Catacombs Reference LibraryUK Press
Countdown To Lew's Super Space Blast Off
Catacombs Reference LibraryLiverpool Echo, 30 August 1975
This new series from ATV leaves Star Trek light years behind, says DERRICK HILL
YOU HAVE to hand it to space - it certainly has mileage. And that's precisely what a man such as Sir Lew Grade likes about it.
The thing is, a man like ATVs Sir Lew, a true televisonary, wants to be able to stretch himself, wants to be able to lay out about £3,500,000 and then get it all back again, with just that little extra something on top.
And Sir Lew reckons that, if you were to lay all the runs, re-runs and mega-runs of TV space serials end to end, there would still be galactic house room left for another space serial.
Now, after 15 months on the launch pad- 24 months, actually, if you're counting from the first sighted gleam in Grade's eye - Sir Lew's major contribution to the advancement of space sci-fi is about to blast off.
It's called Space 1999, a series of 24 one hour episodes starring Mission Impossible luminaries Martin Landau and his wife, Barbara Bain.
TVs newest space crew have gimmick that they roam through space on a bit - admittedly a big bit- of the moon, and not in a spacecraft.
Landau, as John Koenig, is commander of Moon Base Alpha, the earthling research colony on the moon. As well as being a space laboratory, the moon is being used as a dumping ground for the earth's nuclear waste.
Now this sort of thing is something up with which the dear old moon is only prepared to put for long, and certainly not later than September 9. 1999, on which date its blows its nuclear stack and send that chunk of itself that has Moon Base Alpha attached out into deepest space ... well, out of earth orbit anyway.
This all happens before our very startled eyes in the first, scene-setting episode, and for 23 more, we then view on.
As Moon Base Alpha (Hereafter, if referred to again, to be referred to as 'MBA') has 300 members, the series producers have been able to crack on that people like Joan Collins, Richard Johnson, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Margaret Leighton and other guest stars, are boffining away in various parts of the complex.
Other guest stars, suitably buried beneath tons of day-glo make-up, will be walking in and out the series each week, passing themselves off as the kind of ordinary, everyday space weirdos that people careening about on a bit of the moon are wont to bump into any day of the week.
I hate to kick something that has given so much perverse pleasure to so many, but Space 1999 leaves Star Trek light years behind. Even the loyalest trekkie has to admit that Captain Kirk and Co have gimcrack written all over them.
Space 1999. on the other hand, has that opulent, rosy glow that can only be achieved after vigorous buffing with millions of small, green. paper pieces.
Its special effects are superb; and they should be, for they are work of Brian Johnson, the man who did the same job for Stanley Kubrick on the film 2001 : A Space Odyssey.
The series was created and produced by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, the husband and wife team that gave the puppet series Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, Thunderbirds and others, to a still grateful world.
So, with names like this on its pedigree, it's little wonder that Space 1999 should have bigger and better gimmicks for it.
It even out-guns Trek in the crucial field of flashing coloured lights that go plip-plop all the time, without which space would remain forever unconquered.
Sad to say, it does share with Trek a predilection for flatulent moralising of the trendiest kind. Watchers of deepest space will know that space folk talk like junior primers in sociology and psychology. As with Trek, just let it flow under you.
Also like Trek it has a crew whose composition suggests that it was selected with an eye for world wide distribution. It looks at times like a gathering of a UN sub-committee. Come to think of it, that probably accounts for the flatulence.
Sir Lew, while undoubtedly excited about his new investment ... er, series, is surprisingly modest about it, feeling merely that it's the best thing to hit television since the last ATV series.
No wonder he was disgusted when the American networks turned it down. So what Sir Lew did then - what, in fact his US operator, Abe Mandel did- was to sell the programme to individual stations all over the States - 146 of them so far.
And some of the big stations are so pleased with it they intend putting it on in prime time instead of the offerings of the giants- ABC, NBC and CBS- to whom they are affiliated and whose programmes they are supposed to favour.
Liverpool Echo Thursday 4 September 1975 p3
By Roy West, Echo TV Correspondent
Blasting off to-night in many ITV regions is the most spectacular space series the small screen has yet seen.
But Granada viewers are going to be left firmly on the ground The series is called Space 1999 and represents a £3,500,000 gamble by ATY chief, Sir Lew Grade.
Stars are the Americas husband and wife team of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain and the series was created by another husband and wife team. Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, who worked on pup- pet series such as Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet.
Waiting time
Viewers In many parts of the country will be meeting the Moonbase Alpha colony tonight. London and Anglia audiences have to wait until Saturday for the first instalment. But it will be Friday, September 26, before we get lift-off in the Granada viewing area.
And, HTV viewers will have to wait until mid-October to find out what this major new series is all about.
Why the delay?
"We wanted to start our autumn season with 4 splash by putting out some big feature films" Granada planning spokes man told me today, "and we've fitted in Space 1999 as soon as we could after that." Will it mean that Granada viewers will be left in the air wondering what is happening to their favourite characters while the rest of the country already knows?
Or worse still, will they find out what's happened even before the next vital episode goes out?
Not a serial
"Not really," says a spokesman for ATV. "It's series, not a serial, and that means that each episode is self-contained."
