The Day After Tomorrow: Into Infinity

Scripting Into Infinity

Century 21 issue 11 (Winter 1992) page 12-13

Johnny Byrne discusses his role in the making of an Anderson special. Interview by Marcus Hearn.

Prior to the recent screening of Thunderbirds none of Gerry Anderson's programmes had ever been seen on BBC television. None, that is, except for a fifty-minute television special screened on the 11th. December 1976. Into Infinity featured several familiar names both in front of and behind the lens. The cast included Ed Bishop, Brian Blessed and Nick Tate; the latter two had appeared in the first season of Space: 1999 and were about to feature in the second. The director was the legendary Charles Crichton, a veteran film-maker who by then had directed eight episodes of Space: 1999. Crichton would go on to direct a further six episodes and, more recently, the feature film A Fish Called Wanda. Special effects were handled by Brian Johnson and the programme was produced by Gerry Anderson.

The author of the story, originally titled The Day After Tomorrow in the U.S., was Johnny Byrne. He was no stranger to the operations at Pinewood as he had served as co-script editor on the first season of Space: 1999. I asked him to describe his involvement with Into Infinity, and he took up the story during the filming break of Space: 1999. "I was in Gerry's office one day and the 'phone rang. It was a call from NBC in America. They said, 'We're doing 'Special Treat' - do you have an idea based on the theory of relativity?' Gerry looked at me and I said, 'No problem'. I went into my office and knocked out this thing about how you would demonstrate it in the context of a story."

"It was a little idea about how you would take a group of people in a 'light ship', that is a ship that could travel theoretically at the speed of light. You couldn't send a pilot on his own, you'd have to send all his family because of the time dilation effect. I put the idea in and they said, 'Great, there's the money - go ahead."

"It had to have a basis in scientific fact so I read 'Relativity For The Layman'. However I soon found I was in deep trouble as it really is a terribly difficult subject. I had to go and get the professor of mathematics at Imperial College, John Taylor. He'd written a book about black holes so I asked him to come and bale us out, and he never quite did."

"In a story you can have a Mickey Mouse ending and everything comes right. Once they were in the black hole, which was the whole point of it, you couldn't do that. I had them coming out of a white hole and into another dimension, where other people were living."

The story was shot in July 1975 and remained a one-off, despite hopeful expectations from Gerry Anderson to make a series, and hopeful expectations from the BBC to buy one. Johnny Byrne remembers it as being somewhat less lavish than the programme they had just taken a break from.

"We had a few bits and pieces of sets already so it was all done very cheaply. It could have made a very good, cheap but interesting television series. With hindsight I think it could have combined just about every element of the genre plus one or two others. Even stories about the occult could have been possible with time and space working in such strange combinations." I asked him if he knew why such a promising series didn't in fact materialise.

Well, I think the most important thing that could have stopped it was the fact that Gerry was tied up for the next few years with Space: 1999. I wrote three stories for the new season and then I moved on."

Shortly after the completion of Into Infinity, Fred Freiberger was appointed to the production team of Space: 1999 and meetings to discuss the second season began. The careers of Gerry Anderson and Johnny Byrne were soon to follow separate paths.