Destination: Moonbase Alpha (39 page)

‘It seemed to me to be too “on the nose”: making a very direct form of statement about who we were, and the way in which the story was being driven, to the point where we were imposing a very definite form of religious context into it. Now, although I’m not a practicing Catholic, I am an Irish Catholic, which is like saying that I have Catholicism “genetically coded” in my system. I was a very devout Catholic growing up, as most people of my generation were, and that spiritual exercise is what develops your spirituality. If you practice Catholicism or not, that expanded presence inside you is there and it finds an outlet in all sorts of other different ways: in humanism, in philosophy, in understanding, and in a speculative consciousness – that is, the capability to not dismiss things because they’re not provable. The most important thing is to accept that there are mysteries to life and that if things are not provable, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t exist. This, to me, is a fundamental part of my development as a writer: that I don’t need to prove things to know that they are real.

‘If you look at many of my stories, they do have this
slightly
spiritual quality about them. Philosophical implications of meeting yourself; the problems of the inanimate force taking you over – the one you can’t communicate with, it’s simply using you and disposing of you, in a way. Man proposes and God disposes. The story of the Darians. Again, there’s a spiritual element in it: people desiring to stay alive at any cost, and the effect it has on their spirits – they all have this element of … moral uncertainty or spiritual uncertainty.

‘To my knowledge the MUF element was never discussed or consciously developed in the sense that we’ve now come to understand it … The operative word above is “consciously”. As the stories began to explore the implications of what had happened to the Alphans, and the truly awesome nature of their plight, we the writers started to follow where it took us; one of the advantages of a format not unchallengeably carved in stone … “The Testament of Arkadia” was written completely blind to the knowledge that it was closing this kind of loop. All the more remarkable when you consider that it was never planned to be anything other than a stand-alone episode. It raises the interesting thought of how
Space: 1999
might have developed if this element had been pre-planned. Speaking personally, I’m glad it wasn’t. The fact that it revealed itself the way it did says far more about the series and its potential than a possibly mechanistic application of pre-digested MUFfery. In time, I’m sure it would have come together in a way understandable to the Alphans, but that’s another story.

‘You could see that, by the end of the first 24 episodes, we were learning to deal with things in a slightly more efficient way. We were getting slightly less surprised, but with that was coming a greater understanding, and in that sense it was a series about hope. We concentrated this kind of extraordinary process, which will take a much longer period of time, obviously, in real life, and projected ideas about what would happen if this occurred and how we would respond. So, yes, there were stories that simply dealt with the nuts and bolts of science fiction, that looked back, but many of them dealt with situations that looked forward – to encounters and the confronting of certain kinds of problems. I would like to have seen more of it in the context of action-adventure, but whenever it happened, I thought it worked well.

‘It could have been one of those stories that would have fitted more comfortably into a longer time-frame. I’d like to have done it as a longer story, but it simply wasn’t possible. I am told that people like it very much. It does express a certain spiritual aspect of my own upbringing and background, and I’d like to feel that the element I brought to it was reverence where reverence was due – not a backhanded attempt at it. And if that came through, then I would feel that I had succeeded even in that small way.’

Observations:
This episode was constrained by being produced at the end of the season, after most of the money had already been spent. However, there is no obvious visual evidence of a lack of budget, or of a production limited in any way.

Alpha’s silver jackets are seen again, having previously appeared in ‘Black Sun’, which was the other occasion when Alpha became cold enough to scrape frost off the Main Mission windows.

Review:
‘The Testament of Arkadia’ utilises flashbacks and narration for the second time in the series: the first being in the immediately preceding ‘Dragon’s Domain’. Here it is Koenig who provides the narration, adding tremendously to the atmosphere of the episode as he reflects in his journal on these events, and indirectly on many other significant elements from earlier in the season. From the Kendo match between John Koenig and Luke Ferro in the opening moments of the episode, the viewer is faced with a unique instalment to the series.

The script is one of Johnny Byrne’s best, paired again with David Tomblin’s direction. There is a lot here in common with their earlier pairing, ‘Another Time, Another Place’, including similarities in overall style and tone and of course in the visual depictions of future Earth and Arkadia. Additionally, the shot of the Alphans walking out of the Eagle onto the planet surface was re-used from that earlier episode. Sections of Byrne’s dialogue contain an atmospheric poetry, as when Koenig says in his voice-over: ‘Overpowering impressions crowded in on us as we stepped out onto the alien planet: a sense of timeless solitude, the silent touch of an empty world, the total absence of life. Death had visited this world – so our data told us – and as we moved on we could feel it closing in around us like a shroud.’ This story advances an array of underlying themes and concepts of the series and creates new ones.

