George didn't have the level of commitment to Gerry and the series that he would expect. For George it was 'another job' and he was still busy writing plays for television in New York and Hollywood. He was living what is actually a very normal life for a freelance writer. Gerry, I think, felt he wasn't giving to 'Space: 1999' the full commitment he expected. I think also that George came to believe that the work he was doing in the United States was more important to him than the work he was doing on 'Space'. I was very sorry to see George go; he was a very humanising influence on the whole production. He was a very imaginative man and a very creative writer. We've kept in touch ever since and he's still a very good friend. He now writes books."    How much creative input did Gerry Anderson actually have to the series?    "Gerry had an incredible capacity for storytelling. He loved telling stories but the problem with Gerry's storytelling was that as Executive Producer, once he'd hit upon a story and convinced himself it was going to work there was very little opportunity for those with him to convince him that maybe it wouldn't work. A lot of the delays we ran into were really delays caused by Gerry's inflexibility over what was often a brilliant story idea. He very often had a mind set which made it impossible for him to accept that in principle something was a good idea but there might be some other way around it. That was often a source of conflict."    "Equally, Gerry was very good when we had those kinds of difficulties in storytelling. He had an ability to cut through a story which had become muddled and inject it with a new sense of purpose. Creatively he was very strong like that. There was an upside and a downside of Gerry's effect on the storytelling."    "I remember Sylvia's input as being largely to do with the way things looked; the style of the series. She did have good contributions to make in story terms but she was never as strong as Gerry in that department. She was very good at enthusing people and encouraging them when difficulties loomed. In actual storytelling terms I don't remember Sylvia's contributions as being terribly significant."    What about the third member of the 'Group Three' production team?    "As I remember, Reg Hill was the person who really systematised the process of making the models for the earlier series. He then became responsible for managing the marketing side of Gerry's business. He had a lot to do with the money side of it but I didn't often come into contact with him myself.

"I remember Martin Landau actually had quite a lot to do with the scripts. He certainly wanted his part to work in terms of character and at least needed to be assured that the scripts were going to work from his point of view. So too did Charles Chricton who was a marvellous director for us to be working with. He was also a marvellous break for Gerry who had enormous respect for Charles. I certainly felt it was a terrific privilege to work with him at that stage in my career. My approach to character was pretty much the same as Charles's."    I asked Christopher to explain why he chose Johnny Byrne, another young writer equally inexperienced with Anderson productions, as script editor.    "My approach to television has always been to try and find new writers and I can't now remember what the impetus was for me to call Johnny. I think it was his 'Play For Today' called 'Season Of The Witch' with Julie Driscoll. I hadn't met him before but I was interested in his work so I contacted him through his agent. Johnny hadn't actually written very much for television but I suppose not had I. I think we both learnt in tandem. Johnny was just one of the writers to start with but he came in from Cambridge where he was living and spent a lot of time at Pinewood. We had an office there where there was space for him to work so he became a kind of staff writer on the first series. He was very valubable."    "In normal terms the role of the script editor is to commission as well as to take the scripts through their various drafts. One of the things that happened very early on was that we were constrained by ITC to use some American writers. Eddie Di Lorenzo was one, and he just happened to be living here so that was convenient. We all got involved in long transatlantic telephone conversations with American writers who had sent in material. We never really had the oppurtunity to sit with them face to face and tell them exactly what the series was about. It was a nightmare. It wasn't really possible for any of us to work in the conventional roles of story consultants and editors. In the end we all became, in effect, staff writers. As this went on Gerry realised this was hopeless as there was neither the resources or the time to bring writers over, or take us over there. So this situation, which I think was largely set up by Abe Mandell (the head of ITC in New York), just wasn't working. In the end we became a combination of staff writers and script editors. Eddie wrote a few, I wrote a few, Johnny wrote a few and even the episodes which people like Anthony Terpiloff wrote contained a

huge amount of rewriting."    What other forms did the influence exerted from New York take?    "It was relentless. Every time an episode was completed in script form it would be shipped off to ITC and they would make their comments. Unfortunately Gerry was very much enthralled to ITC when he felt his relationship with them was threatened. This was where a lot of disputes arose."    With a look of exasperation on his face he describes the often frustrating process of writing for so many 'creative consultants'.    "Often what happened was that we'd finally get a script we were all pleased with. Gerry was pleased with it, Martin was pleased with it and Charles was pleased with it. Off it went to ITC and back it came with comments that just tore at the fundamental structure of the thing. Gerry would say, 'Back to the drawing board...'"    "Even when the first episode was made they came with a car to Pinewood to take it all off. They did a Hollywood preview thing and computerised all the responses. Back came all the audience suggestions which were actually to make it as much like their previously experienced science fiction show as possible. It was very demoralising to have to respond to that. We all felt that sufficient homage had been paid to the requirements of the American market in the way the whole thing had been set up in the first place. We also all felt that the way to succeed in the American market was actually to inject the quality of difference and the originality that we all had to bring to it. It was very dispiriting to feel that time and again when our work was assessed the criterion being used were existing shows of a similar kind. We felt the secret of success was to make it that much different."    He pauses, choosing hes words very carefully. "When people from outside Pinewood started interfering it was a definitely a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. ITC allowed too many fingers to dip into it."    Playing devil's advocate, I argues that surely an American network sale was important to everybody involved.    "Well, 'The Avengers' was an example of British television being sold to the American network. 'The Avengers' was a quintessentially English show and none of them had the courage to accept that the qualities we all had to bring could have provided 'Space: 1999' with the difference that would have given it the network sale. There were key English characters, like the Barry Morse character, which could have been played more English than they were. Having said that, his was the character I was most interested in.

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