The Andromeda Breakthrough

Last updated

The Andromeda Breakthrough
The Andromeda Breakthrough film Opening titles (1962).jpg
Opening titles
Genre Sci-Fi Serial
Directed by John Elliot (Eps 1,3,5)
John Knight (Eps 2,4,6)
Starring Peter Halliday
Susan Hampshire
John Hollis
Mary Morris
Country of originUnited Kingdom
No. of episodes6
Production
Producer John Elliot
Running time6x45 Minutes
Original release
Network BBC
Release28 June (1962-06-28) 
2 August 1962 (1962-08-02)
Related
A for Andromeda

The Andromeda Breakthrough was a 1962 sequel to the popular BBC TV science fiction serial A for Andromeda , again written by Fred Hoyle and John Elliot.

Contents

Plot summary

Kidnapped by Intel representative Kaufman (John Hollis), John Fleming (Peter Halliday) along with Professor Madeleine Dawnay (Mary Morris) and Andromeda, the artificially constructed female humanoid (Susan Hampshire), are brought to Azaran, a small Middle Eastern country.

Upon arrival, the group find a duplicate of the machine Fleming designed has been built by Intel. After many dangers, Fleming finds both the reason for the original message having been sent and the means to bring the machine under human control.

Things take a deadly turn when Fleming discovers the politically unstable leader's hope to make use of his and Dawnay's skills and Andromeda's otherworldly abilities...

One of the final points of the story was the nature of the alien making the signals. The alien was eventually revealed to be a creature or intelligence that was shown as static machine or habitat and fed by pipes on its planet.

Casting

The title star of the previous serial, Julie Christie, was unavailable. She was recast with Susan Hampshire as Andromeda, who survived her fall into the cavern pool.

Availability

The complete TV serial survives in the BBC archives and was released, alongside the surviving episode plus material from A for Andromeda and various extra features, as part of The Andromeda Anthology DVD set in 2006.

Novelisation

Hoyle and Elliot's novelisation was published by Harper and Row in 1964, as Andromeda Breakthrough by arrangement with the BBC, and paperback editions followed from Fawcett World Library (1965) in USA and Corgi (1966) in Britain. Judith Merril reported that although the novelisation suffered from "routine writing, stereotyped characters, and an apparent belief in the Ian Fleming school of international intrigue," the scientists-protagonists were "anything but stereotyped," and "a fair cross-section of the kinds of people who are attracted to scientific work." Merril concluded that the clichéd elements "provide a reasonably amusing background to a genuinely intriguing scientific puzzle." [1]

A major theme of the novel is that the essence of life is information of a type that can be transmitted by radio signal over galactic distances. Hoyle and Elliot published this novel in 1964 and its predecessor “A for Andromeda” in 1962 at a time when the fundamental importance of the biological information encoded in DNA was in the early stages of becoming understood. The biochemist in the novel, Professor Dawnay, had been able to create an initial, but malignant, bacterial life form when "she began a D.N.A. synthesis" using information transmitted from the Andromeda Galaxy. In Chapter 10, to counteract the initial destructive bacterial form, Dawnay carries out synthesis of another "D.N.A. helix" based bacterium which is able to eliminate the former one, thus saving mankind. In the real world of today, whole genomes can actually be built from chemically synthesized DNA sequences, and when inserted into a receptive cellular environment can be brought to life to create a novel organism (see for example Hutchinson et al. [2] ). Thus the fictional syntheses of life forms described in the novel are similar to what, today, can actually be realized.

A combined re-issue of the novel with the novelization of A for Andromeda was published by the Orion Publishing Group in 2020 under the title The Andromeda Anthology, as part of the SF Masterworks range. A new introduction was provided by Kim Newman. This edition has also been made into an audiobook, performed by Billie Fulford-Brown.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fred Hoyle</span> English astronomer (1915–2001)

Sir Fred Hoyle (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001) was an English astronomer who formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and was one of the authors of the influential B2FH paper. He also held controversial stances on other scientific matters—in particular his rejection of the "Big Bang" theory (a term coined by him on BBC Radio) in favor of the "steady-state model", and his promotion of panspermia as the origin of life on Earth. He spent most of his working life at St John's College, Cambridge and served as the founding director of the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy at Cambridge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judith Merril</span> American novelist

Judith Josephine Grossman, who took the pen-name Judith Merril around 1945, was an American and then Canadian science fiction writer, editor and political activist, and one of the first women to be widely influential in those roles.

<i>A for Andromeda</i> 1961 British TV science fiction drama serial

A for Andromeda is a British television science fiction drama serial first made and broadcast by the BBC in seven parts in 1961. Written by cosmologist Fred Hoyle, in conjunction with author and television producer John Elliot, it concerns a group of scientists who detect a radio signal from another galaxy that contains instructions for the design of an advanced computer. When the computer is built, it gives the scientists instructions for the creation of a living organism named Andromeda, but one of the scientists, John Fleming, fears that Andromeda's purpose is to subjugate humanity.

