Revisiting UFO....

[RJDiogenes]

Thanks for reminder I just liked the idea of things not being what they seemed, which felt pretty high concept for a cheesy retro sci-fi show.

There was a greater emphasis on ideas and alternate ways of looking at things in the television SF of the time than there is now; that's one of the things that makes it "cheesy" to contemporary audiences.

Yes, but it gave us THIS scene, so I don't care about the rest.

It didn't come through....

There's also some gritty stuff in what is widely assumed to be a more innocent era in television.

That's because it was far from a more innocent era-- just the opposite. UFO, despite its flaws, was as much written for adults as Star Trek was. Television in that era dealt with many serious and adult issues, from racism and war to hard looks at the human condition. The so-called "grittiness" that's in fashion now is merely lurid and juvenile.

I have to say that some of the colour choices for the men's fashions are so far from what anyone would consider even remotely acceptable today.You need shades to wear this.

I love that. I wish television would rediscover color.

I forgot to mention before, one of the things that I do find jarring about UFO is all the freakin' smoking. That's certainly one way that society has made some forward movement in the past forty years.

 

[lurok]

There was a greater emphasis on ideas and alternate ways of looking at things in the television SF of the time than there is now

Yes, that's what I was trying to say about why I liked that particular episode and why it's stuck with me. It's not always about action and blowing stuff up (though the series had plenty of that ). Agree with all your other points though, especially about colour and design. This thread's reminded me of so many things: smoking on Moonbase (wtf?), Straker's cigars (though I guess that's because he's a movie producer)...and didn't he have a phone in his car? Very futuristic

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Yes, but it gave us THIS scene, so I don't care about the rest.

It didn't come through....

It was of Lt. Ellis in front of the test pattern, sadly, though hopefully only temporarily, not up right now.

 

[Sindatur]

"Isolated" ****

A test pilot witness the destruction of a UFO and fights to prove what he saw.

Another good one as we're introduced to a test pilot who is eventually recruited by SHADO. Paul Foster won't let go as everyone tries to convince him he imagined seeing a UFO and its destruction. In the beginning I actually wondered if Straker would have had Foster killed if he couldn't sidetrack him or shut him up.

I have to say that some of the colour choices for the men's fashions are so far from what anyone would consider even remotely acceptable today.You need shades to wear this.

I love this episode. It was so much like a Prisoner Episode. Also, I'm currently listening to The GAP Series on audiobook, so, it's really standing out to me how methodical and manipulative Straker is.

 

[Forbin]

My website (where the picture is hosted) seems to be down. It does that a lot.

 

[Warped9]

"Survival" *****

An alien attacks Moonbase and Paul Foster is left injured on the lunar surface.

The series has already gotten off to a solid start yet this episode is excellent. This made me think of reading some classic SF short story. This could be about the closest to hard SF on television whether by the standards of '60s/'70s era or even today. It's an old story idea, and one often still used since, of a human and an alien working together to survive. I actually felt bad that the alien gets killed in the end even though we never get to know him. The interactions between Foster and the alien are totally nonvocal.

The episode opens with a gorgeous shot of a UFO approaching the Moon followed by a flight over the lunar surface. The space shots and model work in this are generally impressive.

There's also a good amount of nonverbal acting in this where a lot is telegraphed by facial expression and body language. It evens takes a moment to comment on racism.

Simply very well done by any standards.

 

[scotpens]

SHADO = Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation

If SHADO was the Supreme Headquarters, the organization must have had regional headquarters. Or branch offices. Or something like that. What were those called?

It'll be tough to imagine someone other than Wanda Ventham as Colonel Lake!

Wanda Ventham was indeed a classy beauty. She looked like the love child of Julie Christie and Honor Blackman.

This thread's reminded me of so many things: smoking on Moonbase (wtf?), Straker's cigars (though I guess that's because he's a movie producer)...and didn't he have a phone in his car? Very futuristic

I grew up in a time when everyone smoked, so I never took any notice of the smoking.

But a man in Straker’s position certainly should have had a mobile phone in his car. They did exist, you know, in the pre-cellular age.

