Guest Artists/Additional Cast
Jeremy Kemp as Ernst Linden/Queller
Barry Stokes as Jim Haines
Alex Scott as Aarchon
Lawrence Trimble as Pilot Abrams
Writer
Johnny Byrne
Director
Bob Kellett
Background
The original concept behind 'Voyager's Return' came from Johnny Byrne's friend, writer/film editor
Joe Gammon. His outline had a ship arriving and a creature inside who manipulates the Alphans into providing life-support
systems for it as it gradually turns itself into a composite being, a Frankinstein monster of sorts.
Gammon was paid for his idea but there was no way his story could be presented as Byrne considered
it over-complicated. Byrne only kept the returning ship element, building an ecology angle into it about an Earth ship
polluting other planets and the people of these worlds sending out a force to follow the ship back to its homeworld.
Byrne finished the script by July 29th, 1974, carried out revisions by the 31st and the
cameras started rolling on August 7th.
With David Tomblin absent working on a Stanley Kubrick film, a temporary replacement was found in
Bob Kellett, who was experienced both as a producer and director.
Voyager and the Sidon ship were designed by Brian Johnson and Martin Bower, though Byrne was unimpressed
with the Sidon design thinking that it did not appear manacing enough.
Information from 'Production Notes: Series One' booklet by Michael
Richardson
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