Sometime during November, Brian Johnson began supervising the start
of special effects filming on Space 1999. The intricate Moonbase Alpha model, various moonscapes, a four foot fibreglass
Moon, a Moon surface on a rotating barrel and all the spaceship models built for the series were produced and stored with
the Special Effects unit at Bray Studios in Buckinghamshire. Here, Johnson assembled a team of experts including Nick
Adler and Harry Oakes, who would be responsible for all the model shots and visual effects.
Not withstanding the fact that none of the cast, including Landau and Bain,
had yet seen a script, Katzin organised rehearsals for the pilot on November 26th.
With fourteen days to go before the pilot episode started filming, Irish
poet and novelist, Johnny Byrne was put on a six week trial and given the job of rewriting a script that had been produced
by Art Wallace. The script involved the return of Helena's dead husband Telford. Byrne basically rewrote the entire
script, the only element he kept was Helena's returning husband whom he renamed Lee. He named the story Matter
of Life and Death.
Filming on the pilot episode got underway at Pinewood Studios, Buckinghamshire
on Monday, December 3rd, 1973. The pilot episode was allocated
a ten day principle shoot. With five days off for Christmas and New Year, shooting stopped on January 11th, 1974,
a full twenty five working days later!
As an opening, Breakaway was awe-inspiring, giving viewers their first
impressions of Moonbase Alpha and its inhabitants, offering a fast-moving script with plenty of tension and special effects,
the likes of which had never been attempted in a television series.
With episodes costing £135,000 each to produce, Space 1999 was without
doubt the most lavish television series made up to that point. Its tremendously high production values, including first-rate
modelwork and special effects stand up particularly well many years later. The original concepts and storylines were
a first in TV terms.
Initially the series was to have begun UK transmissions in January 1975,
but with production behind schedule this was put back until September. However, ITV failed to publicise the series effectively
and gave it a haphazard scheduling. The potential of this ground-breaking series was ignored, and the opportunity
to create a major success out of the intellectual Space 1999 failed mainly because the schedulers did not give Space 1999
a primetime network slot.
Abe Mandell had been trying to convince the American networks to pick up
Space 1999, without much success. Mandell's only alternative was to sell the series to local TV stations, over half
of whom were affiliated to the networks and convince them to drop network shows in favour of Space 1999.
To this effect, Mandell produced a nineteen inch colour brochure to assist
in his endeavour and eventually persuaded one hundred and fifty-five city stations to buy the series. Space 1999 also
sold extremely well around the world playing in no fewer than one hundred and twenty countries at one point.
The overseas success was what ITC had hoped for and they sanctioned another
season that promised sweeping changes, but that's another story altogether ....
