Gerry Anderson’s first live-action television series, UFO (1970-1973), never made it to a second series though some design work had been done and plans were laid to move the bulk of the action to moonbase, the first line of defence in the war between the human race and the organ-harvesting aliens. When ratings began to drop during the series’ syndicated run in the States, financiers ITC dropped the idea for a second series, but Anderson was unwilling to allow all the work done of the proposed series to be wasted and so instead, suggested a whole new series. With funding from the Italian RAI (which explains the appearance of several Italian actors who might otherwise be strangers to British television – Giancarlo Prete, Carla Romanelli, Gianni Garko, Orso Maria Guerini et al) and ITC Entertainment, Space: 1999 arrived on British television in September 1975 and was an immediate hit despite having one of the oddest and silliest concepts that Anderson ever came up with.

The opening episode, Breakaway, sets up the storyline. Nuclear waste is being dumped on the moon, overseen by the crew of Moonbase Alpha, led by Commander John Koenig (Martin Landau), Doctor Helena Russell (Barbara Bain) and scientific advisor Professor Victor Bergman (Barry Morse). on 13 September 1999, a huge explosion at one of the storage sites acts as a gigantic motor, pushing the moon out of Earth’s orbit and on a long, strange journey to the stars. A moment’s thought immediately suggests two things. 1. Anderson and co really, really wanted to do their take on Star Trek (1966-1969). And 2. no-one on the writing team had the faintest idea of how space travel works. Or if they didn’t, they weren’t going to let actual science get in the way of their science fiction.

Each week, the crew of Alpha, complete with “red shirts” introduced solely to be possessed, killed, driven mad, or somehow otherwise vexed, would encounter a new alien race or interstellar phenomena, suggesting that the moon is travelling at faster than light speeds, slowing down enough to provide a suitable setting for that week’s story before hurtling along to the next. It doesn’t make a jot of sense of course and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov was particularly vocal about the show’s implausibilities, praising the series’ low gravity effects in an article in The New York Times but demolishing the very shaky science of the rest of the show.

But science wasn’t what kept the viewers coming back week after week. You were expected to just cut Space: 1999 some slack and just go with the flow, buying in to the ludicrous premise to be rewarded with excellent production design from Keith Wilson (Moonbase Alpha and its fleet of Eagle spacecraft are particularly lovely), distinctive wardrobe design (“Moon City costumes” according to the credits) from Rudi Gernreich, superb special effects from Brian Johnson and his team that still stand up remarkable well all these years later and another great score from Anderson regular Barry Gray, including a none-more-70s and irresistibly funky title track. The opening titles return to the “this week” format we saw in Thunderbirds (1965-1966), offering tantalising flashes of the action to come, virtually ensuring that viewers stayed put for the duration.

The main cast are a bit stiff at times but a rolling roster of instantly recognisable guest stars (season one featured Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Roy Dotrice, Julian Glover, Brian Blessed, Anthony Valentine, Leo McKern, Joan Collins and Douglas Wilmer among many others) more than made up for any shortcomings. But the real stars, as they were in UFO and indeed just about every Anderson show, are the hardware and the explosions. Oh, those beautiful Gerry Anderson explosions… The series kicks off with his biggest so far, a massive nuclear detonation and many episodes would feature those epic explosions that we cam to know and love so well throughout our childhoods. The Eagle transporters are marvellous (a die cast Dinky Eagle model, inexplicably painted green, was an in-demand present from 1975 until 1980) but the host of alien ships that turn up every so often are terrific too.

Breakaway was a troubled production (director Lee Katzin originally turned in a two hour cut that Anderson had to partly reshoot) and some plot strands were abandoned never to be raised again. Chief among these is the planet Meta, a probe to investigate which is what brings Koenig back to Alpha in the first place. Much stock is placed in the importance of Meta and the fact that it might support life, but we never hear of it again once the moon starts its improbable journey.

Season one might have had its silly moments (Space Brain in particular is just ludicrous) but for the most part it’s rollicking good fun, chock full of monsters, aliens, black holes and more. But while it was popular enough, Space: 1999 was being somewhat hampered by the fact that ITC’s New York office were insisting on having the final say on episodes. When Anderson and his wife Sylvia separated, ITC installed American producer Fred Freiberger (previously the producer of the third season of Star Trek but falling ratings forced ITC’s Lew Grade to scrap the series before season two could get under way. Anderson and Freiberger pitched a revamped second run, with a new character, the shape-changing alien metamorph, Maya (Catherine Schell) from the planet Psychon, taking a central role alongside Tony Verdeschi (Tony Anholt), Alpha’s new security chief. Bergman was written out (Morse left following a salary dispute with the producers) and the second season was greenlit.

Sadly, the second run wasn’t a patch on the first. The new characters were bland and instantly forgettable, the interiors of Alpha were redesigned, becoming smaller and less impressive and Barry Gray’s music was ousted in favour of a far more anodyne set of cues from Derek Wadsworth. The first season had tried, not always successfully, to tackle a series of high concept metaphysical concerns but Freiberger wanted the second batch of episodes to be more action orientated and the sometimes eerie atmosphere of the first run is completely missing here. Cast members were reportedly unhappy with the scripts they were given (“the more the cast complained about a script’s flaws, the more intractable and unyielding Freiberger became” Anholt later noted) and the overall quality of the second season is notably much lower than the first.

A third season was planned along with a spin-off series for Maya but the public were losing interest and the show was cancelled. As was often the case with Anderson’s shows, in the early 1980s, several episodes were edited together to form feature films that were released theatrically in some territories: Destination Moonbase Alpha (1978), Alien Attack (1979), Journey Through the Black Sun (1982), and Cosmic Princess (1982). In 1999, appropriately enough, a fan-produced short film, Message from Moonbase Alpha, brought back fan-favourite character Sandra Benes (Zienia Merton) and the audio producers Big Finish released several dramas on CD. Planned big and small screen revivals sadly fell by the wayside.

Space: 1999 isn’t as good as UFO – its format counts against the big action set-pieces and the lack of a continuing threat and its roaming around the cosmos makes it feel more like a new take on Star Trek. But when it got things right, and that was mainly in the first year, Space: 1999 was a fine addition to the Anderson canon. Its central premise might have been utterly ludicrous but the look and the quality of the first season scripts made up for that in spades. It’s such a pity it went off the rails so dramatically in the second year…