Another Time, Another Place (Space: 1999)

Lore & Background

The episode's plot involves the Moon being pulled into a spacetime anomaly that duplicates it, Moonbase Alpha, and its crew. After the Moon re-enters normal space, the duplicate speeds away and the doubles vanish. The Alphans discover they are approaching Earth's Solar System, but Earth's tilt has shifted, causing global environmental collapse. Only Santa Maria, California remains habitable. Regina Kesslann experiences visions of a past or future life and dies from a duplicated brain. Koenig, Carter, and Russell travel to Earth and find a settlement of aging doubles. The duplicate Moon accelerates to collide with the original; the collision merges the Moons and transports the single Moon to another part of the cosmos.

Reader's Guide

Another Time, Another Place is notable as Johnny Byrne's first original script for the series after becoming full-time script editor. The episode explores the cyclic nature of human experience and the catastrophic failure of 20th-century techno-man, themes Byrne revisited in later scripts. Reception was mixed: TV Zone and Video Watchdog praised it as one of Year 1's strongest episodes, while Dreamwatch Bulletin rated it 5 out of 10, criticizing Byrne's narrative construction. The episode's music, composed by Barry Gray, was used more frequently in subsequent episodes than any other Gray score. An unfilmed scene included a satellite tower protruding from ashy soil, and a reference to eleven planets was changed to nine for clarity.

Did You Know?

• The final shooting script is dated 20 January 1974, with blue-page amendments dated 25 January and 1 April 1974.
• Two days of second-unit filming took place during the production of 'Missing Link'.
• An unused effects shot in the opening credits shows two glowing geodesic domes on the devastated Earth surface.
• The episode features an original score by Barry Gray, with a track of electronic music from UFO (also by Gray) heard during the meeting of the two Helenas.

The Andersons' Grand Finale

Space: 1999 stands as the crowning achievement and final creative output of the legendary partnership between Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, a collaboration that had produced science-fiction series since the early 1960s. At a combined budget of £6.8 million, it was the most expensive series ever produced for British television at the time of its making. The first series was a joint venture between ITC Entertainment and Italy's RAI broadcaster, while the second was handled entirely by ITC. The show's origins trace back to 1972, when ITC head Sir Lew Grade proposed financing a second series of UFO with a Moon-centric setting, having noticed those episodes drew the strongest ratings. The Andersons and their team developed extensive pre-production work for what became known as UFO: 1999, but declining viewership for UFO in both the US and UK caused ITC to withdraw financial support. Rather than let the project die, Gerry Anderson pitched the accumulated research and design work to Abe Mandell, Grade's New York deputy, as the foundation for an entirely new series. This bold pivot transformed shelved art department concepts into a groundbreaking new production.

The Runaway Moon Premise

The central conceit of Space: 1999 is deceptively simple yet visually spectacular. Humanity had been storing its nuclear waste in vast disposal sites on the far side of the Moon, but when an unknown form of magnetic radiation is detected, the accumulated waste reaches critical mass and triggers a massive thermonuclear explosion on 13 September 1999. The force of the blast propels the Moon out of Earth orbit like a colossal booster rocket, stranding the 311 personnel stationed at Moonbase Alpha in deep space. The runaway Moon itself becomes the vessel on which the Alphans search for a new home. Their interstellar journey takes them through a black hole and multiple space warps, pushing them ever further into the universe, where they encounter alien civilisations, dystopian societies, and mind-bending phenomena previously unseen by humanity. The first series wove in a mysterious unknown force seemingly guiding the Moon toward some ultimate destiny, while the second series shifted toward more straightforward action narratives. Episodes opened with a teaser or cold open, followed by a title sequence that echoed the fast-cut style of Mission: Impossible, before unfolding across four acts and closing with a brief, often light-hearted epilogue.

Casting for a Global Audience

The casting of Space: 1999 was a deliberate commercial strategy that shaped the show's international identity. American actors Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, who were married to each other at the time and had previously starred together in Mission: Impossible, were brought in at the insistence of ITC head Lew Grade to make the series palatable to major American networks. This decision came over the objections of Sylvia Anderson, who preferred British actors for the lead roles. The supporting cast reflected the show's transatlantic ambitions: Canadian-based British actor Barry Morse appeared as Professor Bergman in the first series, while Hungarian-born, American-raised Catherine Schell joined as the alien Maya in the second after guest-starring as a different character in the first series' episode 'Guardian of Piri.' Australian actor Nick Tate also gained public visibility through the programme. The guest roster was extraordinary, spanning Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Julian Glover, Ian McShane, Brian Blessed, and numerous others, with Blair, Damon, and Blessed each appearing in two episodes portraying different characters.

From UFO to 1999: A Design Legacy

The visual identity of Space: 1999 was born from a project that nearly never existed. In 1972, Lew Grade commissioned a second series of UFO with a Moon-centric setting, and the Andersons' team, led by production designer Keith Wilson, developed extensive art and design work for an expanded SHADO Moonbase facility. When UFO's ratings fell in both the US and UK and ITC pulled funding, that body of work was shelved for the foreseeable future. Gerry Anderson refused to let it go to waste, approaching Abe Mandell in New York with a bold pitch: repurpose the research into a brand-new series. Mandell agreed but imposed a strict condition — no Earth-bound settings, no 'having tea in the Midlands.' Anderson's response was characteristically blunt: in the series opener, he would 'blow up the Earth.' Mandell worried the concept might alienate viewers, but Anderson pressed forward. The result was a show whose sets, models, and visual language owed a direct debt to the abandoned UFO: 1999 pre-production, giving it a level of production polish that few British television series had previously achieved.