Catacombs Reference Library
100 Years of Science Fiction

• Starlog
• Gerry Anderson's Space Report
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100 Years of Science Fiction is a one-off title from Starlog in 1999 (the cover shown here is the UK edition from Highbury House Communications). It is 84 pages (without adverts). The historical overview is based on reprinted material mostly from the parent magazine, but it also credits Science Fiction Television 1959-1989 by Mark Phillips and Frank Garcia, which is the source of the Space: 1999 entry in the disappointingly brief 4-page British TV section.

Space: 1999 premiered in 1975, in the midst of an SF drought on television. The show's FX were spectacular, but they didn't assuage critics, who found the series' premise ridiculous. The storyline had the moon blasted out of Earth's orbit on September 13, 1999 by nuclear explosions, sending it (and Moonbase Alpha) hurtling through space.

Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, the British creators of Thunderbirds and UFO, made Space: 1999 a success during its first year, but it was decided that the show needed a new look. ITC Entertainment approached American writer Allan Balter to produce the second year. Balter, a former Mission: Impossible writer, declined. "Abe Mandell, president of ITC, asked Balter if he had any suggestions as to how to improve the series," recalls producer Fred Freiberger. "And Allan replied, 'Yes. Fire Martin Landau and Barbara Bain!' "

Freiberger, who reluctantly agreed to produce year two, adds, "Mandell suggested I keep Landau and Bain in the background and go heavy with the supporting characters. I told him, 'Either fire Landau and Bain or let me handle them as stars.'"

They were kept as leads. "I tried to put more humour into their characters," Freiberger explains. "Barbara in particular had a fine sense of humour."

Sometimes the humour was unintentional. Stolid lines, such as Commander Koenig's statement, "We do not commit mindless violence!" or scenes of a rubber-suited monster flinging grunting astronauts around the moonscape, kept the series from reaching a respectable stratosphere.

"The second year was more comic-strip," says Landau, who feels the first season had more interesting scripts. "If we had stayed in the direction of the first season, we might have stayed on for several more years."

Cancelled in 1977, Space: 1999's short-lived impact was absorbed by Star Wars fever. Fans of the show have remained loyal, as evidenced by a recent Space: 1999 convention that reunited most of the cast.

• The original working title of Space: 1999 was Menace in Space.
• Robert Culp and Katharine Ross were seriously considered for the roles of Koenig and Helena Russell, but ITC decided Landau and Bain were more commercial for television. Katherine Ross was not considered for the role.
• Science guru Isaac Asimov had serious reservations about Space: 1999's science, but he was stunned by the show's realistic depiction of weightlessness on the moon. "I have never seen anywhere so precise a simulation of low gravity," he marvelled in 1975. "Other effects are handled with equal care."