The special effects are all competent, and the shot of the Eagle flying towards Arkadia at sunrise is absolutely beautiful. The Arkadia planet surface is a superb set, with dead trees and a rocky landscape featuring mountains in the background and gentle winds. It is an atmospheric locale that matches in perfect harmony the tone of the script and spirit of the direction.

As in the early episodes of Year One, there is a logical, believable, systematic survey of an alien world, and the discoveries here are astonishing. It is rewarding to see the Alphans going about their morning routine as the Reconnaissance Eagle nears Arkadia and paying attention to plant and soil analysis – all lending authenticity to their exploration of an alien world.

The cast perform with clear emotions and subtlety. More than almost any other episode, this one has an undeniable soul. There is a history, an epic feeling to the Alphan journey and a richness to the characters and their interactions with each other. The range within the characterisations and performances is wonderful. Watching the original team of Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, Barry Morse, Prentis Hancock, Nick Tate and Zienia Merton in their final episode together shows how successful a union they were. All their performances are award-worthy. Clifton Jones and Anton Phillips also give performances that rank amongst their finest in the series, although their parts here are smaller. Hancock has the second largest part in this episode and gives an impressive performance in one of Morrow’s strongest showings as Main Mission Controller. One small example of the degree of subtlety between the characters comes when John and Helena are seen sharing a cup of coffee on their Eagle flight to Arkadia – they aren’t flagrantly advertising their relationship, but through this simple act it is clear they are intimate.

Guest stars Orso Maria Guerrini and Lisa Harrow (who is incorrectly credited onscreen as Liza Harrow) are both effective in their roles and believably convey the absolute determination of their characters to live on Arkadia. It is, as Koenig put it, their ‘fanatical obsession.’

It is also interesting to hear David Kano say, ‘Don’t worry – it can only get worse.’ This marks another occurrence of his previously noted pessimistic side (though this is worded as a joke). It remains an intriguing aspect of his personality, albeit one that is only briefly hinted at throughout the series (as in ‘The Infernal Machine’).

This chapter in the Alphan journey has been predestined, as have others in their past, such as the events of ‘Collision Course’. The Mysterious Unknown Force asserts itself to ensure that not only do Luke and Anna colonise Arkadia, but also the rest of the Alphans continue on their journey into unknown space. At least part of the mystery of the Mysterious Unknown Force is solved with the discovery of Arkadia, bringing to a resolution mysteries that have lingered since the start of the series. The discovery that Earth life originated on Arkadia and that the Arkadians came to Earth as space travellers is the kind of thinking being propounded at the time by author Erich von Däniken in books such as
Chariots of the Gods
and
Gods from Outer Space
. Going back to the earlier episode ‘Missing Link’, Raan stated to Koenig, ‘I am as human as you are,’ which implies (with the retrospective knowledge gained on Arkadia) that the Arkadians colonised both Zenno and Earth – although the different worlds have obviously followed divergent evolutionary paths. This leads one to wonder if any of the other humanoid aliens Moonbase Alpha encountered – including the Kaldorians, Atherians, Bethans, Deltans and the Darians, to name a few – were also seeded by the Arkadians.

In ‘The Testament of Arkadia’ the purpose of Alpha’s journey into space is revealed (at least partially) – they were meant to bring life back to its place of origin. The theme of purpose is woven through the script, including in this dialogue:

Anna:
‘Try to understand. Think of all we’ve had to suffer since the Moon was cast out to roam the wilderness of space. Inexplicably to stop here? Think, Doctor. It gives meaning to all this.’

Luke:
‘Believe us. There is a purpose.’

Helena:
‘A purpose? And you believe this purpose of yours justifies destroying Alpha?’

Luke:
‘Doctor, when the lines of destiny meet, the tools it uses are no longer necessary. Isn’t that so?’

Most pointedly, the theme of purpose arises in Koenig’s opening narration, ‘Our struggle to survive in a hostile universe had long erased the memory of the cataclysmic disaster that first hurled our Moon out of Earth’s orbit. The recent events that occurred on the planet Arkadia have revived that painful memory, and forced us to reconsider our purpose in space.’ Purpose is raised again by Koenig’s final entry into his journal where he writes, ‘… The creation myth of the first man and woman has a new significance. Our immediate struggle is over. For Luke Ferro and Anna Davis, it has just begun. They have found their beginnings. We still wander the emptiness of space seeking ours. We must keep faith and believe that for us, for all mankind, there is a purpose.’ Entwined through this episode (as it is through our lives) the search for one’s purpose is an eternal quest.

