On February 18, 2012 we lost a real treasure of British
television when Peter Halliday passed away at age 87. To say he was in a lot of
programs would be insulting. The truth is, he was in a lot of programs but what
a significant contributor to them. Here is a list of just some of the programs
he made better just by making an appearance. Armchair Theatre, Ghost
Squad, Secret Agent, The Saint, Softly, Softly, Man in a
Suitcase, The Avengers, Out of the Unknown, UFO, Doomwatch, Colditz, Z Cars, Oil Strike North, Beasts
(I forgot he was in Buddy Boy), The
Tripods, and of course Doctor Who.
He appeared in 5 stories totally 23 episodes. I had forgotten that he was the
Alien voices in The Ambassadors of Death. My favourite Doctor Who appearance is easily the character Packer from The Invasion. I love the Cybermen, I
love UNIT, and Peter Halliday is great. Packer is incompetent to a high degree
yet he is in charge of security. Yet, the Doctor and Jamie seem to come and go
as they please in and out of International Electromatics. I have a theory why
Packer was so incompetent. There had to be a reason as he would have to be
pretty good to be employed by Vaughn. Simply put, Packer was so frightened by
the Cybermen and Vaughn’s partnership with them that he could not perform his
job well at all. He was so terrified of them and didn’t want to die. But, we
are not here to talk about Doctor Who.
Up until I started to really get into British television,
most everything I saw of Peter Halliday was more of a supporting actor.
Anything he was in, he made an immediate impression. Even seeing his name as
the voice of the Silurians made me happy. I wanted to celebrate his work this week on
something I thought he made a substantial contribution and where he played the
lead role. Something came to mind immediately. It was A for Andromeda. This series, to me, joins in the rankings of the
higher echelons of British Sci-Fi television. Before studios started to release
some of the more rare series on DVD, this has always been one of the few series
I had only seen images of but no episodes. There is a reason for this and it
will affect how I watched the series and how I will write this article.
A for Andromeda
is simply not all there. Just like so many of our favourite series from the
1960s, episodes of this series were lost. In fact, as recently as 2005 no
complete episodes of this series existed at all. Finally with the help of Ian
Levine, episode 6 The Face of the Tiger was returned to the BBC archives. Quite a bit
of clips from the other episodes (except episodes 4 & 5) exist.
For this viewing, I watched it from the excellent 2006 DVD
set. While The Face of the Tiger
exists in its entirety, the other episodes were handled in a different way. If
you are a fan of 1960s Doctor Who,
you should be well aware of a means of presentation called a Telesnap
Reconstruction. It is a way to recreate
as best as possible a missing episode. One key ingredient to this is telesnaps.
Telesnaps was something only John Cura did. Very briefly, John Cura made his
living by taking stills of a television screen and selling them to BBC
producers, artists or anyone who actually worked on the program he was employed
to make telesnaps. Productions from the BBC and ITV would pay Cura to take
these stills and they would get prints to add to the production files as
reference to the programs that were made. Producers knew that either their
programs were transmitted live or eventually would be junked and telesnaps was
a great way to keep a record of the production. Cura did this service from the late 1940s to
1969. Telesnaps was his name for what he provided to his clients. Anyone else
doing this at the time of broadcast were just taking off-air stills. Cura
actually adjusted his camera to be able to take his pictures. Luckily he was
hired to take telesnaps of A for
Andromeda. Because of this, we are able to have a telesnap reconstruction
of the series.
Telesnap reconstructions originally were created for the
missing episodes of Doctor Who.
Legend has it that it all started back in the 1980s when the first recon was
from Richard Landen with The Power of the
Daleks Episode Two. The more fans saw recons the more they wanted them. It
was also vastly helped by crystal clear audio recordings of the episodes that
came to the attention of everyone in the mid-1990s. In fact a ton of Doctor Who telesnaps were found in 1993
by Marcus Hearn working for Doctor Who
Magazine. Stories from the latter half of Season 3 through the first part of
Season 6 were located in one big book at the BBC Written Archives. As a side
note, not all recons include telesnaps. One of the first tapes I got when I
seriously got into tape trading in the late 1980s was The Tenth Planet. It had on it a recon of Episode 4. This recon used
clips from the first three episodes with fans reading the scripts and they had
heavy Australian accents!
 |
| Part of a Telesnap Sheet for Episode 5 of The Web of Fear |
The telesnap reconstruction for A for Andromeda is very well put together even though it has two
things that separate it from a usual telesnap reconstruction. Firstly, there is
no audio recordings of the episodes (well, I’ll clarify that in a bit) and
secondly because there’s no audio, the
duration of the episodes are a lot shorter. The structure of the story is
presented with descriptions to move the story along but with very little actual
quotes of dialogue. This is alright as it gets to the point of the story. I am
not wondering what is going on. Wherever clips exist, we get them and they look
great.
