Catacombs International Guide
Around The World

• Brazil
• Greece
• Angola

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Brazil

by Wilson Maffetano

As far as I can remember, "Space: 1999" was shown here in 1976, Thursday nights at 09:00 PM. All the Year 1 episodes were broadcast twice only. Year 2 was shown some 2 years after that (I'm not sure about this), but under the name "Terror in Space". The "Space: 1999" logo was cut, and a new crude one introduced using that name (in Portuguese: "Terror no Espaço"). If memory serves, Year 2 was also broadcast twice only. After that the series disappeared and was never shown on any TV station again (not even on cable).

Of course, the video market here made available the 4 compilations on VHS sometime in the 1980s, but the videos are rare now. Since the end of the 1990s, all the compilations have been shown on TV cable from time to time.

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Greece

by Leonidas Papadopoulos

ΔΙΑΣΤΗΜΑ 1999 ("Space:1999") was broadcast here in Greece from the Mega TV channel, from early December 1989 to mid July 1990. All 48 episodes were shown but not with the original production order exactly. I don't remember the whole order in which the episodes were shown here, but I do remember that Breakaway and Matter Of Life And Death were the first two. Black Sun wasn't the third episode to be shown, but the last of the first season(24th) before the second season was shown. The Infernal Machine was the 4th episode in broadcast order and Another Time, Another Place was the fifth. I do recall that these two episodes had given me the creeps when I watched them back then. I can't remember the order of the other episodes, but all were shown. I had missed Breakaway at the time it was shown and started watching Space from Matter Of Life And Death and on. But during the Christmas holidays of 1989, Mega channel reran some of the episodes and I could watch Breakaway at last. The show was on every Wednesday at 3 pm and when the second season started, I think it moved to 5pm.

The series was broadcast untouched, with no dubbing (I guess I was one of the lucky ones!) and the original theme music and scenes. No merchandising was sold (not anything that I remember though), but Mega Channel advertised Space almost every day (at least during the first episodes of the first season).

Man, these were the days! I couldn't possibly think that I could spend a week without watching my favourite series and when I lost one first season episode due to school (we had one day at school in the afternoon and it happened to be Wednesday!) and three season two episodes due to summer holidays (we didn't have any TV set back then) I was the saddest boy on Earth. I was 10 years-old in 1989 and was going to the fifth grade of elementary school. At the time I couldn't think of cutting from school to go and watch Space (after all, I was only 10 years-old). During my summer holidays, lasting one month, I would go to a neighbour's house just to watch Space. And they had a colour TV set! We only had b/w TV. Maybe that was part of the magic. With the b/w TV not all things were obvious to the eye, and I had to use my imagination and that was even better from the "obvious".

Anyway, these were the best days of my life. Space had marked my childhood and had universally influenced the way I watched TV.

This is a movie poster for "Κρόνος 1999" ("Kronos 1999" or "Saturn 1999"). Sold on ebay in 2023, it is 40cm x 30cm and identified as from 1978. The poster seller identified it as Destination Moonbase Alpha (1978, directed by Tom Clegg) but the artwork is from posters for the Italian compilation film Spazio 1999 (1975, partially directed by Katzin). It seems more likely it is a Greek version of the Italian film.

The text reads "A fantastic adventure
Packed with
Action - Struggle - Adventure
Directed by Lee Katzin
Kronos 1999
Starring
Martin Landau
Barbara Bain
Address: Ioannis Leontsinis 96 Akadimias (2nd floor)

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Angola

Angola is on the Atlantic coast of southern Africa, and was a colony of Portugal until 1975. The first TV station, and the only one for all of the 20th century, was the state owned TPA, founded just after independence. Broadcasting mainly in Portuguese, it had a close relationship with RTP in Portugal for content. TPA introduced colour TV in 1983. TPA also had a long relationship, starting in the mid-1980s, with Portuguese video production company Telecine, which translated and subtitled many programmes for them.

Space: 1999 was shown as Espaço 1999 in the 1980s, in the original language with Portuguese subtitles. Dates are anecdotal, but the series seems to have started in 1985.

These may have been the colour tapes from RTP in Portugal shown in 1983, with the Year 2 episodes shown in Portugal in 1990 then appearing in Angola in the 1990s. However, we only know that Year Two was shown,

The Portuguese DVD box sets from Prisvideo (2003) were sold in Angola. DVD companies often exported their leftover stock from Portugal to other Portuguese speaking markets.

The Portuguese channel SIC Radical became available in Angola in 2015 and Space: 1999 was shown from 2023.

Thanks António Rodrigues

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