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Mon 20th September 2004, 8pm, Sky One (UK satellite)
Narrator: At five, a character who's changed shape more times than Gerry Halliwell.
[Clip: Dorcon probe fires at Moonbase. Tony: "It's through the shields." ]
Catherine Schell: There was an awful lot of moving and running around in corridors.
[Clip: Alphans running through corridors (earlier in Dorcons), running from fire, Koenig running in Dorcon corridors.]
Catherine Schell: ...sudden ... head turns... (she demonstrates)
[Clips: Maya turns head (Dorcons, Rules Of Luton)]
Catherine Schell: ...meaningful looks...
[Clips: Alan from Space Warp; Koenig, Maya, Helena]
Catherine Schell: I don't know what they were about... but there was a lot of that.
[Clips: Eagle raised on launch pad, year 2 titles from 'Massive Nuclear...']
Comic Book Guy: Space: 1999 is a story of survival. It's a story of human kind working together in an enclosed environment, in this case the Moon, and maybe, just maybe, find a way to return home.
Narrator: Welcome to Moonbase Alpha, the setting for the most expensive sci-fi show of its day.
Gerry Anderson: Whatever I did, my mental pictures cost a fortune to put on to film.
[Clip: Dorcon battleship fires at Moonbase buildings.]
Gerry Anderson (laughs): It's a fault of mine. Every show I ever make is desperately expensive.
[Clips: Maya changes into kestrel (Rules Of Luton), Maya changes into first animal (Space Warp). Eye close-up from Year 2 titles. Soundtrack: A change will do you good, Sheryl Crow.]
Narrator: The residents of Moonbase Alpha were a bunch of Earthlings who were joined in later episodes by a rather attractive shape-shifting alien by the name of Maya.
Catherine Schell: There's not a lot of people who can say that their first entrance into a programme, that they were a lioness. I can.
[Clip: Mentor and lion: 'What do you think of these Alphans, Maya?' Lion changes into Maya.]
Catherine Schell: I remember turning into a mouse.
[Clip: mouse runs by wall, Brian The Brain.]
Catherine Schell: I had quite a good time turning into an ape.
[Clip: Maya/ape throws Koenig away (The Metamorph)]
Catherine Schell: And I absolutely loved being the hawk.
[Clip: Maya/hawk and Koenig struggle (The Metamorph)]
Catherine Schell: The most fun I had was when I turned into Bernard Cribbens.
[Clip: Maya/Capt Michael (Brian The Brain).]
Catherine Schell: Maya had lots of variants on her various travels. And they were usually pretty disgusting, They were usually pretty hideous. They were usually very big ogres.
Dave Prowse (Cloud Creature): They asked me if I would do this episode of Space: 1999. I was playing the creature who was trying to steal the life support from the Eagle, Every stuntman in London verses me.
[Clip: Creature tries to swat bee. Tony runs up and is kicked away.]
Dave Prowse: They burnt me, they electrocuted me, they gassed me, they shot me, They did everything you could possibly think of to try to kill me during this episode.
[Clip: Creature crashes into corridor barrier, Tony, Maya and Fraser run into Life Support.]
Dave Prowse: And eventually Maya turned herself into a bee, flew inside my ear and cross circuited my circuitry.
[Clip: Creature falls over.]
Catherine Schell: The scripts on the whole were fine, they were very good, but there were some very cheesy lines. (Laughs)
[Clip: Maya cries 'Everywhere but on Psychon I'll be an alien.' Koenig: 'We're all aliens. Until we get to know one another.']
Catherine Schell: Yes, I suppose that's pretty cheesy.
[Clip: Maya reverts to herself (outside Koenig's prison, The Metamorph).]
Alistair McGown, TV Historian: I think Maya would have to be the sexiest alien of all time. Is there much competition? No, generally they're all green otherwise.
[Clips: Maya/animal jumps in Dorcon transplant room. Mentor turns to Psyche. Catherine Schell recreates the turn/ close on eye sequence]
Narrator: So it's Maya from Space: 1999 at number five. Sadly she came to an untimely end in a famous episode when she turned into a turkey and was accidentally eaten for Christmas dinner by the rest of the crew.
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