The second season (or, as our British friends would say, "series") of
Gerry Anderson's Space: 1999 saw a number of changes wrought upon the format, including a new producer,
Fred Frieberger, new cramped sets, more colorful costumes, and some major cast changes. Gone were
Barry Morse's Victor Bergman and most of the command staff, replaced with
Catherine Schell's shape-shifting
token extraterrestrial, Maya, and her comically macho love interest, Tony, portrayed by
Tony Anholt.
With all these changes, new publicity material needed to be created to (hopefully) interest potential syndicators and station programmers - as well as the entertainment journals/fan magazines. Here's a smalls election of some of the publicity stills circulated for
Space: 1999, Year Two.
As a kid I got into series 2 more and thought Maya was awesome, it was just a bit more exciting overall. Still scared the crap out of me too!
ReplyDeleteLiked both series but I must admit, as a die-hard Star Trek fan I liked the inclusion of the alien Maya as well.
ReplyDeleteWhat does Maya have to do with Star Trek?
DeleteCan't help but dig the new jackets. Stylin': 1999!
ReplyDeleteSpace 1999 had the BEST production design... across the board....... original Galactica comes in a very close second!
ReplyDelete"...comically macho love interest, Tony, portrayed by Tony Anholt."
ReplyDeleteComically macho?
Tex
(got a ferinstance?)
Specifically? Aside from the stupid homemade beer running gag, and his ridiculous protectiveness toward Maya? I never liked Tony. He seemed like a Brit's idea of what a tough, New York Italian-American stereotype was like.
DeleteI always thought Tony's protectiveness was just him looking out for his woman, since Maya wasn't as experienced with the dangers that the Universe threw at the Alphans.
DeleteAs for him being Alpha's resident brewmeister, well that was just another example of Space:1999 being on the cutting edge, what with all the microbreweries that popped up in the 90s. And don't forget that home brewing was a popular pastime as well (I remember folks doing it back in the 70s.) Now, places like Whole Foods and other stores like them carry home brewing supplies.
And my question took us WAY off point fur the post.
Tex
(sorry, Boss)
Right on, Tex. I have also thought about the micro brewing analogy. As Tony Anholt once said, if people are going to be stuck on the Moon, they will have hobbies, relationships, and they aren't going to stand around wondering what just happened to them.
DeleteYear 1 often had that type of ending and also what went before had no explanation even from a scientific point of view.
Finally, the changes. If people read what has been written over the years, they'll see that one of the primary problem was money. For year 2, Grade and ITC had cut the budget, year 1 was expensive and another problem it took nearly a year to decide whether to do another season or not. Many of the actors had moved on or weren't offered a contract. There's a lot more to the story. People can check out Bob Wood's book "Destination Moonbase Alpha" and other sources.
Don't forget, Tony Verdeschi was ultimately conceived not by a Brit, but by an American producer: Fred Freiberger. And we almost lost Alan Carter at the time apparently because Freiberger didn't want to pay Nick Tate more money.
ReplyDeleteCrediting him to Frieberger doesn't really help. :) And the character was written by Brits and played by a Brit, so I stand by my assessment that the Tony Verdeschi was more of a stereotype than a character.
DeleteBut the producer was also the uncredited script editor and did the revised series bible with Johnny Byrne before he and the season one writing staff totally departed. Freiberger coordinated with the writers, saw the dailies, was on set and talked to the actors, etc. He obviously wanted the stereotype, otherwise it could have been changed and toned down...
DeleteI like Tony Verdeschi a lot more now than I did back in September of 1976 (thank you, CBC, for giving Series Two a 'network' run). "Who's that impostor?!" I was a fan of Alan Carter and did not appreciate his on-screen demotion.
ReplyDelete"Command Center" was an improvement on "Main Mission"... "The Empty Shell", as I call it. Speaking of sets, Freiberger and Co did the right thing by setting up "standing sets", as opposed to the mix-and-match Lego mess of Year One. Unfortunately, Space: 1999's stages were small, so Main Mission had to go in order to accommodate a complex of standing sets. The series' production design was generally poor; with a few exceptions. IMO
Series Two was an improvement, overall, as far as I'm concerned. I've lately been re-exploring the series.
Wow. You and I almost completely disagree. I thought the first season sets (mix & match as they were) were vastly superior to the cramped, poorly-lit and nonsensical sets (I was especially annoyed by all of the labels on every goddam thing - it was like Adam West's Batcave) of Season Two.
DeleteI also think the overall design of the show - especially in Year 1, was exceptional - one of the best-looking (expensive-looking) genre shows ever.
I agree with you on the label issue of Yr 2. As a kid, I noticed the overuse of labeling. The sets of Yr 2 aren't that different from Yr 1. Just setup for good.
