Space: 1999 (ITC Entertainment and RAI, 1975-77) is a British science-fiction television series. In the pilot, nuclear waste from Earth stored on the moon explodes in a catastrophic accident on 13 September 1999, knocking the moon out of its orbit and sending it and the 311 inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha hurtling uncontrollably into outer space. The series was the last produced by the partnership of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, famous for the TV series Thunderbirds , Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons , Fireball XL5 , and UFO .
Overview
Space: 1999 drew a great deal of visual inspiration (and technical expertise) from the Stanley Kubrick classic 2001: A Space Odyssey . The show's special effects director Brian Johnson had previously worked on both Thunderbirds (as Brian Johncock) and 2001 .
Space: 1999 is the last in a long line of science-fiction series that the Andersons produced as a working partnership, beginning with Supercar in the early Sixties and including the famed marionette fantasy series Stingray , Fireball XL5 , Thunderbirds , Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons , Joe 90 and The Secret Service , as well as the live-action alien-invasion drama UFO . Space: 1999 owes much of the visual design to pre-production work for the never-made second series of UFO , which would have featured a more extensive Moonbase.
Space: 1999 has since become a cult classic and is available on DVD.
Special effects, set design, costumes and music
The show featured many intricate scale models including the Eagle and the Moon Buggy . Dozens of models for the various alien spaceships, along with the Mark IX Hawk from the "War Games" episode, were built by model maker Martin Bower, who would later also work on Alien (1979), the 1980 production of Flash Gordon , and Outland (1981).
Special effects director Brian Johnson and most of his team went on to work on Ridley Scott's Alien , followed by Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back . Many of the spacecraft were designed around their prescribed functionality rather than being glistening starships, adding a sense of realism that would be replicated in future science-fiction features.
The uniforms for the first season were designed by Rudi Gernreich, while other costumes were designed by production designer Keith Wilson, who was also responsible for set design.The costumes for season 2 were by Emma Porteous. The opening credits for the first season featured a dramatic fanfare composed by Barry Gray, whose scores for the series were his final compositions for Anderson. The second season was scored by composer Derek Wadsworth.
One may note influences of other Anderson shows on the Space: 1999 spacecraft and elements. The cockpit of the Eagle has a slight resemblance to the cockpit of an earlier Anderson Supermarionation series, Fireball XL5 . Thruster and engine sounds also may have had previous use in Fireball XL5 , Thunderbirds , and Captain Scarlet . Lighting effect for Moonbase Alpha may have come from UFO , as did the concept of the elevating spacecraft launchpad.
Format
In common with many Lew Grade presentations vying to break the American market, the first season of Space: 1999 used a teaser intro (sometimes called the cold open) which was popular in U.S. action-adventure series. This was followed by a title sequence that managed to convey prestige for its two main stars Landau and Bain (both separately billed as 'starring'), and give the audience some 30 plus fast cut shots of the forthcoming episode. The second season of the series eliminated this montage. In 2004, American science fiction screenwriter Ronald D. Moore stated that the style of the first season opening credits of Space: 1999 inspired the opening credit sequence for his acclaimed remake of Battlestar Galactica .
Principal cast
The headline stars of Space: 1999 were American actors Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, who were married at the time and had previously appeared together in Mission: Impossible . In an effort to appeal to the huge U.S. television market, perhaps to sell the series to one of the major American networks, Landau and Bain were cast at the insistence of Lew Grade against the strong objections of Sylvia Anderson, who wanted British actors. Also appearing as regular cast members were Barry Morse (as Professor Victor Bergman in the first season) and Catherine Schell (as the alien Maya in the second season). 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, however by the second (transmitted) episode the character had vanished without a trace, only to appear partway through the first season in the episode "Earthbound", his only other appearance on the show (in which the character is permanently written out).
Guest artists
Over the course of its two series the programme featured guest appearances by many notables including Christopher Lee, Joan Collins, Peter Cushing, Judy Geeson, Ian McShane, Leo McKern, Billie Whitelaw, Patrick Troughton, Peter Bowles, Sarah Douglas, David Prowse, Isla Blair, Stuart Damon and Brian Blessed. (Blair, Damon and Blessed each appeared in two different episodes portraying two different characters.)
Catherine Schell had guest-starred as a different character in the Year 1 episode Guardian of Piri before moving into the role of Maya during the second series.
Original broadcast
The series premiered in 1975, although the first episode had actually been filmed in 1973. Live action was filmed at Pinewood Studios and special effects at Bray Studios. There were two seasons of 24 episodes each made by Gerry Anderson for ITC Entertainment. The first season was co-produced by the Italian state broadcaster, RAI. As part of this production agreement, various episodes featured Italian actors in guest-starring roles. In Britain the series was originally seen on ITV stations but was not simulcast nationally until a screening run on BBC2 in 1998/99.
In the U.S., efforts to sell the television series to the major networks failed and as a result it was syndicated to local stations. In the months leading to the beginning of the fall (autumn) 1975 television season (in the U.S., September is traditionally the month in which new TV series begin), Landau and Bain participated in special preview screenings in select cities. Landau is said to have personally contacted editors of the widely read and influential TV Guide magazine in some markets to secure coverage of Space: 1999 in its pages upon learning of ITC's somewhat poor promotional efforts. While most of the U.S. stations that aired Space: 1999 were independent (such as powerful Chicago station WGN-TV, Louisville station WDRB-TV, Los Angeles station KHJ-TV, and New York City's WPIX-TV), a handful were affiliated with the major networks (such as San Francisco's KRON-TV, at the time a strong NBC affiliate, and Fresno's KFSN-TV, at the time a CBS affiliate) and sometimes pre-empted regular network programming to show episodes of the series; most U.S. stations broadcast the episodes in the weekday evening hour just before prime time or on weekends. The series was broadcast in 96 countries, mostly from 1975-79. However, it aired in its entirety in very few countries. Often there were long gaps between first run and rerun or even within first run.
It was shown in Italy as Spazio: 1999 , Argentina, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and France as Cosmos: 1999 , Denmark as Månebase Alpha , Brazil and Portugal (1976 - 1977) as Espaço: 1999 , Germany as Mondbasis Alpha 1 , Sweden as Månbas Alpha , Poland as Kosmos 1999 (1977-1979), Finland as Avaruusasema Alfa , Greece as Διάστημα 1999 , Hungary as Alfa Holdbázis , Spain, Chile, Venezuela, and Colombia as Espacio: 1999 , Mexico as Odisea 1999 , and South Africa as Alpha 1999 , ( 1976, dubbed into Afrikaans).
Countries where the show was popular include Yugoslavia, Poland, Ethiopia, South Africa, Turkey, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Peru, Japan, Malaysia, Canada, Mexico, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. One of the first previews of the series was in Australia on the Seven Network in July 1975, but the station later split the first series into two seasons. The second season was shown in 1979.
In the UK, the episodes of the show's second season were shown sporadically over a period of a couple of years, starting i
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