Space:1999/50 ― The Making of Space:1999 (Book)

The time and space: late 1976: not long after the premiere of Space:1999's second season.

Even as a young teen, when I wandered through a department store I automatically gravitated to the book section; in this case, Woolworths. On a steel-frame island bookrack sat a freshly published paperback with the somewhat intoxicating title of "The Making of Space: 1999", awaiting rescue by a geek in shining polyester. And quickly I read it once I got it home.

It's interesting how one's interests change with age. At the time of my first read, the most interesting chapters for me were "Special Effects", "Art Direction", "Camera and Crew", and "Music" ― essentially the "tech credits". When I reread it a few years ago I found "Scripts" the most interesting essay... probably because this making-of was researched and written during production of the show's second year, when incoming producer Fred Freiberger was on a mission to improve Space's scripts and characterizations ― he succeeded, for the most part. Also, as a teacher would hammer into my classmates and I in film school, the script is the most important element in a film or television series. With a Czech accent: "No script, no movie!" (Luddy was great; tough, but great.) "The Making of Space: 1999" is well worth reading if one is a fan of the show and "production".

Editorial: Century 21, a company set up in the early 1960s to handle merchandising for Gerry & Sylvia Anderson television productions, was headed by Keith Shackleton. He came up with the idea of publishing a book about the making of Space:1999 after hearing that The Making of Star Trek by that point in time had sold four million copies. Journalist Tim Heald was hired in late 1975, while the first year of Space was still in its broadcast run. In search of a good and proper story, he visited the show's production offices and stages, interviewing actors and the people who put a television series together, with all its bit and pieces, and observed the production process and subsequent marketing and sales. As Mr Shackleton stated in an interview, the book sold not four million copies, but forty thousand. He attributed the low sales to a poor cover design — it is bad and not exactly inviting — and the fact that Space:1999 never really took off, especially in the U.S., a vital market for a series which had essentially been produced for that country. Another problem: the first season of Space had been produced in a virtual vacuum, in its own little world, without feedback, and it was this initial batch of 24 episodes that was "Space:1999" to most folk when "The Making of Space:1999" hit the bookstores in late 1976. ("Hey, the Making of Star Trek!")

The Making of Space: 1999

- A Gerry Anderson Production -

by

Tim Heald

Ballantine Books 

1976