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UFO |
Series Overview
Ed Straker - Ed Bishop Alec Freeman - George Sewell Paul Foster - Michael Billington Gay Ellis - Gabrielle Drake 
OTHER GERRY ANDERSON SHOWS Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons New Captain Scarlet Thunderbirds Space 1999 
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Series OverviewEveryone loves Gerry Anderson's science fiction puppet shows, whether it be THUNDERBIRDS, CAPTAIN SCARLET, STINGRAY, SUPERCAR,FIREBALL XL5 or the others, but his forays into more adult, live action science fiction have met with much more varied response. In UFO, aliens are coming to earth in search of humans to take away (whole or in part) to supply replacement limbs and organs for their own dying race. A super-secret organisation known as SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation) has been set up and funded to find ways of preventing this harvesting. To that end, SHADO has a base on the moon with a trio of spaceborne interceptors, a submarine the front part of which turns into a plane and ground based attack mobiles. These are all beautifully rendered by the team that did all the wonderful effects on those puppet shows, though the designs are occasionally a bit odd (the interceptors especially). The central effect, though, is the UFO design itself which looks great and sounds even better. Once you've heard the eerie whine of the alien ships you'll realise why they stay in your imagination as scary when the rest of the show has long faded. p align=justify>Shown in the early 70s, the show is dated by the costumes (some of which are just plain bizarre let alone impractical), the music and occasionally attitudes prevalent at the time.The show also suffers from concentrating on the human lives of its characters because they are are rarely interesting enough for us to care. This is more a problem with the writing than the acting. Commander Straker is something of a martinet, but gets the job done. Episodes like Confetti Check A-OK and A Question of Priorities try to get inside his head, but are often unbelievable and rarely engage as they ought. Highlights include the tense submarine disaster episode A HREF="#ep8">Sub-smash and the quite frankly bonkers pair of Reflections in the Water and Timelash. It is, however, that eerie sound of a flying UFO that will haunt us forever. Top IdentifiedTen years after nearly being killed in a UFO attack bringing proof of their existence to the British Prime Minister, Commander Straker is putting the finishing touches to SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation), a secret organisation aimed at stopping the incursions of these alien ships to Earth. The final link in the change is the detection equipment being transported from Los Angeles to London - an obvious UFO target. All of SHADO's defences are put on alert, but the UFO gets through and takes a pot shot before being downed by a SHADO aircraft. A body at the crash site gives the organisation its first big break. Taking on a live action series after all his puppet shows allows Gerry Anderson to use his array of technical wizards in a show with a more adult concept. And it's quite a fine concept. Alien is being visited by aliens for reasons as yet not understood, but seemingly unfriendly. A secret organisation with state of the art equipment is the last, and only, line of defence against them. It's a simple, stripped down concept that allows for all kinds of possibilities. The first show is an introductory episode and so involves all kinds of clunky expositionary dialogue to explain what's going on. The acting is stiff and formal, but there's time for that to change and the characters do show some signs of life such as Straker's almost tyrannical determination and his number two's womanising ways. There are some issues with the plotting, such as why the Moonbase personnel are all women (except the interceptor pilots who are all men), why the UFO only takes one shot at the target before trying to leave and why the crew of the submarine have to waer string vests. The real star of the opening episode, though, is the equipment. The aforementioned submarine with detachable airplane is great. The moonbase, alien detection satellite and strange shaped interceptors all are extremely well visualised. The centrepiece, though, is the UFOs themselves. Gleaming, domed, spinning alien vessels that look both advanced and alien, they are a triumph of both visual effects and sound design, their signature sound the most chilling and memorable thing about this opening episode. Written by Gerry Anderson, Sylvia Anderson and Tony BarwickDirected by Gerry Anderson Top ExposedPaul Foster is not a happy man. The advanced jet he was test piloting has been destroyed by a near miss with a UFO and SHADO's aircraft and now all evidence of the event has been wiped out and his competence as a