Ultimate DVD

Ultimate DVD magazine was a UK DVD review magazine, edited by David Richardson. Both Richardson and Houldsworth also worked on sister magazine TV Zone; Richardson would later become a director of audio drama company Big Finish, who eventually produced Space: 1999 audio stories.

Another Time, Another Place

by Richard Houldsworth
Ultimate DVD #18, June 2001, p22-23

Space: 1999's predictions of a moonbase, flared trousers and nuclear disaster may have been off the mark, but it was still a great sci-fi romp

Made at Pinewood Studios almost three decades ago, Space: 1999 was well ahead of its time. Depicting a millennial year of advanced space flight, inter- racial harmony and a vast moonbase, Gerry Anderson's sci-fi series might have been poor at prediction (in 1999 we were more concerned with late trains and war in Europe), but it was a hugely enjoyable romp. Lasting just two seasons and 48 episodes, it was the most expensive television series of its day and a bold attempt to popularize an unfashionable genre. There's little doubt that, had the series launched after the Star Wars boom of 1977, its longevity would have been assured.

Space: 1999 began life as the second series of Anderson's live action alien invasion drama UFO. With US investment into the project, so the creative emphasis gradually changed, resulting in a fully-fledged outer space adventure concerning the residents of Moonbase Alpha, who are cut off from Earth when a nuclear accident propels the moon out of orbit and into the depths of space.

With the promise of a network slot in America, Anderson was persuaded to accept two American actors in the lead roles of Commander John Koenig and Dr Helena Russell. The producer flew to California and met with then-married couple Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, who were best known for their starring roles in Mission: Impossible.

"The thing I loved about the concept was that we were not there because we wanted to be," recalls Bain. "The accident that thrust us into space was unexpected and whatever we encountered we had no way to cope with. We were ultimately homeless, looking for a place that would accommodate us, and there was something quite romantic about that. The best scripts were the ones that kept to that."

Moving their family to London for two years to film the series, the Landaus learned to cope with culture shock.

"The first day we started shooting, we were in the middle of a scene and everybody left," says Bain. "Martin and I wondered if we'd done something wrong, but the tea trolley had arrived. We hadn't seen anything like that before!"

Hard Times

Nothing could have prepared them for the political climate: in 1974 England was in the middle of a miners' strike, which brought much of the country to a halt with a three-day week. Prentis Hancock, who played Controller Paul Morrow, recalls these difficult times.

"We had petrol coupons to get to work and our own power system was brought down from Birmingham so we weren't on the National Grid," he offers. "There were enormous logistical problems all the time and the series took much longer to make than originally scheduled. It was supposed to take 11 months and in the end it took 15."

Despite the challenges, the first season of Space: 1999 is immaculately produced, with a line-up of strong stories complemented by then-state-of-the-art (and still impressive to this day) special effects, depicting Moonbase Alpha, its fleet of Eagle carriers, and a host of visiting spaceships and exotic alien worlds. A number of internationally renowned guest stars also lent the show credibility, including Julian Glover, Roy Dotrice, Margaret Leighton, Christopher Lee, Brian Blessed, Ian McShane, Joan Collins and Peter Cushing.

"I think within the business there's less awe and wonder than you might expect," says Hancock of his perspective of working with such stars. "We're just doing our job. When you have to be there at six in the morning it's a great leveller."

The most memorable instalments include Breakaway, the opening story in which the moon is blasted into space, Death's Other Dominion, in which the Alphans are offered immortality, and Dragon's Domain, a flashback story concerning an octopus-like creature that consumes unwary space travellers.

"That was an attempt to take on the whole issue of monsters in a creative and constructive way," claims scriptwriter and the show's story consultant Christopher Penfold. "I felt quite pleased with it. The special effects in view of what we have seen in Alien and Star Wars now look laughable, but in a way it didn't matter."

Spaced Out

Best forgotten: the dazzlingly surreal Ring Around the Moon, and the ridiculous Space Brain, in which the moonbase is flooded with deadly foam.

