Catacombs Reference LibraryPublicity
26 Half Hours
Catacombs Reference LibraryThis is a very early concept for Space: 1999, from early 1973. There is an earlier version at Marc Martin's UFO series site (also "Advance Program Information") where it was still named "Menace In Space" (working title). In that document, "Space 1999" doesn't appear in the list of possible titles (there are 2 new ones in the list below- Marooned in Space: 1999 and Space Journey: 1999). The leading characters are represented only by one name, ; in the document below, the characters are unnamed, all are men.
There is still a lot of UFO recycled concepts. Abe Mandell's instruction to Gerry Anderson that the series must not be on Earth is underlined here. None of the roles are cast. "The Commander" is recognisably Koenig, but the second lead is "the lieutenant", clearly the ancestor of Carter. The Medical Officer is a man, not a woman. In the earlier document mentioned above, at least the doctor had a name, Dr. Janet Bowman.
Note the target market here is still US syndication (via the prime time access rule)- not US networks (which will come later, when they recruit Landau and Bain).
There is no date, but it is prior to July 1973 when the Landaus were cast, or Bellak recruited to rework the concepts. There is no mention of RAI involvement. A later release promotes the episodes to one hour, while expanding a little on the characters.
Possible Titles
The Intruders
Menace in Space
Space Intruders
Journey Into Space
Marooned in Space: 1999
Outer Space
Space Probe
Space Journey: 1999
Never has the interest in science-fiction entertainment been higher. Books, movies and television programs about space adventure are experiencing tremendous popularity across a wide range of demographics.
ITC's 'everybody-in-the-pool' theory is that the best way to combine story continuity and action is to keep everybody in an action environment. UFO was earthbound and required a full hour for development and narrative form. Our new series is conceived as a half- hour action format and to keep it moving, all the action is far out in space.
Set at the turn of the next century, in 1999, every exciting story depicts an adventure of the colony of earthmen who must wander through the universe on a small world which was once Earth's Moon. All the business is either on this world-ship, on other planets and their ships - and in a varying space/ time continuum.
In the limbo of outer space, limits are set only by the imaginations of the writers, art directors, set designers and other creative people involved in the production.
New hardware and special effects are being created for the new series. Everything about it will literally be new: stories, costumes, props, special effects.
The Moon, blasted out of its Earth orbit, wanders in space. On it are 300 men and women from all the nations of Earth, originally based there to man an early-warning system and to repel invaders. Now they are marooned in space - on a quest for a new planet. Ironically, they are considered the invaders by inhabitants of other planets.
Their conflict is with the life forms encountered on other worlds, with the elements of outer space - and with the problems of sustaining life on their new world as it wanders on its unexpected odyssey across the universe.
Action on SPACE: 1999 will be set away from Moon City as well as in it. Both interior and exterior sets and props will be constructed for scenes on alien planets and ships.
We realize that a successful series must not lock its characters into the same familiar sets week after week and have allocated major budgets to this important aspect of production.
The budget for each half-hour episode is $110,000 to $120,000. Minimum. This is a guarantee.
It reflects the highest budget for a half-hour series ITC has committed in 15 years of production. Sets, props, costumes and the most comprehensive special effects yet mounted for a TV series have been figured into this budget.
In 1999, Earth is threatened by attack from alien worlds. The common enemy unites all the nations of Earth, which sign a treaty suspending domestic hostility. An elite defense force is organized from all countries, and 300 men and women maintain an early-warning system on the Moon.
This system enables them to repulse an alien attack, but not before devastating thermonuclear explosions on the far side of the Moon redistribute critical force-fields. The gravitational relationship of Earth and Moon is abruptly negated and the Moon is violently thrust out of orbit. The 300 men and women on the Earth-outpost find themselves marooned in space!
The Commander of Moonbase becomes, in effect, the head of government of this new world. A council composed of officers, scientists and medical personnel decide that it will be their primary mission to find a way back into Earth's orbital range. Failing this, they must locate a compatible planet on which to settle. In the meantime, they are prepared to continue functioning in outer space the same way they have been functioning in an Earth orbit. Food, air and water recycling installations are powered with atomic and solar energy. All systems necessary for the maintenance of life as it was on Earth are operative - making the Moon totally self-supporting.
The marooned Earthmen begin their fateful journey through the incredible vastness of space. Soon they learn that they are regarded as intruders and considered a menace to the Universe. Suspicious aliens attack and they must match wits and weapons against fantastic life forms found throughout the galaxies on their unexpected odyssey.
