Destination: Moonbase Alpha (33 page)

Guest Artists: Shane Rimmer
(Kelly),
Carla Romanelli
(Melita)

Uncredited Cast: Suzanne Roquette
(Tanya Alexander),
James Snell
(Cousteau),
Sarah Bullen
(Operative Kate),
Ann Maj-Britt
(Operative Ann),
Loftus Burton
(Operative Lee Oswald),
Laurie Davis
,
Jacqueline Delhaye
,
Andrew Dempsey
,
Michael Stevens
,
Maggie Wright
(Main Mission Operatives),
Tony Allyn
(Security Guard Tony Allan),
Quentin Pierre
(Security Guard Pierce Quinton),
Alan Harris
(Alphan),
Judith Hepburn
,
Diana Reeves
,
Erica Svenson
(Nurses),
Robert Atiko
(Technician),
Michael Sirett
(Technician),
Carol Dee
(Patient),
Marc Boyle
,
Joe Dunne
,
Dorothy Ford
,
Eddie Stacey
(Stunts)

Plot:
Alien hieroglyphics flood Alpha’s screens and an investigating Eagle is crushed beyond recognition and hurled back to the Moon. Carter and co-pilot Kelly search for the first ship, and on a spacewalk Kelly is taken over by a massive alien space ‘brain’ – the centre of life for the galaxy. The brain attempts to help the Alphans change the course of the Moon to avoid a collision, but the attempts are unsuccessful and the Moon plunges into the nebula-like entity.

Quotes:

• Paul:
  ‘Time we had a new world.’
  
• Victor:
  ‘It’s either a practical joke or something very interesting.’
  
• Victor:
  ‘This foam, as you call it, could crush anything.’
  
• Koenig:
  ‘It’s a living organism, like a brain, pulsating with life and light. It’s the centre of a whole galaxy … maybe even hundreds of galaxies. Planets, stars, strange life forms – and in the middle of it all is this brain.’
  
• Victor:
  ‘It’s a miracle we’re alive, John … Complex as the human brain; and just as vulnerable.’
  

Filming Dates:
Thursday 5 December – Thursday 19 December 1974

Thursday 27 February –
Friday 28 February 1975

Incidental Music:
The use of Gustav Holst’s orchestral classic ‘Mars – The Bringer of War’ adds dramatically to Alpha’s journey through the space brain. This arrangement, by Malcolm Sargent, was published by EMI Music for Pleasure.

Commentary:

Martin Landau:
‘The director [Charles Crichton] wasn’t getting what he wanted and he asked them to stop the foam. But the crew couldn’t hear him and the foam kept coming. Soon it was up to our ears and Charlie waded right into it, all the while yelling, “Stop the foam! Stop the bloody foam!”’

Barry Morse:
‘“Space Brain” concerned some alien force that flooded the whole of Moonbase Alpha with soap bubbles. It had to be shot with all these bubbles and foam, which had to be pumped into the set. We did the first take and this foam gradually spread out onto the set and filled it up. The director, Charles Crichton, cut and said, “All right now, take two,” and everybody looked very blank because no-one had thought how to get all these soapsuds out of the set! It took hours and hours; the result being that by the time we came to take two we realised we could not stop for anything. Whatever happened, we had to keep going. Take two began and they started pumping in all the soapsuds. Unfortunately, when the young boy who did the clapper board came in front of the camera and did his clapper, he slipped on this foam and fell to the floor! Well, being the good technician he was, he stayed put, because he knew if he got up he would spoil the take. So we went on playing this wretched scene, whilst he was being smothered by foam – scarcely able to breath. Thankfully, he did survive and we all had a good laugh about it afterwards.’

Nick Tate:
‘There was one episode, “Space Brain”, where the whole of Moonbase Alpha was engulfed in foam. They rented these huge machines that pumped soap bubbles everywhere. The machines worked fabulously and filled the entire sound stage with foam, making it look very peculiar and eerie. Unfortunately, nobody stopped to think that we had slippery floors, and the soap bubbles made them more slippery. People would just vanish inside these bubbles and we would find them slithering around on the floor. It was all very amusing, but at the same time very dangerous. After one scene, director Charlie Crichton raced in to call “Cut,” and because he was moving so fast, he hit the soap bubbles and vanished from sight with the most terrible thud. There was this awful silence for a few seconds and then we heard Charlie call out, “Don’t panic – I’m all right!” He came crawling out of the foam covered in soap bubbles and looking like a Yeti.’

Zienia Merton:
‘“Space Brain” was just so funny because there was just so much of that foam stuff and the joke was that we didn’t have enough space packs to go around. Prentis and I could never appear in the same shots – if there were eight main characters, there were only six packs. So what happened was that he was “6” and I was “9” and we used the same pack but turned it around.

‘I remember [in
“Space Brain”] Prentis and I were in Main Mission doing late night duty, or something, and to soften it and make it more normal and real they gave me a tapestry to stitch, thinking poor old Sandra would be doing that. It actually belonged to Helene Bevan, our hairdresser lady. It was hers, and I made such a mess of it I felt so bad for her. I was stitching away and it was all rubbish; but never mind!
’

Shane Rimmer:
‘Working with Gerry Anderson was a lot like being in a repertory company. If you saw somebody show up in one series he eventually turned up in another, which was good for everybody, because you got to learn how Gerry worked. You got used to the kind of interplay that he really liked to use in his plays … Gerry had a creative organisational flair and he had an amazing facility to be just a little ahead of the game, and he could predict a lot of times very successfully what was going to happen and what was going to be in vogue.

