Victor Bergman

Professor Victor Bergman is the name of a recurring character on the United Kingdom science fiction television series Space: 1999. The role was portrayed by actor Barry Morse.

Character Biography

Victor Bergman was in his late fifties and, after the Moon's breakaway from Earth, served as Moonbase Alpha's lead scientist, and as a close confidant and advisor to Commander John Koenig, with whom he had become acquainted in his university days. The two would forge a lasting friendship.

He is conversant with most of the scientific disciplines, but is also something of a philosopher. A professor of astrophysics, he discovered a tenth planet in Earth's solar system which he would name Ultra and then helped to plan a manned mission to explore the planet. During the Moon's journey through unknown space, he calculated that an unknown space object the Moon was being drawn toward was the first 'black sun' (i.e. black hole) ever witnessed firsthand by man.

His backstory includes the significant detail that he is a Nobel Prize recipient. The framed certificate can be seen hung on the wall of his living quarters/laboratory in early episodes "Matter of Life and Death", "Black Sun", et cetera. In an early draft of "Breakaway", it is stated Bergman was involved in the invention of the artificial gravity system used on Alpha and other Space Commission installations and craft. Another Writers' Guide revelation was that Bergman was a widower and had lost his wife sometime before the series opener, implying that Bergman's presence on Alpha was an escape from Earth and the memories it held. His accent seems to indicate he is a British national, but actor Barry Morse has stated he believes Bergman to be an Austrian of Jewish descent whose family fled Europe and Nazi tyranny in the late 1930s/early 1940s, taking refuge in Great Britain.