"Strictly speaking, the ITV companies don't even have to use the same running order as us. But if they don't it might create problems in the occasional instance of a certain character being killed off.
"Frankly we'd have been delighted if they would all screen the series at the same time," ATV, Press Officer Yvonne Stoll told me.
"Unfortunately for us it means that Space 1999 stands no chance of getting into the national ratings, even if it ends up top in many of the regions."
Liverpool Echo Friday 26 September 1975 p3
TONIGHT is the might most viewers on Merseyside get their first glimpse (three weeks behind nearly everybody else) of the spectacular new space series Space 1999 (Granada, 6.35).
Most viewers, that is, except Mark Harris. He'll be watching it for the second time. Mark, who's 15 and lives in Waterloo. couldn't wait for this £2,500,000 space drama to reach Granada. When he knew it was going out on other ITV channels earlier this month he promptly started fiddling with the fine tuner at the back of his set.
"I got a rather foggy picture from Yorkshire but I could follow the story alright." says Mark ruefully, "but wouldn't really recommend it."
Mark, to put it mildly, is something of a space fiction addict.
He's a devoted fan of Gerry Anderson, who produces the new series with his wife Sylvia, and who was the moving spirit behind such other programmes as Supercar. Thunderbirds and Fireball XL5.
For as long as he can remember Mark has been a devotee of Gerry Anderson's work and spends most of his money on the various models, books, cut-outs and the like that are marketed as spin-offs of the Anderson productions.
Judging by all the advance ballyhoo Space 1999 should be the biggest and best so far.
Stars of this latest extravaganza from
Sir Lew Grade's ATV organisation are the husband and wife team of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain.
And among the distinguished guests who'll be popping up over the 24 episodes are Roy Dotrice, Peter Cushing. Judy Geeson, Christopher Lee, Margaret Leighton, Leo McKern and Anthony Valentine.
Tonight's first episode introduces to Moonbase Alpha and its colony of 300 men and women scientists. The programme ends with a mighty bang which throws the moon out of orbit and hurtling towards another planet.
SPACE 1999 faces strong opposition from B.B.C-1 where David MacCallum stars in an updated version of the famous H. G. Wells classic novel The Invisible Man (6.50). Needless to say it's the special effects made possible by the latest TV developments which should make this series a real eye-catcher.
ROY WEST
Caption: Moonbase vehicle in Space 1999 (Satazius)
Liverpool Echo, 12th June 1976
Crosby school-leaver Mark Harris will be stepping into another world when he starts work. In fact, into almost an alien world.
A madly enthusiastic science fiction fan, Mark, 15, of Winchester Avenue, has obtained a job helping prepare special effects for television space fiction programme, Space 1999.
His obvious devotion to the programme and similar space fiction show won over executive producer Gerry Anderson when Mark recently visited Pinewood film studios, and be offered him the job.
"I've always wanted to work in television production and when I was visiting the Space 1999 set I asked Gerry for a job, and he agreed" explained Mark.
As well as achieving his ambition to get into the television science fiction programme world, Mark is also to have some of his art work included in an American book giving a behind-the-scenes look at Space 1999.
When he starts work at the Bray Studios. Mark will be the youngest there but this fact is not worrying him and he is determined to eventually achieve his long dreamed of goal of becoming a film director.
Mark first met Gerry while Mark was local organiser for the Star Trek Action Group and he invited him to one of the group's national conferences.
Mark has since changed his allegiance to Space 1999, because he explained, no Star Trek programmes have be made since 1969 - and, he proudly added, Space 1999 is British.
Mark is pictured alongside the Year 1 UK brochure. The behind the scenes book was The Making of Space: 1999 by Tim Heald, which mentions Mark on page 186. Mark Harris worked on the SFX crew of Gerry Anderson's Terrahawks (1982-1984). He also designed the Terrahawks logo.
Weekend Echo 11/12 December 1976 p2
HEADING for outer space tonight is Liverpool schoolboy actor Martin Lev.
As one of the crew of the space ship Altares, he stars in a 50-minute programme that's claimed to be rather more educational than the normal sci-fi extravaganza.
It's called Into Infinity (B.B.C.1, 6.0) and is said to be based on known scientific facts.
Unfortunately one viewer who will miss the show is Martin himself. This busy 17-year-old will be over in Ireland for the weekend publicising the spoof gangster film Bugsy Malone in which he plays the juvenile gang boss Dandy Dan.
Script for Into Infinity comes from Johnny Byrne, who once lived in Liverpool - "I had the flat below John Lennon" - and now works on such spectaculars as Space 1999.
"I don't regard tonight's programme as science fiction." he told me.
"After all it is based on known fact. All we have done is try and put over the ideas thrown up by the radio-astronomers and nuclear scientists who are working on the frontiers of their fields of discovery.
"We feel it's an interesting way of trying to convey information and the story about a space ship journey to another solar system is entertaining in itself.
It's all based on the theory of relativity but how can you explain that simply on TV
I should think even Einstein would have a hard job.
"The best you can hope for is to rouse the kid's interest in the ideas so they can go on and explore for themselves.
But Mr. Byrne does have another hope.
"It the end of this adventure the space ship and its crew find themselves going through a black hole in space and out the other side.
"That means they are in a new university ... and what a starting point that would make for a TV series..