UFO - The Psychobombs

Writing about The Psychobombs might not be conducive to enjoying it. Thinking is not the best approach to this ep that I do like.

A UFO lands at night in the English countryside (the deuce you say!) and puts three nearby citizens under its spell. Linda, Clark, and Mason have been reprogrammed so that their brain/body chemistry can induce brief periods of amazing strength under stress (akin to tales of people lifting cars off o loved ones), and with an electric catalyst can even become organic bombs of tremendous destructive power. You'd have to ask Doctor Jackson, who will explain to you that the biology of the victims has been altered to harness the energy of the universe itself...on the one hand very New Agey for the era, or something related to speculations of zero point energy.

Once again the aliens have a new method mind control, this one producing much faster results than before. Depending on your disposition you can conclude either that the show is being inconsistent as usual (grammatically speaking, would that be oxymoronic?) or that the aliens, those wacky funsters, really do love to experiment.

Under alien direction the three send Straker an ultimatum: dismantle SHADO or see its forces destroyed. When Straker doesn't immediately comply, the first target (an important ground radar facility) is visited by one of the living bombs and blown sky high. Clark the Bomb really isn't aware of what's happening. Well, yeah, especially now he's gone off.

Next off the bench is Amatol Mason, sent after Skydiver 3 at its base as Straker, Jackson, Foster, and Lake still race to sort out what they're dealing with. Clem steals the identity (or at least the fingertips whorls – don't ask) and gets past the first security barrier but not the photographic or vocal IDs. The ship launches but not soon enough.

This is what makes the episode – not this single encounter but the tension that informs it. Director Jeremy Summers does a fine job establishing and maintaining suspense throughout. While the alien ploy is best unexamined, it yields a story that easily keeps my attention from beginning to end.

More uneven is the hunt for the living bombs when Foster gets close to Linda Simmonds. Foster takes the mission of getting close to his surveillance subject literally and makes romantic moves on Linda...and, look, he's using that old 'creepy stalker guy who knows everything about you' ploy again! And it works again! “How did you know?”, he's asked. “We have our methods.” Sure, and so do the aliens. They've really done their homework on SHADO, seems they know that Foster is an easy mark if they lay on the sex. Serves him right for turning into a player. Linda kisses him and alien control now has a low-level effect on him as well (don't ask). He's invited her back to SHADO HQ to meet the gang.

Straker is the final target, and Explodey Linda is the last bomb left. Using the identity of the first two, a likely landing site for the UFO is pinned down, and a police report from the night in question points to the owner of a car involved with the death of a cop. Linda had been pulled over; the cop was killed. Linda's boss is dead too. Straker makes his usual gamble with disaster when he learns that she's on the way, and decides to throw open the doors.

Linda is a figure deserving of sympathy. She leaves a wake of death behind her in happy ignorance, and it catches up with her as she holds the fate of SGHADO personnel in her hands, literally, and makes an impossible choice.

6.5 UFOs, now available in the new convenient pop-top style! Tempted to go 7, but those questions and then Foster...

Asides: Clem is taken from his sleep when the UFO lands, but not his wife lying next to him. Why not her too? Because the airtime doesn't allow for four bombs, no doubt.

I think given the physiological nature of the aliens and their need for human bodies, we can take the mind control as a matter of course now instead of thinking it's meant to be a clever new twist and saying”Oh, not that again.” It's just expediency on their part to use us as we are if taking our bodies is rare enough to go to war over.

From his car, Straker, calls in and asks whether Foster or Lake are available, and when he's told they're not he sounds put out. He might assume they're busy doing their jobs, but no – if they were doing their jobs then surely they'd be sitting around all day in hopes of his ringing in. Them being unavailable must mean they're goofing off while he's not there to keep an eye on things. “Spread it around I'm on my way in. I find it helps improve efficiency.” Ah, good, it's Tony Barwick. He knows how to write Straker!

UFO - Close Up

I spent the evening watching coverage of one of the day's bigger news stories unfolding and couldn't help seeing its echo in Close Up. Frankly, this episode baffles me, all the more for having been written by Tony Barwick.

Straker has a new plan to stoke his passions for, a probe satellite that takes images not by conventional camera but by electron telescope. He wants to lure a UFO close enough to send the probe after it back to the aliens' home world. Everything goes swimmingly until...well, until the final minutes of the episode. Really, that's it. The A-plot of Close Up is a procedural that takes us from trial tests through funding to implementation. While this is a major step forward for SHADO and promises tantalizing discoveries for the audience, its telling is fairly dull. This is the first of three major problems.

BTW, I did a lazy-fast search on electron telescopy and couldn't find anything. I'm guessing it was still an exciting theory back in 1970, so maybe I shouldn't be too harsh...still, from the photographs that Straker and company were oohing and aahing over I have to say they didn't strike me as all that impressive. Conventional spy satellites were already projected to yield more breathtaking results. In color, while we're at it.

The second problem is plausibility. UFOs travel at FTL speeds, which we know the probe cannot. I've grown up on filmed sci-fi entertainment and have learned to put up with non-science nonsense, and it's often not easy. When a show violates its own established rules, it makes things unnecessarily harder. We might also wonder why the aliens would not spot a tail, but I'm not overly fussed with that (perhaps they hibernate on the voyage between solar systems). At story's end we find it's all been for naught as the craft's telemetry has malfunctioned, failing to provide crucial information with which to measure the images it sends back. Yet, the images are crystal clear, and one wonders that technicians could not reconstruct the missing info from the original programming: distances from the planet at which the scanning was meant to begin, speed of the craft, etc. Really, none of the photos have any worth?

