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 ti
me], 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 …
‘One thing that should happen in any revival is to bring back that whole universal feel of how many Alphas there are. Somehow, we have to bring that line and make it converge in a way that makes sense of their experiences out in space. For me, it’s very simple. The Moon comes back; they have to leave Terra Alpha; they go to the Moon. The Moon is uninhabitable for various reasons, and they have to make it habitable. Whether it’s occupied or not is another matter – occupied by something that is not Alphan – but they have to survive the problems of how they reconstruct Moonbase Alpha after 25 years. What is it that needs doing? What are the dangers that are out there, implicit in the fact that nobody has been on the Moon for 25 years? What has gone seriously wrong?
‘That whole journey thereafter is one fraught with not just threats from the external universe, but also from the internal universe. And also from the complicated make-up of the people themselves, many of whom will have lived a completely different existence. And so all of this is a very rich dramatic mix, and it’s fantastic grist to the mill. I don’t see that as a problem. I see it as something so useable and makeable and doable.’
Review: Regarded by many fans as the forty-ninth episode of Space: 1999, and series canon, ‘Message from Moonbase Alpha’ brings the programme full-circle from the premiere of ‘Breakaway’. In that first episode, one of the main plots involved the Meta Signal being received by Earth and Moonbase Alpha, seemingly transmitted from the approaching planet Meta. As is revealed here, the Meta Signal is actually a message from Moonbase Alpha, transmitted back in time and space, and being received at Earth in 1999, just before the Moon breaks out of orbit. This is a superb piece of symmetry from writer Johnny Byrne, bringing the series both to an end and a new beginning.
Byrne’s script is perfectly matched by the screen presence of Zienia Merton. Always a great favourite of fans, Merton was the perfect choice to star in this film. Her performance depicts a slightly older Sandra with subtle edges to her, adding layers beyond those obvious in the dialogue. Merton poignantly conveys the emotions not only of Sandra Benes, but also of all the Alphans.
With this script, Byrne succeeds in summing up and drawing to a close the journey of Moonbase Alpha. He maintains the integrity of the series, while also adding to its mythology. He gives the Alphans, finally, that new world they were searching for. However, it is a world that will hold many challenges, and the stage is set for future stories …
Byrne championed ‘Message from Moonbase Alpha’ as a launching off point for a new series. He envisaged that this would pick up 25 years after the colonisation of Terra Alpha, when the gravitational slingshot effect would return the Moon to the same point in space. Life is difficult on the planet and the Terra Alphans are divided over whether to stay there or return to the Moonbase. Koenig remains to lead those who stay behind, because Helena has passed away and he won’t leave her grave. Many others however – both old characters and a new generation – do decide to return to the Moonbase, embarking once again on a journey through the galaxy on Earth’s runaway Moon, encountering whatever lies ahead. Byrne speculates in the commentary below that those who returned to the Moonbase would face threats both external and internal as they worked to repair and update the base, and would discover that it was now also inhabited by something ‘not Alphan.’The story possibilities inherent in this proposed revival of Space: 1999 appear even greater than in the original. Unfortunately, Space: 1999 lost its greatest advocate when Byrne passed away in 2008, and it is doubtful that these concepts will ever result in the new television film and subsequent series he envisioned.
Regardless of whether Space: 1999 returns in a new form or not, ‘Message from Moonbase Alpha’ will remain a lasting achievement due to the care and talent with which it was produced. This short film was a labour of love on the part of all involved, and Tim Mallett is to be commended for having instigated, produced and directed it. The contributions of Kit Bevan and David McLaughlin in constructing the remarkably accurate reproduction of a Moonbase Alpha set must also be specifically noted and highly praised.
‘Message from Moonbase Alpha’ is most powerful because it is a character piece, driven by a challenging script, a gripping performance, and thoughts, ideas and human emotions. While it runs for only seven minutes, it packs a massive emotional impact, carries unlimited promise for the future, and is a fitting finale for Space: 1999.
&n
bsp; Rating: 9/10
THE RETURN OF VICTOR BERGMAN
Screenplay by Robert E Wood and Barry Morse
Directed by Robert E Wood
Scheduled Premiere Screening: Austin, Texas – Friday 16 July 2010 (at the Journey to Where Con).
Cast: Barry Morse (Professor Victor Bergman)
Additional Cast (in flashbacks): Martin Landau (John Koenig), Barbara Bain (Helena Russell), Prentis Hancock (Paul Morrow), Zienia Merton (Sandra Benes), Nick Tate (Alan Carter), Anton Phillips (Bob Mathias)
Credits:
Producer Anthony Wynn
Editor Eric Bernard
Camera Operator James Ommert
Story Consultant Anthony Wynn
Sound Recordist James Ommert
Digital Transfer Aaron Carlson
Lighting Anthony Wynn
Commlock prop Mark Shaw
Video Storage Aaron Carlson
Produced by Planet Productions Ltd for Fan Distribution
Filmed at Vulkon, Cleveland, Ohio, USA
Space: 1999 created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson
Plot: A Moonbase Alpha Status Report, recorded by Professor Victor Bergman in the year 2030.
Details: This fan-produced short film features actor Barry Morse reprising his role of Victor Bergman in order to provide fans with a resolution explaining the disappearance of the Professor following Year One. The footage was filmed in Cleveland, Ohio in 2002, following a performance of Morse’s one-man stage play Merely Players.
Destination: Moonbase Alpha Page 59
