The Catacombs Catacombs Reference Library
Educational Press
Senior Weekly Reader

Senior Weekly Reader edition 6, vol 30, issue 8, October 29 1975

The Weekly Reader was a weekly newspaper for US school children, published from 1928 to 2012. Additional editions were added for different age and reading levels, with the Senior Weekly Reader targeted at 6th grade (aged 11-12, not those over 70 as the name seems to suggest). Since 1974 it faced stiff competition from Scholastic's Dynamite magazine. Another Space: 1999 script adapted for school publications was in Reader's Digest Science Fiction Top-Picks edited by Judith Hatch, published by Reader's Digest in 1977. Also for the US school market, Xerox Education Publications published a paperback in 1976 for school book clubs with 5 stories.

The script here is not a shooting script written by Geroge Bellak or Christopher Penfold; it is a "dialogue continuity script", published by ITC based on the actual dialogue of the episode. These continuity scripts were intended for translators to prepare dubbing scripts.

An exciting journey begins when this nuclear "garbage dump" on far side of the moon explodes in "Breakaway," first episode in a new science-fiction TV series.

Senior has obtained the script of the first episode from Space 1999, the new science-fiction series seen weekly on many TV stations.

The program stars the husband and wife team of Barbara Bain and Martin Landau who previously were seen in Mission Impossible. Space 1999 is the couple's second venture together.

The new series is set at the turn of the century on Moonbase Alpha. The base is on the far side of the moon, which has been used to store nuclear waste from the planet Earth. The base was set up to serve as an early-warning defense system and to repel invaders. It is operated by some 300 men and women from all Earth's nations.

The first episode of the series is entitled "Breakaway." It opens as John Koenig arrives from Earth to take over command of the base. His orders from the International Space Commission are to "put a man on Meta," a new planet that is about to pass by the moon. Scientists think the planet could be supporting life as we know it.

The base's chief medical officer, Dr. Helena Russell, and its chief scientist, Victor Bergman, are worried, however. A mysterious illness has affected the Meta probe astronauts and workers at the nuclear disposal area. Dr. Russell tells Koenig that nine men have already died from the illness, which she thinks is being caused by radiation from the nuclear waste.

Commander Koenig decides to put off the Meta probe until the cause of the illness is determined.

During the investigation, Alpha scientists detect a steep rise in the heat level around the nuclear dump. The heat is traced to magnetic energy building up from the nuclear waste.

Commander Koenig sends a team to the dump to try to break up the mass of waste and distribute it over a wider area. He also sends Eagle One pilot Alan Carter into lunar orbit to report how things look from there.

The team sent to the nuclear dump arrives too late. The pile of waste explodes like a gigantic bomb.

Senior picks up the script just after the explosion. Commander Koenig, Dr. Russell (Helena), Professor Bergman, Paul Morrow, Benjamin Ouma, and several others are on the floor of the control room. Wreckage is all around them ...

...

KOENIG: ... (To Morrow) Paul, scan all frequencies for any signal from any planet.
(Reading appears on screen.) Hold that.

BERGMAN: It's Meta.

KOENIG: Maybe that's where our future lies. Maybe there. September 13, 1999. Meta signals increasing. Yes ...... maybe there...

The first episode ends with the moon careening away from Earth. The moon can never return and becomes the only world for the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha. The goal of these inhabitants now is to find a compatible planet on which to settle. Will they succeed? Future episodes may hold the answer.

Images copyright ITV Studios Global Entertainment
Page copyright Martin Willey