Do you ever feel there’s still a respectable use for sarin gas?
MY UGLY BEST FRIEND
My Ugly Best Friend is a brand new show where a glamour puss nominates her ugly duckling best friend for a makeover and we need men to rate these two girls!
Whether you like blondes or brunettes, tall girls or short girls – if you have an opinion and know what you like, then we’d love to hear from you!
You will be watching video footage of our two friends and then being asked to comment on everything from their noses to their clothes but don’t worry; you won’t have to meet the girls in the flesh.
We are shooting the show this Sunday, 20th September at 9.00 in the morning in Brick Lane so if you fancy taking part, then apply now! Remember, this is a show for the chaps. Ladies, we look forward to seeing you one of our other shows!
Everyone involved should be very, very ashamed of themselves/locked in a vault/eaten by weevils (delete as applicable). And no, I won’t link to where you can get tickets for it.
Look up into the sky. Is there a round, silvery shape there? No, of course not. As we all know, the Moon left the Earth’s orbit back in 1999 following a cataclysmic nuclear explosion caused by waste from Moonbase Alpha going into chain reaction.
That, at least, was the scenario painted in Space: 1999, even if it – obviously – never came to pass. Made by Gerry Anderson, originally to be the second season of his earlier live action show UFO, Space: 1999 was a mix of many elements, some good, some bad. On the one hand, it did have some fantastic model work, cinematography and sets, the likes of which probably haven’t been bettered.
On the other hand, the acting was dreadful, and the plots… oh, the plots. They were concept sci-fi: great big ideas about philosophy, the universe, etc, but handled so badly, and usually with a plastic-looking monster, that it was impossible to regard them with any seriousness, particularly since the science part of the science-fiction was so ineptly handled.
The show was also hampered by having husband and wife team Martin Landau and Barbara Bain as the two leads. Okay, they’d been fine on Mission: Impossible but their marriage was now breaking down and they could barely stand the sight of each other. Therefore, zero chemistry between the leads.
After a first, not terribly successful series, a new producer was brought on board to help boost the ratings. Unfortunately, they brought on board Fred Freiberger, the US TV producer responsible for the changes made to season 3 of Star Trek that got it cancelled, and who went on to make the changes to The Six Million Dollar Man that got it cancelled. So despite the introduction of hot, shape-changing alien Maya, and an Italian lothario, guess what happened to the proposed season three.
During this time, Space: 1999 went through a couple of title sequences. For the first season, we got the funky disco theme coupled with the “This episode” (did you miss that? We said “This episode”, loser!) montage of highlights that Ronald D Moore copied for Battlestar Galactica. It also (weirdly enough) had Barbara Bain on a turntable.
Season two grabbed itself a whole new set of titles and a new theme. It wasn’t as cool, didn’t have Barbara Bain on a turntable, and it had a stupid “Red alert” on it. But it was more action packed and it did explain the plot.
These, however, were not the weirdest title sequences for Space: 1999. In overseas markets, there were completely different sets of titles that pioneered whole new areas of weird. The Japanese set was perhaps the least weird, since all they did was add a really odd new electronic/lounge theme to the first season titles.
No, for absolute weirdness, you had to go to Italy and watch Spazio: 1999‘s second season titles.
