The Day After Tomorrow (also known as Into Infinity in the United Kingdom) is a 1975 British science fiction television special produced by Gerry Anderson between the two series of Space: 1999. Written by Johnny Byrne and directed by Charles Crichton, it stars Brian Blessed, Joanna Dunham, Nick Tate, Katharine Levy and Martin Lev, with narration by Ed Bishop. Set in a future where environmental damage on Earth threatens the survival of humanity, The Day After Tomorrow follows the interstellar mission of Altares, a science vessel that uses photon energy to travel at the speed of light. After leaving the Solar System and reaching Alpha Centauri, their primary destination, the crew of Altares push deeper into space; there, they encounter phenomena including a meteor shower, a red giant and, finally, a black hole, which pulls the ship into another universe.
Originally commissioned to produce a child-friendly introduction to Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity, Anderson and Byrne conceived The Day After Tomorrow as a pilot for a TV series, with the episode title "Into Infinity". Anderson was ultimately unable to raise funding for additional episodes, making the pilot a standalone special. With a cast and crew that included veterans of earlier Anderson productions, The Day After Tomorrow was filmed between July and September 1975; this comprised 10 days' principal photography and six weeks' special effects shooting. The visual style of Space: 1999 provided inspiration to both effects artist Martin Bower, who built the scale models, and production designer Reg Hill, who recycled sets from Space: 1999 to create the Altares interiors. The theme music was composed by newcomer Derek Wadsworth.
The Day After Tomorrow was first broadcast in the United States in December 1975 as the third episode of NBC's after-school series Special Treat. In the UK, it was transmitted on BBC1 as a special, first in December 1976 and again in December 1977; a re-edited version aired on BBC Four in November 2014. Critical responses to The Day After Tomorrow have been mixed: while its model effects and music have been praised, it has divided opinion with its "psychedelic" images, which have been compared to the visual style of film director Stanley Kubrick. In addition, the story has been criticised for lacking suspense due to the fact that it was devised primarily to educate, rather than entertain. A novelisation by Douglas R. Mason was cancelled after the planned TV series failed to appear; a new novelisation by Gregory L. Norris was published in 2017.
Plot In the future, human survival is threatened by rising pollution, environmental damage and depletion of the Earth's natural resources. A narrator (Ed Bishop) introduces the science vessel Altares as the first spacecraft to "harness the limitless power of the photon". This allows it to move at the speed of light, potentially causing "effects predicted by Einstein's theory of relativity – effects that could shrink the very fabric of space, distort time, and perhaps alter the structure of the universe as we understand it."
Altares and a crew of five are due to depart Space Station Delta for Alpha Centauri to seek out Earth-like planets for colonisation. As astronauts travelling at light speed age more slowly than their families on Earth, the crew is made up of two "family units": Captain Harry Masters and his daughter Jane, and Doctors Tom and Anna Bowen and their son David. The Bowens arrive in a United Nations shuttle and transfer to Altares. After Jane leaves her dog, Spring, in the care of station commander Jim Forbes, Captain Masters pilots Altares away from the station and activates the photon drive, beginning the ship's 4.3-light-year journey to Alpha Centauri.Bentley 2008, p. 316. As Altares leaves the Solar System, Jane and David observe how Pluto turns blue, then red, due to the shortening and lengthening of light waves caused by the Doppler effect.
Arriving at Alpha Centauri, the crew launch a series of satellites to transmit data back to Earth. Having completed their primary objective, they agree to push deeper into space. When Altares encounters a star cluster, Anna tells Jane of Einstein's discoveries in special relativity and unified field theory. Shortly after, the ship is hit by a meteor shower that damages key systems and causes the photon drive to re-activate, sending the ship hurtling through space at incredible speed and knocking the crew unconscious. A fail-safe halts the ship within the gravitational field of a red giant on the brink of supernova. Captain Masters dons a heat suit and enters the reactor core in a dangerous bid to repair the photon drive by hand. He succeeds, and Anna and Jane pilot the ship away from the star before it explodes.
After detecting a signal from Delta, the travellers are able to calculate their position and set a course for Earth. However, disaster strikes when Altares is caught in the pull of a black hole. Although the ship cannot reach the faster-than-light speeds needed to break free, Anna believes that the hole may lead to another universe and urges her companions not to give up hope. Crossing the event horizon, the travellers experience mind-bending spacetime distortions. They emerge on the other side of the hole safe and well, albeit unable to return home. As Altares approaches an unknown planet, the narrator concludes: "One thing is sure – this is not the final word. Not the end, but the beginning. A new universe, a new hope? Only time will tell."
