UFO - ESP

In the coda to ESP, Straker invokes fear of the unknown as a motivating force. Many people are naturally afraid of the idea of flying saucers and aliens. So are they nervous about psychism. Speak of either one as a serious topic and you get nervous jokes about loony bins. I'm getting that out of the way because it may have been an inspiration for the episode but as a theme it gets a bit lost in the shuffle.

John Croxley has ESP, which takes the form of receiving other people's surface thoughts and sensing details of the near future. These abilities are not under his control, they are erratic, and they are deeply unwelcome. (That last – anticipating future events – is highly suspect, but like Croxley I'm getting ahead of myself.) This constant stream of unwanted knowledge intruding on Croxley's mind is making him a nervous wreck, Putting a strain on his marriage...and it's not helping that he is seeing a quack for a doctor. According to Mrs. Croxley, the doctor thinks ESP is some kind of virus that will “pass soon”.

Unhappy Croxley makes the acquaintance of Straker under the worst possible circumstances when a UFO crashes into his house, killing his wife. Straker maintains the cover of the UFO having been one of his own vehicles on a test run*. Naturally Croxley blames Straker.

Ah, but wait a mo' – shouldn't the truth be uppermost in Straker's mind, and would not Croxley be aware of it? It's a good question, far from the only one arising from a script that treats the story as a puzzle box that needs working out. Therefore, instead of following the plot as it's laid out, let me look at the info we've gathered by the finale.

Croxley has had ESP his whole life, but only within the past year has it become so intense as to be ruining his life. Why, what triggered the increase? Whenever he's questioned on certain subjects or asked to examine his mental state too closely, he goes into evasion mode aggressively enough to suggest he's hiding something from his conscious mind (his doctor points this out). When he ought to see the truth about aliens from both Straker and Freeman, he mentally blocks it to favor his consuming grief and hatred of Straker.

Then there's the matter of the UFO itself. Early on it seems a contrivance that the saucer should hit this one man's house out of all England to choose from, but the craft was under manual control - meaning it was no accident. This one act and the loss of Croxley's life is the trigger for an obsession with Straker. Coincidence is becoming more and more unlikely.

Brainwashing, I think, is the answer. It's not mind control, as Croxley is not a mindless puppet. He is driven but thinks it is by his own thoughts. His mental block and angry evasions look like post-hypnotic suggestion. The time it took to prepare him for this (a year, we infer) says it wasn't easy for the aliens to control him but had to nudge him instead. Also...well, surely ESP would be an invaluable tool for the aliens in any number of ways and yet they squander it on assassinating one man who's only going to be replaced. Okay, I'm rationalizing the writer's lack of vision, but let's go with an in-universe answer and say that ESP is a rare commodity and Croxley being who he is has limited application. They did what they could with the opportunity handed them.

Might not be the answer you came up with, very little of this is made explicit. We can but guess. Again, Straker from the coda: “We'll never know”. That could be an excuse for sloppy writing, which does play out elsewhere in the script, but the lack of a solid explanation is one of the things I like about this one. Fear drives SHADO, justifiably as we know the aliens are a threat. Fear motivates Foster to seek out what troubled him about the crash and the strange man who hovered near him in hospital. The aliens themselves express fear through Croxley, puzzlement and frustration that they are so feared by humankind. The unknowable, the uncertainty, It's meant to lend a chilly vibe to a premise already brimming with dark nights and horror-genre subjects (If I don't feel the shiver it's partly because I've been watching horror movies my whole life and partly that the director doesn't go for horror tropes). It's also quite sad, the impetus of all this death and tragedy.

Lack of specificity is also a potential weakness if you don't just go with it, because it begs a few questions we're probably no supposed to ask. How did the aliens come to know that Croxley has this ability, and how did they increase it? Who's scheme is Croxley following, his own or that of an alien handler, and how could anyone know that Straker would play it out as anticipated? Oh, ESP, right? Okay, but as depicted it doesn't seem to work that way nor does Croxley express an awareness of being trapped in a closed loop of predestination. This is where I am suspicious of his future sight, it's too neat in only this one instance.

Is Croxley himself afraid of his condition? I think one more round of rewriting could have brought this out and made the theme clearer, really brought it all together and made a good episode a great one. We've also got to contend with same poor thinking, especially the lack of coherent characterization for the doctor (doctor/patient ethics not as important as moving the plot forward). Otherwise it's a haunting story well told. Once again we have a potential villain who is nothing of the sort, rather is easy to symapthize with. That's a hallmark of UFO, the archetypes are subverted constantly...antagonists that we feel bad for, heroes who engage in unheroic behavior.


With a riveting story but some loose writing, I have to give this one 6 Zener cards. Which one am I looking at?



Asides:

How does this work exactly, Staker's story for the crash – the head of a movie studio has test pilots and experimental aircraft? Little lax on the cover, guys

Loved the crash into the house – that shot of the UFO coming right at the camera is startling! Must have taken my breath away as a kid, that's one bit that always stayed with me.

Nice touch: Foster “senses” he's being watched on the studio lot just before the doctor explains that we all have these moments of psychism. With hiss being aware of being spied on in the hospital, I wonder if Foster isn't a little but “receptive” himself.

Inconsistency? Croxley declares that Freeman has “a devious thought pattern”, implying that Straker by comparison does not. That should be the other way around.

I can't recall where I know this from or of it's correct, but those missiles on the Interceptors – are they nuclear or not? I ask because one of them went off right next to that saucer with no effect.