Destination: Moonbase Alpha (7 page)

Prior to
Space: 1999
’s American premiere,
Time
magazine posed the question, ‘Can a $6.5 million show tailor-made for national TV survive rejection by all three networks and win success anyway? … With confidence bordering on brashness, ITC predicts that it is giving the networks their biggest ever prime-time challenge and in the process producing the season’s first big hit …
Space: 1999
is a futuristic Arthurian fantasy …
Space: 1999
’s success could not only bite deeply into the audience ratings for the network shows, but perhaps even sink a couple in the first critical weeks.’
[1]

When it debuted in the US in September 1975,
Space: 1999
proved to be a success, as reporter Harry F Waters commented in a piece entitled
Spaced Out
in the 20 October 1975 edition of
Newsweek
: ‘With what looks like a record crop of fall-season flops, the television networks have few programmes to cheer about. And the surprise hit,
Space: 1999
, isn’t one of them. The British-made science fiction series is getting cosmic ratings … but it is not a network property.’

Specific details on the ratings for the series included the following: ‘During the month of October (airing on Los Angeles station KHJ-TV),
Space: 1999
appears to have earned an average 9.4 rating in the local Nielsen survey … A respectable if not spectacular score for an independent station, especially in a market as crowded as this one. In November,
Space: 1999
averaged an 8.7 rating … WPIX in New York averaged a 9.5 over the past two months; the Cleveland UHF station which carries
Space: 1999
showed little fall-off from the amazing ratings it had been getting. The Chicago independent station was still racking up a 12 rating.’
[2]

Further ratings details included: ‘(On Channel 7 in Washington, DC) up against two situation comedy reruns, two talk shows and a
Star Trek
rerun in its 7.00 to 8.00 pm Saturday time slot,
Space: 1999
finished first four times and second three times in the eight weeks rated so far this season locally by the A C Nielsen Co. Nationally, the record has been spotty. In markets like Seattle, Portland Ore, and San Francisco, viewers ate it up. In Philadelphia, against [the variety show hosted by] Lawrence Welk, it got an early cancellation and Welk – who appeals to older folks – is reportedly killing it elsewhere in competition. But with the younger crowd,
Space: 1999
is doing well in the so-called “demographics” – the “whos” rather than numbers in the all-important ratings. In Channel 7’s book, for instance, the sci-fi hour was very successful with both men and women in the 18-49 age group – the people who buy things.’
[3]

‘In Chicago,
Space: 1999
recently took 35 percent of the television audience, outrunning
The Wonderful World of Disney
, pro football, and even the World Series. The show did equally well in New York and Los Angeles.’
[4]

It was also reported: ‘
Space: 1999
… has been a consistent ratings winner throughout the country. One New York public relations agency reports that for the first five weeks since its premiere, the show won its time period in all leading markets except Los Angeles. The local Arbitron rating for its 13 September premiere in Cleveland was 15, or a 32% share of the audience.’
[5]

To put those ratings into a more recent context,
Star Trek: Enterprise
premiered on 26 September 2001 with a 7.0 rating, but on several occasions in its first season it scored only a 3.0. By its fourth and last season, ratings were even lower – at their best scoring a meager 2.2 (for the final episode on 13 May 2005) and at worst an abysmal 1.4 (on 22 April 2005). Another modern comparitor would be the revived
Battlestar Galactica
. A brief sample of ratings for this space series includes one of its better performances at 2.6 on 14 January 2005 ranging down to an astonishingly low 1.1 on both 25 February and 4 March 2007. Certainly the television markets of the 21
st
Century are more fragmented than those of the 1970s, but it’s clear that either of these series could only dream of securing the ratings that
Space: 1999
enjoyed.

As Martin Landau stated, ‘As we all could have predicted, when the series was sold to individual stations across the [
US] it sold like hotcakes. The ratings showed it to be miles ahead of anything else in that time slot, including all the network programmes.’

The 155
US stations that screened the show (88 of which pre-empted network programmes in favour of it) represented 96% of American homes. Abe Mandell stated at the time: ‘We’ve created our own network – the
Space: 1999
network.’

The ratings response to the series in the
UK was far less successful than in the US. The poor showing of Year One ended up resulting in Year Two failing to secure the nation-wide screening that Year One received, as these quotes attest: ‘The first series of
Space: 1999
was not a success in this region. In consequence, we did not screen … series two.’
[6]
‘Imaginative storytelling combined with visual excellence created in the first series of
Space: 1999
not only Anderson’s crowning achievement, but also what has turned out to be the apogee of science fiction on the small screen. Regrettably, although it became a cult series overseas, as far as the ITV companies were concerned it was a ratings flop, so when the second series came along it was [considered] an item principally for export.’
[7]
Nonetheless,
Space: 1999
did find its niche in the science fiction void between the landmarks of
Star Trek
and
Star Wars
.

