Catacombs Credits Guide
Martin Landau

Space: 1999 was an interesting show in that it touched on the Moon being used as a garbage dump for nuclear waste. It was only 25 years into the future when we did it. We are, in fact, ill-equipped to do what we were thrust into on the series. If we wanted to, we couldn't go into deep space with 300 people.

Space: 1999 was a much better show than people realise. We hit some, we missed some, we tried things. I like the first season better - it was truer. They changed it because a bunch of American minds got into the act and decided to do many things they felt were commercial. I think the show's beauty was that it wasn't commercial, it had its own rhythm. I felt the episodes we started with in the first season were much more along the lines I wanted to go. To some extent it was corrupted.

I felt that it would grow. Episodes like Earthbound, Black Sun and War Games were ones with ideas and integrity. I think he brought a much more ordinary, mundane approach to the series. Space: 1999 had a style of its own, a look of its own, a feel of its own, that would have grown if it had been left alone. It needed time and wasn't given that time. They rushed the process. If the format hadn't changed, I know it would have been a hit.