pilot is being questioned. A series of clues, however, lead him towards Ed Straker and a film studio. What could they have to do with these events. This episode starts off well enough with three UFOs getting destroyed on their way to earth, but the story of Foster's investigation into the cover up is both unconvincing and a little bit dull. The unconvincing part is explained by it all being a recruiting test to see if Foster is the kind of man that SHADO can use, but the dull part? Foster's face-off with Straker in the studio grounds has an air of ambiguity and surreality that perks things up for a little, though. Written by Tony BarwickDirected by David Lane Top The Cat With Ten LivesWhen a series of attacks on Moonbase fail to destroy it, the aliens kidnap one of the interceptor pilots and programme him to destroy his own base. SHADO's only hope is to kill the cat that is controlling him. This is an odd story. It starts off well enough with the UFO attacks and the pilot going home and then introduces Ouija boards and seances for no discernable reason. After that, it gets back on track with the pilot out to destroy Moonbase, and the cat prowling around SHADO HQ getting lots of useful information. The cat imagery gives every a surreal sense that undermines much of the tension, but does up the strangeness factor. These are aliens that we're dealing with after all. It also shows up the shortcomings of SHADO and its personnel as well as highlighting the fact that the aliens are also intelligent. The lines have been drawn and battle has commenced. Written by David TomblinDirected by David Tomblin Top ConflictStraker has been pushing for a complete removal of all the space junk from around the Earth, but the Space Commission are not convinced that it is worth the cost. When a lunar module is destroyed on its way back to Earth the commission's top man, Henderson, uses it as an excuse to shut down flights to Moonbase. Foster disobeys and his flight proves that the aliens were responsible and which bits of space junk might be hiding the alien. Then an attack is launched on Shado HQ. Whilst the story moves along at quite a clip, it is not fast enough to hide a lot of plot issues. The aliens put a device in orbit to crash shuttles, but it can only deal with changing flight paths by two degrees? Not very clever. Straker shuts down Shado HQ to hide it from the alien, but then switches it all back on whilst the UFO is still inbound, trusting that Sky 1 will destroy it. The inital lunar module detects the alien intruder before it destroys them and yet Colonel Foster, who is actively looking for it, fails to see it. And so on. This is not a good episode adn certainly a step down from what has gone before. Written by Ruric PowellDirected by Ken Turner Top A Question of PrioritiesStraker's son is injured in a car accident and needs a drug from the USA. When a UFO crashes in Ireland and the pilot starts signalling on SHADO frequencies, it is clear that he wants to communicate, but the only way to find him before a second UFO kills him is to divert the transporter that is carrying the drug. Technology is the star of this show and the actors come a very distant second and so building up an episode all around the emotional life of the characters is always going to be something of a problem and it does point out the weaknesses of the cast. The plot isn't exactly foolproof either, with the alien quitting his escape pod to set up the transmitter in a blind woman's house when he could have just as easily, and much more quickly, set it up in the pod. Written by Tony BarwickDirected by David Lane Top ESPA UFO crashes headlong into a house, killing the wife of a man who suffers from pronounced ESP, able to pick up the thoughts of all those around him. From the investigating officers, he learns all that there is to know about SHADO and its operations and determines that it is Straker and Freeman's fault that his wife was killed. He sets out to kill them. What defence is there against a man who can predict not only your actions, but your very thoughts. This is a tricksy alien plot to get rid of the top dogs at SHADO, but it takes an awful long time to get going and never quite manages to achieve the level of tension or interest that it's looking for. What we want is more UFO action, not this stuff. Written by Alan FennellDirected by Ken Turner Top Kill StrakerA shuttle coming back from the moon gets attacked by a UFO, but instead of being destroyed, it gets through. The pilots, though, turn aggressive and argumentative. As one of these is Paul Foster, third in command, it proves to be troublesome, but when it turns out that they have both been implanted with the command to kill Straker, it becomes more dangerous. This is tense stuff as a series of showdowns between Straker and Foster bring each of them to the very edge of death. It also shows up that the characters are far from perfect, something