Doctor Who spin-offs refers to material created outside of, but related to, the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who.

The Sontaran Experiment is the third serial of the 12th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was originally broadcast on BBC1 on 22 February and 1 March 1975.

The Green Death is the fifth and final serial of the tenth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts on BBC1 from 19 May to 23 June 1973. It was the last regular appearance of Katy Manning as companion Jo Grant.

The Android Invasion is the fourth serial of the thirteenth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 22 November to 13 December 1975.

Andromeda most commonly refers to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Morris</span> British actress (1915–1988)

Mary Lilian Agnes Morris was a Fijian born British actress.

Jonathan Morris, is an author who writes various kinds of Doctor Who spin-off material. In 2023 he stood for election to Winchester City Council as the Liberal Democrat candidate for the St Barnabas Ward and won with 58% of vote.

Intel is an American semiconductor chip manufacturer.

British television science fiction refers to programmes in the genre that have been produced by both the BBC and Britain's largest commercial channel, ITV. BBC's Doctor Who is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running science fiction television show in the world, and has been called the "most successful" science fiction series of all time.

John Herbert Elliot was a British novelist, screenwriter, director, and television producer active from 1954 to 1993. Between 1954 and 1960, he scripted a succession of one-off television plays including War in the Air and A Man from the Sun. A Man from the Sun was a pioneering work aimed at a West Indian audience. In 1961, he collaborated with astronomer Fred Hoyle to write the groundbreaking TV science fiction serial, A For Andromeda. The success of A For Andromeda prompted a sequel, The Andromeda Breakthrough, in 1962.

Mycoplasma laboratorium or Synthia refers to a synthetic strain of bacterium. The project to build the new bacterium has evolved since its inception. Initially the goal was to identify a minimal set of genes that are required to sustain life from the genome of Mycoplasma genitalium, and rebuild these genes synthetically to create a "new" organism. Mycoplasma genitalium was originally chosen as the basis for this project because at the time it had the smallest number of genes of all organisms analyzed. Later, the focus switched to Mycoplasma mycoides and took a more trial-and-error approach.

<i>A for Andromeda</i> (2006 film) 2006 British TV series or programme

A for Andromeda is a 2006 remake of the 1961 TV series of the same name by Fred Hoyle and John Elliot.

The anthropologist Leon E. Stover says of science fiction's relationship to anthropology: "Anthropological science fiction enjoys the philosophical luxury of providing answers to the question "What is man?" while anthropology the science is still learning how to frame it". The editors of a collection of anthropological SF stories observed:

Anthropology is the science of man. It tells the story from ape-man to spaceman, attempting to describe in detail all the epochs of this continuing history. Writers of fiction, and in particular science fiction, peer over the anthropologists' shoulders as the discoveries are made, then utilize the material in fictional works. Where the scientist must speculate reservedly from known fact and make a small leap into the unknown, the writer is free to soar high on the wings of fancy.

<i>A come Andromeda</i>

A come Andromeda, is an Italian television remake of A for Andromeda (1961), the BBC series based on the book of the same name written by cosmologist Fred Hoyle in conjunction with author and television producer John Elliot. The remake was still set in Britain but filmed at Italian locations, and consists of five episodes of about one hour each. It was adapted by Inisero Cremaschi and directed by Vittorio Cottafavi. Music was by Mario Migliardi. The cast includes Paola Pitagora as Judy Adamson, Luigi Vannucchi as Fleming, and Tino Carraro as Reinhart. Nicoletta Rizzi appeared as Andromeda, the person created by the supercomputer, replacing the singer Patty Pravo, who was originally cast in the role, but who did not fulfil her commitments, necessitating re-shooting of several scenes.

"Message from space" is a type of "first contact" theme in science fiction. Stories of this type involve receiving an interstellar message which reveals the existence of other intelligent life in the universe.

<i>Women of Wonder: The Classic Years</i>

Women of Wonder, The Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s is an anthology of short stories, novelettes, and novellas edited by Pamela Sargent. It was published in 1995, along a companion volume, Women of Wonder, The Contemporary Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the Present.

The year 1957 was marked, in science fiction, by the following events.

References

  1. "Books", F&SF , May 1965, p.73 (parenthetical asides omitted)
  2. Hutchison CA 3rd, Chuang RY, Noskov VN, Assad-Garcia N, Deerinck TJ, Ellisman MH, Gill J, Kannan K, Karas BJ, Ma L, Pelletier JF, Qi ZQ, Richter RA, Strychalski EA, Sun L, Suzuki Y, Tsvetanova B, Wise KS, Smith HO, Glass JI, Merryman C, Gibson DG, Venter JC. Design and synthesis of a minimal bacterial genome. Science 2016 Mar 25;351(6280):aad6253. doi: 10.1126/science.aad6253. Erratum in: ACS Chem Biol. 2016 May 20;11(5):1463. PMID 27013737