Mateo; he briefly sees a shadowy figure. The doctor leaves and is doing some work when she sees the figure. When the door opens, the figure, who looks to be horribly burnt, raises a hand and causes a wind.
Dr Mathias tells the commander that Mateo is still under sedation and a security man says there’s no-one else in the section. Koenig speaks to Dr Russell, who says she felt the same things that Mateo described he felt during his experiment. David contacts the commander; there was another temperature drop. Victor says the scanner equipment picked up the same wave pattern as the one Mateo uses. The commander tells Warren that Mateo’s work will be temporarily stopped.
Mateo is getting ready to leave medical; he tells the doctor that if their food chain goes, they are finished. His work is important and will increase their margin of survival. It doesn’t sound like he plans to stop. When Mateo enters a transport unit, the door sticks behind him briefly. Then inside the unit, he sees a man’s shadow being cast, but there’s no-one there.
Something is going on. Mateo sees his hand changed so that it looks like the hand of the figure the doctor saw. Mateo wants to continue his experiment, especially after Warren is killed. They may have to continue the experiment, just to find out what happened.