That's quite an expensive gamble, too, that the UFO thwarted from its path will give up easily and just run off home instead of hanging around out of range for another go. We've seen them do that often enough. SHADO may have trouble appropriating funds, apparently that's pocket change to these aliens.

There area few nice things here of note, foremost being the fx work - not just the models. There's a launch sequence that meticulously recreates genuine rocket launches that were still an exciting staple of popular TV at the time. FX master Derek Meddings was probably responsible for this and would go on to perfect the immaculate launch fakery in Moonraker - the final element being the blinding glare of the rocket fire.

It's the third problem that drops my rating. The B-plot, where I think the real story might have been intended. The human factor, as Straker himself alludes to in one of several awkward scenes involving a bewildered Lt. Ellis. I'm not sure if even Gabrielle Drake knew how her character was supposed to react to Commander Straker's speeches most of the time. What are we supposed to make of them?

Sigh. Okay. Let's back up. The ep's "human factor" begins with a technician developing the satellite who pleads with Straker for funding to develop micro-photography, insisting that it could be applied to space research. Straker is unimpressed and unsupportive. At least he doesn't verbally backhand the guy - he'll save that for Ellis after her diligent work. He just can't help himself. He's got to put her in her place, a woman and beneath him.

Now, this is fully in keeping with his character as we've come to know him, and as previously written by Barwick...but it comes out of nowhere in the middle of this story that had not hinted at being a character piece. The look on Gabrielle Drake's face is wonderful acting, Ellis' humiliation and shock. I felt it with her. It's an ugly moment. I felt something I've not felt before from UFO: uncomfortable. We've just shifted gears; where is this going?

I still cannot answer that. What did Barwick intend to do with this? Straker has been set up for a humbling that never comes. He realizes almost immediately that he has put his foot in it, but - again according to character - assumes that Ellis faults herself rather than his own chauvinism. Okay, here's my big problem - I'm not sure that Barwick doesn't think so too.

Coming from Barwick, that's upsetting. He's the guy whose scripts have deftly pointed out more than once that Straker's smug superiority is partially based on an ignorance of others' experiences (his insistence that racism has died out, for example). We've seen him patronize SHADO's female personnel in the same sentence as he's applauding equality in the workplace. So why is it that Ellis is the one treated by this script as needing a lesson? Oy, and what a lesson!

"You're doing a fine job, Gay.", Straker tells her. "A man's job." Oof. Just stop there. "You don't have to do it any better because you're a woman." No, really, stop digging. "And don't ever forget a very attractive girl."

The forehead slap due here should leave a bruise.

I cannot read the look on her face. I honestly think even Drake didn't know how to play a reaction. She seems to want out of the scene every bit as much as Ellis does. And so did I. Almost immediately we have another scene in which Straker addresses the entire Moonbase staff but singles Ellis out for direct bit of fatherly reassurance - or maybe it's another rebuke. Her body language says "okay, whatever, I don't get it." It might not have been acting.

Seriously, what the hell? I don't get it. Whatever Barwick was aiming for, he failed to communicate it. The coda should provide a clue, as Straker is treated to a demonstration of micro-photography. Ellis participates in a trick that fools him into thinking that he is looking at the surface osf the alien homeworld but turns out to be Ellis' bare thigh. This takes place back on Earth, yet Ellis is wearing her embarrassingly revealing Moonbase uniform. Again, if Barwick is trying to be pointed he fails to nail it down. At any rate, the tech gets his funding and Ellis gets no recognition from Straker that he is a misogynist ass.

The episode was something I didn't expect from UFO, a little queasy. It didn't get better in retrospect as the antipathy toward women of another socially stunted manchild filled the news cycle. I give it 3 lovingly crafted miniatures, which might still be too generous.

Asides:
a nice editing choice when we see the gray-green alien world s the probe approaches it, the soundtrack gives us the same music cue that accompanies that world's entrance to the weekly closing credits sequence.

When Straker speechifies at the coda and natters on about all matter consisting of "billions" of particles, it put me in mind of another turtle-necked pop scientist. I half-expected Straker to declare that "we are all made of starstuff."

UFO - The Cat With Ten Lives

Just in time for the Halloween season, it's an episode of spooky cats, seances, spirits, and the possession of Regan – a year before William Peter Blatty's novel The Exorcist was published and three years before Friedkin's film. The Cat With Ten Lives was originally aired on September 30th, 1970.


In this case Regan isn't a little girl but a Moonbased Interceptor pilot (“You're gonna die up there.”). We're introduced to him in an opening sequence in which the aliens step up their game considerably, using a two-pronged attack on Moonbase involving six UFOs. It's an exciting setpiece for us, and exhausting for the pilots who barely fend off disaster. That makes eight UFOs in just the past week. It's not a good time to be an Interceptor pilot, what with Straker considering SHADO under siege and even Foster riding them hard in combat training. Regan is lucky to be getting a few days leave at home.

