Barbara Bain enjoyed working with Margaret Leighton in Collision Course |
all heading towards the other side of the
studio. The tea trolley had arrived, and we
hadn't seen anything like that before!"
��Another new experience was working
with a large amount of hardware and spe-
cial effects: "We did not see any of the
special effects until they were produced
and edited into the film. We were always
looking up at a blank screen, and then they
were added in. We never knew what we
were looking at. I loved finding out that
there was no point following certain
scientific truths, like the fact that there
would be no sound on the explosions in
space. We tried the effects without
sounds, but it doesn't work -- the
audience is expecting a noise."Grunting Cavewoman
��One of the most bizarre episodes of
Space: 1999 was Full Circle, in which the
inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha revert to
primitives. Having mentioned that she en-
joyed Mission: Impossible because the
lighting showed her at her best, how did
Barbara feel about the unglamorous
aspects of this episode? "I adored the.
They darkened my teeth and matted up my
hair and I ran around in skins. I remember
thinking about eleven o'clock in the
morning that I was shooting a sequence
running out of a cave after lunch, and I
thought I should find some very primal
guttural sound for this creature. I went to
my dressing room overlooking Black Park
and tried out some animal sounds. I don't
know if people were worried about what
was going on in there!"
��The series' strong regular cast was com-
plemented by some very well-known
Opposite page: Barbara Bain in 1999 |
guest stars led by some superb directors.
Was there anybody that Barbars par-
ticularly enjoyed working with? "Mar-
garet Leighton (Arra in Collision Course)
was just wonderful and comes immediate-
ly to mind. Billie Whitelaw (Zamara in
One Moment of Humanity) I had always
admired. John Standing (Jack Tanner in
Death's Other Dominion) was great.
There were a lot of good actors available
because we were filming in London.
��"As for directors, it was absolutely deli-
cious to work with Charles Crichton, who
is a self-appointed oldest, meanest grouch
in the whole world, but is actually a dar-
ling. I was delighted to see him win an
Academy Award nomination for A Fish
Called Wanda. He dates back to the
Ealing days, and it was nice to have a man
of his stature on our set."Season Two
��After completing the first season, the
Landaus returned to America for a short
break before filming commenced on
another batch of twenty-four episodes.
There were some changes in the second
season however: a new producer, the loss
of some regular characters and the addi-
tion of two new face on Moonbase
Alpha. Barbara Bain's feelings echo those
of many viewers: "I wasn't as happy with
the second season. It wasn't as clear for
me what the intent was, and the changes
were cosmetic as opposed to philosophi-
cal. Some of the ideas were good, but
some were not."
��Looking back over the forty-eight
Space: 1999stories, does she have any
favourites? "Certainly The Black Sun,
which wasn't a story I had a major role in,
but it was just lovely where Barry Morse |
|
and Martin turned into old men. I liked
War Games, where I was captured and put
in a glass case. I have them all on tape, but
I don't have access to them at the moment
as I'm in the middle of reconstructiong a
house and they're all boxed up.
��"I think the ratio of good to weaker
scripts was higher on Mission than Space,
but there were still some wonderful ones.
There was some difficulty in the script
writing. English writers are used to writ-
ing a drama that builds and builds and
comes to a peak and a denouement. In
America you have fifty minutes to tell the
story, ten minutes of commercials with a
certain number of breaks, and for each
break you have to have a cliffhanger to
keep the viewers hooked. That wasn't
really understood by some writers, who
resisted the idea of these false cliff-
hangers. I think that is more accepted
now. It was an ongoing problem, and there
were discussions late into the small
hours."
��Were there ever any plans to produce a
third season? "There must have been dis-
cussions, but I don't remember them. We
were in England for four years. We stayed
a little longer than the production lasted,
and I was quite reluctant to leave, but it
was time to move onto something else."
��On her return to America, Barbara did
more television work and a great deal of
theatre: "I returned in really exciting roles.
I hadn't been back to the theatre in a long
time." She is now in a position to pick and
choose what she wants to do, but still finds
time to attend Space: 1999 conventions in
America. Barbara Bain hasn't left the
series behind her just yet...
David RichardsonDr. Helena Russell, always ready for
the unknown...
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