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Mission Stars Back

'Mission' Stars Back in New Space Series

By Kenneth Stoffels (Milwaukee Sentinel, 15 August 1975)

NOT SINCE the Starship USS Enterprise trundled off to the planet Halkan and equally imaginative corners of the firmament in "Star Trek" has television witnessed such high adventure in space as takes place in "Space: 1999."

On the brink of the next century, the realm of force fields, antimatter and appropriately heinous creatures from other worlds dot the path of a group of struggling Earth people marooned on a runaway moon in "Space: 1999."

"Space: 1999" is a new $6.5 million science-fiction series consisting of 24 hour-long episodes produced in England over the past two years by a company that is part of the empire of Sir Lew Grade, the British television pioneer who is head of Associated Television Corp. Ltd.

"Space: 1999" is scheduled to debut in syndication this fall over 150 television stations nationwide and still others in 100 foreign countries. Channel 18 will carry the series here Saturdays, beginning Sept. 13 at 7 p.m.

"I think we've got a great look to it, a fantastic set and special effects that have never been seen on television," said an enthused actress Barbara Bain. Miss Bain, who was on the phone from Beverly Hills, Calif., stars in the new offering with her husband, Martin Landau.

THE LANDAUS appear together in "Space: 1999" for the first time since their teamwork in "Mission: Impossible" terminated in a contractual brouhaha resulting in their departure from the Desilu-Paramount series

In 1969, Miss Bain won three Emmys for her Mission role of the supercool, calculating agent Cinnamon Carter.

In the intervening six years, both wife and husband jaunted to motion picture locales across the world, and Miss Bain also appeared in several made for TV movies.

The heroes and heroines of "Space: 1999" are a suffering colony of space age Robinson Crusoes - the more than 300 Earth personnel of a defense installation on the surface of the moon. Without warning in the first episode, the moon and its stranded Inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha are catapulted into a dizzying uncontrollable course by the thermonuclear explosion of a manmade lunar garbage dump of atomic waste.

Following the cataclysm, the muckamucks who attempt to bring order out of chaos among the castaways are Cmdr. John Koenig (Landau) and Dr. Helena Russell (Miss Bain), chief medical officer of Moonbase Alpha.

"We are barely able to sustain ourselves, and we're kind of hoping to find a place where we can settle, a planet that will be compatible," said Miss Bain.

BRITISH ACTOR Barry Morse co-stars as Professor Victor Bergman, scientist developer of Moonbase Alpha who once tutored Cmdr. Koenig. Complementing the cast are "some young English actors and a cross section of people from different countries, adding an international flavor," according to Miss Bain.

A native Chicagoan and one-time New York fashion model, Miss Bain noted that the form fitting space suit worn by Moonbase Alpha personnel was created by Rudi Gernreich, the fashion designer who brought us the topless bathing suit. "But I'm not sure that there's one topless lady in the whole 24 hours. I won't promise you that," declared the blond haired actress.