The chill in the air on Alpha and the blowing leaves in the final glimpses of Luke and Anna on Arkadia provide an autumnal feel, appropriate for the end of the season. The last view of Luke and Anna – as the camera rises up and away from them – is also effective in amplifying how alone they are: the only two people on an entire world. The future of Luke and Anna remains a mystery for viewers of the series, but the assumption is that they will survive. One more example of the series coming full circle is Alan Carter being out in space in an Eagle as the Moon starts to move again – just as he was when it originally blasted out of Earth orbit; it’s an appealing symmetry.

The ending, with Koenig laying down his pen on the closed book, is both poetic and symbolic. The future is left open – anything can happen, but what has occurred up to this point is now a closed book.

‘The Testament of Arkadia’ strikes a feeling of awe and spirituality or mysticism throughout its story of the origin of humanity and the cycle of life. Touchingly, it demonstrates that following each ending is a new beginning. This is a wonderfully crafted episode bringing the first season to a satisfying and rewarding close, fulfilling prophecies and destinies and adding to the mythology and magnificence of
Space: 1999
.

Rating:
9/10

With hindsight, what did those involved in the production of
Space: 1999
Year One think about the show, and the experience of making it?

Barbara Bain notes: ‘Science fiction was new turf for me. I’d read quite a bit of it, but I certainly wasn’t a buff. The thing I loved about the concept was that we [as the characters] were not there because we wanted to be. The accident that thrust us out into space was unexpected, and whatever we encountered we had no way to cope with. We were ultimately homeless, looking for a place that would accommodate us, and there was something quite romantic about that. The best scripts were the ones that kept to that.’

Sylvia Anderson recalls the show’s origins: ‘My role [in the production of
Space: 1999
], as with most of the shows that we did, was mainly to work on the initial idea with Gerry, and choose the initial script. This idea –
Space: 1999
– came out of some other ideas that we [worked on] that didn’t happen. So as we went along with all our various space ideas,
Space: 1999
evolved. It’s something that we did for quite a while. So my main thing was casting the characters, and [devising] the look. That was really the main thing. Obviously I was involved in the scripting, and how we worked it during the first series was that Gerry and I would work on alternate scripts. We would have script discussions on every other episode, if you like. Martin Landau and Barbara Bain were very hands-on people. They wanted to know every line, so we worked very hard with them. And as far as the concept goes, it actually didn’t enter our heads that people wouldn’t suspend disbelief on this. I think that’s because we ourselves were thinking ahead and arrived at
Space: 1999
being evolved from all the other previous series that we’d done. This time, obviously, with actors [rather than puppets]. So I think we really believed in it so much ourselves that we, really arrogantly, couldn’t quite conceive of someone else not believing in it.’

Johnny Byrne was one of those people who initially had difficulty believing in the show’s format: ‘I had problems right from the beginning. My main problem was having come to science fiction television through the respectable route – not the route of SF films or series, but through SF … literature. And there’s a distinct difference. Science fiction writers don’t know how to write scripts, and scriptwriters invariably know little about science fiction. It’s not just a question of writing another script. There’s a whole sort of history and it has its own kind of universe, universal values in terms of writing SF. That’s why [literary] SF writers are rarely satisfied with what they see on the screen. But anyway, I found it difficult to accept that the Moon could travel through space at … whatever velocity they gave it, and week after week, considering the immense distances that the Moon would have to cover … There was a basic element that was unbelievable, and SF has to have a basis in truth, or experience or psychology, or something you can latch on to. The fundamental element is the Moon travelling through the universe and week after week coming into the range of another planet and then another planet, and God knows how many light years we are away … That I found very difficult to take. It took me a good three or four weeks. Obviously I didn’t press it, because it was something that you had to put aside and to see how in fact it affected the writing of stories, as far as I was concerned. And as I got into my stories, I found that it didn’t really affect my stories and my concept of how the stories should be. It offered the kind of scope, and if you could suspend judgment to the extent that the Moon was
here
,
that
thing was
there
, and
these
situations were occurring,
then
it was possible. But there was that necessary suspension of disbelief as to how it got there. Here, what have we got? We have a credible existence on a Moon where people can be seen to be leading a fairly believable existence, reasonably expected around that period. Thinking of it in those terms, it’s quite exciting. It didn’t move them out into the impossible future, but kept them in a fairly discernible future. Having established that, the philosophical part of it, it was quite easy.

