Space: 1999 is a British science fiction television programme that ran for two series from 1975 to 1977. It was first telecast on Australia's Channel 7 Melbourne, starting on 28 July 1975.'Beyond the Guidelines', "The Age Green Guide" (TV/Radio guide), The Age, 24 July 1975, p. 1. The programme, set in the year 1999, follows the 311 inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha, which is hurtling uncontrollably into space due to an explosion of nuclear waste stored on the Moon's far side.
Space: 1999 was the final production by the partnership of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and was, at the time, the most expensive series produced for British television, with a combined £6.8 million budget. The first series was co-produced by ITC Entertainment and Italian broadcaster RAI, while the second was produced solely by ITC.
Storyline
The premise of Space: 1999 centres on the plight of the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha, a scientific research centre located within the crater Plato in the Moon's northern hemisphere. Humanity had been storing its nuclear waste in vast disposal sites on the far side of the Moon, but when an unknown form of "magnetic radiation" is detected, the accumulated waste reaches critical mass and causes a massive thermonuclear explosion on 13 September 1999. The force of the blast propels the Moon like an enormous booster rocket, hurling it out of Earth orbit and into deep space at colossal speed, stranding the 311 personnel stationed on Alpha.Space: 1999 premiere episode, Breakaway
The runaway Moon, in effect, becomes the "spacecraft" on which the protagonists travel, searching for a new home. Not long after leaving Earth's Solar System, the wandering Moon passes through a black hole and later through a couple of "space warps" which push it even further out into the universe. During their interstellar journey, the Alphans encounter an array of alien civilisations, dystopian societies, and mind-bending phenomena previously unseen by humanity. Several episodes of the first series hinted that the Moon's journey was influenced, and perhaps initiated by, a "mysterious unknown force" which was guiding the Alphans toward an ultimate destiny. The second series used simpler action-oriented plots.
The first series of Space: 1999 used a "teaser" introduction, sometimes called a "hook" or "cold open". This was followed by a title sequence that managed to convey prestige for its two main stars, Landau and Bain, both billed as 'starring', and to give the audience some thirty-plus fast-cut shots of the forthcoming episode. This opening sequence also duplicated that of Landau and Bain's previous television series, Mission: Impossible. The second series eliminated this montage. The programme had four ten-to-twelve minute long acts, allowing for commercial breaks in North America. It finished with a short, and, in the second series, often light-hearted epilogue scene.
Cast The headline stars of Space: 1999 were American actors Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, who were married to each other at the time and had previously appeared together in Mission: Impossible. To appeal to the American television market and sell the series to one of the major American networks, Landau and Bain were cast at the insistence of Lew Grade over the objections of Sylvia Anderson, who wanted British actors.
Also appearing as regular cast members were the Canadian-based British actor Barry Morse (as Professor Victor Bergman in the first series) and Hungarian-born, American-raised Catherine Schell, as the alien Maya in the second series. Before moving into the role of Maya during the second series, Catherine Schell had guest-starred as a different character in the Year One episode "Guardian of Piri".
The programme also brought Australian actor Nick Tate to public attention. Roy Dotrice appeared in the first episode as Commissioner Simmonds and at the end of the episode it appeared that he would be a regular character. By the second (transmitted) episode the character vanished, reappearing partway through the first series in the episode "Earthbound", his only other appearance on the show, in which it is implied that he dies from asphyxia inside an alien spacecraft.
Over its two series, the programme featured guest appearances from Christopher Lee, Margaret Leighton, Joan Collins, Jeremy Kemp, Peter Cushing, Judy Geeson, Julian Glover, Ian McShane, Leo McKern, Billie Whitelaw, Richard Johnson, Patrick Troughton, Peter Bowles, Sarah Douglas, David Prowse, Isla Blair, Stuart Damon, Peter Duncan, Lynne Frederick, Vicki Michelle and Brian Blessed. (Blair, Damon and Blessed each appeared in two episodes portraying different characters.)
Main cast list
Actor name Character name and profession Number of episodes Series One Series Two Barbara Bain Dr Helena Russell, head of Medical Section 48 Martin Landau Commander John Koenig, leader of Moonbase Alpha 47 Nick Tate Captain Alan Carter, third in command, chief pilot 45 Zienia Merton Sandra Benes, data analyst 37 Anton Phillips Dr Bob Mathias, deputy medical officer 24 Barry Morse Professor Victor Bergman, science adviser 24 Catherine Schell Servant of the Guardian of Piri (series 1, episode 11)Maya, science officer – a metamorph rescued from planet Psychon (entire series 2) 25 Prentis Hancock Paul Morrow, base second in command and Main Mission controller 23 Clifton Jones David Kano, computer operations officer 23 Tony Anholt Tony Verdeschi: second in command, head of Security, Command Center controller 23 Suzanne Roquette Tanya Alexander, base operations officer 19 John Hug Bill Fraser, Eagle pilot 9 Yasuko Nagazumi Yasko, data analyst 8 Jeffery Kissoon Dr Ben Vincent, deputy medical officer 7 Sam Dastor Dr Ed Spencer, medical officer 3 Alibe Parsons Alibe, data analyst 3
Production
Conception and development Space: 1999 was the last in a long line of science-fiction series that Gerry and Sylvia Anderson produced as a working partnership, beginning with Supercar in the early 1960s. In 1972, Sir Lew Grade, head of ITC Entertainment, proposed financing a second series of the Century 21 production UFO to show-runners Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Grade had one stipulation: the new series would be set primarily on the Moon within the environs of an expanded SHADO Moonbase; the ratings indicated the Moon-centric episodes had proved the most popular with audiences. The Andersons and their team revamped the production, flashing ahead nearly twenty years for UFO: 1999 with Commander Ed Straker and the forces of SHADO fighting their alien foes from a large new Moonbase facility. Space: 1999 owes much of its visual design to pre-production work for the never-made second series of UFO.