 

[RJDiogenes]

There was a greater emphasis on ideas and alternate ways of looking at things in the television SF of the time than there is now

Yes, that's what I was trying to say about why I liked that particular episode and why it's stuck with me. It's not always about action and blowing stuff up (though the series had plenty of that ). Agree with all your other points though, especially about colour and design. This thread's reminded me of so many things: smoking on Moonbase (wtf?), Straker's cigars (though I guess that's because he's a movie producer)...and didn't he have a phone in his car? Very futuristic

And the wing doors. I'm surprised it didn't fly.

My website (where the picture is hosted) seems to be down. It does that a lot.

It's up now. She was indeed a babe.

If SHADO was the Supreme Headquarters, the organization must have had regional headquarters. Or branch offices. Or something like that. What were those called?

They were much ADO about nothing.

 

[scotpens]

It's up now.

So is mine!

 

[23skidoo]

UFO was a great piece of fun from the makers of Space: 1999. I would love an updated version of UFO more than 1999 in some ways. It would have a rather X-Files hidden government aura.

They actually did this a few years ago. It was called Threshold and starred Carla Gugino, Brent Spiner and Peter Dinklage as members of a top-secret organization created to deal with an alien invasion. I started a thread way back when Threshold aired listing the similarities in concept and execution between it and UFO. There was no moonbase or funny wigs, but the basic core SHADO concept was pretty much ported over into Threshold.

Space: 1999, by the way was originally planned as Season 2 of UFO. As I understand it (from reading the various UFO fan sites), had a second season been commissioned Straker and his SHADO team would have been based on the moonbase more frequently, and I think the "moon leaving earth orbit" angle might have been part of it.

But the problem with UFO is that Gerry Anderson was primarily known as a children's show maker at the time, and as such broadcasters - especially American stations - couldn't process a show with such dark violence, sexuality (not just Ellis in her skivvies but the episode where Ed Straker has a sexual affair with a reporter), drug use (one of the last episodes dealt with this), and some very dark issues relating to Striker's family. Without US backing Anderson couldn't make a second season.

Fast forward 4-5 years and Anderson retooled UFO II into Space: 1999 as a vehicle for Martin Landau and Barbara Bain (who I understand were the Brangelina of their day and still popular from Mission Impossible, even in 1975). Space: 1999 ran into similar problems as UFO - broadcasters didn't know what to do with it, but at least it got a second year and apparently narrowly missed getting a third. History repeated itself in 1995 when Anderson made Space Precinct which was a straightforward European cop show set on an alien planet with a mixture of human and alien cops. It was an adult show, but presented in a way that appeared to be a kids show to the layman, and US broadcasters couldn't figure it out. (It wasn't till Farscape came along that people began to accept kiddie show trappings in an adult storyline).

I loved UFO when I first saw it on DVD and I'm hoping it gets the Blu-ray treatment from A&E now that it's done Space: 1999. My only complaint is Wanda Ventham only appears in about 5 episodes - a cameo in the very first episode and then she disappears until near the end when she was brought in to replace another cast member who ended up being unavailable for the second production block of the series (filming took a hiatus of a number of months midway through for some reason and they lost a few cast members en route). I didn't realize she's the mother of Benedict Cumberbatch, the new Star Trek villain and star of the BBC's Sherlock...

Alex

 

[Procutus]

And the wing doors. I'm surprised it didn't fly.

But it WAS plutonium-powered and could go backwards in time.

 

[Warped9]

"Conflict" ***

Straker suspects space junk orbiting Earth could be used by the UFO aliens to mount attacks.

This one is done well enough yet it's still on the quiet side. Part of the back story to the events shown is Straker having to repeatedly fight to justify and maintain funding for SHADO operations. While a credible scenario for any organization it doesn't always translate well in terms of drama. Consciously or not what we see and hear in this episode seems to support the idea that as impressive as it looks SHADO may not actually be all that extensive. Its operations and resources have limitations. Of course this could be understandable for an agency relatively new in operation for only a very few years.

