The Production GuideScript To Screen: The Lambda Factor
by Martin Willey
The Production GuideVeteran script writer Terrance Dicks pitched the idea for a science fiction ghost story, The Lambda Factor, in one phone call with producer Fred Freiberger. He turned in a script, received the fee, and didn't hear any more until a friend told him he had seen the episode a couple of years later. In most television series, the script editor would ask the writer to produce one or more script rewrites, plus revisions. On Space; 1999 year 2, all that was handled by Freiberger without contacting the original writer.
The script had a particularly colourful set of amendments up to, and during, filming.
On the cast list, the character Harry Garth will be renamed to George Crato in the 27th September blue page line amendments. Most significantly, Alan Carter's name is added by hand; he was not in the original script at all, but the amendments will add him to many scenes, and add the action sequence in Engineering (scenes 17-25), scripted in the 2nd September pink pages and further amended on 27th and 28th blue pages.
This is not an episode with lots of special effects for Bray, and the few shots of the "yellow cloud" are not their best. In the original script it was just the "yellow cloud". In the blue line amendments dated 27th September it is stated "The space cloud will appear as whirling wheel of light sending out long, coloured, transparent streamers." In dialogue, Tony calls it "that whirligig thing". Several episodes had featured space clouds, and now they wanted something visually different. See the SFX storyboard
The SFX script extracts just the effects shots from the shooting script. There is a short action sequence which would have been visually more interesting, which was deleted in the pink pages dated 15th September, and thus not storyboarded or filmed.
The shots, for scene 31 and 32 on page 28 of the original script, show hatches upon on Moonbase Alpha to reveal weapons, which fire up at the cloud. The long shot shows the missiles exploding in the cloud over Alpha. Finally the Big Screen shot, scene 34, shows the cloud completely unaffected.
The sequence was dropped in favour of the sequence with Alan Carter trapped with the atomic motor. Moonbase Alpha has lasers, not missiles, but the concept was exciting.
The Beta Cloud had finished filming on 6th August, the same day as this shooting script was delivered. But that episode when cut together was looking short, and mostly consisted of the monster wandering through Moonbase Alpha. Fortunately the plot also had a space cloud threatening Alpha.
It seems Fred Freiberger took the sequence from The Lambda Factor and greatly expanded it for a new sequence in The Beta Cloud. The additional sequence, scripted on 16th September (the day after writing it out from the Lambda script), featured Tony and Maya directing the Alpha lasers at the cloud, but their efforts are futile. These shots were filmed on 21st and 22nd September, the week before filming Lambda.
"THE LAMBDA FACTOR"
PAGE NO: |
SCENE NO: |
SLATE NO |
|
| 1 | 1 | 1 | EXT. MOONBASE ALPHA Establishing shot of the Base |
| 1 | 3 | 2 | EXT. SPACE SKY The Moon moving through space. Distant stars visible |
| 4 | 9 | 3 | EXT. SPACE SKY The Moon - camera whip pans across space to yellow cloud formation directly in Moon's trajectory. |
| 7 | 13 | 4 | INT COMMAND CENTRE CLOSE ON BIG SCREEN The Space sky - in the distance the yeLLow cloud previsously seen. |
| 21 | 26 | 5 | INT. COMMAND CENTRE CLOSE ON BIG SCREEN The yellow cloud is now very close and covers a substantial part of the screen. |
| 26 | 26 | 6 | EXT. MOONBASE ALPHA The yellow cloud now begins to envelop the Base. |
| 27 | 29 | 7 | INT. COMMAND CENTRE CLOSE ON BIG SCREEN The screen is now completely filled with the yellow cloud |
| 28 | 31 | 8 | EXT. MOONBASE ALPHA Two or three shots Of the Moon surface showing hatches sliding back, weapons emerging. A cross-cut sequence as they blaze away. |
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PAGE NO: |
SCENE NO: |
SLATE NO |
|
| 28 | 32 | 9 | EXT. MOONBASE ALPHA LONG SHOT Moonbase enveloped by the yellow cloud, patches of white light as the missiles explode in the cloud above Alpha |
| 29 | 34 | 10 | INT. COMMAND CENTRE CLOSE ON BIG SCREEN The cloud is there, just as before, quite unaffected. |
| 43 | 41 | 11 | INT. COMMAND CENTRE CLOSE ON BIG SCREEN The screen is still filled with the yellow cloud |
| 45 | 42 | 12 | INT. COMMAND CENTRE CLOSE ON BIG SCREEN The yellow cloud is filling the screen as before. |
| 67 | 67 | 13 | INT. COMMAND CENTRE CLOSE ON BIG SCREEN The yellow cloud has gone. The blackness of space is thickly sprinkled with stars. |
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Copyright Martin Willey. Thanks to Simon Rhodes.