Sleep will have to wait, though, he and his wife are obligated for a dinner party with the unhappy prospect of a dull cinematography display. Or maybe not, as his hosts have received an anonymous gift in the mail; a Ouija board! Oh, yes, lets; go right to the embarrassed eyerolling and the goodnatured ribbing before the planchette spells out 'S – E – A – N -C – E'. They have made contact with the spirit of Captain Obvious.

The game livens a little when Regan suffers a spell akin to a fugue state or a blackout. He's rattled enough to take the wrong way home. A cat in the road halts their journey, and the couple are assaulted by aliens who subject the pilot to some kind of procedure. He is released but his wife is not. The direction of the abduction sequence is marvelous.

It is determined that Regan was deemed medically unsuitable for organ harvesting, and that presumably his wife was found eligible. Still, quite a coincidence that the aliens just happened upon a SHADO operative as it is. Even more so that the only reason Regan was caught was because of a stray cat happening upon his trip at that moment. But, wait, isn't it true that the only reason he took that path was because he was upset by the Ouija game, which just happened to arrive from a mysterious source?

As plans go this is beyond improbable, and a little Rube Goldbergian. And, ya know, the only reason I don't mind is because of the season. It shouldn’t work, yet it does. Logic is out the window, but spooky stories are not about logic. They're about taking us for a ride, and TCWTL does exactly that. I defy anyone to watch this plot unfold and predict where it's going. Where it's going is another attack on Moonbase with another “controlled” agent – so, yes, it should be predictable, but the path to that end is so circuitous and unlikely that it's highly entertaining.

The plan seems to hinge on knowledge of one pilots' social calendar and work rotation, which one would think rather hard to come by for an alien. They would also have to rely on the man to not only keep his dates but not to balk at the idea of using the Ouija board when he's a skeptic. I guess that's why the word “seance” came up so prominently, there were aliens nearby frantically thinking “SEANCE!” at the party in hopes the partiers would comply. The séance is then used to plant the idea in Regan to take one road home over another. Let's take it a step further and guess that the reason SHADO is being run ragged is to exhaust Regan into pliability. It's that kind of script. Silly.

Speaking of tortured thinking, Jackson has some disturbing news that sparks some not fully cooked speculation. SHADO has been operating under thee assumption that the aliens' bodies are compatible with our own, and that their resources are depleted. Turns out there's a good reason for that: the aliens' bodies are our own! They're using us whole like meat puppets. I say 'they' because Jackson says 'they', but it's another wild leap based on one body. The upshot is that the aliens may b incorporeal beings that require physical form to operate, and that means stealing bodies. So what we knew wasn't wrong, exactly, just more advanced than we imagined.

Questions arise. If the aliens need bodies in order to function, how did they get here to take ours in the first place? The body Jackson found has had vital sections removed that govern emotional response, suggesting the aliens need our brains for the motor functions, language centers, and critical thinking. Must the body inhabited be human – that is, could an alien entity choose to take over another animal? Say, a cat? Jackson thinks so. As it happens, Regan has brought a cat into SHADO HQ. It's the same one that got him and his wife into the aliens' hands. Regan, meanwhile, has snapped. He's assaulted Foster and returned to Moonbase when he was ordered grounded by Straker. Must be mind control, happens every other week. Straker, that intuitive wonder, he figures it out. There's a four-footed infiltrator on the base, and is the one influencing his pilot. Luckily there was a dog food commercial being filmed at the studio that day. How's that for a convenient plot point?

The cat deserves singling out. Instead of the standard black cat you'd usually get for the Halloween season, we have a sleek and slinky Siamese that exudes a sly, observant intelligence. This feline is well cast.

What fascinates me about this revelation is what's not explored but merely suggested. When Regan attacks Foster, prompted by the cat, Regan acts like a cat, snarling and clawing. But the cat isn't a cat anymore! Is it? It's an alien intellect. It's intentions are those of an alien, cold and calculated, the advanced plotting of an intellect. Yet, the actions dictated to Regan are those of an animal. This suggests to me that the aliens' thoughts are translated through the physical wiring of the brain it inhabits, and are thus affected by or dependent upon the characteristics of that brain. Remember that the aliens have in thee past been unable or unwilling to communicate verbally. Perhaps the speech centers of their hosts bodies have been cut or are otherwise inaccessible. I don't know what it all means or how it adds up, but I'm fascinated by the possibilities!

A more obvious wasted opportunity lies in bringing back Vladek Sheybal for a single scene that amounts to exposition. It's a waste of his talent and charisma, frankly. Think of what his hypothesis means, and imagine a Jackson-centric episode that forced him to prove his theory by pitting his wits and sly cunning against the alien/cat/Regan. Sounds like a 10 right there.

But we get what we get, and I lapped this one like cream. I am giving it 8 convenient headaches for a dull dinner party.

Thoughts:
“Here we go again” , someone says at ep start as the UFOs attack. They could be addressing the audience, which is kinda delicious because what follows is not exactly business as usual no matter that it leads to the same ol' thing.

The cat/alien has one hell of a range when it comes to mental telepathy! He influences Regan from England while the pilot is flying over the moon!

