The Production Guide
Titles and Credits
by Martin Willey

The music makes impressive announcements as we see the first four shots, initially slow, grand, imposing. First we see Koenig, from chest up, standing on the right of the screen. His arms are folded as he stands before a white background, next to the caption (in black text) "starring Martin Landau".He turns his head to look to his right

A matched shot of Helena, again from chest up. She is against a black background, on the left of the screen, and facing the left. She turns her whole body towards us. The caption (in white text) reads "starring Barbara Bain".

A wide shot of Moonbase Alpha, with a blue planet hanging in space over it, in the top right of the screen. The series title, "Space: 1999", in its sloping logo, appears in white over the Moonbase.

An Eagle hangs in space, spinning round: from a front view of its underside it turns to present its port side to us, dropping its nose. The music marks a tense note.

We cut to a more distant shot of the Eagle over the lunar surface, turning and dropping rapidly down. The music sweeps down. The Eagle falls to the ground and explodes in a large detonation.

There are four nuclear waste mounds on the lunar surface on the right (part of NDA 1). The scene was shot as Koenig's crash by NDA 1 in Breakaway.

The music becomes a fast paced rock theme. We see a rapid succession of clips from this week's episode. We glimpse the most action filled scenes, impressive visual effects and characters in tense poses (see sequence for each episode). These clips are interrupted briefly at two intervals by captions, in yellow lettering against a plain blue background, saying "This Episode". In "Breakaway" the caption is in lowercase ("this episode") against a black background. In End Of Eternity the caption is also on a black background, but with uppercase initial letters. In the 2005 version, all episodes have the standard blue background. This caption appears first after about 5 clips, then again after another 15 or so. About 17 more clips appear after the last caption.

The year 1 trailers for all episodes have an uppercase initial letter.

The pace slows for three more slow, grand shots. First is the caption "also starring Barry Morse". For the first four episodes ("Breakaway", "Matter Of Life And Death", "Black Sun" and "Ring Around The Moon"), this appears over a space scene. The large thin crescent of the Moon moves into the picture from left, with a smaller world appearing as a thin crescent beyond. The credit appears top right, and to the bottom right is a bright red star or nebula.

For the remaining episodes of the series, we see Victor moving into view from left, looking at the out of focus crystal ball-like transparent instrument sphere in the foreground. The instrument can also be seen in Alpha Child (and this title shot was filmed on Monday, 15th July 1974, during the filming of that episode).

The caption "producer Sylvia Anderson" appears bottom left in this space scene. Streaks of stars are seen top left and bottom right, with the crescent of a small planet in the centre of the screen. A large blue world is top right.

The caption "executive producer Gerry Anderson" appears at the bottom of the screen, over the hemisphere of a large red planet, slowly rolling towards us. Top left and beyond is the large hemisphere of the Moon (part of an astronomical photograph of the real Moon, showing the Mare Imbrium, Mare Frigoris and the crater Plato). Top right is seen a bright nebula and the indistinct form of a dark blue planet.

The pace increases again, with three caption shots seen in rapid succession: "September", "13th", "1999". The numbers appear very large. Again, in Breakaway, this is yellow on black; otherwise it is yellow lettering against a plain blue background. In the 2005 version, all episodes have the standard blue background.

We are shown scenes from "Breakaway". First, the lunar surface, as a series of explosions detonate with increasing ferocity as they approach the camera.

A wide shot of the Moonbase, as a white glow rises like the hemisphere of a sun over the mountains beyond, filling the screen with light.

First of three very brief and confused shots of the interior of Main Mission, as staff are thrown by the shockwaves. Left are computer panels (under the Big Screen), right is the arch into Main Mission, as Victor grabs the corner of the arch to stop himself being thrown to the right.

Brief and very confused shot pans from drawing board (this is the Technical Section as seen in Breakaway) past window to an Alphan falling to the ground, as other objects fall around.

On the balcony, a technician falls backwards from the railing, top left, towards the large windows beyond.

Wide shot of Moonbase Alpha as it descends in the picture; the Earth stays still in space at the top of the picture. (The mountains are revealed to be a series of flat cut outs as the perspective changes).

Brief and confused close up of a computer panel explosion in Main Mission (a screen shows static).

A brief out of focus shot of sparks in foreground; beyond we can see Paul Morrow lying on the Main Mission steps.

The Earth is seen in first quarter, in the upper right of the picture. Left is the Moon, large and also in first quarter, moving left and towards camera.

Fade out