Catacombs Reference LibraryUK Press
Space 1999 reviews, September 1975
Catacombs Reference Library
Sir Lew Grade's latest international extravaganza is Space 1999 (7.00 most ITV; Saturday 5.50 London, Anglia), a co-production with RAI, the Italian State broadcasting organisation, and already sold to 120 countries. Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, the husband and wife team responsible for Thunderbirds, and many other kids' cartoons, have devised an ingenious plot about the moon, with humans aboard drifting into space. Space 1999 is billed as the most expensive and spectacular space SF series produced for TV. The models of rockets and electronic gadgetry, and the bangs as the moon blows up, certainly look expensive and are spectacular. But the script is banal: I counted only one joke in the first episode and one in the second; and the acting is weightless. A pity; the original idea was a good one
An expensive space spectacular blasts off tonight.
Sir Lew Grade spent more than £2,500,000 on the new science fiction series SPACE 1999 (I.T.V., most regions 7.0; London on Saturday).
The drama centres on Moonbase Alpha which, with a population of several hundred, is in danger of being blown apart.
The Moon has been used for dumping atomic waste.
Amid all the excitement we meet Moonbase commander John Koenig (Martin Landau), Dr. Helena Russell (Barbara Bain) and Professor Bergman (Barry Morse).
There is a lot of technical Space talk and in spite of the awful danger, no one can be blamed for feeling a sense of tedium.
The characters are a serious-minded bunch and in the first story, "Breakaway", show less individuality than the puppet characters in "Thunderbirds", created by the same producers, Sylvia and Gerry Anderson.
MIRROR VERDICT: Too much gravity, but the series should get into orbit.
Short review from September 1975 in a UK tabloid newspaper (probably Saturday 6th September 1975)
Space 1999 5.50-6.45 ATV to LWT.
Lew Grade's bet is that this one will still be around in 1999 - and with its impressive array of special effects and audio-visual fireworks (by Brian Johnson who did 2001) and the timeless banality of its characters and storylines, that shrewd old showman seems set for a winner. This latest piece of sci-fi nonsense is from the Anderson stable, carefully packaged and guaranteed free from seditious ideas to contaminate youthful minds. The wooden performers of their earlier successes like Thunderbirds and Joe 90 are here replaced by their live counterparts. A multiracial crew of Terrans (led by Martin Landau, Barbara Bain and Barry Morse) find themselves blasted into deep space when their Moon base is pushed out of Earth's orbit by atomic explosions. The series thus set for an endless run through the gamut of science fiction cliches dear to the hearts of its fans. Unfortunately for Londoners it clashes with Dr Who but If you miss it this time round, you can see it again ... and again ... and again ...
Wendy McFadden
Thursday 2 October 1975.
Part of the fun of Space 1999 (ITV most regions 7.0, others at later dates) is how the residents of Moonbase Alpha, spinning around in Space, find a new world every week and encounter some star of stage and screen already living on it. Tonight's is Brian Blessed, that one-time Fancy Smith of Z-Cars
He plays Dr Cabot Rowland, a survivor of an old Space expedition.
Another survivor who helps to keep the temperature up is the lovely Valerie Leon.
Mirror Verdict: Nice to have those stars in Space.
Thursday 13 November 1975.
Lovely Catherine Schell (left) gets into the Space race tonight.
She plays a mystery woman offering paradise to Commander Koenig and his Moonbase crew in Space 1999 (most ITV areas, 7.0, London and Anglia on Saturday)
She tells Koenig about a blissful world of machines which seems to offer a bright future.
No wonder they're drinking toasts on the Moon.
But there has to be a catch ... and only canny Koenig (Martin Landau) can prevent trouble.
Verdict: Great stuff for older Dr Who fans
The Evening News was a London evening paper, running from 1881 to 1980, when it merged with rival Evening Standard. It switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1974. This same story was also run in other local papers on the same date, including the Reading Evening Post, Leicester Daily Mercury, Nottingham Evening Post and the Huddersfield Examiner. See more details in the catacombs 2001 article.
ATV are being sued by the giant American corporation Metro-Goldwyn Mayer over a new science fiction series.
The suit filed in Los Angeles, claims a million dollars (£400,000) damages from ATV and the Independent Television Corporation of Maryland, over the series Space 1999 to be screened here and in 100 other countries in September.
The grounds of the claim are that the title "misappropriated property rights," because it is too similar to MGM's award- winning film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The ATV series will star Peter Cushing, Margaret Leighton, Christopher Lee, Anthony Valentine and the husband and wife team of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain (Mission Impossible).
Sir Lew Grade, boss of ATV, has spent £2,500,000 on the series with his partners. Italian State television.
Probably 1976. UK inflation peaked at 24% in 1975, dropping to 15% in 1976 and remaining around those levels until the 1980s (for comparison, US inflation peaked at 12% in 1974).
THE FUTURE Is Fantastic, Bigger, Better, More Exciting Than Ever ! proclaims ATV to launch a second season of Space 1999.
What they mean is that the budget has been inflated to £150,000 an episode. making the total cost £600.000 - the most expensive series in TV history.
It also has Catherine Schell, Hungarian baroness by birth, playing the resident out-of-this-world alien.
The script calls for her to be able to turn herself into a lioness, a panther, a tigress, a dove and a dolphin.
Say ATV 'It must be seen to be believed.'
UK tabloid, probably October 1975.
Caption: Sylvia Anderson: "We've got a breathing space"
Suddenly, Sylvia and Gerry Anderson, the British couple who conquered the universe with space-fiction TV puppet series, are worlds apart.
After 16 years of marriage they are separated and facing the down-to-earth reality of a broken marriage.
Together they made puppet shows like Thunderbirds, Stingray, and Captain Scarlet.
Sylvia spoke the voice or the daring Lady Penelope in Thunderbirds.
The couple also master-minded such hits as UFO and the new smash TV series, Space 1999, which has been bought by almost every country which has television.
Now, after rocketing to so much success, and ending up back alone on the launching pad for a new solo career, 43-year-old Sylvia says:
"It's no comfort to me to be alone. But it's a challenge.
"We wrote together and created together and I would eat, drink and sleep my work."
Sylvia is now working on a non-science fiction film -an Anglo-Italian tale of the supernatural called The Lady From The Lake. "I've never been a lonely person." she says. "I don't need a shoulder to cry on."
Sylvia, who lives at Gerrard Cross. Bucks, with her eight-year-old son Gerry, is especially proud of her 22-year-old actress daughter, Dee.
"She's doing very well by herself. She has never asked for help to get on, and she's making it on her own."
Gerry is in America, busy on sci-fi TV work.
Gerry Anderson was probably in America recruiting Fred Freiberger at the time of writing.