Catacombs Reference LibraryPress
Landaus Embark on a 'Mission' in Space
Catacombs Reference LibraryNew York Sunday News, 31 August 1975. See also "Catherine Schell: TV's Superhuman" by Kay Gardella, New York News, 15 Septemeber 1976
By Kay Gardella
What is it about space shows that can stir up so much trouble? When NBC cancelled Star Trek, millions of fanatic fans- "trekkies" they're called- protested in various ways. Some flew a Goodyear blimp over Los Angeles to denounce the network action. Others staged a torch-light parade and marched on NBC Burbank. And even today, six years later, thousands of "trekkies" hold science-fiction conventions throughout the country.
Now another science fiction phenomena is upon us Space: 1999. This syndicated series, to be distributed in September to 101 countries by the Independent Television Corp. headed by Abe Mandell, plus in 148 U.S. markets, including New York, where it premieres on WPIX-TV Sunday, Sept. 21, 6:30 p.m., has descended upon television stations like a locust upon a crop.
Expensively mounted- it's costing ITC $6,500,000 and $275,000 an episode- it returns to television that popular husband-and-wife acting team from the old Mission: Impossible series, Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. Their co-star is none other than Barry Morse, who once chased David Janssen all over the tube in The Fugitive. The combination is so potent they even managed to give the L.A. Rams football game a tough run when Space: 1999 premiered last week on KHJ, Los Angeles. It was the station's highest rated show in the last five years and garnered a 25 share of audience.
With this series, Mandell has accomplished something unique in television history. With a few exceptions, like Sea Hunt and Highway Patrol, we don't recall any syndicated series making such inroads into network programming. Space: 1999 has literally stripped away, on both local and network stations, many of the new fall programs marked for premieres. Occupying prime time hours in 146 cities, and reaching such independent markets as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Detroit and Chicago, shows most effected are:
On some CBS affiliates, Joe and Sons, Good Times, Big Eddie, Three for the Road, and even Rhoda and Phyllis in one market and Cher in Cleveland have been hit. On some ABC affiliates the same situation exists for Barbary, Coast, Happy Days, Swiss Family Robinson, Six Million Dollar Man, The Rookies and Welcome Back Kotter. On some NBC affiliates, Ellery Queen Movin' On, The Montefuscos, Fay, and in Baton Rouge, La., they've even dumped Sanford and Son.
Not since their exciting Mission: Impossible days have Landau and his beauteous wife, Barbara, been so bedazzled by a television production and its remarkable special effects. They spent 16 months in London shooting 24 episodes, which explains why their heads were still in space the day we lunched with them at the Regency. They were as full of science fiction stories as millions of American tele-viewers will be.
"We weren't altogether new to science fiction," explained Landau, who is as young looking as the day he left the art department of The News to launch his acting career. "During the days we worked on Mission: Impossible at Desilu Studios, Star Trek was shooting right next door to us. The offices of Gene Roddenberry, its producer, was right next to Bruce Geller's office when he produced Mission. We frequently visited the set."
As Commander John Koenig, a former test pilot, Landau is an American astronaut at the end of this century who commands Moonbase Alpha, Earth's outpost in space. His wife, Barbara Bain, is Dr. Helena Russell, the chief medical officer on the space outpost. Her father in the past had found a cure for cancer and she is trying to follow in his scientific footsteps. Morse is Prof. Victor Bergman, the scientist responsible for Moonbase Alpha.
What happens, the couple explains, is that in 1999 the moon has been used as a dumping ground for atomic waste. A thermonuclear explosion occurs, and .the moon is blasted out earth's orbit. So 300 men and women, from all nations, who were working cooperatively in Moonbase Alpha to establish an early- warning defence system against earth's potential enemies, are lost in space.
"Once out of orbit," explained Landau, "we can never return. We're not like the crew on the Starship Enterprise (Star Trek) who were out there looking for things. We're victims. Our aim is to find a compatible planet on which to settle."
