Sanderson holds Koenig and Maya at gunpoint in The Seance Spectre

"Seance Spectre" explored the effects of the long confinement within Alpha's sterile environment.

wrong.
SL: How did the changes in Barbara Bain's
character come about?
FF: When I had spoken on the phone to Bar-
bara, whom I had never met, she was charm-
ing and delightful. I said, "Barbara, why
don't you do that in the series?" Her training
at the Actor's Studio in New York told her:
Be economical, which was all wrong for the
type of show. I tried to give her more to do. I
tried to give her some sense of humor because
she's a natural in social situations. She's sharp.
She knows story and character very well.
Marty [Landau] was a delight, an excellent
actor and fun on the set. . .he tells beautiful
stories. I have great respect for Marty and
Barbara, but I think science-fiction should
have young faces.
SL: Why was the character of Sandra seen
sporadically in Year II?
FF: Zienia Merton, who played Sandra,
wanted more to do and was offered a job
somewhere else, so we lent her out for several
episodes and brought in the character of
Yasko, director Ray Austin's wife. We kept
Nick Tate. Nick was very nervous when Tony
Anholt came in, and always had his agent on
us. We tried to use everybody. The New York
office told us to drop Tate; I said no, it would
be wrong.
SL: Tell us about other changes for 1999's
second year.
FF: We cut down the whole vast control
center. . .cut down the loss of Eagles. I felt if
we were going to use violence of that sort. . .
use it meaningfully. The English, when they
did these shows, desperately wanted to reach
the American market, since that's where all
the money is. And they would interpret "ac-
tion" literally as ation--shooting down a
million Eagles. . .blasting away and doing
wild physical things. . .instead of dramatic
action. . .conflict. These are tough concepts
for them to be able to understand and accept.
SL: Overall, what were the problems with
1999, as you saw them?
FF: They were doing the show as an English
show, where there was no story, with the peo-
ple standing around and talking. They had
good concepts, they have a wonderful charac-
ters, but they kept talking about the same
thing and there was no plot development.
1999 opened extremely well in the United
States and then went right down the tubes.
There was nobody you cared about in the
show. Nobody at all. The people themselves
didn't care about each other. I did a whole
thing where I at least had a scene where some-
body said, "My God! He's gonna be hurt! Is
he dead? Is he alive?" They just didn't do
that.
In the first show I did, I stressed action as
well as character development, along with
strong story content, to prove that 1999 could
stand up to the American concept of what an
action-adventure show should be. Abe Man-
dell was pretty nervous, but we were well-
receivedbythereviewers.Afewofthemsaid,
"Gee, the show is vastly improved, but it's
too late to save it."
SL: Why were there no American guest stars
on 1999?
FF: British union rules. Marty and Barbara
are both Americans. Even when I came over,
they had to get special dispensation for me.
For there to be an American guest star, I
think there would have been big problems
with the unions.
SL: Were you able to use any American
writers?
FF: I was allowed six American writers, but in
answer to your question, no. I didn't want to
work from 3,000 miles away.
SL: Were you getting acceptable scripts from
the British writers?
FF: At the beginning of the season you're
very fussy about scripts, but as the year goes
on and you reach 18 or 20 episodes, the stuff
that looked terrible to you at the beginning
starts to look like pure gold. I would explain
things to the English writers very care-
fully--because I was sensitive to their feel-
ings--how the script should be written for the
American viewer. They were very
cooperative, very creative. There were several
English plot stuctures I came across that I
felt weren't right for us (mostly in terms of
character), for an action-type series. As a tele-
vision series producer, if you do 24 one-hour

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