There's subtle moment that reveals a vital plot point. After Regan has been abducted, he is talking about his wife. Obviously the man is in shock and grieving, as there's little hope she will ever come back alive. So, his zombielike responses would be natural. However, while he speaks, he switched his wedding ring from his left hand to his right. It's a visual clue that something about him has been reversed or tampered with. Again, the direction in this ep is especially nice.

UFO - Mindbender

or, 'Banditos on the Moon!'

If there's a word that can't describe this episode, it's 'meh'*.

Trying the sunspot trick again, a UFO makes a run on Moonbase but explodes four miles out. The debris is pored over for an explanation, but it yields no clues...only an interesting bit of crystal one of the astronauts brings back, thinking it's a natural rock formation. Soon the man, Lt. Conroy, is hallucinating that he's in old Mexico fending off banditos, which he imagines the base personnel to be. The situation ends with Conroy and another man dead.

Back on Earth not long after, another agent goes berzerk when he thinks SHADO HQ has been overtaken by aliens. He had handled the Conroy's belongings, including the rock. He too ends up shot.

Straker is at a loss for an answer. It doesn't help that he's already got general Henderson on his back for a report he'd promised to write, without which Henderson's job is on the line. It's really too much to take, he shouldn't have to! In fact, he doesn't! Both men escalate a confrontation until Straker is ready to take the scene to blows -

– at which the director yells “CUT!” Grant Taylor, playing Henderson, is all smiles. What are we watching? It's the filming of an episode of UFO! This is the point at which Ed Straker goes off the deep end, and the script goes with him. That's right, Ed handled the rock.

What follows is a wonderful bit of heavy meta storytelling. Now Straker, whose cover is as at he head of a movie studio while in reality leading a secret organization to fend of alien marauders, suddenly finds that his life is nothing more than the fiction of a popular TV series.

In a turn to make your head woozy, we're now seeing the sets of UFO as it is seen by the people who actually make the show – we see the Moonbase Command Center and the plywood that supports it, and the lights, and the cameras, and the fact that it is a doorway away from the Earthbound HQ and the Skydiver set...We see Harlington/Straker studios is really Pinewood, and we see that the actors who play roles in UFO are...well, actors who play roles on UFO. Only Ed Straker is confused, except his name isn't Ed Straker. Straker is in his office and isn't seeing anyone.

I've seen meta done by any number of talented writers and directors. It's often at pains to be clever and ends up straining my suspension of disbelief. Mindbender doesn't try to draw the audience into the trick, we're either there or we aren't. It works. It's also a refreshing change of pace for the series, totally unexpected, and credibly drawn. The important trick is that it isn't just a gimmick but flows organically with Straker's character.

With Conroy, we learn that he was attempting to write a bit of fiction set in the Old West before his obsession became flesh. The next man imagined an alien threat, as well he might belonging to SHADO. Straker is pushed over the edge by the stresses of his double life. Se head of SHADO he has to deal with a hundred emergencies at once from bureaucracy to an inexplicable outbreak of madness like an infection that's getting his people killed by the dozen. At the same time, he's got to maintain his stance as head of the studio, dealing with such infuriating, time-wasting rubbish as ego-maniacal stars trying to hijack their own vehicles.

If the obsessions and anxieties of the affected inform their hallucinations, then it's telling that Straker now believes he may actually be actor Howard Byrne. It was Byrne who came to him that day demanding full script approval for the show he stars in, going over the heads of his producers and threatening blackmail to get his way. Straker's own career with SHADO has been shadowed by persistent allegations that he himself bullies his way into “running the whole show” to satisfy his ego, and that there's no dirty trick he won't stoop to. He's certainly aware of his reputation. Mindbender suggests that it does indeed weigh on him, and that he might even find it a source of pain or regret in spite of his outward nonchalance. It's dramatic depth, but there's sly with as well – the shot in which the real Byrne suddenly appears to be Straker's stunt double makes open sport of the wig Ed Bishop wears in the role!

To be sure, there's humor here, without becoming comedy. The best example is the histrionic p[performance of Grant Taylor, first as Henderson and then as Grant playing Henderson. He goes over the top in his blowup in Straker's office, going as far as braying like a sheep, and then the scene is polayed over and over again as the scene is rehearsed and filmed. It's a brilliant bit that turns from pathos to humor to something more nuanced as Grant tones it down his tone to Straker's (Byrne's) sudden fever pitch. So too does the dialog echo the conundrum: “let's get back to realities”, implores a Henderson who is no longer Henderson., and what he means is exactly the opposite. “I'm really seeing you for the first time”, replies a bewildered Byrne/Straker, and the line's meaning is dubious because it's only a line and not the first time he's said it. Mindbender was written by Tony Barwick, whose knowledge of these characters bests everyone's but the actors themselves. It's a subtle, brilliant, witty and thoughtful screenplay.

There is also personal pain. Straker relives the most painful moments of his life, the death of his son and the loss of his wife, played out before him as entertainment...which may be disconcerting to us, the audience, because that's just what they were. Michael Billington as Paul Foster is now Mike the actor who plays Paul Foster predicting that these personal tragedies will be great episodes. It's difficult to watch.

Directorial choices and editing are perfect, including the decisions of when and when not to shift between character POVs. Conroy's delusion is first displayed from his perspective to take us by surprise, then explained to us. The opposite happens with Beaver, to cement our objective understanding of the situation. When Straker goes gonzo, we go with him all the way.