quite unusual for the time. Written by Donald JamesDirected by Alan Perry Top Sub-smashAn alien probe is killing ships in the ocean and taking the bodies that are left behind. Straker and Foster board Skydiver to go in search of it, but the submarine is downed by the alien before it is destroyed. There is not enough air and there is only a way off the submarine for three people. Straker starts to make hard decisions, made all the harder by the fact that he suffers from acute claustrophobia. Sunken submarines are generally tense places and this one is no exception. The story crams the characters into a small space with dwindling time and dwindling chances of survival, how could it not be tense? The pressure is palpable and the few overly-hysterical moments as first the injured crewman and then Straker lose it don't mar the otherwise effective story. Written by Alan FennellDirected by Ken Turner Top DestructionA navy ship on a super-secret mission in the atlantic ocean is buzzed by a UFO and shoots it down without taking proper steps to identify it. Straker wants to know why the ship was there. If the aliens are interested then he is too. It turns out that the ship is scheduled to deep sea dump a cargo of nerve gas so toxic that it could conceivably end all life on earth. Considering that the aliens can't survive in our atmosphere and have been using humans to supply spare body parts what would be the point in destroying all life on earth? The very basis of the episode is flawed. That said, it does have quite an exciting conclusion as ship, UFO and Sky Diver go head to head whilst the crew continue to dump the canisters of nerve gas (which surely they would have stopped doing until the danger had passed). The human element, with naval secretary Stephanie Beacham passing secrets to the alien by laser beam is, by contrast, dull and uninteresting. Written by Dennis SpoonerDirected by Ken Turner Top The Square TriangleA UFO is detected, but Commander Straker allows it to land and sends out the mobile units in order to capture it intact. When the vessel self-destructs he is left with only the pilot as a prize, but then two lovers planning to murder a husband shoot the alien dead instead. This is a completely unsatisfying episode, all set up and no payoff. There is no hint as to why the UFO is there or what the pilot is up to. There is no resolution of the love triangle either thanks to SHADO's amnesia drug and everything just sort of fizzles out to an ending that is not a conclusion. Written by Alan PattilloDirected by David Lane Top Close UpStraker plans to take the fight to the aliens. He plans to use an incredible new camera on a probe to follow a UFO back to its home planet and then take photos of it. The plan works flawlessly until the pictures come back with no information about range and magnification, making the images worthless. This is a very thin story that gets padded out with sequences of the probe launch, shuttle trip to the moon, placement of the camera etc, none of which are vital to the plot, but which fill out the running time. It is also pretty difficult to believe that the probe is able to match the UFO's speed and go undetected all the way back to the home planet. If it was that simple then load the thing with deadly gases, toxins or anything likely to kill the aliens. In the end, it just comes off as rather dull, soemthing that he series has not been able to be accused of to date. Written by Tony BarwickDirected by Alan Perry Top The PsychobombsThree ordinary people encounter a downed UFO and are brainwashed into becoming superhuman killing machines capable of destroying key SHADO facilities. They demand an end to SHADO's activities or they will destroy SHADO HQ and everyone in it. The potential of the human brain's electric set up is enough to tap into the secret forces that bind the universe together and turn people into hugely destructive bombs. That's the idea behind this episode and it proves to be so utterly unconvincing that the rest of the plot is completely undermined. There is very little in this episode to really like except for the consistently excellent modelwork and devastating explosions. Colonel Foster's seduction of the last of the psychobombs is particularly mind-boggling. Written by Tony BarwickDirected by Jeremy Summers Top SurvivalA lone UFO penetrates the moon's defences and a Shado operative is killed. Paul tries to capture the UFO, but it is destroyed and he is left for dead. With and injured leg and his oxygen supply fading he seems doomed, but an alien appears and helps him make the hazardous journey back to moonbase. Both sides getting together in order to get out of some shared predicament is one of the oldest stories in the book, but it is also one of the better ones that this show has come up with to date. First there is the decompression in the moonbase chamber (cleverly shown through expanding balloons), then