DeleteI should have noted that it was the episode-to-episode design that did not impress me, for the most part. Drapes and Perspex. (There were a few outstanding exceptions.) Also, the matte paintings were terrible.
More importantly, there was no excuse for the fountain of lousy scripts.
I must say that I really like your blog, and I am making a point to visit on a regular basis. Keep up the good work. It has lots of personality.
SPACE's first year looked EPIC! Enjoyed the look of Season Two but it just wasn't the same show in so many ways. The recent POWYS books did a brilliant SPACE novel where year one led into year two and showed us why the Alphans made the move to the Command Centre from Main Mission. Then, when the book company started their own all-original year three adventures, they then did a great job of moving them back to a new look Main Mission which would be safer from alien attack.
DeleteI'm of the opinion, season 1 was vastly superior. They brought in Fred Frieberger for one reason, to make it more like Star Trek. Hence the addition of an alien crew member Maya, ala Mr. Spock. This was when, Star Trek was really taking off in syndication.
ReplyDeleteBut all these changes, only took away everything that made it special and unique. And the worst travesty of all, the loss of Barry Morse's Victor Bergman and the inclusion of "Tony".
So sad..
I like the first season of Space:1999 well enough. Their were lots of holes in the logic and it could be slow, but there was some real potential. Season two was like a distant shell of season one. Lame scripts, no Victor, Tony stunk and almost every episode was tough to watch.
ReplyDeletehttp://scifihorrorfantasy.wordpress.com/
If Catherine Schell's Maya wasn't the sexiest space alien of the lot, then my name's DeForest Kelly...
ReplyDeleteWell, what totally flew past creative teams in the 70s was.., 'if you make something look more like Trek', you basically get what you asked for'..
ReplyDeleteMiserably.
It will never BE 'Trek', it will always look like they 'tried' to do 'Trek', you insult the original creative ideas to make it different, and what you enjoyed to begin with (Buck Rogers, 1999, etc...).
Year 1 was primarily '2001-meets-Twilight Zone'; you were either enthrawled or left dry.
I liked the cosmetic changes or Year 2, loved the new uniforms (the initial Landau/Bain promo pics were awesome in those jackets..), but I never liked Maya. One bit. Loved Catherine as an actress, and Maya was easier to deal with near the end (like 'Immunity Syndrome') when she was less a token and more a supportive character, but never liked the token/shape-shifting concept. It was a gimmick and as Landau mentioned dozens of times, the 2nd year became too cartoonish.
Simply said, Landau was cast as an 'action hero' in Year 2, TOTALLY against his character and acting strengths/style, and what made Year 1 work. He worked best as that guy who is hit with the totally bizzare unknown and somehow musters logic to figure it out, not a physical action puncher.
The forced humor/laughter at the end was THE WORST.
Anholt served Freiberger's intentions well, dumbing down/sex appealing to viewers. Totally against Sylvia's vision. Tate was a HUGE reason why I even watched the 2nd year, plus to see Eagles (still my fav ship ever..). But Johnson's non-Eagle effects (like the swirling colors in space, yeccch) seemed phoned in, a big letdown from the first year. They looked too cheap and euro-trashy.
You see, the 1st Year could get away with weak scripts, if you use enough effects, music, great camera angles (a HUGE plus in the first year, not used much in Year 2..), Victor's rambling philosophical explanations, and the 'Great Unknown'. It worked.
In comparison, when the plot lines are laid out with little left to the imagination in Year 2, you lose those safeguards and you're left with the acting and pacing, which was alright.., but not good enough to hide lousy scripting.
Very intelligent analysis. I agree with you about the "forced humor/laughter at the end" business, but I found that a degree of humour was well integrated into the body of some of the episodes. Good moments in "Journey to Where", for instance.
DeleteYour final two paragraphs are spot on!
"You see, the 1st Year could get away with weak scripts, if you use enough effects, music, great camera angles (a HUGE plus in the first year, not used much in Year 2..), Victor's rambling philosophical explanations, and the 'Great Unknown'. It worked."
A friend on mine said this very same thing today with very much the same kind of wording.
Again, intelligent analysis. Not the usual fan-boy junk.
You're too kind. Case in point: "A Matter of Life and Death". Watched it yesterday.
Delete1) Look at the majesty of Main Mission. Watch how the leads, especially Bain moved around. Very smooth flow in entrances, long full shots, not the mid-torso closeup shots of turning knobs and such like in Year 2. You see plenty of Sylvia style here.
2) Beautiful camera angle of the leads seated behind the gurney in the travel tube shot heading out to the Eagle. Great pacing music, again, stylish camera angles and use of movement.
Again, Freiberger intentionally ratched up the action and pacing for Year 2, which worked fairly well as an action sci-fi show but at what cost..?