‘When I got the script for “Space Brain”, I think it talked about low-level suds, just above the floor. But those suds were ten feet high! I was strapped to an operating table; everybody else left the studio … I’ve sort of recovered. It was very much enjoyed. I remember the line, “You must not touch my brain!” The soapsuds – honestly, there was so much soap in that studio you could have washed the place down four times over and still had enough for a year’s laundry. It was everywhere. I think it looked all right. But the big problem was trying to remain comatose and not sneeze or cough or whatever, while all this stuff was building up.

‘There has to be a very strong explorative theme in these things and sometimes they forget to consult the people who are going through these things. Everything is tremendously orientated toward the special effects and toward the wonder and mystery of space, which is fine. But if you’re not really too concerned about the people who are going through these things, it starts to dwindle a little bit. The one thing I was always very impressed with was the way [
Space: 1999
] made you actually get quite concerned about whether they were going to get through it or not. You knew it wasn’t going to be a succession of special effects – somehow they were going to get through it themselves. I think this is the way the series developed. They went into new situations in space not having a clue how to deal with them.

‘What was striking about that leading bunch – Martin Landau, Barbara Bain and Barry Morse – was their conviction: they could sell refrigerators to Eskimos. They had enough good talent on that show that they could parlay that cast into all sorts of situations. So although the soapsuds situation isn’t one of my happiest experiences, it was thrilling to be in
Space: 1999
. They used what they knew they had and there was a great realism and naturalism in that series that I thought was terrific. I think all the casting and the script set up was well done.

‘Sylvia was terrific working with actors. There were no limitations, or obvious ones, placed upon anybody. Nick Tate was terrific – he could grab a part, with that Australian moxie, just increase it and amplify the part, still staying true to what was conceived. A lot of good actors do that.

‘I still maintain that the longevity of
Space: 1999
is because of the honesty and the interplay between the main characters who were there. Somewhere in that main five, in that amalgamated effort, there was a solution. Everybody had a go at it, and I think the most interesting things in our lives are when you have a cumulative effort like that.
Space: 1999
had a kind of conviction about it that I don’t see very often in these types of space series.’

Christopher Penfold:
‘The idea springs to mind of space as being a macro brain. We also toyed with the idea of doing a micro story. The idea of the heavenly bodies as being macro brain cells is one that appealed to me, and still does. What was achieved on the set with foam wasn’t quite in line with that!

‘That fire-fighting foam may have been where the production answers to the problems posed by the script came from, but I can certainly say that detergents weren’t seriously engaging my mind as a writer. Microbiology was the idea of “Space Brain”: the notion that microbiologists spend their time looking at smaller and smaller particles. We spend billions of dollars building particle accelerators and looking at, and looking for, smaller and smaller particles. It seemed to me that it might be quite interesting to turn that around and head off in the other direction. To think of the entire planet Earth as a very small particle; and that it was itself a particle within a very large entity – which might be the universe – and that we might think of the universe as a brain.’

Johnny Byrne:
‘I have one image ingrained on my mind … In the making of “Space Brain”, Main Mission was filled by these big machines that pumped out thousands of cubic tons of foam. Certain sequences of “Space Brain” were in fact the last to be filmed for the series, and I remember there was only one sequence to be done: it was where Main Mission is invaded by brain cells; in other words, tons of foam. Everybody was pissed off because they wanted to get over to the party, have the end-of-shoot party and get drunk and things. Also it was a question whether or not Charles would finish it on time, I think. But I have this image of Charles Crichton standing there in great big waders shouting, “More foam!” and the foam machines kept coming in and they went absolutely mad. “More foam!” until there was so much foam he was swallowed up and disappeared under it all. It was a wonderful image!’

Bloopers:
Two Eagles are moving in to dock with each other but due to the double-exposure of the sequence and the positioning of the models, they are seen to briefly merge together.

Observations:
Additional scenes for this episode were the last filmed for Year One, following completion of ‘The Testament of Arkadia’.

Lasting for over seven minutes, the opening pre-credits sequence is the longest of the series.

Christopher Penfold reportedly departed the series shortly after ‘Space Brain’ began filming. His final script for Year One, ‘Dragon’s Domain’, had already been written and would later be produced as episode 23. Of his departure, Penfold recalled, ‘As the series developed, the increasing concerns of ITC for a kind of science fiction which I felt very alien to me began to have the effect of undermining the scripts that were being written. We had very good scripts that had to go back to the drawing board to meet a requirement, which had come from Abe Mandell, who didn’t appear to have any understanding that if you take one strand out of a script, it affects everything else in the script. So a lot of rewriting – needless rewriting – went on and this had the effect of bringing the scripts further and further behind schedule. The difficulties came to a head and Gerry asked me to leave the series. I don’t remember having any severe falling out with him, but I realised the way the wind was blowing as far as story content was concerned and I was, at that point, utterly exhausted anyway … I think sorrow had set in before, so the moment of actually leaving was one of some relief. I would have liked, of course, for it to have continued the way we set out.’

Review:
‘Space Brain’, another pairing of writer Christopher Penfold and director Charles Crichton, is dramatic, enjoyable and one of the most visually memorable episodes of
Space: 1999
. However, it ends up being several notches below other episodes such as ‘Black Sun’, ‘Another Time, Another Place’ or ‘War Games’. What is most appealing is the concept of a space entity that could be considered the brain of an entire galaxy – it’s a vast concept, but one fraught with difficulty in terms of realisation.