The Catacombs The Production Guide
Martin Landau archives
Guidelines

This document (16 pages plus cover) is undated; there is a later Guidelines (final version) with a date of 3rd September 1973 (20 pages). It was prepared by story consultant George Bellak; associate Christopher Penfold is not mentioned but would have been involved (though the spelling is clearly American, not British).

See also an earlier storyline for the pilot episode, which contains Professor Sabatini, but no female character.

The MTU (later "Eagle") spaceship isn't named, and has an ability to split into mothership and exploration part, which was not developed further. There is no mention of the IDX (later "commlock") either, or the travel tube (which actually dates to earlier concepts).

Character profiles of Koenig and Helena are well developed (and the story of her husband Telford Russell, later Lee, is stated, setting up the second episode).

Professor Danilo Sabatini is recognisably the prototype of Bergman. The Italian nationality is in return for RAI's investment in the series. He was also Sabatini in the pilot storyline which probably pre-dates the Landau/Bain casting. In the Guidelines (final version) he is British and the name is not given. He would be named Bergman in various undated drafts of The Void Ahead (September-October 1973), but he was Penmarric in Art Wallace's Siren Planet script. Barry Morse would be cast in November 1973.

Jim Grayson is a fourth major character, as Alan Carter will become in the series, but the later Guidelines will demote him (and until Nick Tate is cast he will be Italian, Alphonse Catani). Grayson was still named in Art Wallace's Siren Planet script, but was Catani in all versions of Bellak's Void Ahead scripts. The pilot role was also important in early publicity, as "the lieutenant" and "the space captain".

SPACE 1999

GUIDELINES

PRODUCERS

GERRY AND SYLVIA ANDERSON

STORY CONSULTANT

GEORGE BELLAK

Consider that it is the year 1999.

Some years back the major powers or earth, having determined that life exists outside our solar system, have united and created a manned permanent. base on the moon, with the purpose of maintaining surveillance of deep space, and of becoming the first outpost of earth's defense system.

MOON BASE ALPHA the center of our series, is a complex of interconnected command centers, laboratories, and living areas, each building self-contained as to gravity and atmosphere production, and each building linked to the other by a series of "travel tubes" which allow movement from one to another, above ground and within view of the desolate moonscape.

MOON BASE ALPHA is designed to be spectacularly self-sufficient. All of its wastes are re-cycled, its food and water chains are perhaps eighty-percent chemically produced. The rest is supplied by regular space shuttle which goes to and from the earth, bringing replacements, visitors, and personnel. ALPHA is organizationally in constant communication with earth control, is basically under its control, though the operations chief is the moon base commander advised by a council composed of Section Chiefs.

The personnel of MOON BASE ALPHA consists of approximately three hundred men and women, specialists in their field, who have signed on for an eighteen month tour of duty. These people work in one of six sections. Each of these sections has its own building and a commander who takes part in the major decisions affecting the base. The sections are:

MAIN MISSION. The main mission, basically, is the scientific investigation of space and defense of the earth. The Central Control office of MAIN MISSION is the place from which probes are launched, rockets sent off, and communication with the earth maintained. All this is done with the aid of computers, visual equipment, audio equipment, and sophisticated telemetry. The commander of this section is also the commander of the entire moon base. *

MEDICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL M. AND E. (Maintenance and experimentation). This section is charged with the maintenance of the physical and mental health of base personnel. The work also involves medical and psychological experimentation upon all factors affecting people in space. On occasion the head of this section will be called upon to make decisions involving choices of base personnel for specific missions.

TECHNICAL AND ENGINEERING. This section is composed of the lower echelon computer people, rocket people, air people, all the engineering troops who keep the complex machines working.

RECONNAISANCE SECTION. This section consists of space people who make the deep probes into space. They are the spearheads and the chartists for many operations.

SECURITY. This is a composite small force of people trained as security guards for moon base installations. They also, being trained as space arms specialists, form a highly effective mobile force of space soldiers who, when actual warefare is imminent, are in the fore-front.

SERVICE UNIT. These are the people who have the basic working responsibility for the environment of the buildings, the food services and the like.

The living arrangements of the base personnel are somewhat spartan, though exceedingly functional, and resolve themselves into units which are occupied by either a married couple, or a single inhabitant. There are no children at ALPHA; the 18-month tours of duty obviate that.

