As I recall, this show was announced over a year before its premiere, maybe even earlier. It seemed promising. The stars were the husband and wife team of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, well remembered from "Mission Impossible." The producers were Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, well remembered from the Supermarionation series (less so from "UFO"). It was marketed by ITC.
The publicity campaign went into high gear in the Summer of 1975, including prominent articles in "TV Guide" and "Time" magazines. Buried in the copy was a mention that all three US networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) had passed on the series. Little wonder: sci-fi shows were expensive to make, generally had low ratings, and drew mostly kids and teenagers whose limited buying power made them a tough sell to advertisers. So "Space: 1999" was shown in this country as a "first run" syndicated series, sold directly to local stations. Among those who bought it was WBFF, Channel 45 in Baltimore, Maryland, a long time ITC customer. WBFF gave it the prominent slot of 7pm Sunday nights.
The show premiered in September 1975. The odd costumes and twangy theme music irritated me, but what really turned me off were the wooden acting, cardboard characters (only Alan Carter seemed interesting), a relentlessly ominous atmosphere, and drawn out and often silly stories. In one, a he and she pair of bald aliens inflicted terrible carnage on Moonbase Alpha. At the very end, they revealed that it was all a telepathic hallucination and scolded the earthlings for having imaginations. Another one featured an interplanetary war of the sexes, with sexpots in Emma Peel suits squaring off against a male force with a leader who was always dozing off in his command chair. And did anybody ever figure out "The Black Sun"?
I lost interest after a while and so did a lot of other people. An episode about an evil child was widely condemned as being unsuitable for a series shown in the early evening and aimed at kids. Ratings dropped off alarmingly. In New York, the series was shown after the higher rated reruns of "Star Trek" in the hopes of getting a carry over audience. Years later, director Val Guest told "Starlog" magazine that the show was based on two marriages, both failing. The Andersons split up around this time. Perhaps ABC, CBS, and NBC had spotted something besides demographics that was wrong with the show when they rejected it.
The show was picked up by ITC for a second season and WBFF signed up for it, moving the show to 8pm Saturday nights, another a prime slot. Fred Freiberger was the new producer and he promised improvements. All in all, I think he delivered. The characters become human, the atmosphere warmer, the theme didn't sound like a deranged electric guitar, and the stories actually became interesting. The character of Maya was pretty clever, even if she was a "token alien" (like Mr. Spock) or a "plot device" (like the transporter). The show was a lot better, but there were fewer people who noticed. Ratings sagged and the series was canceled in early 1977, to nobody's great surprise. Interest was so low that WBFF didn't bother repeating the second season episodes and replaced the series with reruns of "Perry Mason" that were nearly 20 years old. The show that literally began with a bang ended with a whimper that few heard.
What went wrong? With its cold, sterile, unengaging personality, the series stumbled badly at the outset. By the time it got its act together, it was too late.
Unlike other sci-fi series, "Space: 1999" hasn't had much of an afterlife over here. In the Baltimore-Washington area, it had a brief revival on WFTY, Channel 50, in Washington, D.C., about ten years ago. On cable, the Sci-Fi Channel showed it for a little while in the mid-1990's. On the big day of September 13, 1999, the show was sitting on the shelf at ITC, gathering dust.
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