Catacombs Reference Library
TV Times

INSIDE TELEVISION by Alix Coleman

TV Times magazine, 1975

YOU NEED NERVES OF STEEL TO SPEND £3MILLION ON SPACE

Already hailed by the press as a surpassing feat of hardware, ATV's new £3 million, 24 part series Space: 1999, is due to smash across small screens later this year. But in spite of galactic wastes, a moon base colony of some 300 souls, vast scientific laboratories, and the Moon exploding from an excess of nuclear waste dumping by the Earth (a little lesson here?), producer Gerry Anderson insists he is totally unimpressed by the simple notion of special effects.

"Let us not be confused," suggested Anderson who, with his producer wife, Sylvia, was successfully responsible for Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90 and UFO. "Special effects are a very important element in a science fiction series, but they can't work properly if the stories aren't right" He says he has switched on his set before now to see Japanese sci-fi with 250ft.-high ants and, frankly, 250ft.-high ants from Japan without a story-line can be a terrible bore.

As to the cost, Anderson sees each episode - average cost £125,000- as not desperately expensive if the programmes earn what they should through world-wide distribution. Space: 1999 is a co-production with RAI (Italian State Television) and will be dubbed into Italian as well as French and German. Portugal and Hong Kong will have to make do with subtitles. Anderson feels pretty sure Space: 1999 will get its money back and make a good profit. "But during the production stage Sir Lew Grade has to have nerves of steel when you have £3 million on the line . . ." Anderson, a man who doesn't wince easily, looked thoughtful.

Certainly for Space, the past 14 months at Pinewood Studios have hardly been a rest cure. The unit turned out a show every 11 days with a special effects group working from one stage in parallel with another. Sets were continually torn down and rejigged. Anderson reckons they could probably have filled all 90 acres of Pinewood if they had kept every set they built. "But they have to be expendable. I was sad to see the Ice Age go."

It seems space shows for adults are, unlike police shows for adults, something of a fresh area. The BBC's Star Trek, well-scripted and believably performed, indicated the way. No more are fortunes spent on futuristic settings so that at the end someone says what about directors, actors, words? ... and someone else says there's no money left, but it'll look great on the screen. Anderson wants all to know Space: 1999 isn't just a lot of high-budget junketing among the nebulae: its strength lies in powerful human stories set against a space background which last been treated with brilliant special effects "These pictures," he pronounced, "are designed mainly to entertain, but you"ve got to have heart." Which just about wraps that up.

Working on Mission of the Darians, one of the last episodes in the series, Martin Landau in the lead part of Commander John Koenig looks suitably handsome and severe in beige and dark grey. His tunic and trousers both sported full-length zips down their left-hand sides, presumably to signify the unsex, if right-handed, approach of celebrated unisex designer Rudi Gemreich. Landau was a bit mystified by the trousers but cheerful with it.

Martin Landau and his wife Barbara Bain are already famous for their partnership in the incredibly long-running Mission: Impossible. Playing together again in Space: 1999, their publicity stills depict them as fairly perpetually fraught. In fact, Landau is a merry man. He avowed he had never seen such special effects since the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and says, after all, it took Stanley Kubrick 2000 years to make that one. "If we bring a little sunshine into your lives - I beg your pardon, moonshine," he said before joining Joan Collins on the set.

Gerry Anderson has declared Space: 1999 no basinful of sci-fi escapism but more a facing-up to some of the grimmer realities of today; a term that, happily, can hardly apply to Joan Collins. Radiant in vestigial ice-cream pink drapes and strappy gold sandals, she looked much prettier than Danny La Rue. Her silver-green' and mauve eye shadow aglow, she announced: "I'm Kara, Director of Reconstruction on this ship." It's nice to feel for all that high seriousness of intent and cash flow, Space: 1999 will be spooning out the same old friendly glop.