Attention all sections Alpha: we're on a collision course with a fantastic event - Space: 1999's 50th anniversary!

We asked you to pick your favourite episodes of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's classic sci-fi TV series. We've collated your answers and are kickstarting the series' 50th celebrations by bringing you deep-dive listicles on your chosen episodes!

Our latest entry breaks away from the safety of Earth's orbit as we plunge into the fantastic cosmic unknown. Breakaway is the debut episode of Space: 1999, detailing the cataclysmic event of Moonbase Alpha's dangerous stockpile of Earth's nuclear waste going haywire and catapulting the Moon onto its surreal, terrifying odyssey across the stars. It's highly regarded as one of Space: 1999's finest efforts and bore an immensely troubled production from start to finish.

Let's examine 10 fascinating facts about Breakaway!

10. Turning points

Space: 1999 emerged out of the wreckage of a proposed second series of UFO. Extensive pre-production committed to UFO's second outing was canned, but repurposed to become an entirely separate production. The new series underwent a variety of revisions in its concept. To help illustrate their visions further for the new production, Gerry and Sylvia composed a half-hour pilot story entitled Zero-G, elements of which would be filtered into several episodes of Space: 1999. Instead of using Zero-G to become the pilot episode, the screenplay that would become Breakaway was chiefly the efforts of story consultant Christopher Penfold and screenwriter George Bellak.

While many embryonic elements of Space: 1999's world and characters would emerge from Zero-G, the finalised and most recognisable elements would come from Penfold and Bellak. Turning Point and The Void Ahead were earlier names given to the pilot script, all featuring varying depictions of Moonbase Alpha's debut adventure. A significant aspect of Bellak's contribution was painting a far grimmer picture of Moonbase Alpha's interpersonal relationships, showcasing the base as a power keg of hostile personalities ready to explode at any given moment.

9. Bellak's premature departure

Despite his long-lasting contribution to the tonal philosophy that Space: 1999's first series would heartily embrace, George Bellak's tenure on the series was ultimately short-lived. George and Gerry came to blows over their separate visions for Breakaway and Space: 1999 as a whole. Proposal documents created to map out the series' concept and drum up interest from ITC explicitly describe the series' ambitious technical qualities in production design and special effects. Bellak's script placed much greater emphasis on Moonbase Alpha's characters, rather clashing with the description with which Gerry had secured Space: 1999's birth. 

Additionally, Bellak's script was overly long, failing to accommodate the commercially-driven four-act structure that Space: 1999 would eventually stick to. Bellak departed from the series after the subsequent creative differences between he and Gerry, leaving Penfold tasked with overhauling Bellak's efforts. Despite Bellak being credited as the episode's sole writer, Penfold's extensive rewrites make Breakaway as much his work as Bellak's. However, Penfold would go onto express that much of Space: 1999's sombre tonal mood was thanks to Bellak.

8. Overenthusiastic direction

Unfortunately, George Bellak wasn't the only member of Breakaway's production crew who found themselves at odds with Gerry Anderson. American director Lee H. Katzin, possibly brought onto the series at the recommendation of Barbara Bain, would enhance Breakaway's lingering reputation of their being more to the episode than the finished production would suggest, thanks to his overzealous approach to directing the episode.

Space: 1999's first series notoriously overran its production schedule. Filming was initially conceived as taking place over 12 months, but in fact lasted for 15 months (14 months of filming on sound stages, plus an extra preceding month exclusively for Brian Johnson's special effects). All but one of the first series' episodes overran by a few days (the underwritten The Last Enemy being the exception to not overrun), but Breakaway overran by several weeks, which can mostly be attributed to Katzin's efforts. A variety of deleted scenes are known to exist, but Katzin's insistence on filming multiple reaction shots dragged the episode's making to a glacial pace.

This meticulous approach would later prompt Gerry to make the startling claim that he singlehandedly wrote, directed and edited new scenes to trim the episode down, though this appears to conflict with Martin Landau's shooting schedule that reveals Katzin himself directed additional scenes. At any rate, Katzin's only other directorial effort on the series, Black Sun, also heavily overran, prompting his dismissal from the production.

7. Deleted scenes

Audio recordings of many of Breakaway's deleted scenes capture the power struggles that Bellak appeared to emphasise in his earlier screenplay. These scenes include further contextual drama as to the dynamics between Commander Koenig, Doctor Russell, Commissioner Simmonds and Commander Gorski. It would have been revealed that Koenig was in fact Moonbase Alpha's first commander and that Gorski had made advances on Helena. These advances were rejected, adding context to Gorski rubbishing Helena's medical reports of the stricken Meta probe astronauts. Further emphasis on the importance of the Meta probe were also featured, as well as Paul Morrow's suggestion that the signals emanating from Meta are explicit attempts at communicating with Alpha.