The base personnel live a structured life. They work for a stated period of time and, if there are not alerts, are on their own for whatever recreation the base affords. These may include all kinds of earth sent and cassette entertainments, such as 3-dimensional film transmissions, holographs, current music, television, etc. It is postulated that within the limits possible, the Earth Command has done all it could to keep moon base life as normal as possible. *

As an instance of the above, personnel take their meals in a very pleasant, though highly automated of restaurant (no restaurant personnel can ever be seen, all of the installations are almost one hundred percent labor—saving, thus eliminating manpower requirements). Since there is no sun, with its healthful rays, upon this base, the medical department has had constructed a gymnasium with very special exercise equipment, and a solarium, with an artificial sun giving off the needed spectrum so that base personnel, sunless though they are, have very healthy looking tans.

The base personnel move through outer space, when they do, in a very advanced space ship, which is a modular unit, capable of converting part of itself into a low-flying vehicle for local, over-the-surface-of-any-planet travel, while the mother ship orbits in space. The mother ship can have as a complement anything up to ten persons with equipment and stores for a comparatively lengthy exploration. *

It should be noted that for story purposes, the main scene playing areas of ALPHA will be

Central Control (full of equipment);

The private office of the base Commander, which is adjacent to Central Control;

The private office of the Head of the Medical Section;

The various offices and labs of the Technical Sections as needed;

The living quarters of the people involved in the stories.

As for moon exteriors, the moonspace, basically, is alike all over, and is reached through various airlock egresses by base personnel when suitably space-suited up so they can survive outside the building environment.

To speak of how futuristic we are going to be for a moment, it might be profitable to indicate that we are striving for a combination of futurism (extrapolation from current knowledge) and a connection with a recognizably human and current reality. By which we mean that when a base spaceman goes to sleep at night, it may be in a very modern shaped, plastic affair which, once into, he switches on his heat light but he sighs with either tiredness or contentment when he does so. There are even certain prior history hangovers possible, such as a drink of scotch every now and then by certain of the older personnel who don't like the taste of the new synthetic brew which is non-alcoholic, but which makes you feel a mellow glow. The key is the combination of startlingly new and comfortingly familiar.

Now, having described, to some extent, the way of the Moon Base Alpha life style, we must immediately state that all of that is true, only for a limited time. Because, in the very first show of the series, the moon will suffer a massive atomic explosion in an unhappily man-made accident. As a result, a chunk of the moon will be ripped off and flung into space, causing the moon itself to go careening out of orbit and headlong into the void, with the moon base. upon it. Communication with earth will be broken and the moon base will be left upon its own to survive, to seek a friendly planet to colonize, and to defend itself against other space-lives, for now they are invading aliens.

We can postulate, by the way, that the very nature of the horrendous accident allows the moon base people to survive somewhat because the crater exposed by the moon chunk being ripped away becomes a source of raw material, necessary to be fashioned into essentials for moon base living.

Despite Alpha's predicament, once the base is stabilized as much as possible, and systems function, perhaps not perfectly but rather well, as much of the pre-explosion flavor as possible is maintained. People still have to eat, work, sleep, and exercise in order to keep going. And so the restaurant, the gym, the solarium, some of the cassettes, the holographs still work. And so a kind of life goes on, even with emergencies. As it always does.

The leading characters in Space 1999 are as follows:

JOHN ROBERT KOENIG John Koenig is not only the American Commander of the moon base, but at forty he is an astrophysicist of very high repute. A man who starting in science when he was only in his teens, John Koenig, product of an old midwestern farming family, went on to M.I.T. an early honors. He became a pilot and an astronaut. His practical and theoretical abilities being recognized, as well as an unquestionable leadership ability, he was responsible for the planning and control of many outstanding space missions, Though something of a maverick, because of his knowledge and abilities, Koenig was asked to help work on Alpha's designs. He did so and was thus, gradually drawn into the project. As we pick ALCOM KOENIG up (Spacesese for Alpha Commander) he has accepted the post of new Base Commander, and is making arrangements to take charge.

In most cases, this will be back story, but it should be kept in mind, for story purposes, that Commander Koenig is faced with crises before he has fully absorbed the ordinary routine of the Moon Base operations

On the personal side, John Koenig is an interesting and somewhat complex man. He has two streaks in him, one, rather ruthless and efficient: the "mind as computer" aspect, and, on the other hand, a moody and introspective strain. Born in 1959, he is not the total space child. He has hade, along with science, more humanities education than some others of his generation. As a matter of fact, he was married for five years to a woman who was a highly gifted artist.