The best adjective I can apply is 'rewarding'. That's what this felt like, a solid payoff for getting to know the characters (Henderson as well, not just Straker), and for investing in the series. This might bet eh single best episode it has to offer.

I give it 10 sheep. *MEEHHHH! MEEEHH-H-H-H-H!

Thoughts...

If only the episode were longer, it would have been a joy to see Dr. Jackson have to deal with Straker under the stone's influence. It's already jampacked as it is.

Steven Berkoff appears again as an Interceptor pilot. This time he's been granted a name, Captain Steve Minto. The part amounts to even less than it did last time, but it's still nice to see him.

So, the aliens are not above sacrificing their pilots as pawns. This was a suicide mission to wreak havoc with SHADO.

I saw the movie Saturn 3 this past week, and saw on IMDb that Ed Bisshop was in it. I failed to notice, and am not sure just who he was. He didn't get a screen credit.

Ah, some wall art that isn't painfully '60s! I like the b&w cityscape. It has the contrasts of pen and ink but with a flowing watercolor texture. That's the kind of look I aspire to in pencil.

UFO - Subsmash

If you've got a TV show that features a submarine, you're obliged to do an episode in which it sinks with everyone trapped aboard. I think it's a law or something. This is Trope TV.

When SHADO suspects that the sinking of an ocean-going vessel may have been caused by a UFO, Straker swallows his claustrophobia and descends with Skydiver to oversee the investigation. Soon Skydiver too is attacked and sunk. With oxygen running out and most means of escape damaged, Straker and the crew await a rescue operation while trying to get each officer out of the craft one by one.

There's nothing more to say of the plot or of the story. Foster is aboard, which confirms that he has been well versed in all areas of SHADO operation – this is why I believe he is being groomed as a potential future replacement for Straker's position.

Nina Barry is on hand as well, a switch from her usual duties on Moonbase. Dialog suggests that this is because of her expertise with radar and sonar tracking – when Straker makes the decision to accompany the mission, he insists that the best possible crew be assembled. That's his phobia talking, I'm sure, as it raises the question of the quality of the usual crews. Including Barry is surprising, as it would not seem to make much sense, but it's most welcome all the same as it gives Delores Mantez a rare moment to shine. Barry tries to escape via a crashdive tube only to find the release hatch jammed, and herself stuck in a narrow space she nearly cannot navigate. Ironic, Straker is the one dealing with claustrophobia when her situation is far more alarming on that score. Now, this is the episode's lone female breaking down and crying...I would too, honestly, so I'd like to convince myself that it wasn't a sexist choice. Not really buying it.

Another officer, Chin, has suffered a severe concussion that leaves his head pierced with a high-frequency whine and a fever. The one emergency hatch can be used one crew member at a time, once every ninety minutes as it refills with oxygen. Eventually Straker is the last one aboard, or so he thinks. As Barry finally makes her way back up the tube and tries to re-enter the ship, Straker – battling his claustrophobia – imagines he hears first his dead son and then his estranged ex-wife Mary. It's the one genuine bit of story in the episode, poignant and unexpected. This bit of insight into Straker...he still loves and misses Mary, he will always be haunted by the loss of his son but also that of his wife as well. She is still alive, yet he will always be walled away from her. This raw moment alone raises my score to 5 boxes of celebratory cigars you shouldn't smoke 'cuz, y'know, they'll kill you. It's a decent episode but waaaaay standard.

Thoughts:

Anthony Chinn, playing Chin, has already appeared on UFO as the alien who stumbles into a murderous plot and gets accidentally offed in The Four-Sided Triangle.

I've always thought Delores Mantez lovely but so much more without that purple wig. It doesn't do anything good for her at all, unlike the living anime doll Gabrielle Drake. I, uh, rather like that string vest on Nina too...

Watched 2001: A Space odyssey this past week. Don't think I ever realized before that Ed Bishop plays the Aries 1B pilot (that's the ball-shaped shuttle flying from the orbital space station to the moon).

So the UFO – actually not a regular UFO but a drone – leaves the ocean and flies off, is pursued and blown out of the sky by Sky 1. What did I miss here, why did it fly away? “Mission accomplished”? Perhaps it only sank the freighter (I think it was a freighter) to lure Skydiver in.

UFO - KILL STRAKER!

Evading SID and Moonbased tracking, a UFO manages to assault a shuttle attempting Earth re-entry. Sixteen hours later the shuttle is discovered undamaged and its pilots dazed but unharmed. One of those pilots is Col. Foster, and he's in a real mood about it.

It's a mystery to Straker and Freeman, but not us. We know what they do not, that the pilots were bombarded with an irresistible hypnotic suggestion to “Kill Straker. Kill Straker! KILL STRAKER!”

I had to consider whether that was a mistake, to give that away so soon, but it was probably the right call. We've been here before, innocents with an implanted imperative to KILL STRAKER(!), which means we'd have known just where the episode was going and underwhelmed by the reveal when I came. Besides, it makes for an exciting way to tease what's come.

Still, it undercuts what should have been a strong character-driven story between Straker, Foster, and Freeman. Immediately Foster radiates a resentment against Straker for issuing an order that might as easily have killed him as saved him from the UFO. Fair enough, though Foster knows that such an order is a trademark of his commanding officer. There's more on his mind, a lot more, and it's all to do with Straker's excesses and arrogance.