Principal leads are THE COMMANDER, THE LIEUTENANT and THE CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER. At least one of these leads will be an American actor of status in U.S. television markets.
The awesome responsibility of commanding Earth's outpost in space was assigned to a leader chosen for his combination of outstanding leadership qualities, superior space knowledge and unequalled administrative ability.
A former test pilot and celebrated astronaut, he won the command over candidates from all nations because their leaders acknowledged that he knew the job better than anyone in the entire world. He is a self-assured career man with the ability to inspire loyalty and fidelity among the elite core of Earthmen on the Moon.
The Commander's right-hand man, he is virile and attractive. Essentially a man of action. The Lieutenant shies away from any permanent attachment to either a desk or a girl. His background is generally similar to that of The Commander, although he is younger and more disposed to action than administration.
A close associate of The Commander, it is the doctor's responsibility to maintain the species of Man on an artificial Earth, marooned in the infinity of space, where the rules of medical science as he has learned them are constantly bent and broken.
All sets, of course, are futuristic. A system of geodesic and other domes has been constructed, both for the maintenance of atmosphere and for protection from the elements. Additional exteriors include domestic and industrial structures, armament and observation equipment. Interiors are highly sophisticated and complex representations of space technology.
The Moon is 2,160 miles in diameter. Control of it as it speeds through space is maintained within a compound about twenty miles square and protected by an elaborate security ring of fences, photoelectric fields and domes. Only top security personnel are permitted within these boundaries, and fewer still within the Commander's Control Sector. Inside the general compound there is a spaceport, with hangers for various lunar craft. There is also a circular metal disc about 30 yards in diameter. This disc is actually an armor-proof cover which opens in sections, like the petals of a flower, to give access to a cylindrical tube leading down to the heart of the H.Q. complex. The only vehicles to land in this cylinder are the fully computer-controlled vertical take-off HOVERHOPPERS, used for local transport. At its base, the cylindrical access tube becomes hexagonal and each of the armored walls protects access to one of the six corridors which lead out like an asterisk from the hexagonal heart.
As the HOVERHOPPER lands it lines up automatically in front of the corridor pre-selected by its passengers. A telescopic metal tube then moves out through the armored wall to the craft. In the door of the tube is a numerical keyboard on which the passengers pick out the appropriate code of the day. If they are code-correct, the door opens and admits them to the corridor they have selected. The master corridor of the six gives access to the Commander's office and the control room.
Access from the corridor is by further key-code and voice-print identification. The office/ control room complex is wedge shaped, the apex of the wedge being the access door from the corridor. On the Commander's desk is a visual display unit on which he can monitor any of the information sources which feed constantly into the control room. He can also communicate direct by videophone with any area of Moon City, and with selected areas of the unsettled parts of the Moon.
For general information he relies on a multitude of computer sources throughout the complex; but he also has in his office a personal Commander's Computer called COMCOM.
This computer complex has been programmed with all possible factors that could affect the Commander's decision-making. In purely technical matters he can 'consult' this computer and get a logical answer which will often form the basis of a decision. It is a machine which he has lived with and fed facts and information; it is a tool which he has himself brilliantly equipped with the data necessary to do his own job efficiently and quickly. With all of Moon City's problems, the buck stops with the Commander and he uses the computer to help him with critical decisions.
The Control Room is the broad end of the wedge and when the Commander has to be directly involved in its activities, the wall behind his desk parts, his chair swings round and he can now look down into the complex area from his high dais. It is the nerve-center of Moon Citys early-warning systems, The Control Room maintains constant surveillance of the space around the Moon via a continuous flow of radar data. The Control Room is a monitoring and communications center as well as the means by which the Commander directs all his forces in action. It is equipped with a multitude of TV monitors, radar scopes, videophones, recorders and other radio and telephone devices. It is manned round the clock by highly trained personnel.
Manned bases have been built outside Moon City to monitor all approaches and give early warning of any unexpected or unauthorized activity in space near the Moon.
The first section of the early warning defense system to go into action is Emergency Base, a complex consisting of control room, living-quarters, leisure sphere and sick-bay. It is manned by Control personnel and a team of pilots who fly the Interceptors. There are launch bays for these craft, and a landing area for lunarcraft. The complex is protected by moon-to-space guided missiles and by the Interceptors.
To take advantage of the early warnings of approaching alien spacecraft, Moon City supports a fleet of single-seater, high speed spaceships designed to intercept and destroy alien bodies in space before they enter the Moon's gravity field. They are equipped with space-to-space rocket missiles and are controlled by a pilot who is directed from Central Control.
