Destination: Moonbase Alpha (81 page)

FAN-PRODUCED EPISODES

MESSAGE FROM MOONBASE ALPHA

Screenplay by Johnny Byrne

Directed by Tim Mallett

Premiere Screening:
Los Angeles, California – Monday 13 September 1999, at ‘Breakaway: The Convention’.

Cast: Zienia Merton
(Sandra Benes)

Additional Cast
(in flashbacks)
: Martin Landau
(John Koenig),
Barbara Bain
(Helena Russell),
Barry Morse
(Victor Bergman),
Catherine Schell
(Maya),
Nick Tate
(Alan Carter),
Tony Anholt
(Tony Verdeschi),
Prentis Hancock
(Paul Morrow),
Suzanne Roquette
(Tanya Alexander),
Michael Gallagher
(Etrec),
Ina Skriver
(A),
Sarah Douglas
(B),
David Sebastian Bach
(Guardian’s Brother),
Nicholas Young
(Peter Rockwell)

Credits:

Editor:
              Tim Mallett

Director of Photography
              Glenn Pearce

Sound Recordist
              Andrew Frampton

Production Assistant
              Martin Gainsford

Make-up
              David McLaughlin

Construction Managers
              Kit Bevan and David McLaughlin

Production Team
              Maxine Cook and Nick Williams

Producer
              Tim Mallett

Post Production
              Kindred Productions

Clips courtesy of Carlton International Media

Original series production design by Keith Wilson

Original series costume design by Keith Wilson and Emma Porteous

Space: 1999
created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson

Plot:
A message emerges from static featuring Sandra Benes, who explains that this is the last transmission from Moonbase Alpha to Earth, being sent 20 years after contact was lost. Alpha’s life support systems are failing, and a much-disputed decision has been taken to initiate Operation Exodus and move to a nearby habitable planet that the Alphans have named Terra Alpha. Their time in range of the planet is only six days, which Sandra says is insufficient for a thorough analysis. Sandra is the last to remain on the base, and her message will be encoded by Alpha’s Computer, using a new technology created by Maya, which will allow the message to navigate both time and space to reach Earth. When Sandra completes her recording, it is encoded and transmitted, and a visual of the coded message shows it to be the Meta Signal.

Quotes:

• Sandra
  : ‘However, one thing is certain … Moonbase Alpha is no more.’
  
• Sandra
  : ‘Though deserted and silent now, Alpha was our refuge. We can never forget our life here … The memory of what we shared here will forever remain part of the very fabric of this place, our home, Alpha.’
  
• Sandra
  : ‘We want you all to know that we, the people of Moonbase Alpha, did exist. Our presence – the knowledge of Earth and her people, their strengths and weaknesses, pride and arrogance, genius and insignificance – has an imprint on this vast universe that we share with so many races and beings.’
  
• Sandra
  : ‘And to Alpha, wherever you go on your onward journey, our hearts go with you, and hope of reunion in the future will never fade …’
  
• Sandra
  : ‘And finally, to you the people of planet Earth, we say goodbye and ask but one thing: remember us. Remember us.’
  

Filming Dates:
Saturday 28 August – Sunday 29 August 1999

Commentary:

Zienia Merton
: ‘I thought “Message from Moonbase Alpha” was brilliant. It was a kind of closure. I loved it, I really loved doing it, and I was amazed at how it took off. We were all amazed – I think we felt it would be shown once and then be forgotten, to be honest. I treasure that.

‘On 17 August, Tim came round and we looked at the script. I nearly died, because that was a lot of pages for Sandra. She’s also 25 years older and a lot of brain cells have died. So we just ironed things out. Tim did say he thought my accent was a bit heavier than it used to be, and I said, “Yeah, well, you’ve never heard me speak this long before.” The costume was actually my second year costume and I managed to get into that. And that’s it – we went for it. It was in August. The sets were wonderful. Obviously, I knew Tim and Glenn, and I knew Nick, and Johnny. But I met for the first time Kit Bevan and David McLaughlin, who did the set. And David, being a make-up artist in his own right, helped me out. We decided I couldn’t go back to the old make-up, because I’d look like some kind of warp freak. It had to be a bit less, because when you get older less is better. And we went for it. It was at Andrew’s house, outside
London, and we had to worry about dogs barking and planes taking off and kids splashing in pools, but we managed.

‘I’m not a very intellectual actress. When I see the words I have to make them work. I have to think of the pacing, but I think that comes from within oneself. I had the luxury that the words were already there. I had the luxury that I was working with people I trusted, so I was not under pressure. The only pressure I was under was whether or not my brain could cope. I see it there and I give it, hopefully, 120% – that’s all I can do.

‘I’m very grateful for everyone’s reaction. It deserved it, in the sense that it was done from the heart, and it was done for the most simple of reasons. There was no huge gain. It was Tim’s idea. It was a gift: a present to the fans at the Breakaway convention. The fact that it took off and got a life of its own is due to Johnny and Tim. I’m so pleased that everybody enjoyed it, because that’s what this business is about – for people to believe and to enjoy. If they can forget all the nastiness that’s going on in the rest of their lives, I think we’ve done our job.’

