UFO: The Vault

17. UFO 2 and Space: 1999

Space: 1999 - Probably the most widely discussed and controversial of all the Anderson shows. There's the debate over if you prefer Series 1 for being more of its own show, or Series 2 for being more of an adventure action-packed series. Whether you think Series 2 is really a load of garbage, or how terrifying the monster from Dragon's Domain is, the show is one of the most famous of the Anderson series, and the show has one of the biggest fan bases of Anderson's works individually, probably the biggest after Thunderbirds. For me, however, Space:1999 was never quite one of my favourites of his shows like of course UFO. The first series is indeed much slower paced than UFO, yet the second feels more like a Star Trek clone full of weird and campy monsters and glamour - the responsibility of Fred Friedberger. Many would regard the two seasons to be almost set in two separate universes altogether thanks to Fred's radical redesigns to the show, as explained in the excellent summary video. A few favourites of mine of the series from Series 1 include Breakaway, The Last Sunset and of course Dragon's Domain, and from Series 2 The Metamorph and The Bringers Of Wonder. To me however, UFO is a superior series. Even some of the best episodes like Breakaway can even feel a little slow-paced sometimes. Of course, UFO did eventually lead into Space:1999 after several years, so how did it all begin...

In September 1972, UFO began to be screen across America across 136 local TV stations in syndication, not securing a US network sale. "Bicycling" the series episodes around America in a limited number of prints in circulation from one station to the next, it would have been far more expensive for a network to have bought the series and screen one print across the entire country. Nevertheless, during the screening from September 1972 - November 1973 national networks were able to keep track of its popularity and high ratings as the local stations were each affiliated to one of the networks.UFO did particularly well on  WCBS-TV in New York and KNXT in Los Angeles, perhaps because the series was transmitted at 7PM on Saturday evenings, right before top-rated US sitcom All In The Family - pulling in an average of 30 million views a week!  For 17 weeks, UFO ratings were good and CBS seriously considered ordering for a Series 2. However, in the UK, UFO had finished production with Century 21 Productions closed down whilst Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and Reg Hill were busy working on their new company's first production, the premise given by Lew Grade himself - The Protectors. Group Three were also busy gearing up for the new SUPERMARIONATION series planned to be The Investigator. The first puppet show Anderson made since The Secret Service, the pilot episode was shot late 1972 at Malta, where Group Three had previously shot some of The Protectors. When Anderson returned to London from filming The Protectors, he was surprised to learn of its unexpected popularity in the US. 

With ITC commissioning Group Three for pre-production on Series 2 of UFO, under the title UFO 2, began late 1972. The series was now to be set in 1999 and for SHADO Moonbase to be upgraded to be a vastly expanded lunar city for their new HQ. As it was believed the show's most popular episodes were set in space, the series was now to see the war with the aliens escalate to the extent very few UFOs could now get past SHADO defences, with many of the episodes focusing on the aliens attempting to destroy moonbase. One of the designs for the new show had an Eagle aircraft (bearing no resemblance to a SHADO Interceptor) by the large lunar city, indicating a vast array of differences already in this new version. If the show, mostly set between 1980-84, was to have been granted a Series 2, this would have possibly had meant Straker's request for more moonbases in the episode Kill Straker! would have been granted. This would have for me felt strange if little of the connective tissue was there from the first series, as the character of Straker (born in 1940) would now be 59 so might be getting a bit stiff as the series went on (we all still love Ed though!). It might (a big might here) have also meant that some of the storylines would get a little repetitive along the way now that the series had no earthbound hindering many of the show's stories. But if they had the ideas, then sure, by all means. As already mentioned, I would also have been worried about the show's connective tissue with the rest of the series set on moonbase, lots of the old Skydiver, SHADO HQ under a film studio and all the old and brilliant vehicles would have gone. 

ITC New York had a strong voice in the direction for UFO 2 (or UFO: 1999), unhappy of the more soap-opera dramas such as Confetti Check A-Ok, the team for the series began to form with pre-production well underway with art directors Keith Turner and Bob Bell returned to design inside of moonbase, whilst Brian Johnson (returning to the Andersons since Thunderbirds as he worked on Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey ) designing the exterior. Meanwhile, Christopher Penfold was brought on as script editor with Tony Barwick busy on a third series for The Protectors. Ed Bishop was also very excited about the possibility for him to return as Commander Straker, only in early 1973 when the pre-production halted due to ratings in the US beginning to fade and CBS lost interest in backing a Series 2. What had turned out was that All in the Family had finished on UFO's first syndication run and even though repeats continued in the same timeslot, gradually ratings started to drop. With such a huge amount of money being spent on something which had now been granted to a halt, Anderson worked around this and pitched an all-new series to Lew Grade from the remains of what had been completed in pre-production. In the hope this series would appeal to the US market, a half-hour pilot script was written under the title "Zero-G". The title for the new series would eventually be changed from titles being  "Menace In Space", and other potential titles "The Intruders", "Space Intruders", "Journey Into Space", "Space Journey", "Outer Space" and "Space Probe". Ultimately ending with Space: 1999. And the rest was history.

Several sources over the years have said that the earliest drafts of "Zero-G", later titled Breakaway, even retained some UFO elements, including SID, SHADO interceptors and moon mobiles and even the aliens. This was however dropped as the story's focus shifted from alien invasion to humanity's own tragic mistakes. Much like UFO, Space: 1999 would see constant interruption from ITC America on their conditions for the series, especially the soap opera episodes of Straker's background, family life and the formation of SHADO. Abe Mandell from ITC America was most insistent that the series should not be set on Earth at all where "people have tea in the Midlands". Hence, the original idea being to utterly destroy the Earth until this was declared to be too grim for a family show, the moon was blown out of Earth's orbit in the first episode and left the occupants of Moonbase Alpha to drift the infinite cosmos in search of a new planet to call home. Sure there's always debate over UFO and Space:1999, many of the sets used at SHADO HQ were later seen in episodes of Space:1999 particularly Dragon's Domain. The Ultra Probe spaceship from that episode reused many of the computers that have previously been in UFO. A large number of actors appeared on both shows including Shane Rimmer, Philip Madoc, Patrick Allen and Barry Stokes, both series rely heavily on hardware and ships, in fact, both shows are just generally very similar in lots of ways. It is interesting how UFO lead to the creation of Space:1999, how a show was almost brought back before it was cancelled and then crafted into something new. Perhaps the same might happen for the future for an abandoned Space: 1999 remake, Space: 2099, or planned revivals of UFO...

An excellent and detailed site comparing both UFO and Space:1999 below.

http://catacombs.space1999.net/plus/dt/ufo.html