Where is it all coming from? Not the aliens, all they did was implant a command. This is not mind control. It's up to the pilots, Foster and Craig, to supply their own justifications for it from their psyches. Freeman is flummoxed, and wants his old friend Ed Straker to slap down this subordinate. Normally Straker would do juts that, but with Paul Foster he's uncharacteristically humble about the charges laid against him. It must be demoralizing...these allegations are not new, everyone says the same things about him (including the audience), but coming from Paul they're a blow. Until now Paul Foster has had a puppydog case of hero worship for Straker. Gee, Straker might be thinking, maybe I'm really not such a swell guy if I've failed Paul of all people.

Knowing that Paul is acting on alien influence undermines the very personal nature of a conflict that should have been explored for character depth. Freeman and Paul have been developing a friendship, how does he feel about that? General Henderson is on hand as well, in a nuanced position beautifully played by Grant Taylor. Foster goes beyond the pale to report confidential details of a plan to expand Moon operations (four new bases) in a letter of complaint against Straker. These are just the things Henderson himself believes about Straker, yet he knows that Foster is the last person who should be saying them – and the manner in which he does so raises a red flag. Henderson wants to do the right thing, but what should that be? There's a nice exchange between he and Freeman, when the General summons Freeman under instructions not to inform Straker and knowing that's the first thing Freeman will do. Freeman, loyal to Straker to his core, doesn't disappoint. There's a lot of great stuff here, it just could have used some tweaking to bring it out more fully.

Col. Craig is a non-entity, we know nothing of him. Straker must not know him well either, because he's only taken notice of major shade from Col. Foster. That is, not until Craig tries to KILL STRAKER(!) in a lively extended sequence on Moonbase that leads to explosions on the Lunar surface. That also is good stuff. So is a suspenseful standoff between Foster and Straker when a slip of the tongue reveals both pilots have conspired to...you know(!).

Like I said, we know pretty much where it's going and it does. The only surprise is that it gets there fifteen minutes early. Foster is examined by everyone's favorite slippery SHADO operative, Dr. Jackson, under which his imprinting is revealed. That's not good news for Foster, because as we know SHADO lets no one retire. Not alive. He's not exactly cured, either, per Jackson, there may always be a trace of the alien command lurking like an unexploded bomb in Foster's psyche. It's time for another reckless move by Straker.

Straker locks himself and Foster in the SHADO arsenal, pretends that he intends to kill the junior officer, and proceeds to stoke the man's anger and sense of survival to the breaking point, playing off all the complaints Straker is too aware of regarding his command. Foster breaks, but cannot bring himself to kill Straker. Not in anger, not in self defense. The look on Paul's face is a troubling and moving image, a highly emotional moment. They've both been through hell.

7.5 melodramatic voices growling in your head.

Asides -

There's a line of dialog acknowledging that the orbits of the moon and SID do result in blind spots and loss of communications. Smart.

“No one gets fired by SHADO.” Chilling bit of understatement. Confirms that the danger to Lt. Ellis in Computer Affair was much greater than implied.

Straker has his own guest quarters on Moonbase? That's the only place I've seen his shifting art display aside from his office Earthside. He must actually like it as art, because it can't possibly be hiding anything here. Where is there to escape to from a base on the Moon?

“Why don't you girls go and grab a cup of coffee?” Ah, progress! Always nice to to be reminded one is respected as an equal!

UFO - The Man Who Came Back

The plot synopsis:

Craig Collins, a SHADO operative and longtime friend of Ed Straker, is on his way home to Earth when the aliens spring a two-pronged attack, putting the Space Intruder Detector out of commission and apparently killing Collins.

Some time later as plans are underway to repair SID, Collins turns up alive and well on a desert isle. Good news all around, Straker is buoyed for his old friend, but also fortuitous in that Collins is one of the few astronauts with the training to repair their sentry satellite.

Heading up that project is John Grey, who has had a longstanding adversarial relationship with Collins. Just bad chemistry, he says, no real reason for it...they just rub each other the wrong way. That being what it is, when Grey begins to suspect that Collins has came back not entirely himself and possibly dangerous, Straker assumes Grey's antipathy is causing him to jump at shadows. After all, three SHADO psychiatrists have cleared Collins for duty.

Worryingly, other people who know Collins (including a recent lover) see a change as well though it is Grey alone who finds it suspicious. Collins is acting far more aggressive then he used to, bordering on veiled hostility. He's also stepped up his game at chess...and in one curious instance, something about him freaks out a total stranger on the Harlington/Straker lot - one Sir Esmond, who is blind but senses that Collins is not what he must seem.

During a weight training session, Collins misjudges his weights and injures Paul Foster, who had been assigned to partner with him on the SID mission. Surely it must be an accident? After all, it was Collins himself who had specifically requested Foster. Ah, well, only one man is left available for the job: no less than the head of SHADO himself, Ed Straker. Straker, who is having none of the now fully-alarmed Grey's warnings that he's being set up. Someone tried to murder Grey by shutting off the oxygen to his private compartment on Moonbase, and who else would it have been but Collins?