Supposidly, final Y2 ratings in NY and other markets were actually higher than the first year's final ratings, certainly qualifying it for a 3rd series, but Sir Lew pulled support to focus on cinema offerings.
As far as inappropriate, forced humor is concerned, Star Trek's second season has that cornered. In the Nomad episode, whole worlds are wiped out, and at the episode end, Kirk is cracking jokes. Likewise the one in which women are brutally knifed to death. Jocularity at the end.
ReplyDeleteSpace: 1999's second season had several episodes without any humor in the epilogue ("The Metamorph", "One Moment of Humanity", "The Mark of Archanon", "Seed of Destruction", "Devil's Planet", "The Immunity Syndrome"). And where there was humor, it was almost always restrained and tasteful. And well-integrated into the episodes, as has been said. It made the characters likeable and accessible to the viewers. There's a coldness and lack of normal human sociability permeating the first season, and in a show with a premise like Space: 1999, such a coldness is a liability when it comes to growing an audience. I doubt I would have warmed to the characters or the show itself if I'd seen the first season first.
Tony Verdeschi was always a well-liked character among my friends and I. As was Maya. Bergman was the stereotypical egg-headed, absent-minded professor, though Barry Morse did inject a good deal of humanity into the role.
I'm really not that concerned about camera angles and so on. But the second season did have some nice touches. I like the pan from the gurgling stream to John's hand at the start of the second act of "Journey to Where" for instance. "Space Warp" has some nice low angles on the derelict spaceship. And there's quite a bit of first-class camera work in "The Immunity Syndrome" also. I could probably find additional examples if I were to look.
CBC in Canada did give the second season a good run in '76-77, and it was popular. Had the show been renewed for a third season, there's no doubt the CBC would have continued with it.
I appreciate this blog's commitment to a fair and positive outlook on '70s SF, though when it comes to the second season of Space, I tend to see that commitment flagging somewhat. Just an observation.
Sure - I try to maintain a positive outlook on this stuff - it's very important to me to avoid the sort of snarky, cynical negativism rampant elsewhere on the Internet when it comes to vintage material.
DeleteBut I don't see how that prohibits the expression of disappointment in things like the direction of the Second Year of Space: 1999 (or Buck Rogers, for that matter). Ultimately, this is still my blog, and it's going to reflect my opinions.
You'll note that I generally don't make blanket statements like "Year Two sucked!" or "I don't see how anyone can find anything to enjoy in the second season of Buck Rogers!"... unlike many (mostly anonymous) commenters. I state my opinions, but I also make a genuine effort to be fair-minded.
For the record - I think that Fred Frieberger had no understanding of the science fiction genre and very little actual talent in producing television shows. This is borne out not only by his track record, but by interviews he gave for Starlog and other magazines, where he comes across as arrogant, defensive, and blaming all his failures on other people.
I think that the second season of Space: 1999 is far weaker than the first, and that many of the choices made by the production staff undermined the quality of the show. I still like most of the cast and love the special effects, and am eager for Network to finish up the Blu-rays so I can add them to my video library.
Great comments everyone, and mind you, there's a LOT of things I generally liked about Year 2 (as I first mentioned), such as new uniforms (I wear a LSRO patch on my fleece at work..), more Nick Tate time, and I especially liked more Sandra, Tony and Bill Frasier scenes in 'Beta Cloud' (actually one of my fav 1999 episodes of both years.., just a fun episode).
ReplyDeleteThe majestic, yet creepy 'What's really out there?' vibe for the first year was what sucks me in. Effectively, like Landau has echoed many times, these people are totally unprepared for space travel, thrusted into the unknown. THAT was exciting for me. The second year just seemed a bit more smug, but again, it was a different approach.
Some lesser quality Y2 episodes like 'Luton' are a chore to watch, but even then you have a GREAT scene with Landau being melancholy about his wife and reminiscing with Maya. Landau could be a 'drama queen' about stuff on the set, but when the disgreements were over, he could still deliver something 'above the script'.
It's just SUPER to have a show a LOT of folks still warmly remember AND to have both ways effectively...: First year cerebral and pondering, second year more action-oriented.
Nothing wrong with that at all. Folks' generally like both years, but actually 'prefer' one over the other. It's all good.
Some great opinions on season 2 here, I just remember it in 1976 as a very exciting programme to watch, unfortunately ATV Network in the Midlands (a sister company of ITC) took almost 2 years to show all 24 episodes! Also season 2 reruns (or repeats as we say in the UK) began before all 24 episodes had been screened, ATV ran them from September to December 1976 then a long break until August 1977 then the final 2 in 1978.
ReplyDeleteI do enjoy the superior quality of season 1 but I always found season 2 to be more interesting to watch - I think it was more commercial. It was a pity that Lew Grade seemed to lose interest in ITC film series after this, there were a few more up to 1982 when he left ITC but not many.