UFO - Ordeal

"Two weeks here and you're going to feel on top of the world", the therapist says.  He should have said "out of this world".  It would have been truer.

Immediately followng his return home from a stint on Skydiver, and the night before a mandatory stay at SHADO's torture  health spa, Col. Foster spends the last of his energy on a party.  (Prediction for the 80's: your future will be fashion retro with a nostalgic wave of mod 60's excess.  Get your unironic Austin Powers on!)  So he's drained going in, struggling when he realizes he's locked in the sauna with the temperature rising, and limp when the aliens find and kidnap him.

Except they don't.  Foster has passed out and is having a vivid stress-induced nightmare.  You're not told that until the final moments of the episode, and there's a deft bit of sleight-of-hand to fool us all: SHADO HQ has been hunting a UFO that broke though their perimeter, and Foster's nightmare hinges on just that scenario.  It almost feels like  a cheat upon reveal, but the former is common enough for SHADO while the nightmare would be a  common one to personnel.

Speaking of entertainement in general, this is exactly the twist that always turns audiences off.  The 'it was all in his/her head' ending.   People become invested in the situation only to be told "It didn't happen?"  "It didn't mean anything!"  It smacks of the writers not being able to think up a decent solution to the central dilemma so they reach for their handy book of trite cop-outs.  An argument can be made that the dream of Ordeal does certainly mean something and has some value, but in this case I can only be just so enthusiastic about it.

The episode is illustrative of the fear, tension, and fatigue that must be what every SHADO agent carries just under the sonscious barrier on a daily basis.  That's worth seeing.   As an inner look at Paul Foster, he turns out to be not that interesting.  We see very little that we hadn't already seen on the surface.  That is, we may not know it's a dream but sriter Tony barwick does, so he's aware that manifestations of Straker, Freeman, Jackson and the like are taken from Foster's own perceptions and expectations.  Of ccourse, Barwick doesn't want to tip his hand, so we get the same Straker, Freeman, etc.. that we always do...and honestly I don't think Barwick was after anything other than a thrilling experience, which he deelivers quite expertly.  From our POV, we've never been the abductee before.  Now we have.  I'm just saying we could have had that small bit more, not enough to break the illusion but enough to leave lingering questions about Foster and his working relations.

Maybe there is something,  though.  For a fantasy concocted by Foster's id, Lt. Gay Ellis features a lot in his rescue.  For example, how often so we see her take to the lunar surface personally when someone under her command needs rescuing?  Foster is an exceeption, is he?  Must be awfully special to her...It's your classically romantic scenario, she spends every minute after in his company, reassuring and comforting him right up to the moemnt he comes to on the sauna floor at the health spa.

The episode is gripping on a first viewing, with plenty of tension as Straker orders the UFO shot down (will  the Sky 1 pilot Waterman comply?), as the damaged UFO crashes on the moon,  Foster having his lungs filled with the liquid aleins use for space travel, etc.   Having seen it a number of times, I know it holds up on rewatch.  So,  I'm giving it 7 rights clearances to Paul McCartney's catalog.  Never ceases to surprise me that 'Get Back' made it in in the first place, and more that it's still there.

Asides:

F.O., Foster! That means you're first, alphabetically!

At SHADO HQ, a female technician brings coffee to a male tech...at least it  didn't seem as if he aked, she simply offers him some.  Either the sexism problem is more institutionally entrenched at SHADO than any of us has realized, or she really likes the guy and wants him to notice.  I'd like to think it's the latter.  She reminded me a little of someone I fell for once.

"Have you ever been in a sonar bath before?"  Sounds neat.  Is that like a sonic shower on Star Trek?  Hmm, so you need steam for a sonar bath?  How does that work?  Why not just call it - oh, I see.  Sauna bath.  Ne'mind.

Should have been a lot more green liquid gushing out of that helmet, and to clear Foster's lungs he should have been leaning forward. Still, kudos for getting the  panic right.

On learning that Foster was abducted, a Skydiver crewmember exclaims, "How could that happen?"  She must be new, because it happens to SHADO people all the time!

At the spa there's a guy named Franklin who's overweight.  Oh, sorry, I meant to say fat.  We're supposed to be thoughtful of others and not inflict 'political correctness' on them.  Franklin's a tub.  That means he's the comic relief.  Just pointing out that he's a fatass is inherently funny.  So go ahead and have a  laugh at his expense, because even the score mocks him.


Two episodes to go.