‘Chris [Penfold] and I lived in some state in the central unit of Pinewood, the central country house, and there we did our dirty deeds. I remember we did more talking, perhaps, than writing. We seemed to exist in a state of perpetual excitement … [Maybe] that was to avoid the dreadful food we had to eat downstairs … anything to avoid eating. It was high-octane living.’

Barry Morse recalled some early difficulties: ‘In the earliest days, Martin and Barbara and I would meet in various five-handed meetings with Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Gerry and Sylvia were full of excitement at how wonderful the explosions were going to be. Then Martin or Barbara or I – usually me because I’m always the troublemaker – would say, “Yes, thank you. Very interesting. Hmmm … But what about the people?” Gerry and Sylvia would then say, “Well, the boots are going to be …” And so it was … And apropos of the uniforms – I’m glad to hear that Keith [Wilson] thought them as dreadful as I did. My first response to the idea of this uniform was that a fellow as individual and absent-minded, in the true sense of those words, as Victor Bergman, wouldn’t for a moment submit himself to wearing this dreary uniform.’

Some of the actors were less critical of the Moonbase Alpha uniforms. Prentis Hancock commented: ‘The fashion of Rudi Gernreich … I mean, we might complain about the fact we couldn’t roll our sleeves up or relax, because they made you tend to sit a bit stiffly. That doesn’t matter – he was trying to make us interesting, different sort of clothes.’ Gerry Anderson, meanwhile, said of Gernreich: ‘He created the basic designs – at a huge cost – and we completed the rest of the look. The end result was hardly spectacular, but we did get his name on the screen!’

Barbara Bain had her own challenge with the uniforms: ‘One of my struggles was in the morning at Pinewood. The heat hadn’t been turned on yet. It’s very cold in England and they turn the heat on later. I’d been up in my dressing room at six o’clock in the morning. Rudi Gernreich had done those costumes with those wonderful industrial zippers – cold beyond belief! All made up with my hair done, I’d slip into that thing with the cold, inch-thick, metallic zipper. Okay, as it got colder and they did put the heat on, I got the brilliant idea of putting it on the radiator to warm it up. But then I had to be very careful or it would be too hot; you could burn yourself with it. But those are some of the slings and arrows you suffer. But, the teakettles were all plugged in. The English are totally dependant on having teakettles plugged in. Everyone had a teakettle – even when the National Grid went out, which was good to see.’

Also on the subject of teakettles, Bain recalled, ‘
We happened to be there during a major strike. We were declared an essential industry, so Pinewood kept shooting ... However there were certain things not available, like hot water. So we managed to heat the teakettle – the ubiquitous English teakettle – to wash my hair in the morning. In other words, the English are the best at making do; making something work no matter what. So that’s what we did: we washed my hair with the teakettle. You could never not plug in the teakettle. We had that, but no running hot water.’

Keith Wilson recalls his involvement in designing for
Anderson productions: ‘I worked very closely with Sylvia, and it was because of her … She said, “I think you should design this.” And then I went ahead, and that’s exactly what I did. I worked with Sylvia for 14 years and we were very good friends. She was the person up front; she was the one that did all the shows, went to the press. She was the showman. So, the two of us were very, very good friends and she relied on me totally. She couldn’t draw, she had no idea of visuals: that was my job. On
UFO
, although she gets the credit, I designed all the costumes and the wigs. We may have discussed it and she may have said, “Wouldn’t it be nice if all the girls had purple wigs?” Fine, so I designed the costume and gave the girls purple wigs, [but] I didn’t get the credit – she did. They formed a company, a design company; it was for Sylvia. Though my name was not mentioned, I did all the designing. She didn’t design anything. We talked about it, obviously, and she would approve it – or not – as the case may be. This even went to Ed Bishop’s wig in
UFO
– it was my idea to give him blond hair, because he’s actually a very plain-looking man. All of a sudden, when you put the wig on him, he looks amazing. That was my idea. So all of the creative side, from every single angle – anything that was visual – was mine.

