Guest Artists/Additional Cast
Brian Blessed as Mentor
Anouska Hempel as Annie Fraser
Catherine Schell as Maya
Gerard Paquis as Lew Picard
Peter Porteus as Petrov
Nick Brimble as Ray Torens
John Hug as Bill Fraser
Writer
Johnny Byrne
Director
Charles Crichton
Background
Original script title 'The Biological Soul' renamed 'The Biological Computer'.
Filmed 26th January to 11th February 1976.
Although Space 1999's first season made little impact in the UK, the series initially achieved promising
ratings in the United States which encouraged ITC to commission a second season. However, the breakdown of Gerry and
Sylvia Anderson's working relationship resulted in Slyvia leaving the show and the producers chair fell vacant. ITC
felt that an American producer should fill the vacancy in order to guide the show more towards what was felt would be
popular with American audiences.
The post was filled by veteran producer Fred Freiberger, former producer of 'The Wild Wild West' and
the third season of the original 'Star Trek'. Freiberger instigated sweeping changes in the style and content of the
show, with the overall intention of injecting more humanity and characterisation into a series that he saw as featuring people
that were "one dimentional, without any clearly defined characters."
On the one hand, much of the grandeur, creativity of ideas and atmosphere associated with Year
One were lost, but these were replaced by warmer characters, a sense of humour, action, adventure and more spectacular special
effects than had been seen before.
The first season's massive Main Mission set was replaced by a smaller and more intimate Command
Centre, explained by the Alphans having moved their base of operations beneath the surface of the Moon for better protection.
The costumes were also modified with the addition of rollneck collars and colourful jackets which took the edge off the sterile
monochrome design of the Moonbase Alpha sets.
Barry Gray's classically-styled score for Year One was seen by ITC as too
'cerebral' for the more up-beat series. Instead, the theme and incidental music was scored by Derak Wadsworth, whose
background in jazz composition and arrangement gave the series a more contemporary backing. With the exceptions of Charles
Crichton and Ray Austin, the directional staff was also new to the series, with contributions from Val Guest, Tom Clegg,
Bob Brooks, Kevin Connor, Robert Lynn and Peter Maddock, all directors more at home with a faster paced action-adventure style.
Taken from Year Two Dvd Booklet
Copyright Carlton
