The Production Guide
Script To Screen: Year 2 titles
by Martin Willey

Script To Screen

Early in the development of the second series of Space: 1999, it was decided that Martin Landau would narrate over the standard title sequence, explaining the series concept to new viewers. William Shatner narrated the start of Star Trek ("these are the voyages"); Rod Serling had a similarly famous introduction ("You're travelling through another dimension"); Dragnet had brought the George Fenneman narration from the original radio series to television.

The Biological Computer

The first version is in the script of "The Biological Computer", dated 22nd December 1975. It also appears in "The Biological Computer" dated 5th January 1976, The Exiles dated 8th January 1976

The Metamorph

By 19th January 1976, the re-titled script was called The Metamorph, and trimmed down.

• The date, 13th September 1999, is gone, replaced by the series title "Space 1999", and location, Moonbase Alpha.
• "a hostile galaxy" has became "hostile environments"
• The last line about "the beings on Moonbase Alpha" and "survival" is gone.

One Second of Humanity

A slightly different version appears later, dropping the reference to "Moonbase Alpha", in One Second of Humanity dated 12th February 1976, All That Glisters dated 9th February, Journey To Where dated 18th February and finally The Taybor dated 31st March.

The SFX storyboard, from May 1976, includes this narration ("Maximum time = 15 seconds").

No later scripts (dated April 1976 onwards) included the narration.

On screen typewriter

The Year 2 titles were filmed in April 1976, around the time of The Taybor filming. The narration was replaced by on-screen typewriter text. While typewriter captions were popular in 1970s crime series, Gerry Anderson had previously used something similar in the opening titles of UFO

"Moonbase Alpha" is back, in place of the series title (which appears later). The text is reduced to punchy headline style fragments. The narrative explanations are removed ("Cause - human error" and "Doomed to travel")

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Copyright Martin Willey