The Catacombs Episode Guide

Alien Attack

Destination Moonbase Alpha Film Compilations Film 2 (1979) Journey Through The Black Sun

Compiled From
Breakaway
War Games

Additional Scenes Directed by
Bill Lenny

Additional Scenes Written by
Dennis Spooner
Portugal Ataque Alienígena
Spain Alien Ataca
Italy Attacco Alieno
Germany Alien Attack: Die Ausseridischen schlagen zurück Alien Attack - the extraterrestrials are attacking

Background

Alien Attack
Alien Attack card (293k) Alien Attack front Super Space Theatre Press Kit

Poster

Additional Cast

Chairman Dexter Patrick Allen
Deputy chairman Walsh Weston Gavin
Commander Nardin (uncredited: Narrator) Marc Smith

Additional Sets

Int. International Lunar Finance Commission Boardroom
Ext. New York City at night (establishing shots)

Ext. Building Entrance (establishing shot)

The boardroom decoration includes unpainted Airfix models including a Saturn V rocket, two space shuttles and, on the desk, Starcruiser (an aborted Gerry Anderson project that spawned an Airfix kit). The consoles are old props from Gerry Anderson's 1969 series UFO. Strangely there is an American stars and stripes flag, although this is an "International" organisation with British chairman.

SFX

Alien Attack

Scenes of the Eagle training crash were reversed (left for right) shots from elsewhere in the episode, especially Koenig's crash. (The scenes of Main Mission glimpsed in this segment are also reversed).

Music

Additional library music is sourced from three British composers in the Bruton library. Thanks to Oliver Lomax and Chris Dale.

Changes

  1. An introductory narration. This is reworked from the narration for the film Destination Moonbase Alpha. The narration is spoken by Mark Smith (the voice of the Cloud in Beta Cloud).
  2. Title sequence is made from the "This Episode" clips from Breakaway and War Games, plus a few shots from The Bringers Of Wonder part 1, Missing Link and Black Sun.
  3. An opening sequence in the International Lunar Finance meeting monitoring a Meta Probe pilot training flight. Their Eagle passes Navigation Beacon Delta, then crashes (reversed footage from Koenig's crash plus clips of War Games pilots and pilots during the dispersal of the waste). This is supposedly Warren and Sparkman.
  4. Interval, after Koenig's Eagle crashes over NDA1, with the lunar finance boardroom where the deputy chairman argues that the Meta Probe should be launched immediately but the chairman asserts Koenig will take the decision.
  5. Minor editing in the final scenes of breakaway, removing shots of Roy Dotrice. There are two substitute shots from act 2, one of Helena walking by the desks (flopped left for right), one of Koenig and Bergman (in the NDA 2 depot). One line from Koenig's speech; "...without travel plots," is removed since it is heard over a shot of Simmonds. Thanks David Penn
  6. Interval (after the breakaway and the news cast finishes). The Chairman announces that during the last transmission from Alpha they learned Simmonds had died. They cannot mount a rescue mission but must instead devote their resources to the state of emergency on Earth.

Apart from the above, there were no cuts in the episodes.

The Lunar Commission scenes, filmed especially for this film.
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Continuity

Errors

Narration: "From the very first moment in time when man looked out into the Universe, our galaxy has been dominated by the Moon, the Earth's great natural satellite." Our galaxy contains billions of stars, none of which are dominated by the Moon. It should probably read "our sky has been dominated". It is still far better than the nonsense narration in Destination Moonbase Alpha.

Narration: "The Command Centre, Moon Base Alpha, is a well established colonised space station, regularly monitored and smoothly functioning, its very existence made possible by a specially developed support system fed by nuclear waste from Earth." This is a confusing sentence, probably as it is adapted from the narration in Destination Moonbase Alpha. Command Centre is the control room that replaces Main Mission in Year Two (and not seen in these episodes). According to the rest of the film, nuclear waste is just dumped on the far side of the Moon, not recycled.

Alien Attack

Why is a training flight on the dark side of the Moon being monitored from Earth in an otherwise ordinary office board room? By looking out the curtains the deputy determines they are passing over navigation beacon delta.

Observations

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Mid-town Manhattan, New York, looking south from 42nd Street, late 1970s. The Empire State Building (1931) is on the right in both pictures. In the opening shot, on the left is the skyscraper of 200 Park Avenue (opened 1963, then known as the Pam Am Building; since 1981 the MetLife Building), with the Chrysler Building (1930) partially obscured beyond. Since 2016 One Vanderbilt stands alongside it. The street level view is roughly the same viewpoint, and is from the corner of Bryant Park at Avenue of the Americas/W 42nd Street. At the centre is the American Radiator Building at 40 West 40th Street (opened 1924, then called the American Standard Building; since 2001 the Bryant Park Hotel).

The Blam comic Aftershock (2012) includes more scenes of the Chairman and Deputy in their boardroom, with Simmonds.

Marc Smith was the narrator, appeared on camera, and had worked on the original series, as the voice of the Beta Cloud.

Alien Attack

There is one computer terminal, possibly a DEC VT100 although the dark case is unusual. First produced August 1978, the DEC VT100 was not a computer; it communicated with a host (what is now called a server) to allow data input, via the keyboard, and output, via a character-based screen, the ancestor of the command line windows which all computers still support. More modern versions of it were still in use in 1999.

Alien Attack

An unpainted Airfix Eagle on the table.

Alien Attack

Note the Starcruiser model on the table and Saturn V rocket beyond.

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Contents copyright Martin Willey