Catacombs Reference LibraryPress
Space 1999 a big one the networks ignored
Catacombs Reference LibraryUnknown New York newspaper, 20 September 1975. The first two episodes seen are Breakaway and War Games.
By Gordon Bishop
Space: 1999 - The first science fiction adventure made for television since Star Trek was grounded seven years ago - will be launched today on Channel 11 at 6:30 pm
Channel 11 is the metropolitan station that has been recycling vintage Star Trek episodes nightly to keep science fiction fans happy while waiting for something new to show on their TV screens.
Trekkies, your patience has been rewarded! Flip on Channel 11 Sunday an blast off with Commander John Koenig (Martin Landau) and Dr Helena Russell (Barbara Bain) as they prepare to explore outer space under rather incredible circumstances.
Space: 1999 is being billed by promoters - Independent Television Corp. - as "the most spectacular and expensive science fiction series ever produced for television."
In case you're still not convinced. ITC will tell you it's the "ultimate adventure series".
Space: 1999 is one show that lives up to its advanced publicity. If all 24 episodes are anything like the first two previewed by this writer, WPIX might find itself with the highest Nielsen ratings for any new TV series this fall.
The major networks. always looking for "the big one" each premier-season, let Space: 1999 pass them by because the series reportedly came out too late to make the fall list.
The independent stations - and even some affiliated with the networks - however, are scheduling the new series in prime time throughout the country. More than 150 local and regional stations have found time to slot what they believe to a blockbuster of a show.
Perhaps the most important review of Space: 1999 has come from world's leading space authority, Dr Wernher von Braun, president of the National Space Institute in Washington DC.
Dr. von Braun comments that Space: 1999 "imaginatively captures the excitement of living in the incredible age of space ... Freeing the creative imagination - so effectively accomplished in Space: 1999 - characterises mankind's exploration of space."
The great contribution Space: 1999 will make, in Dr von Braun's judgement, is to "stimulate the public's interest in the potentials of space technology in such fields as energy, environment, natural resources and food production.
Produced at a cost of $6.5 million, Space: 1999 could easily be projected on the big screen as a major motion picture. The quality of the film (35 mm) and the stunning effects created by Brian Johnson (2001: A Space Odyssey) can not be fully appreciated on a 21 or 25 inch colour TV tube.
Nevertheless, the impact of Space: 1999 should be felt by any viewer with a boundless imagination.
What appealed to this reviewer was the relevancy of the opening episode to today's energy problems. It starts out on Sept. 9 1999 as 311 men and women from all nations on earth prepare for a probe into deep space. The site of launch is the moon. Except the moon is nothing like we know it today. It has become the eerie burial grounds for all the radioactive nuclear wastes produced on earth.
The lethal atomic wastes - which posse a serious storage problem today - cause a magnetic cataclysm on the moon, hurling it into space like a helpless satellite.
What follows is a startling series of events that bring spaceship moon into the path of a planet inhabited by a race of highly advanced homo-sapiens who have conquered fear and live in a serene state of mind where there are no wants or needs.
To find out what happens when naturally aggressive earth people from the year 1999 meet their "superiors" from an advanced civilization, you'll have to watch the program. A sci-fi buff gives away a good plot.
Space: 1999 copyright ITV