Catacombs Reference LibraryMind-boggling science fiction is high on popularity charts
Catacombs Reference LibraryThe MacGregor Herald, Manitoba, Canada, 29 December 1976
Barbara Bain. Martin Landau, Catherine Schell and a battery of mind-boggling special effects take viewers beyond reality to a world of science fiction in the space adventure series Space 1999.
In its second year on television, but its first on the full CBC-TV network, Space 1999 has already achieved worldwide popularity. Intended for a family audience, it is seen on channel six Saturday afternoons at 5 p.m.
Besides dazzling new effects. Space 1999 promises out-of-this-world music, sci-fi high fashion and incredible characters — including Maya, the resident alien.
Played by Catherine Schell (star of the Return of the Pink Panther), Maya possesses the power of molecular transformation — she’ll become a lioness, a panther, a tigress, a human being or beings never imagined — and — a computer brain that defies explanation.
Barbara Bain and Martin Landau lead the way into life or death suspense situations where fast action is the keynote, while human emotion is the propelling force.
Producer-writer Fred Freiberger, whose credits include Star Trek, Ben Casey, Petrocelli and 13 feature films heads Space 1999’s stable of talented science fiction writers who promise thrills and sheer excitement.
Space 1999 is produced in England by the Independent Television Corporation, with Jerry Anderson [sic] as executive producer. Special effects are designed and directed by Brian Johnson. It claims to be the most widely-sold first- run series throughout the world and in its first season (last year) some 300.000 fan letters were received by ITC from viewers. Fan clubs are springing up.
The popular response to the program is in direct correlation with the immense popularity of the Star Trek series, which is still shown on several Canadian stations.
The cast members in Space 1999 fly through space in a space module designed to keep them at an optimum level of well-being. Threats designed to their safety occur in the guise of natural disasters or supernatural beings who invade their territory.
Some of these aliens they meet in the course of their travels are friendly, others are definitely hostile. Almost all of them possess certain powers unknown to man. owing to their advanced technological skills.
The Space 1999ers have technological skills themselves that astound 1976 viewers. But they have a hard time combating enemy infiltrators who can wound with a glance or kill by a move of the arm.
The outstanding concern, of course, is to maintain the life-sustaining machine aboard ship . . and their life is never fully assured while flying though the infinite reaches of the sky.
Barbara Bain and Martin Landau, the leaders aboard ship, will be remembered for their earlier starring roles in the series “Mission Impossible"