Enter the enigmatic Doctor Jackson, one of the three who had cleared Collins. Something's been nagging at him, and when Grey seeks his advice Jackson hesitantly shares the source of his misgivings. You see, alongside the standard evaluational tests, Jackson has been experimenting with a new procedure of his own, one for which Collins yielded puzzling results. These were not passed along to Straker because the experiment is so new that Jackson doesn't even know how to interpret what the test reveals about its subjects, let alone an anomaly like Collins. The test studies the brainwaves of a subject when shielded from external stimuli or input. When tried on Collins, he essentially ceased to exist as a person at all. He became an empty vessel.

Jackson and Collins theorize that the aliens have been controlling Collins via radio transmitted right into the astronaut's mind, and that their aims are to cripple SHADO by killing its head and making the recovery of SID impossible. Confronting him (rather recklessly alone), Collins silences first Grey and then Jackson. Grey survives the attempt on his life and at the last moment is able to relay his discovery to Straker, who realizes his old friend is gone and is forced to kill Collins to save himself.

evaluation:

Benefiting from a hiatus in production, this first episode from a new studio steps up it's game by the same factor Collins does his chess game. It's sharper, more fluid and dynamic on every level from acting to storytelling craft. You see it right away with a gripping pre-credits teaser in which the UFOs make a more sophisticated advance than they had before, three in number. Previously they had used diversionary ruses, where this time either one of their targets (Collins and SID) could be mistaken for a diversion but are equally integral to one grand plan that would effectively set SHADO back for months. This sequence is taut and exciting and boasts several new fx shots, one especially nice one that gives us a close look at the alien panels as they spin. In earlier episodes the actors' delivered their lines in neatly choreographed arrangements from stage 101. The opening of TMWCB lets the dialog flow in an almost Altmanesque rush, everyone talking at once. Our attention is commanded.

Editing is tightened throughout the episode, ratcheting up the tension level. Dialog is more organic with a minimum of exposition, so the human element is vivid without feeling forced. The usual extraneous fx sequences are pared to a bare story-telling necessity rather than filling time. This is not a theme-driven script, just a damned good drama.

Improvements continue production-wise, I even saw (or imagined I saw) more texture in the sets - seams in the cement pillars within SHADO central, for example. The new fx shots are simply a delight to behold, like the damaged SID spinning out of its orbit over Earth.

Straker has been a polarizing figure to this point, often losing what sympathy we'd want to grant him for his personal losses. He's didactic, removed, dictatorial, and more than a little insufferable for his arrogance. Writer Terence Feely manages to humanize Straker here without altering his persona one whit, as the opening sequence effectively puts us in the middle o=f his dilemma having to deal with an attack unfolding too quickly to respond to. This once, he's without a clever insight or sneaky ploy. He's not a television hero to smart to be real, he's just a man having to rely on his gut feelings and what his people tell him. It's not his episode, either, the tale centers on Grey...but it's Straker who loses the most and who we have to feel for ultimately. Pretty neat trick for a central character many viewers have come to dislike. You can see the terrible loss in his face when he realizes his friend is already gone. The episode doesn't even give us the solace space of a coda or wrapup, ending on Straker's heartbreak. This is on death he feels to his core.

The one thing that I would mention as a potential objection would be Jackson's premise for mind control, that Collins' "personality center has been burned out". That's problematic, though not to the point that it bars fanwank. Without his personal traits, including the most deep-seated ones like sense of humor or quirks of irritation, he would be fooling no one. Is it possible the aliens made a template of his psyche so complete as to replicate his most formative thought patterns, which they were able to beam back into his head subservient to his progtamming? That would mean an amazing level of sophistication I don't think we've seen from them before.

Still, that never gets in the way of the drama. 9 inflatable tubular pillows, because they may look uncomfortable but, dammit, this is the future!



Asides:

Jackson! Squeeeeeee! And in a sympathetic light, too!

Wanda Ventham is back as well, a welcome character return. it's well worth noting that her character is treated not as a sex object ala her introduction in Identified but as a fully dimensional personality. Her sexual life is openly questioned, and she has no hesitation in owning it as both private and fully considered. It may be a small moment, but a progressive one for the era (and sadly still for some in this one as well) ia woman who owns and takes responsibility for her own sexuality.

The above is set back slightly by an old cliche - the woman who discovers what must be a dead body naturally has to scream. Now, if it had been the male hotel manager and not the maid, that would have made my day!

Not only is Jackson's experiment not some wild sci-fi whimsy, it was actually a fad in scientific circles at the time: sensory deprivation booths. These are the same experiments that would be more widely popularized in Altered States in 1980.

The footage of the rocket on its launchpad came from Gerry Anderson's feature film Doppleganger, aka Journey to the Far Side of the Sun.

It's kind of odd and amusing to think of the Harlington/Straker lot now located at a new studio...that's a little more meta than expected.

UFO - Court Martial

Hotshot new protégé Paul Foster has been found guilty of espionage and sentenced to death. SHADO has sprung a leak with information privy only to Foster nearly becoming public. Is Foster all wet?

I don't know much about military tribunals but I do know a guy being railroaded when I see one. An investigation eventually clears Foster, revealing the leak is the result of an industrial spy prying on Harlington-Straker's film orperations, and stumbling onto military secrets. Not knowing what to do with those secrets, the spy sells the the press thus setting in motion the suspicions pointing to Straker's golden boy.