The Message TX:
3/10/61 The Machine TX: 10/10/61
The Miracle TX:
17/10/61 The Monster TX: 24/10/61
The Murderer TX:
31/10/61 The Face of the Tiger TX: 7/11/61
The Last Mystery TX:
14/11/61
To give the series an air of realism, the series takes place
between 1970 and 1972. Each episode opens up with an interview with Professor
Ernst Reinhart who is a character in the series. He is looking back on the
events of the series which we have not seen yet. The series may have happened
10 years previously possibly longer.
As the series opens, Reinhart oversees the construction of a
new radio telescope designed by John Fleming (Halliday) and Dennis Bridger.
Fleming is a bit of a hot head and is very passionate about what he is doing
and what he believes in. They pick up a signal from the Andromeda Nebula.
Fleming believes it is a computer program. Fleming deciphers further to realize
that the message is to build a more powerful and complex computer. Fleming gets
the help from a young assistant named Christine. Meanwhile Bridger has sold out
to another international organization called Intel. It’s actually kind of funny
that Bridger gives information about a powerful computer to a company named
Intel. Don’t forget this was 1961! Intel is represented by a man named Kaufman
played by John Hollis. You may remember Hollis in other roles where a bald
headed man was required such as Sondergaard in the Doctor Who story The Mutants
and also as Blofeld in For Your Eyes
Only! Meanwhile as we discuss bald actors the computer has been built and
switched on.
This new super computer is now sending out instructions for
the creation of living cells. This is where Fleming gets nervous. It’s a new
life form that may be treacherous to human life. Reinhart brings in his old
friend biologist Number 2. Actually the character’s name is Madeline Dawnay
played by Mary Morris who had also played Number 2 in The Prisoner. Dawnay follows the code given by the computer to
create this new form of life. Bridger has been found out the by the British
government about giving secrets to Intel . Being confronted while at the
military establishment in Scotland, Thorness, where all of these messages are
being received and deciphered Dr. Bridger slips and falls to his death.
It’s now been about a year since this project has started
and a life form that Dawnay created is being cultured. They call him Cyclops
because….well he has one eye. The new
computer has two terminals on either side that affects people’s brainwaves.
Cyclops and the computer mesmerize Christine who grasps both terminals and is
electrocuted and killed. With Christine dead, the team at Thorness tries to
move on with their work. The Computer orders the creation of a human embryo
which Dawnay agrees to do. The embryo rapidly grows to become a human woman. In
fact, the form of Christine with the exception of her hair no longer black but
long and blonde. She is named Andromeda which is the nebula the messages
originally came from. Andromeda learns quickly and is soon the intermediary
between the Computer and the humans. This gets Fleming really nervous as it is
clear that there is a bigger plan that the computer wants Andromeda to carry
out. Essentially Andromeda is an upgrade from Cyclops. The Computer destroys Cyclops.
 |
| Cyclops! Which in fact was director Michael Hayes' eye! |
Andromeda quickly gains the interest of the British
government. She creates a program that helps deter the enemies of the UK who are
firing missiles over the country as a show of power. Andromeda is even going to create and enzyme
which will heal damaged cells. No one is listening to the warnings from
Fleming. He is worried about the Computer and Andromeda. He doesn’t trust
either of them and knows that whatever their plan is will be dangerous to the
human race. Fleming goes as far as trying to trick the computer into thinking
Andromeda is dead. Once the Computer knows she isn’t, it punished Andromeda by
making her touch the terminals on the Computer and she badly burns her hands. Yet
she heals herself with the enzyme. As a way to get back Fleming, Andromeda does
something to the enzyme to make everyone ill who is working on it. This
includes Dawnay. It is too much for Fleming who finally gets access to go back
into the Computer room and destroys it. It no longer has a hold over Andromeda.
We learn that Andromeda hated the Computer but had no choice but to do what it
wanted. Fleming knows that although the Computer is destroyed, the original
code to make it still exists in the room. He persuades Andromeda to go back to
the room and set fire to all the notes and codes. Troops at Thorness begin a
massive hunt for Andromeda. Fleming tries to save her and they flee on boat to
an island. It all ends suddenly as they try to escape Andromeda falls into a
deep pool and apparently drowns.
I would have loved to seen this series in full. It has a lot
of great elements to it that I love. Even though it is set in the 1970s, it is
clearly made in the 1960s. This is not a bad thing. Although the sets are not
overly designed or complex; they look great and serve the purpose. I don’t
think it would have looked too different if the series had been in the 1970s
except in colour. Also, sad to say, it probably would look better in the 1960s
because if it was made in the 1970s, it would have been the same computer props
from the 1960s but very beaten up by now! I also like a sci-fi series that has
part of the story preoccupied by the involvement of the British government. It
even has a flair of espionage as we see the mysterious Kaufmann working in
whatever angle he can to get the secrets of what is going on at Thorness. In fact by the time the series is over, Intel
is actually doing business with the British government and in a sense Intel
wins. There are a lot of scenes in British ministerial offices as well as with
the Prime Minister. There is a great exposition in the story of traditional
administrative British government vs. the sci-fi element of Andromeda and these
messages from the nebula. Nothing looks dated about this production. Even the
characters are cool looking. Andromeda with her long blonde hair is attractive
and dangerous. Even Kaufmann with his bald head looks cool. Almost
Blofeld-esque without being over the top!