Airing in over 100 countries worldwide,
Space: 1999
went network virtually everywhere around the globe except the US and the UK. The series was broadcast in Italy under the title
Spazio: 1999
, France as
Cosmos: 1999
, Portugal and Brazil as
Espaço: 1999
, Germany as
Mondbasis Alpha 1
, Denmark as
Månebase Alpha
, Sweden as
Månbas Alpha 1999
, Finland as
Avaruusasema Alfa
, Poland as
Kosmos 1999
, Hungary as
Alfa holdbazis
, Poland as
Kosmos: 1999
, Mexico as
Odisea 1999
, in Spain, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Venezuela as
Espacio: 1999
, and in South Africa as
Alpha 1999
. Around the world, viewers were entertained by the voyage of Moonbase Alpha.

Space: 1999
has often been a target for criticism over the years – much of it arguably unwarranted, and most of it sadly uninformed. In fact, the most damning criticisms have tended to be the least accurate, and have often been peppered with comments betraying the reviewer as cannibalising previous negative reviews rather than offering a fair-minded, first-hand opinion. Other commentators have simply failed either to appreciate or to comprehend what
Space: 1999
was attempting to present. Actually more than the sum of its parts, it is – as writer Johnny Byrne explains in the coming pages – an epic origin story of a remarkable tribe of humans. None of this is to say that
Space: 1999
should be exempt from criticism – certainly, all dramatic productions open themselves up to the potential praise or scorn of viewers. What
Space: 1999
does deserve is an honest reckoning, not just through the words of a critical analysis, but also through the retrospective wisdom of those who worked on the show.

Some contemporary critics loved the series, as the following selection of comments attests:

‘
Space: 1999
has demonstrated itself to be the finest SF television series ever produced, both in concept and in execution.’
[8]
 

‘
Space: 1999
is like
Star Trek
shot full of methedrine. It is the most flashy, gorgeous sci-fi trip ever to appear on TV.’
[9]

‘To put it simply,
Space: 1999
is the best science fiction show on television … The believability is heightened by handsome, authentic-looking sets and some good performances by Barbara Bain, Martin Landau and others.’
[10]

‘The second episode in the series (“Matter of Life and Death”) gave several indications the series will offer that which science fiction fans have been clamoring for. Its story was an adult theme complete with moral; its production values stressed explosive special effects as well as impressionistic renderings; the direction by Charles Crichton was imaginative and the acting was unimpeachably above the average for television. It was material far better suited for the big screen than little.’
[11]

‘
Space: 1999
is a visually stunning, space-age morality play that chronicles the downfall of 20th Century technological man … That
Space: 1999
is a brilliant piece of 20th Century technological art, filmmaking, is readily evident at a glance. What is perhaps less obvious is that the producers are using technology and art to talk about other issues.’
[12]

‘
Space: 1999
is important because it fills a need. It satisfies a genuine hunger in the TV audience: a national longing for a good new science fiction series. The networks, economically flat and creatively stale, seem locked into a mind-set incapable of imagining anything but new cops and sitcom spin-offs.
Space: 1999
is a handsome rebuke to that kind of thinking.’
[13]

Other commentators, by contrast, hated the show:

‘The plots and characterisation on
Space: 1999
have been primitive. All the events that take place are science fiction clichés.’
[14]

‘This series wasn’t produced – it was committed, like a crime … The special effects are good, but the actors are awful, even Martin Landau and Barbara Bain. Miss Bain’s part is the zombiest, which is some distinction, as the cast is huge.’
[15]

‘
Space: 1999
is also guilty of giving its actors lines pedestrian enough to qualify as instant camp.’
[16]

‘A disappointing collage of wooden characters, boring dialogue and incomprehensible plots.’
[17]

‘The main characters were all as cold as a Pluto moonrise, and the plots didn’t make a lot of sense.’
[18]

Some aspects of
Space: 1999
, such as the subtle performances of many cast members, play better now than they did decades ago. Today, viewers have adjusted to a more understated style of acting thanks to shows like
The X-Files
. Back in the mid-1970s, people who were expecting Martin Landau to emote like William Shatner on
Star Trek
would have been disappointed.

There are those who might infer that
Space: 1999
is limited by the date in its title and is now little more than a relic of the past. However, George Orwell’s
1984
and Stanley Kubrick’s
2001: A Space Odyssey
are shining examples of science fiction with virtues that carry on untarnished by the passage of dates on a calendar.
Space: 1999
presented stories of people like us, alone against the unknown and often in awe of the infinite complexities and mysteries of the universe. At times abstract, esoteric and metaphysical,
Space: 1999
was anything but a standard by-the-books televised adventure series.

In the words of Johnny Byrne, ‘
Space: 1999
was remarkable for many things, but one of the things that it was truly remarkable for … wasn’t so much that it was multicultural – there was no talk of white or black, or Jew, or straight or gay, or men or women. What united [the characters] was the thing that unites all of us. I think it’s summed up in “The Metamorph” with, ”We’re all aliens until we get to know each other.” It is that humanity. Sometimes humanity does not march to the same beat as political expedience … The only divisions the Alphans had were the coloured costume sleeves that showed the areas in which they worked. There never seemed to be a problem.’

In the following pages, the episodes will be explored in depth. Complementing this author’s Reviews are the Commentary sections, featuring the words of the actors, writers, producers, and others who actually made
Space: 1999
. Finally, memorable dialogue quotes round out the review sections and help to provide a greater sense of the highs (or lows) of each episode.