the short battle with the UFO on the moon's surface and then the hazardous trip back to the base. The moon's surface is impressively rendered, although the lack of weightlessness is very significant by its absence. Also significant by its absence is any sense of what the aliens were up to. If one could get close enough to put a bullet through a window then why didn't he bring a bazooka along and take out the whole base? The episode ends with a nicely downbeat, cycnical moment as the alien comes face to face with the rest of humanity. Written by Tony BarwickDirected by Alan Perry Top MindbenderDuring a bout of sunspot activity a UFO gets to within a few miles of moonbase and then explodes. One of the staff searching for the site of the crash picks up a rock and suddenly starts seeing Mexican bandidos everywhere, bandidos he has to kill. When a man on Earth starts seeing aliens everywhere, Straker feels there is a link, but what can it be? Then things get really strange. OK, this episode must have been written shortly after the magic mushrooms were passed round the production office. If the mexican bandits in Moonbase weren't bad enough, Straker suddenly finds that his life is really just the plot of some bad television series (!) being filmed at the studio. His bad acid trip is very surreal and fascinating as you have no idea where it's going to take him next. Convincing it's not, but oddly compelling it certainly is. Written by Tony BarwickDirected by Ken Turner Top FlightpathA moonbase scientist is blackmailed into supplying secret information to an unseen contact when his wife is threatened. SHADO learn of the betrayal and get hold of the data, but have to work out what it actually means. It turns out to be the flightplan for an attack on Moonbase that cannot be defended against, except in a desperate suicide mission, and also that there is another traitor working within the heart of SHADO HQ. The mix of domestic threat and almost police procedural storyline with the science fiction elements of the show ought to have been a powerful combination, but it is managed so badly that there is barely anything in the episode that impresses. The blackmail plotline is fine, but the idea that the aliens need use of a SHADO computer to work out the flightplan that they need when they can travel halfway across the galaxy is utter tosh and once the flightplan is known then how is the moonbase ever going to be defended? How the identity of the second traitor is worked out from the information at hand is also never satisfactorily explained. That said, the final attack on the moonbase is much better as it figures closely on one of the excellently realised UFOs. Here again, though, sloppy plotting lets everything down. Why send a single man out to defend against the UFO? If one man stands only a slim chance then surely four or five or ten would stand a better chance. Written by Ian Scott StewartDirected by Ken Turner Top The Man Who Came BackAn astronaut goes missing on re-entry to Earth's atmosphere during a UFO attack and is found weeks later in the jungle. As the leading expert on the early warning satellite damaged in the attack, the astronaut must take part in a critical space mission, but is he really the man he used to be? Derren Nesbitt guest stars as the astronaut that everyone loves and he certainly has the charisma to pull it off, but why would an organisation as secretive as SHADO take back a man who disappeared in such mysterious circumstances, especially when he is exhibiting such obvious character changes? The margin for doubt is too large to be ignored. As a result, the episode never manages to convince. Written by Terence FeelyDirected by David Lane Top The Dalotek AffairWhen Moonbase suffers a complete failure of all radio contact and computer control, the neighbouring Dalotek survey installation is suspected. A lunar shuttle is destroyed with all hands and Colonel Foster takes strong action against their equipment. The culprit, however, turns out to be an alien device landed on the moon in such a fashion as to resemble a meteorite. A UFO is on the way to destroy Moonbase and there's no way to contact the interceptors to get them into attack position. A UFO flyby that veers off at the last moment and then shortly thereafter a meteorite falls onto the moon and then all radio communication is lost. