Destination: Moonbase Alpha (2 page)

Christopher Penfold also stated: ‘
Space: 1999
actually started not at Pinewood Studios, but at Elstree Studios, where Gerry Anderson was in production with another live action series called
The Protectors
. At the same time, I was there with a series [called
Pathfinders
], which I was asked to begin to get the scripts together for, some three weeks before the first day of shooting. Under those circumstances I don’t think that anybody at Elstree thought that [
Pathfinders
] would survive. Actually it did, by virtue of my hiring a motor caravan and living 24 hours a day on the lot at Elstree and writing scripts through the night. This, I think, more than anything else, made an impression on Gerry Anderson. It wasn’t anything to do with my proficiency in science fiction, just the fact that the impossible seemed to have been achieved on this other series. And so he called me in to start discussions about what was going to be a new series of
UFO
. As the discussions got under way, I think [what we had in mind] was, more than anything, the influence of the already-successful
Star Trek
, which [based] its stories entirely extra terrestrially. I think that ITC, the producing company, thought that might be a direction in which to take a new series of
UFO
. I think Lew Grade, who was the big money man, would have gone to the next stage of
UFO
, but he really wanted something that was going to have all the bells and whistles of a big international hit. So the terrestrial element of
UFO
was abandoned. The discussions took place at Elstree Studios about the ways in which we might launch a group of Earthly humans off on this odyssey through space. The notion of … the nuclear waste dumps on the surface of the Moon evolved, and the idea of the explosion pushing the Moon off onto its journey was the origin of the series. All of that took place at Elstree Studios. It was about three weeks later that we moved to Pinewood.’

Following days of rehearsal and screen tests, filming finally commenced at Pinewood Studios in
Buckinghamshire, England, on Monday 3 December 1973. Special effects filming had already begun at Bray Studios on Tuesday 5 November 1973. Live-action filming was primarily conducted on the L and M stages of Pinewood Studios. L stage housed the regular standing sets (such as Main Mission in Year One, and Command Centre in Year Two), while M stage was utilised for episode-specific sets such as alien worlds or spacecraft. Other stages at Pinewood were also used as required for various episodes throughout the filming of the series.

Keith Wilson was responsible for the design and look of the interior of Moonbase Alpha, as well as all the aliens and environments encountered throughout the series. He recalled, ‘I had two basic stages. I had one stage with all the Alphan sets on it. I had designed a modular system so I could – overnight – build a set very quickly, because every panel was exactly the same size as the next. So it was like a big Lego kit. I could put all of these pieces together. So if there was an episode that took place on the Moon, or Alpha, it was very easy. It would give me a chance then to plan ahead. But if it had a big new set – an interior of a spaceship, or a planet surface – then I would have to work very fast. But I would have the other stage to do that. They were identical size stages. So I had one for Moonbase Alpha, and the other for all those planet surfaces. I would have ten days to do anything that had to be done. It wasn’t a problem: I was well organised and I just did it.’

Writer and story editor Johnny Byrne recalls joining the production: ‘I was called down to Pinewood when they were still considering
Space: 1999
as a follow-on from
UFO
, and I heard nothing for some time. I met Chris [Penfold] there. Then some time later I was called in again when it was now
Space: 1999
, and I was asked to re-write a script that eventually became the second episode, “Matter of Life and Death”. I found myself, shortly thereafter, in a private little part of Pinewood, away from all the madness of L & M Stages.’

Christopher Penfold said: ‘I asked Johnny Byrne to come on to the show. When he joined we began to work very closely together. I commissioned him, first of all, to write a script. Then very quickly he became a part of the writing team and did a lot of absolutely wonderful work. I had admired Johnny’s work, which was the reason I asked him on. We got on extremely well together, and we were doing pretty much what we wanted to do, within the parameters of the series. We were on a high, there’s no doubt about that … I certainly loved what I was doing. I think that’s the secret – passionate commitment.’

The production encountered problems from the beginning, as Gerry Anderson recollects: ‘We had so many problems … When we first started filming
Space: 1999
, we had a horrendous situation in the financial sense. We shot six weeks of effects without getting one shot in the can. Every day when we went to screen the dailies the density of the image was in constant fluctuation. Under normal circumstances, this is a problem that can be tracked down quickly, but we just could not discover the cause of it. We changed cameras. We changed lenses. We called in experts from Eastman Kodak. We called in camera engineers. We had daily conferences trying to find out what the trouble was. We even used different film stocks. Then we shot in black and white instead of colour. Nothing worked. We lost everything. Finally, we found out it was a very simple fault. It was a brake on one of the film magazines, which was dragging. Every time it dragged it slowed down the transport mechanism, thus increasing the exposure. It was a minute problem but we lost thousands and thousands and thousands of pounds.’

Special effects for
Space: 1999
were nothing short of earth-shattering by television standards and were accomplished by a team under the leadership of Brian Johnson, who had previously worked on the visuals for
2001: A Space Odyssey
. The influence of Johnson’s effects work on science fiction television and films to follow (notably
Star Wars
) is undeniable.

An early glimpse of
Space: 1999
’s spectacular special effects was seen on the 23 December 1974 edition of
Horizon
, a science program on the BBC. This particular episode was titled “How On Earth Do They Do That?” and focused on the special effects industry. The footage provides a fascinating look behind-the-scenes, and this
Horizon
segment has been included on DVD releases of
Space: 1999
as a bonus feature.

The budget for the first season of 24 episodes was £3.25 million, making
Space: 1999
the most expensive science fiction television series ever produced at that time. Those 1973 funds, adjusted for inflation, would now have the buying power of well over £27 million!

