A rare behind the scenes shot, with Catherine Schell in the make up chair.		Barbara Bain with hairdresser!
Known Credits Commander John Koenig .................................Martin Landau Dr. Helena Russell.......Barbara Bain Maya......................Catherine Schell Tony Verdeschi.............Tony Anholt Alan Carter......................Nick Tate Sahn..........................Zienia Merton Alibe.........................Alibe Parsons Writer........................Johnny Byrne Executive Producer ................................Gerry Anderson Producer..................Fred Freiberger Special Effects...........Brian Johnson Music....................Derek Wadsworth Costume Designer.....Emma Porteous Background ���In the hiatus between season one and two of Space: 1999, Johnnt Byrne wrote three new scripts, unaware at the time of the changes to be inflicted on the series. American producer Freddie Freiberger took over, introduced a new regular character (the shape-shifting alien Maya), wrote out three first season regulars (Victor Bergman, David Kano and Paul Morrow) and changed the whole flavour of the show. ���Two of Byrne's scripts were rewritten and re-titled: 'The Biological Computer' ultimately became The Metamorph,�the story to introduce Maya. 'The Face of Eden' became the show's penultimate episode, The Immunity Syndrome.�The third story, 'Children of the Gods', was rejected.	���"As a writer you never know if some- thing is good or not because you're too close to these things," Byrne tells TV Zone, "but Gerry [Anderson] said to me that it was one of the best things he'd ever read." ���Sadly this view was not shared by the new man, who was taking Space: 1999 away from the themes that had character- ized the first season. "Freddie didn't like it," he regrets. "I would have loved to have done it, it would have been a smashing episode. To my deep regret I haven't even got a copy of it." ���"It was a very hopeful story," he contin- ues, "but it meant the death of one of the children. It had to be something so recog- nizably human that even an alien would see the universal nature of it." ���Instead, Byrne was commissioned to provide a replacement script that was more in line with the second season's action/ad- venture format. This was 'The Last of the Psychons', which was eventually changed to The Dorcons.�The story focused on Maya's abduction by an alien race; once transplanted in a Dorcon, the brain stem of a Psychon lead to immortality. Maya's brain stem is required for their ailing leader. ���The Dorcons�was the final episode of Space: 1999; the show ceased production after two seasons and forty-eight episodes. However, although The Dorcons�was an enjoyable segment, 'Children of the Gods' would have been a far more fitting end to the show. ���In its own way, it concluded the whole running storyline of Space: 1999; it re- vealed the final fate of the Alphans, and although the colony of three hundred years	time was never actually seen, its ultimate existence confirmed that they would have achieved their mission of finding a new home. ���"I hadn't thought of the," says Byrne. "It would have been an excellent one to end on, but when you're making a programme, you hope that it's never going to end." ������������������Richard Houldsworth Catherine Schell between takes