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the links and these people are supposed to be rocket scientists. The majority of the plot is made up of people arguing over rights and in the end there is a desperate bit of tension thrown in to try and save the episode. It doesn't. The fact that it's all told in flashback means that we know everyone survives OK, so suspense is definitely out of the question. Written by Ruric PowellDirected by Alan Perry Top TimelashCommander Straker breaks into the control room and sets about smashing up the equipment. After a chase, he is apprehended and a dangerous drug used on him to find out what caused his behaviour. The tale he has to tell is one of the most bizarre alien plots to destroy SHADO HQ yet hatched and it has something to do with time. This is a very bizarre episode and sits quite well as a companion piece to Mindbender in the bizarro stakes. The plot (something to do with UFOs travelling so fast they pass the time barrier and are able to evade SHADO defences, but then have to hang about until time catches up with them before they can act, so they transmit the power to bend time to a man who wants to help them destroy Earth) makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but forget the plot and feel the surrealism. Night turns into day, voices come from the air, people are frozen in time, there's a chase in little toy cars, through fog machines. It's all a bit 60s you know. Most of it wouldn't feel out of place in an episode of THE PRISONER. Because of the wierdness of it all, it's quite fascinating. You can't help but want to see what nonsense is coming next. It's almost like Alice being drawn down the rabbit hole. Once it's all over, of course, you just shake your head and wonder what they were taking. Written by Terence FeelyDirected by Cyril Frankel Top OrdealColonel Foster visits the Shado health farm for a detox, but the place is attacked and he is taken prisoner. Forced to breathe fluid, he is taken aboard a UFO, but the craft is so badly damaged that it crashes onto the lunar surface. There are a number of problems with this plot from the very beginning that do get explained by the, frankly, annoying cop out ending, but which give the appearance of being just poor storytelling. How do the aliens know that Foster will be at the health farm, how do they know it exists, how do they overcome everyone, what's wrong with the UFO and how does a crash on the moon of such explosive magnitude manage to spare Foster? Add to that direction that overeggs things at the start (the party especially dates it) and this proves to be a very unsatisfying episode. Written by Ian Scott StewartDirected by Ken Turner Top Court MartialColonel Foster is accused and convicted of selling top secret information about Shado operations to the press. All of the evidence points to him being the only person who could have leaked the information, but it cannot be completely proven. Then evidence is located pointing to Foster's innocence is located, but he has already escaped and the word has gone out to shoot on sight. Court cases usually bring drama and the long-running conflict between Straker and Colonel Henderson of the space commission adds a little edge to proceedings as well, but the fact that this has nothing to do with the alien threat at all is disappointing and the plotting is very sloppy. It is inconceivable, for example, that nobody thinks to check out Foster's apartment for surveillance equipment as a matter of course. A man's life is at stake and nobody even looks for an alternative explanation? On top of that the idea that Foster would allow money to be paid to him in a fashion so easily uncovered makes it obvious that he's not responsible. Can we get back to the aliens now? Written by Tony BarwickDirected by Ken Turner Top Reflections in the WaterA massive UFO attack force is massing on the edges of Moonbase-controlled space, but they are waiting for something. A chance investigation uncovers a dome hidden under the sea, a dome that contains doubles of SHADO HQ staff. If wierd you want, then wierd this is. The idea of the aliens producing doubles of the SHADO staff in order to interfere with their orders is perhaps sound, but they could do it from space just as effectively. They would also have to have some better system of speaking than recorded messages on a tape. One wrong reply from the other end of the link and it would all foul up very quickly. The aliens' whole plan hinges on the underwater dome and yet there is no sonar locator system, no UFOs to defend it an no guards to stop Straker and Foster wandering around at will. Whent he UFOs finally attack in two waves of fifty, they are wiped out by three interceptors, 1 skydiver aircraft and a couple of lunar surface missile batteries. Hardly seems likely somehow. Written by Terence FeelyDirected by David Lane Top Computer AffairA single UFO manages to get past Moonbase defences, killing an interceptor pilot along the way. Whilst the search for the UFO goes on, a computer analysis of what went wrong shows an affection between two Moonbase staff led to an error being made. Those two members of staff are then placed on the team given the job of bringing in the now-located UFO crew alive. With computer dating such a commonplace concept these days the idea that a computer could work out that staff members were attracted is not as surprising or futuristic as it might have seemed when this was first filmed. That doesn't