Designed for travel over the surface of the Moon, this 'buggy' is used to investigate any activity on the surface of the Moon, including meteorite strikes and other landings.
To combat alien ships that have actually landed on the Moon, there is a fleet of tracked armored vehicles, manned by a crew of two and firing ground-to- ground missiles.
This is the basic rocket vehicle which carries personnel and equipment on short reconnaissance flights and serves as a Skylab for long hauls.
For short-haul personnel transport to and from the H.Q. there is a fleet of these fully automatic computer-controlled, vertical take-off craft. They carry up to four passengers whom they fly into and out of the H.Q. Cylinder, responding to the destination requests which they key into its computer.
For movement of personnel between the H.Q. and various points in Moon City, and for access to vehicles on the spaceport there are fully-automated, underground travel tubes. At H.Q. a passenger gains access to a travel capsule by punching up the correct key-code. Inside the capsule he selects his destination by punching up another numerical code on the capsule key. The capsule is then whistled along the underground tube in a cushion of air.
Science Fiction is a highly specialized genre. For this new series, scripts are being prepared by the leading writers in the field. Here are storylines for the first eight episodes.
The moon soars free of the solar system with 300 men and women - on a desperate odyssey across time and space.
Approaching an alien planet in a far galaxy, the earth men are treated as invaders and met with hostility.
Alien life, bred from a single cell, with a single purpose: destroy the men from earth.
Aliens infiltrate Moon City. Their leader: a female.
A compatible planet seems to be found - but all is not what it seems on the Utopian world.
The Commander's authority is challenged, as an unexpected space hazard threatens to destroy Moon City.
The moon begins to develop into another earth, but there is a serious snag.
Two Earthmen decide to go it alone on an alien planet, with unexpected results.
The problems of personal violence are avoided by placing the concept outside the understanding of the Moonbase personnel, who hold all life sacred. Hurting each other is unthinkable in their society.4
Action, on the other hand, is the major ingredient of the series - and it is not confined to space-ship interiors. Neither are the plots confined to a rigid format. The open-end structure of this outer space series is as limitless as the structure of space itself.
All network standards concerning continuity, violence, sex and other regulatory matters of public responsibility will be complied with to assure that SPACE: 1999 is produced in complete accordance with the NAB Code.
SPACE: 1999 is produced by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. For 12 years, the Andersons have led the way in both television and motion picture production of science fiction film.
Among the Anderson's many credits are two full length feature films:
JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN Universal Pictures
THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO - United Artists Corporation
Television series for ITC include:
UFO
THE PROTECTORS
THUNDERBIRDS
STINGRAY
CAPTAIN SCARLET
FIREBALL XL-5
SUPERCAR
All feature outstanding special-effects and innovative production techniques, many of which have since become standard in the industry.
Because we've been doing it successfully for a dozen years.
Our new science-fiction series will be delivered to a ready-made science- fiction audience by the same team which helped get that audience ready. For the past 12 years, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson have specialized in producing science-fiction movies (UA, Universal) and television series (ITC) - working with a virtual 'repertory company' of special-effects technicians, designers, architects and engineers to achieve some of the most spectacular effects on the screen.
SPACE: 1999 is custom made for U.S. syndication. The new series is the first in fifteen years that ITC has made with the U.S. as its prime market. It was the Prime Time Access Rule that created this marketing decision. And in order to produce prime time quality, ITC has committed network budgets of $110,000 to $120,000 for each episode.
SPACE: 1999 is the only network budgeted, network quality half hour series made for U.S. prime time access periods available for fall start from Independent Television Corporation.
The 8 script titles include one that will survive ("War Games").From the brief descriptions, all may be related to filmed episodes, but equally the plot ideas may be coincidental. Only War Games, The Last Of The Earth Men and A Moon For All Seasons definitely developed into filmed episodes. The last two titles are strangely jokey.
The Last Of The Earth Men Breakaway War Games War Games. The only one with the same title. The Mono Menace Uncertain, but the cell idea may be an ancestor of Space Brain. The Trojans The female leader suggests The Last Enemy. Another Earth The deceptive appearance suggests Matter of Life and Death but it could also be related to Guardian Of Piri. Revolution Sounds similar to The Seance Spectre, but probably no direct connection to the second series episode. A Moon For All Seasons Will become The Last Sunset. Stop The Moon - I Wanna Get Off! Uncertain, but a little similar to The Testament of Arkadia.