The 8th Series was originally broadcast between the 29th January and 19th February 1979, consisting of 4 episodes making up one story.

With inflation out of control in the late-1970s, the budget was stretched to breaking point, a factor which was constantly on the mind of producer Vic Hughes. A dispute over the allocation of studio days ended the show in 1979 when Hughes attempted to gain an extra studio day for the planned ninth series (which fell victim to the ITV strike that summer) following numerous problems during the production of "War of the Empires" (the sole four-part adventure that made up series 8) which had been given only four days in studio. This was partially due to a very ambitious script that, with its numerous space battles, was heavily influenced by Star Wars. Also by this point, Price had emigrated to America after being headhunted to help set up children's channel Nickelodeon, and Thames was reluctant to carry on without him. However, some of the lead actors were of the opinion that the series was disliked within Thames due to its great success. Whatever the reason, it finally vanished after a short repeat run in early 1980.