Cast
Brian Blessed as Dr Tom Bowen Joanna Dunham as Dr Anna Bowen Nick Tate as Captain Harry Masters Katharine Levy as Jane Masters Martin Lev as David Bowen Don Fellows as Commander Jim Forbes Ed Bishop as The Narrator Bones the Dog as Spring
Production
After filming on the first series of Space: 1999 came to an end in the spring of 1975, producer Gerry Anderson was contacted by NBC executive George Heinemann with an idea for an educational science fiction TV series. This would comprise seven one-hour episodes designed to teach children science in the form of an action-adventure.Bentley 2008, p. 315.Archer and Nicholls 1996, p. 174. NBC intended to promote the series by distributing information leaflets to schools. To launch the series, Heinemann commissioned Anderson to produce an episode about Albert Einstein's theory of special relativity, which holds that the speed of light cannot be exceeded and remains constant whether an object is still or moving.
By 1975, Anderson's production company, Group Three, had received no assurance from distributor ITC Entertainment that it would order a second series of Space: 1999. Faced with the prospect of cancellation, Anderson and Space: 1999 story editor Johnny Byrne conceived Heinemann's episode, which they had named "Into Infinity", as a pilot for a new series, provisionally titled The Day After Tomorrow. Anderson was ultimately unable to secure the funding needed to make further episodes, leaving "Into Infinity" – now more commonly known by the series title – as a one-off special.
Writing Anderson's preparations included researching Einstein's work; he later said that he had not understood any of the theories and suggested that some of Einstein's ideas are essentially impossible to demonstrate on TV. Byrne wrote the script, which instructed that the equation – Einstein's formula that relates mass to energy – should appear on screen at intervals. According to Anderson, the writing process was "extremely difficult" as it was a challenge to "get over in a few words the problems of time changes that affect long-distance travel. You also have to do it in a language that young people can comprehend."
Byrne – who, like Anderson, had no scientific background – found the central concept hard to grasp: "Once I got the go-ahead I suddenly realised I knew very little about the theory of relativity ... I went out and read Relativity for the Layman, and realised I was in deep trouble because there were so many aspects of it." Struggling with the plot, Anderson and Byrne engaged Professor John G. Taylor of the University of London, an expert on black holes, as a scientific adviser. However, according to Byrne, "there wasn't an awful lot [Taylor] could do. In the end the story simplified itself down by necessity. I gave an illustration of the Doppler shift, and gave an idea of how planets destroy themselves, and how they can become a black hole. Then we tried to duplicate the effect of sending people into the black hole."
Despite the focus on relativity, the special also discusses time dilation: an effect whereby time decelerates at a rate proportional to an object's acceleration. For the crew of Altares, which travels at light speed, the journey to Alpha Centauri takes only a few years; during this time, whole decades pass on Earth. Recognising that the child characters Jane and David would serve to represent the young audience's curiosity and ask questions on its behalf, Heinemann wanted them to be "just like real children" rather than "[coming] across like kids do on Saturday morning programmes." Byrne wrote the dialogue in such a way that the characters give only partial explanations of the phenomena they encounter, the aim being to encourage the audience to study the topics in their own time and develop their researching skills.
Casting Most of the cast had appeared in earlier Anderson productions. Nick Tate had played regular character Alan Carter in Space: 1999, while Brian Blessed and Joanna Dunham had both appeared as guest characters on the same series – Blessed in the episode "Death's Other Dominion", Dunham in "Missing Link". The credits billed Blessed first, Dunham second and Tate third. Don Fellows had played an uncredited role in Space: 1999s first episode, "Breakaway". Ed Bishop had voiced Captain Blue in the puppet series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons before taking on the role of Ed Straker in Anderson's first live-action series, UFO.
Neither Katharine Levy nor Martin Lev had significant acting experience, though the filming at Pinewood Studios coincided with that of Bugsy Malone, in which Lev played the role of Dandy Dan. The Masters' dog, Spring, was played by Byrne's terrier, Bones.
Design
The production was budgeted at £105,000 (about £ in ). In the absence of Bob Bell and Keith Wilson, who were working on The New Avengers and Star Maidens, Anderson's business partner Reg Hill assumed the role of production designer. The Altares interiors were the first sets that Hill had designed for Anderson since the production of Fireball XL5 more than a decade earlier. They were built from parts of the Ultra Probe set originally made for the Space: 1999 episode "Dragon's Domain", along with design elements from other episodes. Other sets and props were also recycled from the earlier series.
The scale models of Altares were designed and built by uncredited model-maker Martin Bower, who took inspiration from the various spaceships that had appeared in Space: 1999 and was initially under the impression that his work was to appear in that series. A model was used for long shots; close-ups used a larger, version, which was fitted with a powerful light for the photon drive as well as freon gas-powered jets to simulate exhaust. The Space Station Delta model was adapted from the SS Daria model that had appeared in "Mission of the Darians". Some of props that were newly made for the special would re-appear in Space: 1999s second series.
Filming Filming began on 21 July 1975 under production code number "DAT 1". Principal photography was conducted at Pinewood Studios and completed in ten days, ending on 1 August. This was followed by six weeks of special effects shooting at Bray Studios. Post-production continued until October.