 All of Alpha's troubles began when crew members became ill after investigating the dangerous radiation on the dark side of the moon. | |
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have a life-support system, but it doesn't allow for anything extra. We can just about survive!" Sound exciting? It is, especially since Moonbase Alpha is always running into all kinds of strange space beings and environ- ments. "Last season, we got into blinding snowstorms," Barbara Bain said. "We got involved in interplanetary wars. You see, we have no control over the path we're trav- eling, so anything can happen!" Last season, almost everything did! The stories were as far out as the Moonbase. In one show an alien spaceship locked Alpha into an orbit and then stole classified infor- mation from its data banks. In another, a strange force made everyone appear to be duplicated. It was weird, especially when one Moonbase resident became convinced she was living in her own future! Could any of this happen in the real world? Landau thought about the question and then said: "It is possible that we may use the moon as a nuclear waste dump. And the idea of a shuttle bus between the Earth and the moon is really planned. And it is cer- tainly possible that there is life in some form in outer space." |
Barbara Bain agreed. "I think it's ridicu- lously conceited of us to think that we are the only life in the universe. Who's to say that there aren't other beings in totally dif- ferent environments?" "Working on this show has been an in- credible experience," Landau told us. "The scripts make you think, and the producers have spared no expense. We worked for 20 months to make the first 24 shows." (Most TV shows work much faster in order to save money. They do 24 shows in six months.) The expense and work has paid off. Even though Space: 1999 is not on one of the three networks, it is so popular that some- times it has more viewers than the network shows. "There's a worldwide appetite for TV shows that are different," a series spokes- person told us. "That's why we're spending over seven million dollars on shows for next season." It's definitely been an exciting year for Space: 1999. Sure, the folks of Moonbase Alpha have had their share of monsters, dis- asters, interplanetary wars, and such. But for the most part, being marooned in a hit TV series hasn't been such a bad adventure after all! |
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