Catacombs Credits Guide
Sylvia Anderson

Gerry and I had some very bad times and some very good times, all marriages go through that. We were both imaginative people with clever people around us and we came up with Space: 1999, another good idea. The show was certainly the most ambitious thing we'd ever done, the most expensive and brought the most problems too. There was a strike in the middle of it and we had no heat or generators. On the other hand it was exciting and different and we really knew it was going to be something special. Originally, Gerry and I came up with many of the things seen in Space: 1999, in UFO. We were hoping that UFO would go into a second season and then all sorts of things happened and we kind of reworked things and Space: 1999 came into being. I worked with Gerry on that first story with the Moon breaking away from Earth and being shot out into space. I was also the producer of the first season.

I don't think the leads were right. I went out to Hollywood with Gerry and we met a few people, but Martin Landau and Barbara Bain were big names because of Mission: Impossible, and others thought they were right and I was out-voted. I thought they were a little wooden and just not very interesting. I know that when the show was aired, critics said Barbara Bain is just like one of the puppets from Thunderbirds. It was a cheap shot, but I understood what they meant. I wasn't that involved with them off-set. We visited them and they came to our home a few times, but I really just found them to be very different to myself and those who I had worked with earlier. Martin was a bit full of himself and to be honest I just wasn't that impressed with them. I wanted a lead who was a little different, someone who never had all the answers, was often wrong about things and was constantly questioning himself and those around him.

Up on the screen you have Rudi Gernreich's name, but most of the things he suggested were just too outrageous or impractical to be used in the show. Rudi's ideas were there but generally Keith Wilson and I came up with more practical ideas using the basis of what Rudi had offered. Quite often Keith would have to start from scratch and came up with some wonderful designs. Really Rudi was just a name to draw attention to the show. Keith Wilson was a great talent on Space: 1999, coming up with much of what you saw on Moonbase Alpha, all of that white furniture and those panels. The set we had in Pinewood was fantastic, it really was.