Toward the end of its run, UFO experienced a drop in ratings in both the US and the UK; ITC executives in both countries began to question the financial viability of the new series, and support for the project collapsed. In the meantime, production designer Keith Wilson and the art department had made considerable progress in envisioning the look and design of the new series. Their work was shelved for the foreseeable future.Destination: Moonbase Alpha, Telos Publications, 2010
Anderson would not let the project die; he approached Grade's number two in New York, Abe Mandell, with the proposal for taking the research and development done for UFO: 1999 and creating a new science fiction series. Mandell was amenable, but stated he did not want a series set featuring people "having tea in the Midlands" and forbade any Earth-bound settings. Anderson responded that in the series opener, he would "blow up the Earth". Mandell countered that this concept might be off-putting to viewers, to which Anderson replied he would "blow up the Moon".The Making of Space: 1999, Ballantine Books, 1976 The Andersons reworked UFO: 1999 so that the separation of Moon and Earth is caused by a nuclear accident rather than alien involvement.
Group Three Productions, a partnership of the Andersons and production executive Reg Hill, was to produce the series; ITC Entertainment and Italian broadcaster RAI were to provide the funding. Grade, aiming for a US network sale, insisted the series have American leads and employ American writers and directors. George Bellak, a well-known American television writer, was brought on staff. As stated by series writers Christopher Penfold and Johnny Byrne, it was Bellak who created and polished the series' defining concepts. Bellak wrote a ninety-minute opening episode titled "The Void Ahead", which was a close forerunner of "Breakaway". Bellak also set up a writers' guide defining the three leads, the facilities of the Moonbase and potential storylines.
For the lead characters of John Koenig and Helena Russell, Gerry Anderson approached the husband-and-wife acting team of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. Landau and Bain were high-profile stars in America after three years in the popular CBS espionage series Mission: Impossible. Producer Sylvia Anderson would have preferred British lead actors; since Grade insisted on Americans, she would have chosen Robert Culp (star of the 1960s espionage series I Spy) and Katharine Ross (co-star of 1960s blockbuster movies The Graduate and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). Lee H. Katzin, a highly respected American television director with a speciality for pilot episodes, was selected to direct the opening segment and brought into the fold as a primary director for the remainder of the series.
Speaking about the show in 2010, Bain reflected: "We had some very good science fiction people as advisors who knew what they were talking about. For instance, they knew that sound up there wouldn't travel, and it would just be quiet up there. But then we wouldn't have a series, so we couldn't do that. There were various considerations that had to be made, but they were based on what is, or what was, known at the time."
Special effects, design and music The show's vehicles, including the Eagle space shuttle and the Moon Buggy, were represented with a mixture of full-sized props, photographic blow-ups, and detailed scale models. Dozens of models for the various alien spaceships and the Mark IX Hawk from the "War Games" episode were built by model maker Martin Bower.
The programme's special effects director Brian Johnson had previously worked on both Thunderbirds (as Brian Johncock) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Rather than relying on the expensive and time-consuming blue screen process, as for Star Trek, Johnson's team often employed a technique that went back to the earliest days of visual effects: spacecraft and planets would be filmed against black backgrounds, with the camera being rewound for each successive element. As long as the various elements did not overlap, this produced convincing results. In technical terms, the advantage was that all of the elements were recorded on the original negative, as opposed to blue screen, which would have involved several generations of duplication. Another benefit was that the camera's exposed negative contained completed effects thereby avoiding the costs of the blue screen "optical" technique. The disadvantage was that the number of possible angles was more limited. For instance, a spaceship could be seen approaching a planet from the side, but could not move in front of it without the elements overlapping.
Space: 1999 used Pinewood Studios sound-stages L and M. Each studio measures , with a floor-to-grid measurement of . For the first series, Stage L housed the "standing sets"; such as Main Mission, the Eagle interior, the travel tube, and a small section of corridor. Due to the limited studio space, other sets depicting Alpha interiors, such as Medical Centre, were assembled as needed. Stage M was the "swing stage" – used for planet exteriors, spaceship interiors, and whatever else was needed for a given episode.