"We had machines from Heathrow Airport that lay foam down quickly and can take it back up quickly," says Hancock of that episode. "Charlie Crichton [the director] was there shouting, 'More foam, more foam' and we were there in it dressed in spacesuits and it was going over our heads and it was getting very skiddy in there. At the end of a long afternoon Charlie was wading in and pulling people around and directing them."

Defying the old adage 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it', the subsequent second season actually undermined much of the strengths of Space: 1999's first year. Three of the lead cast (Hancock, Barry Morse, Anton Phillips) vanished without trace, scripts were given an almost cloying humorous slant, Catherine Schell was introduced as the flashy shape- shifting alien Maya, and stories were less about philosophy and concentrated more on bug eyed monsters of the week. The results were frequently disastrous, and within a few weeks most ITV stations were dumping the series into a graveyard Saturday morning slot.

However, even after nearly 30 years, the quality of the first series stands up on DVD, and Carlton have done the show's many fans proud with the wealth of added content. While not as well remembered as the Anderson's puppet shows, Space: 1999 deserves another visit, and as a foray into live action film-making, it certainly can be deemed a success.

"When [the first episode] had been edited together there was a first cast and crew showing at studio seven in Pinewood," confides Hancock. "I remember we came out and one of the special effects guys, who'd worked with Gerry for years on the puppet shows, said, "You see: it does work better with actors!"

DVD Review

by David Richardson
p71

The Episodes

Having established their reputation in the '60s with a host of action/ adventure puppet shows, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson moved on to more mainstream live action sci-fi in the '70s. One of the results was Space: 1999, dubbed the British version of Star Trek, which saw the Moon blasted out of Earth's orbit when an atomic waste dump on the lunar surface ignites. Thrust into the depths of space, the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha embarked on a voyage through the unknown.

Husband and wife acting team Landau and Bain lead the ensemble cast as Commander John Koenig and Dr Helena Russell. He's eternally stoic, she's as stiff as her hair-do, but their formal approach to the material works, and the mixed ethnicity of the support cast pays dividends, although we're sorely lacking in babes and hunks. To its credit, the show still looks glossy after 26 years, the plain, sterile sets seem futuristic - yet the show is set two years ago, and the effects remain rather special.

Volume One opens with the establishing episode Breakway- dark, exciting and tense - although newcomers may be put off by the next three episodes on the disc (Matter of Life and Death, Black Sun, Ring Around the Moon), which are all uniformly unremarkable.

Disc Two has the pick of the crop: doppelgangers in Another Time, Another Place, the surreal Missing Link (with Peter Cushing) and Guardian of Piri, plus the sublime Earthbound (with Christopher Lee) in which, for once, the aliens are the good guys. But they do look like members of a glam rock group.

Volume Three has the chilling Force of Life and Alpha Child, the odd The Last Sunset (air comes to the lunar surface!) and the excellent Voyager's Return, in which a space probe from Earth wreaks havoc.

Top TV sci-fi; if you can forgive the surfeit of bushy sideburns and flared trousers. 4/5

The Extras

Carlton have done a great job. The Menus reflect the show's style, with a CG Eagle transporter landing on a moonbase, while a screen offers a 'This disc' preview of dynamic clips. Scene Access is also very special: animated snippets, set into a CG-recreation of a corridor monitor screen on the Moonbase.

The transfers are excellent: sharp as a pin and free of dirt (unlike most of the TV airings for the series), although the sound lacks density - if only they'd splashed out on a 5.1 remix...

Disc One contains Original Publicity Brochures, 15 well-captioned and stunning Production Drawings, and Character Bios for the leads (which give more information than you'll find in the series...)

Disc Two covers Original Memorabilia (tie-in annuals and comics), has photos of the Roy Dotrice This is Your Life edition (he was nabbed on the set) and offers a seven-page overview of Moonbase Alpha.

Disc Three looks at Novels and Authors (analyzing the spin-off books), has a Production Stills Gallery (22 images, of props, sets and on-set shooting) and a look at the Eagle Spacecraft (six pages of text).

With four episodes a disc for £15.99, these releases are pretty good value too... -3/5

Highlight

Breakaway- Chapter 8

The defining moment, when the nuclear dumps explode: a tremendous display of pyrotechnics...

David Richardson