‘I wanted this clinical science fiction look, and I had to be able to reconstruct sets very, very quickly. We virtually had an alien planet or an alien spaceship every two weeks. So I couldn’t spend a lot of time on the Moonbase sets. I designed the modular system so that, within hours, I could build another set or another room, or I could just open the whole thing up and make it into a series of corridors very quickly, because everything fitted together like a big jigsaw. I spent a lot of time and a lot of money at the beginning of the series designing the system, knowing that once it was built, I could virtually forget about it and I could concentrate all my efforts on the alien planets. It was the only way to do it.

‘Doing
Space: 1999
was a problem, because I had created a clinical atmosphere. Therefore, expressing personality was very difficult. This room that we’re sitting in [for this interview] has little touches of me because I live here, and have lived here for a while. It has accumulated its personality from my personality. But to put a group of people on the Moon in a clinical atmosphere, and give that atmosphere a personality, is very, very difficult.

‘Let me tell you about the Commlock. When it came to do this, I had to do a design for it. We had found the smallest television in the world at this time, but it had all this stuff coming out of the back, so you could only ever see it from one angle. You couldn’t do anything with it. So, then you would cut out and use a dummy one without the screen in it. And also, of course, we didn’t have colour television in those days. That’s why all the monitors were in black and white – we didn’t have colour in
England.
[21]
That’s the only reason they weren’t in colour – it was too expensive. It was the size of the tube that determined the design of the actual Commlock. I was given the tube and I just designed something to go around it. Of course it was meant to have other uses – opening doors, all that sort of stuff. But the principle was actually just based around the size of the tube. It’s part of a period. It’s a period piece, the black and white screens … Everything about it is of the period.’

Gerry Anderson commented on the design of the Eagles: ‘It was very much Brian Johnson’s design, in as much as I had imagined an encased fuselage. He came up with this non-aerodynamic design on the basis that if it was to fly in a vacuum, what the hell would it matter – which, of course, was perfectly correct.’

Barbara Bain said, at the time of filming the show: ‘There has never been this kind of production on a television series. And outside of
2001
, there have never been special effects like ours. As a matter of fact, Brian Johnson, who did them, is the same man who did the special effects for Kubrick in
2001
. And we are pleased that it is not just an adventure series. We feel there is real depth and meaning in many of the segments. There is something to be learned in looking at your own civilisation through a fictionalised one.’

Keith Wilson commented on the stairs in Main Mission below the windows, which disappeared after the first few episodes: ‘I’d actually forgotten that those stairs were there. I sort of remember what happened. The set was built as a four-sided one, and although the walls were very easy to take out, the stairs weren’t, because they were so big. After the first couple of episodes, it was realised by the directors and cameramen that this was a slight problem … So it was decided that we would still have a four-sided set, but we would take those stairs out [permanently]. So it would [then] be very easy [to reconfigure the set] – in a few minutes we could take the walls out and move a camera in and they could carry on shooting. That’s the only reason the stairs went; it was just economic to take them out. You never really knew if they were there or not, and it actually didn’t make any difference to the action or the look of the set. It wouldn’t spoil the look of the set. So it was decided we would take them out to make life easier for the directors and cameramen.’

Regarding lighting the Main Mission set, Wilson stated: ‘Well, actually, it was very easy to light. The set was designed so that the lights were permanently in position. When the cameraman walked on to the set, all he had to do was flick one switch and all the lights came on. It was as simple as that. The set was designed to be lit from the outside. So the ceilings, wall panels, they were all lit. The lights were already permanently there. One switch lit the set. There’s a story, which Barbara Bain tells, that it took a very long time. Lovely set, she said, but it took so long to light. If the truth was known, Barbara’s make-up took a long time.’

Barbara Bain recalls additional difficulties the production encountered: ‘Gerry Anderson absolutely wanted to photograph a television screen without [a dark] bar flopping [on the picture], which is impossible to do. He wanted a clean shot: he did not want the bar on it, because … that would have been primitive filming. So, at least the first ten days of shooting, all our concern was to try and get this bar not to flop around! So all those intercom scenes when one of us was standing next to the screen chatting to whomever, we were at the mercy of trying to get that bar out. We would do some of those scenes 103 times to get it, and just at the last moment, the bar would show up! Then, when we went onto the generators later, as opposed to the National Grid, the connections were very delicate and it came back to haunt us. We were, again, stopped down endlessly trying to get that shot. So, it was funny that with all this extraordinary technology, we were still at the mercy of that bloody bar going around!