Tim Mallett
: ‘It was a hell of a lot of responsibility. Fortunately, I’d got to know Zienia and Johnny a little bit through doing documentaries. They are very charming people, easy to get on with, and they immediately put me at my ease. But when I actually thought of doing a little “Message from Moonbase Alpha” for the Breakaway Convention, it was intended to be a closure for
Space: 1999
. Since then it’s turned into something that perhaps has opened up a few possibilities. I approached it tentatively. Johnny’s obviously a very busy writer. Zienia’s a busy actress. They’ve got their reputations to think of: why should they trust me to produce a Space: 1999 film? The other thing was, the production values of Space: 1999 were extremely high. They had millions of pounds to play with, and [following on from] that was quite a lot of responsibility. One thing I would like to say is that, as Zienia [has pointed out], she had a lot of lines to say in comparison to what she had to say in the series, and with very few cutaways. Previously to that, she was doing a very complex and technical commercial film, so she couldn’t even look at the script until probably about two or three days beforehand. So, her efforts, talent and ability were even more [admirable]. She was absolutely stunning.

‘And Johnny’s script was absolutely fantastic to work with. You don’t get these opportunities very often, and I had a great time doing it. It was all very quick: we shot it in about six hours, which is an incredibly short time. It is extremely flattering that people have said we’ve created the forty-ninth episode of
Space: 1999
. I was stunned at the reaction to it, and I was very emotional at the time. But we kind of had a little bit of a preview when we were making the film. Zienia’s first take, the very emotional part at the end, left the whole crew in tears. So we sort of thought, “I think she’s got it right.” That was a good indication … It turned out fantastically.’

Johnny Byrne
: ‘The idea came from Tim to do something. I was asked if I would be prepared to write it and I said, “Of course.” I think I did say to Tim, because time was of the essence, that he should just pass along all the ideas that were circulating around in his mind. And I took those and fashioned them into a short little film.‘This strange show,
Space: 1999
… You only have to dip your fingers into this quirky, magical pool before all sorts of other chemical things start happening. There was no intention at the very beginning, or even after I’d started writing it, to make it into a kind of philosophical loop – a storytelling loop – with anything that had gone before. I did want to present it as an idea that while maybe one or two doors had closed, a thousand were flying open in terms of where this series could go. Whether we stepped back a bit and then shot forward, or whether we took the purely linear step of moving on from the end of season two. Those were little challenges that were ever-present in my mind as I was writing it.

‘The joy for me, personally, came at the very end of the process – it suddenly occurred to me what was happening in this little piece. And what was happening, in keeping with so many elements of the series – certainly the episodes or the attributes of it that had obviously excited me – was that it was closing that loop, in terms of the Meta Signal. A lot of questions had been raised about it in people’s minds. What was
Meta? Was it a planet? Was it a signal? It was featured in episode one and I don’t think it was mentioned thereafter, largely because there wasn’t a second script [at the time], and I was brought in to write a second script. So, in the rush of events, it was left by the side. It occurred to me that the Meta Signal was in fact a signal that Sandra was transmitting at that stage, and that the signal that we encountered in episode one was, in fact, the Alphans in the future trying to make contact with themselves in the past. It seemed to me a fairly mind-blowing
Space: 1999
theme.

‘I loved the whole theme. It was one of those things that made it worthwhile for me. It opened up a few dodgy areas I didn’t want to pursue in the context of a seven-minute film – in the event it went into nine minutes – big budget stuff. But, who were these Alphans who were receiving this message? We saw them in episode one. Were they the Alphans that subsequently were left behind in “Another Time, Another Place”? And was the place that we were sending this message from actually Terra Alpha, or Terra Nova, or wherever? This is an area of that little film that is worthy of development into another little film, and if a series was going – into another very big film. But those are for the future … In terms of this short, seven-minute film, it was a joy for me to do. And how beautifully it was captured – every nuance – by Zienia. I was thrilled when I saw it and saw how wonderfully [it was done]. It was as if the curtain of time had been brushed aside and there we were, locked in this little state of being on Moonbase Alpha … after 25 years.

‘Tim liked it, fortunately – I don’t know what he was expecting, but I think he liked it. I have to say that without Tim, this would not have been done. And I had no idea what I was letting myself in for, in terms of pure enjoyment, when I said, yes, I would do it … Yes, I wanted to close it. But more so, I wanted to open it. I firmly believe that no door closes without several opening. It’s that kind of world we live in. I wanted to find out where those doors were, as far as Space: 1999 was concerned. For me it was a question of putting the whole thing into a pot, and letting the very best rise to the surface. Demolishing any kind of distinction – creatively, aesthetically or however – between season one and season two, which is a sterile argument.

‘The whole question of any kind of revival has to be one that incorporates every aspect of Space: 1999. So for that reason I was determined to include references to season two, although obviously I’d been more associated with season one. But I was looking in a micro way at the whole thing. By saying, “Goodbye,” as Tim wanted, I was also saying, “Hello – here’s something Space: 1999.” And suddenly I wanted to write the next episode, which is a two-hour thing. Even without any retrospective fine-tuning of “Message from Moonbase Alpha”, it was all there. The little conundrums we’d left sort of hanging, like the time dilation, the Moon coming back, the people and how they have they aged. Indeed, who were these people that Sandra represented – were they the Alphans that we took to be our Alphans, or some other Alphans?

‘The presence of the Maya character in any revival would all depend on whether or not Catherine was available. If she was not available, then Maya would rest in repose in the most beautiful mausoleum on this planet called Terra Alpha. Her offspring would now be minus her metamorphic powers, but would still be alien. There would be either a male or female offspring – if Catherine was unavailable, or maybe even if she was available – and you would have a very interesting, complex character, not quite knowing who he or she was, where his or her place was, what his or her basic nature was, and still trying to come to terms with this insider/outsider syndrome. The same would apply to other characters. Someone has even suggested that we might find Barry Morse somewhere in the catacombs of the Moon, in suspended animation, or reciting Dickens …