The cast is really enjoyable. Peter Halliday is a great
leading man but he does it on his own terms. He is a troublemaker. He doesn’t
make anything easy for anyone. Once Fleming realizes that Andromeda and the
Computer is a serious threat to mankind, he does nothing but try to get someone
to listen to him. The problem is no one does listen to him. They are too busy
making plans on what Andromeda is going to do for them. Fleming is eventually
ousted from the group and has to rely on sabotage and trickery to try and get
people to see his side of things. The sad fact is that by the end of the
series, still only a few people believe his warnings about Andromeda.
Andromeda herself was played by Julie Christie. This is her
first professional role and director Michael Hayes knew instantly that he had
found someone very special. She was a
student of the Central School of Speech and Drama. By the time the series was
done, it was known a sequel was in the works. Hayes suggested to the BBC that
they need to sign on Christie now to play Andromeda again. Watch The Andromeda Breakthrough and you will
see how much the BBC took to his suggestion. I need to point out another favourite actor of
mine. Jack May. He played the security chief Major Quadring. He has appeared in
Doctor Who The Space Pirates, and had a regular role in Adam Adamant.
The series was devised by Fred Hoyle and he wanted to work
with the BBC to get this produced. A lot of meetings took place which
eventually led to the series being dramatized by John Elliott. John Elliot
wrote the scripts with the idea of the series being made as 7 x 30 minute
episodes. Once Michael Hayes got onboard, he thought the scripts were running
long but didn’t want to cut anything. He requested the series be changed to 45
minute episodes. Of course now the scripts under run and filler had to be put
in to get it to the right length. With almost all the episode presented here as
a reconstruction, we don’t notice the filler in the scripts.
How is the reconstruction? I think it is done very well. The
telesnaps were arranged (and I assumed produced) by Derek Handley. Derek is one
of the front runners to the Loose Canon line of Doctor Who reconstructions. I have a lot of respect for Derek.
Mostly because he has a lot of attention to detail on anything he works on. I
have worked with him on a couple of projects. He has been kind enough to give
me reference materials and other things that I needed to create the best
possible product. He loves these shows and gives them his all. When I saw his
name at the end of the presentation, I knew why I liked it so much. The
reconstructed episodes move along. I never got to the point of wondering when
they were going to end. Without audio, making text for every line of dialogue
would be tedious. Here, there is enough to give a strong feel to the story yet
not enough to be bogged down.
The film material looks great. The Face of the Tiger is wonderful looking. Film is clean and
sharp. The series was recorded onto 35mm film and also 16mm. It never was
recorded to videotape. So there is no tape drop out. The clips that exist from
the other episodes come from a variety of sources but some come directly from
35mm film and are exceptional. From The
Machine, there is a sequence shot at the computing rooms of IBM which gives
the series a feel of authenticity. It’s not sci-fi with people wearing funny
hats “from the future”. It’s designed to look like it can happen in our world.
Clips exist from The Message, The Machine, The Miracle and the last two reels from The Last Mystery exist plus the full episode The Face of the Tiger.
A Plea for Help:
One thing that has come to light since this series was
released on DVD was the discovery for the audio of episode seven, The Last Mystery was recorded off-air in
1961. It also includes the BBC continuity announcement prior to the start of
the episode. I am a keen collector of all aspects of British television. I do
not have this audio episode in my collection. If anyone has a copy of this
episode and would like to trade for something, please e-mail me at fta13867@gmail.com I really would like to
add this to my collection.
If you have not had a chance to see this series, I highly recommend
picking it up. Sadly the set no longer appears to be anywhere. It may be out of
print. The set had A for Andromeda, The Andromeda Breakthrough, Andromeda
Memories Documentary, and Photo Gallery which has the full suite of music. It
also has a wonderful set of Viewing Notes written by Andrew Pixley which is
where I got some of the information for this article.
Next week: When
is Tom Baker not a Doctor? It’s when he is Sherlock Holmes. Next week I take a
look at the first of a two part article on the story of The Hound of the Baskervilles. I am going to view this from the
original BBC 1 recording with the first two episodes next week and the other
two the following week!
Do you have feedback, article requests or want to talk about a program but do not want to leave a public comment? Feel free to drop me an e-mail at FTA13867@gmail.com
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