help it be any more convincing though and certainly doesn't make it any more interesting. The capture of the aliens and the subsequent interrogation manages to rally the plot a little at the end, but not much. Written by Tony BarwickDirected by David Lane Top Confetti Check A-OKThe celebrations of a new father cause Commander Straker to review the events of his own tumultuous marriage, a union that was deoomed to be lost in the shadow of SHADO from the very beginning. We at the SCI FI FREAK SITE are all for stories that give some shading on the characters in sci fi shows, but this is just tedious rubbish. Who would have thought when they decided to look at the man behind the commander that there wouldn't be one, at least not an interesting one. It doesn't help that the only thing that causes his marriage to fail is the secrecy over what he is doing (setting up SHADO), something that would have been easily solved by getting her security clearance and letting her in on the whole thing. There are some people that you just can't keep secrets from. Written by Tony BarwickDirected by David Lane Top The Sound of SilenceA UFO manages to get past Moonbase defences by flying within range of a human space vehicle so that the interceptors can't fire at it. It proves later to be hard to locate. Some landowners in the area notice that the birds aren't singing in the area of the lake, but by then people are starting to go missing. This is a terribly dull episode. Whilst the aliens are on the screen it works well, but the human story is nightmarishly appalling. Both the horsey types and the tramp they try to run off the land are so unlikeable that you don't mind the green-skinned aliens taking them. It's also a bit class-conscious that the tramp is just outright killed whilst the upper class toff is taken for spare parts. The alien in the woods is a sinister presence, mainly because of the nature of his eyes, but the preamble with the UFO sneaking through and the climax with SHADO's mobile units taking on the UFO in a firefight are the real standout moments. What a shame that there's at least another quarter of an hour to sit through after it. Written by David Lane & Bob BellDirected by David Lane Top The Responsibility SeatColonel Freeman steps into the big chair for a day as Commander Straker is detailed off to deal with a sharp-witted reporter. Ufos attack and one evades moonbase interceptors to just disappear. Then a lunar vehicle starts bearing down on Moonbase across the surface. Straker, meanwhile learns that the reporter is not everything she claims, and a whole lot more. It's not certain how today's liberated women would feel about a gold-digger who is willing to do anything it takes to get with and then rip-off powerful men, bleating all the time that it's all she can do in what is 'a man's world'. It's an attitude that dates the series in a way that nothing else has. Considering the positive roles that other women have played in the show, it's also an odd choice. The sight of the woman stripped down to her underwear, offering herself to Straker is a strangely shocking sight in this otherwise chaste series. Aside from that, the cutting between stories robs the moonbase strand of its inherent tension. It's never cleared up whether the Russian crew of the lunar surface vehicle are merely intoxicated by lack of air or under alien control (certain actions suggest the latter) whilst the missin UFO is never located, giving the episode a unsatisfying feel to it. Written by Tony BarwickDirected by Alan Perry Top The Long SleepA woman wakes up from a decade long coma to relate the strange events that led to her being knocked down by Ed Straker's car. These include meeting up with a drifter, going on a drugs trip, nearly being raped and encountering two aliens planting some sort of bomb. The conversations are being monitored by someone who has an interest in completing the aliens' bomb plot. This episode was considered quite risky at the time because of its attempted rape (not much of an attempt but the intention is there) and its blatant drug taking and was omitted from early runs and is sometimes not seen in even modern repeat showings. As the drug taking ends in a man's death, it is actually quite a warning, but that didn't seem to matter. Tessa Wyatt makes for an appealing tragic heroine and it is quite believable that she manages to creep in under the icy veneer of the commander's reserve. The sepia tinted flashback sequences are quite charming and effective, but it all goes horribly wrong at the end. Once the story is effectively over, the writers add on some sort of nonsense about transferring years of life from one being to another and bodies not only decay in seconds, but change their clothes before doing so. This utterly undercuts what has gone before. Written by David TomblinDirected by Jeremy Summers Top |
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