What we see of UFO incursions also seems to suggest that they're not based anywhere relatively near. It's not feasible that they'd be traveling all the way from their home world in such small craft for each incursion. It would make more sense that a sort of mothership could be just outside the solar system. That would also explain why only a single UFO is usually dispatched at any one time. I don't recall if the series ever touches on this idea.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I always found it strange at the time that only one UFO would occasionally straggle in to the Solar System-- or, occasionally, three. I think one time there was a more extensive incursion. Also, those guys could probably only fit one or two kidnap victims stowed away in the trunk of those little saucers. Hardly enough to keep a dying civilization supplied with organs.

The scenario I came up with-- such fun conversations I had when I was eleven-- was that the alien planet is not evil at all. Kidnapping and cutting up Earthlings is really illegal. The aliens that we see are really mercenaries hired by some rich guy or corporation to keep himself and his family or the board of directors or whatever alive. Why do the mercenaries have transplants? That's how they get paid.

 

[Warped9]

^^ It's as good an explanation as any. As good as the show is so far there's still the fact that this was '60s/'70s era television. They may not have put that much thought into what the UFO aliens agenda was and how they went about it.

 

[Sindatur]

I always found it strange at the time that only one UFO would occasionally straggle in to the Solar System-- or, occasionally, three. I think one time there was a more extensive incursion. Also, those guys could probably only fit one or two kidnap victims stowed away in the trunk of those little saucers. Hardly enough to keep a dying civilization supplied with organs.

The scenario I came up with-- such fun conversations I had when I was eleven-- was that the alien planet is not evil at all. Kidnapping and cutting up Earthlings is really illegal. The aliens that we see are really mercenaries hired by some rich guy or corporation to keep himself and his family or the board of directors or whatever alive. Why do the mercenaries have transplants? That's how they get paid.

Yea, the ships always looked like they could barely hold only their own Pilot. Much smaller than even a Sontaran ship. They should've included a few shots of a different perspective, where it showed the craft was bigger (unless there will be in later episodes)

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

^^ It's as good an explanation as any. As good as the show is so far there's still the fact that this was '60s/'70s era television. They may not have put that much thought into what the UFO aliens agenda was and how they went about it.

It's a Gerry Anderson show - therefore the internal logic is only paper thin at best, and I'm a fan.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I always felt that their weak attacks fit into the narrative that their race was dying, as if the aliens were almost out of resources and raiding Earth was a last gasp act of desperation. I agree that it's really hard to get it to make sense. For the original show, I still don't care that it's kinda shaky.

But for the sake of the upcoming movie trilogy, they'll need to get the kinks in the premise ironed out, I think.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I agree that they probably never thought it through. The scenario was an end in itself.

 

[Gov Kodos]

If the organ stealing was kept, could it be justified as research by the aliens to develop the capacity to survive on Earth as a prelude to invasion. Or have that be a speculation by SHADO to justify its existence and have some other reason be the truth (perhaps humans have some natural ability that the aliens lack that they wish to develop and need human organs to study?

 

[arthur2sheds]

I always found it strange at the time that only one UFO would occasionally straggle in to the Solar System-- or, occasionally, three. I think one time there was a more extensive incursion. Also, those guys could probably only fit one or two kidnap victims stowed away in the trunk of those little saucers. Hardly enough to keep a dying civilization supplied with organs.

The scenario I came up with-- such fun conversations I had when I was eleven-- was that the alien planet is not evil at all. Kidnapping and cutting up Earthlings is really illegal. The aliens that we see are really mercenaries hired by some rich guy or corporation to keep himself and his family or the board of directors or whatever alive. Why do the mercenaries have transplants? That's how they get paid.

Yea, the ships always looked like they could barely hold only their own Pilot. Much smaller than even a Sontaran ship. They should've included a few shots of a different perspective, where it showed the craft was bigger (unless there will be in later episodes)

In the episode 'E.S.P' you see a UFO fly into a house and in 'Flight Path' the UFO flies low over a car and garage and you can see they are actual quite large vehicles. Various sources give a diameter of between 50ft-60ft.
Definately larger than a Sontaran scout vessel.