The Beta Cloud

When Catherine Schell was hired to play Maya, Barbara Bain didn't want competition. She used her clout to have a clause put into Schell's contract stipulating that she was not allowed to appear onscreen as herself, without her Maya look (including promo material for the show). Schell even had to dye her blond hair red. The original script of this episode had Maya transform into a "human" (the actress' true appearance) that Tony had been looking at in a magazine, then returning to "herself", tearing up the magazine, and storming out of the Medical Center. When Bain read the script, she reminded the producers of the clause in Schell's contract, causing the script to be changed. Gerry Anderson's crew referred to Bain - never to her face - as "Barbara Pain".

It makes no sense for an huge sprawling base to depend on a single piece of equipment for its entire life support system, and have no replacement for it. It also makes no sense that an alien entity or entities require that exact piece of equipment to survive when it can build robots like the one it sent to retrieve that piece of equipment.

Featured in The Gerry Anderson Podcast: Pod 303: Kate Harbour (Part Two) (2024)