6. Extended cut?

A subsequent reaction to Katzin's overzealous direction is the supposed possibility of a feature-length edition of Breakaway. Despite audio recordings of cut scenes existing and various behind-the-scenes and publicity images hinting at what material was removed from the final edit, no supposed feature-length screenplay for Breakaway was ever written (bar Bellak's initial 80-page screenplay), nor has any official extended cut of Breakaway emerged or is known to exist.

5. Cinema screening

Space: 1999 may have had cinematic levels of ambitions in delivering its epic sci-fi adventure, but the series' presence on the big screen was briefly considered a legitimate possibility! In early 1974, discussions were held of launching Space: 1999 in cinemas before its television debut. Sylvia Anderson herself even suggested the possibility of screening Breakaway at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. The plan appears to have roughly consisted of debuting Breakaway at Cannes in May 1974 and a further string of cinema outings for Breakaway throughout the summer before the series' initial launch of September 1974 on television. Obviously these plans fizzled out, not helped by the series' prolonged production meaning that it didn't debut until 1975.

4. The disappearance of Lon Satton

The role of Moonbase Alpha's computer expert was initially portrayed by American singer/actor Lon Satton in the role of Benjamin Ouma. However, Satton would only appear in Breakaway, as his inability to perform positively with the rest of the cast, particularly Martin Landau, resulted in his exiting after this one episode. Moonbase Alpha's compute expert would subsequently fall to David Kano, portrayed by Clifton Jones, who would make his debut in the next episode to be produced; A Matter of Life and Death. 

3. No aliens?

As the establishing episode of Space: 1999, Breakaway depicts events prior to Moonbase Alpha's fantastic cosmic journey, detailing the base's anxious existence living in the shadow of nuclear terror. As such, Breakaway is one of two episodes of Space: 1999 not to explicitly feature any alien characters or other otherworldly forces gripping Moonbase Alpha, the other being Death's Other Dominion.

2. Reinventions

Many of Space: 1999's TV episodes have been adapted into comic strips, novelisations and beyond, with Breakaway unsurprisingly receiving perhaps the vast majority of reinterpretations. Breakaway was adapted for the first issue of Charlton Comics' 1975-76 full-colour comic magazine that mixed comic strips with text stories. German publisher Koralle Verlag produced episode adaptations for their Zack anthology range between 1977 and 1978. For the first of their Space: 1999 issues, the climactic events of Breakaway are briefly added onto the subsequent events of Earthbound.

Several novelisations of Breakaway have also been produced over the years. Novelisations of TV episodes often worked to preliminary scripts rather than later finalised shooting scripts, meaning that the novelised combinations of episodes that were published during Space: 1999's broadcast often differed from their onscreen counterparts.

E. C. Tubbs wrote two adaptations of Breakaway. The first of these blended the events of Breakaway, A Matter of Life and Death, Ring Around the Moon and Black Sun. Tubbs later utilised the events of Breakaway as a springboard for Earthfall, a fresh reimagining of Moonbase Alpha's odyssey as a self-contained novel that spans several years. Throughout Tubbs' distinct interpretations, Simmonds is killed off differently to his fate in Earthbound, and Koenig was explained as being the original commander of Alpha, a detail retained from cut scenes from the TV version of Breakaway.

Breakaway was also adapted into the debut episode for Big Finish's audio reinvention of Space: 1999 in 2019, starring Mark Bonnar as John Koenig and Maria Teresa Creasey as Helena Russell.

1. Unresolved mysteries

Despite the mysterious signals emanating from Meta being one of Breakaway's propelling plot points, the planet is never acknowledged again throughout the series. Various strands of post-TV media attempt to rectify this detail by suggesting that Terra Nova from A Matter of Life and Death is in fact another name for the same planet. Meta isn't the only unresolved mystery that Breakaway includes. Helena declares that everyone on Alpha has been exposed to the radiation sickness that's been attacking various Alphans, but that too isn't mentioned again over the course of the series. We have to assume some immediate cure was secured before the events of A Matter of Life and Death occur!

Breakaway stands one of Space: 1999's most dramatically compelling episodes and it's intriguing to realise that it remains just as engrossing for the extensive story of its making and afterlife.

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