Updated: February 02, 2024

The pilot episode, No Place to Hide, was where it all started. It set the tone for the action adventure series to follow. This scene with the two aliens watching is the only scene that that makes this diorama identifiable as being from the pilot since the rest of the pilot was mostly incorporated into the first five series episodes. I first saw these aliens in the summer of 1965 in the promos for the series, and as I watched each episode that fall I kept waiting to see them in the episode until the reruns started and knew I wouldn't see them and that they were just there as a teaser for the pilot and no story was written for them. I liked building this diorama because I could make it a little more realistic since the scene was filmed outside with hills, pond, and real plants and not on the flat surface of a studio stage. However it wasn't a real location shot since it was filmed at the studio moat with it's artificial rocks. Gary Stair made the figures for me and since the aliens were never seen in color I just used their look from the colorized version of the pilot. I included some progress shots of building the diorama, starting with styrofoam, covered with paper mache, paint, and ground cover and trees made for model railroaders. I made some of the plants from scratch to look like the plants on the set. Next Week: An alien race seeks the services of a doctor!

Bill Hedges