Space: 1999

Space: 1999 (was a British sci-fi TV series. In the pilot, nuclear waste from Earth stored on the Moon explodes in a catastrophic accident on September 13, 1999, knocking the Moon out of its orbit and sending it and the 311 inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha hurtling uncontrollably into outer space. The series was the last produced by the partnership of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.

The premise of Space: 1999 centered on the plight of the inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha following a calamity on September 13, 1999. A huge nuclear waste dump on the far side of the Moon detonates in a massive thermonuclear explosion, initiated by the buildup of magnetic radiation which was released, causing a nuclear chain reaction. The force of the explosion causes the Moon to be sent hurtling out of Earth's orbit and into deep space at colossal speed, stranding the 311 crew members, in effect becoming the spaceship on which the protagonists travel, looking for a new home. During their interstellar journey, the Alphans encounter a vast array of alien civilizations, dystopian societies, and strange phenomena previously unseen by man.

Space: 1999 was the last in a long line of sci-fi series that the Andersons produced as a working partnership, beginning with Supercar in the early 1960's and including the famed marionette fantasy series Stingray, Fireball XL5, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90, and The Secret Service, as well as the live-action alien-invasion drama UFO. Space: 1999 owes much of the visual design to pre-production work for the never-made second series of UFO, which would have featured a more extensive Moonbase.

The series premiered in 1975, although the first episode had actually been filmed in 1973. In Britain the series was originally seen on ITV stations but was not simulcast nationally. In the U.S., efforts to sell the television series to the major networks failed and as a result it was syndicated to local stations. The showaired in its entirety in very few countries. Often there were long gaps between first run and rerun or even within first run. In the UK, the episodes of the show's second season were shown sporadically over a period of a couple of years, starting in 1976 while the last episodes were still in production. In some regions the final first-run episodes appeared in 1978, more than a year after they were produced; in other regions of the UK, the second series was never shown.