UFO - The Square Triangle

A trap has been set in the woodlands where, if all goes to plan, no one will witness it. The prey is on his way.

When the destination of an incoming UFO is determined, Straker risks allowing it to land unimpeded in the hopes of capturing the craft and its crew. Mobiles are in place ready to begin the hunt. No sure bet to begin with, things go awry when a game warden and his dog stumble upon the landing site and a fight ensues. The alien loses his supply of oxygenated liquid, the accidentally shoots his own ship as he kills the unlucky warden, sending the UFO into self-destruct mode. His exit off Earth now barred, he flees the scene. Finding a nearby home, he enters.

Said home belongs to Liz Newton (Adrienne Corri), the wife of well-to-do businessman Jack Newton (Allan Cuthbertson). Liz is there waiting for Jack, and so is her domineering lover Cass (Patrick Mower). Cass has cooked up a scheme to have Liz murder her husband in their own Summer home. Unfortunately for them, the one laying dead in the doorway is not the soon-to-be-late Mr. Newton but the alien, who like the game warden before him has blundered into a trap meant for someone else.

Before Newton arrives home and before the murderers can improvise a cover, SHADO arrives on the scene and takes the paramours to Harlington-Straker Studios. As witnesses to an alien incursion, they are given a drug that clears their memories of the past twenty four hours. Meanwhile, Foster deduces what must have occurred, leaving Straker with a moral dilemma: what to do about a murder which will surely occur but for which there can be no evidence before the fact.

For the sake of SHADO security, he decides that no action can be taken. We soon see the purportedly grieving widow at her husband's graveside before she walks off with Cass (as a nasty sting, this replaces the usual shot over which the closing credits play).

This is not the first time an episode has centered around the private lives of one-off characters, but it's the first time they have been wholly unsympathetic. We never get to know Mr/ Newton, who seems like a nice enough guy, apparently loving and thoughtful of his wife. For his alleged coldness toward her, we have only the unreliable words of Cass, who is manipulating the weak-willed Liz. She's a faithless flounder, but that Cass...well, the list has no end. Alpha male, misogynist, user, and ultimately a sociopath. He's slime. He twists Liz to his will in what we recognize as sheer hypocrisy ('Words! That's all he gives you!”), but Liz submits to it so readily.

What we have then is two parties making life and death decisions over other people, with Straker and Cass respectively calling the shots. This is no moral equivalency being drawn, the differences are clear – Cass and Liz are out for themselves where Straker has the security of the world to weigh. When it comes to murder, Liz is at first horrified to have killed the wrong person while Cass simply panics that he might be caught. Oddly enough, when the decision is made not to interfere with the murder scheme, humanitarian Alec Freeman doesn't bat an eye, not does Foster raise an objection...I thought this was a nice touch - the one note of moral outrage is uttered by Straker alone in his office. “Get them out of here!”, he says into the phone with disgust.

It's a neatly woven schematic but my enjoyment of it is blunted somewhat by the repulsive Cass and Liz Nor am I satisfied that there was nothing to be done to at least warn the intended victim to take extra care for his life. I'd have liked to have seen Freeman exercise his usual unauthorized initiative and try just that, but that would have unbalanced the scheme (Cass and Straker call the shots, Liz and Freeman follow) and strayed from the focus. Most likely any attempt to warn Newton discreetly would have been too little too late, shrugged off. Still, it bothers. It was meant to.

A fleet of 7.5 futuristic hauling rigs in impeccable miniature surroundings. I was going to give it a 6.5, but distaste aside it deserves better.

Asides: an error arises in the use of stock footage. As the Interceptors are recalled having not fired their missiles – the shot used is one where all three have indeed fired.

Nice continuity! The female SHADO agent who greets everyone who comes down the hydraulic office is waiting as always! Lorkris suggested she's a security officer, which sure seems to fit.

There's a really nice shot of Straker sitting at his desk, from an angle we've never seen before. POV is from behind the desk, and as we watch Straker we see colored lights shifting across him. These lights emanate from the animated lights of the art display that hangs on the wall behind his desk. We've all seen it, we know what it is, but I noticed that the shot comes in this particular scene without a prior shot establishing that the piece is there. I don't often notice the hands of the directors at work (to my own discredit), so let me say kudos to director David Lane.