From where John Koenig stood, the marriage was a gratifying one. Not so, for his wife. She had sublimated some of her own life to his, and at this point, decided to do so no longer. John was exceedingly unhappy over this decision, but loved her enough to make the separation an amicable one.

All this was over six years ago, but John Koenig carries the scars with him and holds back at relating deeply to women. As to men, Koenig demands a lot, but he demands a lot of himself.

He isn't fantastically happy with the current 1999 state of humanity, but he has hope for the future, and feels that the human race can only evolve into any kind of ideal state if it goes on an so he is dedicated to its survival.

Still, having said that, it should be understood that he is a man with one foot somewhat in the past and one foot somewhere in the future.

DR. HELENA RUSSELL. Sp. Med. Ast-Psy.

Dr. Helena Russell's cool good looks belie her abilities and her responsibilities. For Dr. Russell is Chief of the Medical Section, and has twenty-five highly skilled medical personnel under her direction and control.

Helena Russell, is a woman in her early thirties (born, say in 1965) whose father was a West Coast physician of great energy and drive. Influenced by her father, and driven by her own achievement mechanism, not to mention the strong feminist liberating movement of the times, Helena drove through Medical School meeting and marrying a fellow student.

The man she married, Telford Russell, moved into space medicine, a rapidly expanding specialty. Helena went along with him. Telford became a medical mission man - going out into space. Helena, now in her late twenties, worked at NASA and delved into space disorientation and psychology, becoming an expert in those areas. Then a mission disappeared into space simply vanished - never heard from again. Telford was on that mission, and Helena, to all intents and purposes, was widowed.

Helena grieved and then went on working and living her full and liberated life. She rose in her profession. One year ago, she was offered the post of Chief of Medical Section on MOON BASE ALPHA and was accepted. Thus, as we pick Dr. Russell up, she has been on ALPHA for twelve months working and living, and to some extent retiring emotionally in that space womb environment.

Helena Russell is a very responsible person, a fine professional, but she is a woman nonetheless. By which we mean that she has her own side, a very feminine side, apart from the somewhat unisexed ambience of the Moonbase.

Helena does holographic sculpture. She likes all kinds of music. She has a flair with her uniforms. She has a certain style. She is, despite the times, an individual and noone forgets that.

In the ongoing series, she may have to test that individuality more than once.

PROFESSOR DANILO SABATINI. As-Phy. *

This interesting and wise Italian astro-physist in his late fifties, comes to Moonbase Alpha as a visitor to take his first look at some of the components a number of his students designed. He remains as an accidental addition to the small colony hurtling through space.

Sabatini, born in the early forties, is a brilliant teacher and theoretician. Rarely involved in worldly things, Sabatini, nonetheless, achieved a reputation as a tremendous mind in Field-Force theory. From his conjectures has come much of the space hardware in current use.

John Koenig was one of Sabatini's outstanding students years ago. Since then, a bond of affection has grown up between them.

Professor Sabatini looks upon his times with a somewhat rueful eye. He is more of a throwback - a nineteenth century scientist - philosopher humanist and he is a counter-balance to the twenty-first century we are about to enter.

J. W. GRAYSON. P.C.1. *

To an extent, Jim Grayson is Professor Sabatini's antithesis. This 26-year-old Britisher, is a Probe Captain, First-Class, a veteran of nine deep space adventures and both a technician and an activist. *

Probe Captain Grayson is the Chief of the elite Reconnaisance Section those men who plan and execute the space probes, the exploration into space, either manned or unmanned. These are the men who are in the forefront of developments and danger. These are the men upon whom, very often, the entire moonbase will depend.

Jim Grayson has an almost unshakeable belief in technology. Born in 1963, he grew up with complicated visuals and mega decibel audio, media mixed and matched. He has been in the program since he was twenty-two, right out of the Technicon.

Highly trained, highly motivated, Jim Grayson is a doer. He has the brashness of youth and the total belief in his mission that only someone his age could have.

With minor exceptions, the characters described above will be our running characters. They must be given two lives one of themselves, and one as cells in a unit involved in a planet- shaking emergency - a life and death struggle: for human survival.

If that can be made to happen, the combination of science-fantasy and reality will have been achieved and deep dimension, as well as gut excitement, will be generated.

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