As viewers would soon discover,
Space: 1999
told the tale of 311 men and women living on the Moon. Christopher Penfold said: ‘I didn’t really know a lot about science fiction when Gerry Anderson approached me, but I very quickly [learned] … Although the subject has always interested me, this was the first time I had worked on a sci-fi series. And when you are tackling something new, you do your best to bring a brand new approach to it. Since most of the investment money actually came from the United States through ITC, the first thing that they wanted to have was an American story editor on board and to include a large number of scripts from American writers. Gerry and Sylvia went off to find an appropriate script editor in the States, and found George Bellak. Principally, George and I created the characters in conjunction with Gerry, and Sylvia had some input in the early stages. George left the series quite early on as he didn’t get on very well with Gerry, so the ball was back in my court. It meant I had the responsibility for finding the writers, talking about ideas for individual episodes, commissioning them, and doing the normal script editing jobs, and eventually writing a fair number of the scripts myself.’

The lead roles of Commander John Koenig and Doctor Helena Russell went to husband and wife stars Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, while Barry Morse came aboard as Professor Victor Bergman. Sylvia Anderson has stated: ‘Initially Martin was not my choice – I have to say that. I wanted Robert Culp, someone a bit more offbeat. I think Martin grew very well into the role … He’s a very serious actor, and a fantastic character actor. I never thought that he was really a lead, but when he was given the lines in a serious scene, I think he played it very, very well. One of the problems in the show, really, was that Martin and Barbara wanted to be in every scene and make every decision. Now there was nothing unusual about that because they were the stars. Well, Nick Tate’s a very good actor, and I cast him because he was a younger element and had great authority on the screen, but invariably if he had more lines than Martin there would be a problem. Nick Tate had to walk three paces behind Martin. So we did have that all the time, but I think given a good scene … Martin rose to the occasion. He’s a very good actor, there’s no doubt about it. I just think that … he and Barbara were a force to be reckoned with in terms of getting their own way. So that was a problem we had on the show. We had to cast Barbara and Martin, whom I freely admit I did not want. I battled very hard and stood up to Lew Grade and said, “I don’t think they’re right. They were okay in
Mission: Impossible
, but having seen them I don’t think we’re going to get what we should get.” I’m not saying they were bad, I just think they could have been so much better.’

Sylvia has also shared her perspective on characterisation: ‘I think unless you have strong characterisation, you don’t have anything … I remember sitting with Martin Landau and Barbara Bain in the Beverly Hills Hotel talking about their characters in
Space: 1999
. And I didn’t quite understand – I didn’t appreciate at that time – back-story. They started talking very earnestly about how he came from the Mid-West and Barbara was talking about how they met, and I thought, “Where on Earth is this going?” But of course it was all back-story for their characters. So I always remember that – you never write a character without thinking, “How did they get there?”’ So that was a very important lesson for me personally. And so, for me, characterisations are just as important, if not more, than all the bangs that are going on, and all the other wonderful things.’

Bain and Landau had experienced their greatest success on
Mission: Impossible
, while Morse had achieved his widest recognition chasing
The Fugitive
. Morse was also attractive to ITC because of his proven track record with them. He had been the second lead in
The Adventurer
and one of the four stars of the European-based ITC series
The Zoo Gang
. With this team of internationally known and award-winning performers,
Space: 1999
was clearly led by a strong and appealing triumvirate.

Barbara Bain explains: ‘
Space: 1999
was a project put together by English people. They came over to talk to us about it and we hired a story editor – an American story editor [George Bellak] – because it was going to be broadcast here [in the US]. They wanted a certain kind of mix with the English-based show. They were able to do the technology much cheaper there than here, all the effects, that sort of thing. Okay, so that was all exciting. But they wanted to prepare it for the American market as well as the world, which meant a certain kind of writing. With English television, there is a commercial network, but they’re also kind of brought up on the BBC, which does not have commercial interruption. As a result, it’s a very different dramatic form. We have – if you’ll pardon me – six to eight “climaxes” an hour, dramatic moments where you have a commercial; cliff-hangers. The English don’t, nor do they quite understand it. So we went over there with the American story editor. Then he left – about an hour after he touched ground in England!’

Bain also recalled, ‘
The first day I arrived in England I went into what was going to be my dressing room. I had asked them to please build me a bar… I walk in and there are a bunch of carpenters, and they’re building me a
bar
! Like a bar for whisky and beer. What kind of actress asks for [that]? I meant a ballet bar! I said, “Look guys, all you need is a dowel and a couple of things to hang it up on.” They were building me a bar … I don’t drink! There were all kinds of moments like that, that were fun.’

The three lead characters were all carefully delineated in the original Writer’s Guide, although certain details were altered or expanded upon as the series developed. Certain later details (such as the death of Koenig’s wife in World War III, as posited in the Year Two episode
‘The Rules of Luton’), however, completely contradict the details established in the Writer’s Guide. Only the three leads were examined in the Guide, and it did provide a reasonably detailed look into their personal character traits.

John Robert Koenig is said to be ‘not only the American Commander of the Moonbase, but at 40 he is an astrophysicist of very high repute … an interesting and somewhat complex man. He has two streaks in him: one, rather ruthless and efficient, the “mind-as-computer” aspect; and on the other hand, a moody and introspective strain. Born in 1959, he is
not
the total space child. He has had, along with science, more humanities education than some others of his generation.’ The Writer’s Guide goes on to explain that he had been ‘married for five years to a woman who was a highly gifted artist.’ However, they had separated more than six years prior to 1999 and ‘John Koenig carries the scars with him and holds back at relating deeply to other women. As to men, Koenig demands a lot, but he demands a lot of himself too.’ Koenig is summed up as being ‘a man with one foot somewhat in the past and one foot somewhere in the future. The Commander’s last name is symbolic of his position on the base, originating from the German word ‘König’, which means ‘King’.