Space: 1999 Stars Barbara Bain & Nick Tate Goes Board Documentary About Sci-Fi Show’s Legendary Spacecraft
Actress Barbara Bain, star of the British sci-fi series Space: 1999, is preparing to board an upcoming documentary about the Eagle, the famed spacecraft at the heart of the show that ran from 1975-1977.
Bain will appear in The Eagle Has Landed as will Nick Tate, her cast mate from Space: 1999. The documentary includes the participation of several other notable figures: Apollo XVI astronaut Charles Duke Jr., Academy Award-winning visual effects artist Bill George (Blade Runner, Star Trek), and Brian Johnson, the VFX artist on Space: 1999 whose work is said to have influenced Star Wars. The film is being directed and produced by Jeffrey Morris, who also hosts the documentary.
The Eagle Has Landed “explores the cross-generational impact of the iconic vessel” in the series that also starred Martin Landau. According to a press release, the film “showcases never-before-seen archival footage” and will be released in time for the 50th anniversary of Space: 1999’s debut, in 2025.
“Space: 1999 appeared on TV a few short years after the world watched Neil Armstrong take the first steps on the moon,” Morris noted in a statement. “The show’s unforgettable Eagle inspired a generation to envision a future in space and is still doing so decades later. The question we explore is ‘why?’ What is it about this imaginary craft that has captured and held imaginations for nearly 50 years?
Morris’s FutureDude Entertainment is producing the documentary in partnership with Zero Point Zero Production Inc. Anne Marie Gillen is a producer on the project, along with Morris. The film is written by Morris and Fredrick Haugen. Morris is represented by Espada Entertainment.
Space: 1999 ran for a total of 48 episodes, with Bain and Landau in all of them as, respectively, Dr. Helena Russell and Commander John Koenig (the actors were married to each other at the time; they had previously co-starred together in Mission: Impossible).
The show revolved around the denizens of Moonbase Alpha, scientific researchers living on the moon whose existence was threatened by a nuclear explosion, which rocketed the moon out of Earth’s orbit. Tate, an Australian-born actor, played pilot Alan Carter on 42 of the show’s 48 episodes. Originally, his character was to be killed off in the premiere episode, a casualty of the nuclear explosion, but producers Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson liked his work and expanded his role.
“Hovering above the Moon in one of Alpha’s Eagle spacecraft, Alan Carter is an observer to this holocaust, watching helplessly as the Moon spins out into space,” according to a synopsis published by the Catacombs.Space1999.net website. “Sacrificing his only chance to return home, Carter decides to give chase to the runaway Moon, joining his friends on the endless intergalactic journey.”
Tate told the website, “I didn’t have to dig too deeply with this character. Alan Carter was all the things I was as a young man: friendly, happy-go-lucky, someone who loved adventure and accepted a challenge.”
Ian McShane, Joan Collins, and Leo McKern were among actors who appeared in single episodes of Space: 1999.
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Space 1999
S02E15 - Space Warp (1976)
Created by Gerry Anderson & Sylvia Anderson
ITC Entertainment
Dir.Peter Medak
Nick Tate as Alan Carter
Dinny Powell as the Maya Creature
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Back to my series of Alan Carter drawings... They’re a good and fun way to practise my oil chalk drawing skills. Wouldn’t mind if this scene was a portent of things to come, too, because I’m still having dreams about the end of the world (= change).
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‘Maybe There’ The Lost Stories from Space: 1999 Book | Anderson Entertainment
Enjoy NINE novelised lost stories from the original series of Space: 1999. Featuring un-produced and early drafts of scripts that never made it to screen, but clearly demonstrate the evolution of the 1970s science fiction series.
Strap into your Moon Ship and prepare for a trip to an alternate universe!
Discover how and why aliens from the planet Uranus negate the Moon’s gravity, sending it out of Earth's orbit and condemning the residents of Moon City to wander the universe. Suspect the intentions of a shape-shifting creature that invades Moon Base Alpha. Fear a life-ending galactic phenomenon.
Gathered here for the first time are the original stories written in the early days of production on the internationally acclaimed television series SPACE: 1999. Discover the differences between Gerry & Sylvia Anderson’s original story “Zero G,” George Bellak’s first draft of “The Void Ahead,” and Christopher Penfold’s uncredited shooting script “Turning Point.” Each of these tales shows the evolution of the pilot episode with scenes and characters that never made it to the screen.
Discover how Art Wallace (Dark Shadows) originally envisioned the episode that became “Matter of Life and Death.” Wonder at a tale that was NEVER filmed, where the Alpha People, desperate to migrate to a new home, instigate a conflict between two alien races.
Also included are Christopher Penfold’s original storylines for “Guardian of Piri” and “Dragon’s Domain,” and an adaption of Keith Miles’ early draft for “All That Glisters.”
Judge for yourself, Commander Maddox or Commander Koenig? Moon City or Moonbase Alpha? Prober One or Eagle One? Discover how SPACE: 1999 might have been had they gone “Maybe There?”
Authors: Robert E Wood, David Hirsch and Christopher Penfold | Cover: Hardback | Number of pages: 290 [approx] | Dimensions: 216 x 134 mm
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