Barbara adds: "We cannot control our projectory [sic, trajectory] as Capt. Kirk and his Starship Enterprise crew could. We're on a routine mission in space. We're trained to survive on Moonbase Alpha for 15 months and then return to earth. So it's imperative we find a home in space before our capacity to sustain ourselves has reached its end."
Space: 1999 is rooted more in today, according Landau. "The character I play was born in 1950, grew up with Alan Shepard, John Glenn, and those fellows. And Barry Morse is the old-timer. He grew up in World War II in London. So we're not technologically or emotionally equipped to go out there. It's all an accident."
Barbara injected: "Our problem is we're limited. We have no way of looking at some of the things that happen to us. We have to keep trying to understand what we're dealing with. The series, as created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, is rooted in scientific fact but projected into a world of fantasy. Many of the episodes are allegorical."
In one episode, "Another Time, Another Place," the stars said, "we meet our very own selves five years ahead." Says Landau: "Barbara has a great scene with her older self."
Adds his wife: "We find we cannot co-exist with our other selves. What happens is in the beginning of the show we split in half-there are two moons instead of one. They're headed on a collision course and we have to make it back to one before they collide. All of the group are five years older and they say we cannot live together because we're living out of their time."
In another episode, the stars recall, they're approaching a giant brain. "It comes at us in the shape of foam and treats us as though we were an invading body," said Barbara.
Then Landau laughingly recalled the day the episode was shot. "The special effects man had turned on the foam machine. Director Charles Crichton shouted an order to 'Stop the foam.' It wasn't heard. "Stop the bloody foam,' he again shouted in his British accent. Still it wasn't heard. 'Stop the - - foam' he shouted as he suddenly became engulfed with the stuff. The next thing we knew, said the near hysterical Landau, "Charley had completely disappeared."
On any science-fiction series, the special effects man is as important as the stars. In this case its Brian Johnson, designer and director of the special effects department. His work was done at the specially equipped studios at Bray, near Windsor, England. His amazing fetes were on view in such films as When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Mosquito Squadron, among many others.
"I've never seen such special effects," declared an amazed Landau, who has been known to amaze people himself with his brilliant disguises. "He made a model for our space ship, that's suppose to be 50 miles long." Landau and Morse will also turn into. 1,000-year-old wise men with incredible make-up in one episode.
Both stars admit that, at first, they were reluctant to tackle a space series. Explained Landau: "Science-fiction is a literary form. It's a different story when you translate these things to a screen." She adds: "You run the risk of disappointing your audience. You promise fantastic things, and then you let them down."
However, once they met Abe Mandell and the Andersons, listened to them enthuse about the series' potential, and heard what the show's budget would be, they knew they had a winner. Mandell assured them that Sir Lew Grade, the British entrepreneur who heads ATV in London, parent company of ITC, would not stint on anything to make the series a first-rate production-from sets, to costumes by Rudi Gernreich, to dazzling special effects.
He also promised some of the finest production talent in England and delivered it, including producer-creators Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, who produced some of the outstanding science-fiction films for Universal and United Artists. Alternating top directors include, besides Crichton, Lee H. Katzin. And George Bellak, whose TV credits include Playhouse 90 and Studio One, is the story editor.
Space: 1999 is one of those major gambles Sir Lew Grade, the cigar-smoking TV tycoon, is noted for. ITC's president, Mandell, who distributes the London-made shows from ATV, offered all three networks a shot at the series and was turned down. He decided on the syndicated route and, in effect, established a fourth network for the series.
"The episodes are fascinating," commented Barbara, who admitted she wasn't a science-fiction buff before moving to London with her family, two daughters Susan and Juliet-and Marty, of course. "I never gave too much thought to any of these concepts. I'm now certainly convinced we're not the only life around. After all I've learned in the last 16 months it's too arrogant to assume we're the only living form in the universe."
Maybe not, but it would be hard to find anyone that looks like Barbara on any of those planets the Landaus will be visiting in the next several months. It's nice to have the Mission: Impossible team back in Space: 1999.
Space: 1999 copyright ITV