So why is Foster set to be executed? Because the trial and verdict came before the investigation! Therein lies the fundamental problem I have with this episode. I just can't buy into it. I can almost believe that the communications dilemma in The Dalotek Affair would be so upsetting that it would make everyone find a meteor to be a distracting nuisance rather than looking into it, but this is more than I can suspend disbelief for.

Just how much does Henderson hate Straker, anyway? We've seen before that he's a fair man, even regarding his former friend and now nemesis. Would he kill Straker's fast-rising recruit for revenge? Is he so hot to pursue an execution without ascertaining the facts? "It's gonna take positive proof of innocence to convince me!", he barks. Yet it did not take positive proof of guilt for him to sentence a man to death. As a matter of security, it would be prudent to keep a traitor alive long enough to discover how far the damage goes and where it may lead. I guess Foster shouldn't have yelled at him the first time they met. That's one hell of a bad first impression to leave that strong a grudge.

What about Straker? He too allows an investigation to be an afterthought. Worse, apparently he would not have conducted one at all if not for a lead from one of the directors affected by a leaked script that had been handled by Foster.

Freeman? He'd be the obvious advocate for the defense, but he also is an afterthought in this outing, following Straker's lead and keeping his own counsel.

Aaaaaah, but Doctor Jackson has returned! Vladek Sheybal always light up the screen even as he leaves an oily film on it. What about Jackson? Well, it' s a delightful performance as Jackson takes up the job of prosecuting the case against Foster. He plays true to expectations for being slippery, alright, but I'm still not sure it makes sense. As a psychological analyst for SHADO, I have to wonder at his motive. Seems to me he'd be as interested ass Straker to learn the truth rather than leap to blatantly unsupported conclusions - not out of concern but for his own fascination. Putting it plainly, I just don't get him here. none of the characters quite ring true, nor the plot. As it was written by Tony Barwick, the best writer on the series and the guy who knows these people best, that's disappointing.

I'm being harsh. Churlish, even. The hour has some joy in it. The pace is brisk, the twists keep us off balance, and the personal exchanges are a delight. As always there's a genuine spark between Henderson nd Straker. Everyone puts in an edgy performance, and Sheybal keeps the tribunal taut.

There is a detail of Foster's rise that is sharp, and one I would never have thought of: he is now a major player in the life of their cover operation, a movie producer! That's clever writing. I wish the substance had been as clever, expanding on the characters or exploring a theme...or at least making me believe what I was seeing.



This episode has always bugged me for it's illogic, and now that I'm taking a more serious look at the series overall it bugs me just a little more for being filler. It's fun but I can't give it more than 6 recording ballpoint pens from Sharper Image..

UFO - The Dalotek Affair

Mistaken for a meteorite, an alien device has been delivered to the moon's surface to disrupt communications between Moon-based defenses and Earthside SHADO forces. The outage causes the deadly crash of a moon shuttle and could shield incoming UFOs from interception, possibly with Earth unwarned of pending attack. Unaware of the source of the interference, Paul Foster (currently commanding officer Moonbase) suspects a privately owned business venture with a base nearby is operating equipment putting his people in harm's way.

Usually when I write up these episodes, thoroughly laying out the plot helps me process the material, see the connections and work out the themes. Nothing doing this week, it's a solid story with a nice pace, suspense, tension, and a modicum of personal involvement - if inconsequential - involving an attraction between Foster and a Dalotek employee. It's a fun episode, but there's nothing more substantial I could find in it.

For example, I might have hoped for something on the conflict between military and private interests. Straker holds an unreasoning attitude toward all such non-military ventures. Understandable, as it poses a potential hazard for SHADO personnel and Earth's defense, but his behavior is still childishly antagonistic. Foster seems more amenable until he too becomes convinced that Dalotek has irresponsibly caused the deaths of the shuttle crew. Will Straker's example as is mentor hold sway? That's another possible thread that could have been explored, but the script has no interest in that angle. The most we get is Foster pressing his luck with the same woman after her memory has been wiped of the whole affair. Or we could have had a story on the impossible dilemma of keeping the doings of a quasi-public operation secret, but that too is swept away none too neatly with that amnesia drug, causing more questions we're not supposed to ask about just how that could work.

The space action thrilled me as a kid. It still thrills the geek in me. 6 lunar excursions. Enjoyable but could have used another draft to build it up.





Stray thoughts:
Has Drake, head of Dalotek, not been informed that Ed Straker is a movie producer? Is he not a little incensed that a movie hack has a seat on a security council overseeing his company?

So the existence of Moonbase is known publicly after all, understood to be a military base. Doesn't explain Straker's involvement, though.

Kind of a script convenience that the alien device landed so near Dalotek. If that was deliberate, was the idea to throw suspicion on them? If so, to what benefit would that be? It seems like it would up the odds of discovery, as is exactly what happened.

Unusual intro sequence, running an old media interview speculating about flying saucers and what authorities might or might not know. Though it comes to play late in the episode, it seems more a mechanism toward re-stating the show's premise for those tuning in anew.

Blowing up the alien device puts the Dalotek base at risk of damage, and they're told to prepare for explosive decompression. Well, now...since they have the environment suits and expect to be ruptured anyway, why not minimize the damage by evacuating the interior atmosphere before the explosion?

Sign of budget-watching: the excursion suits worn by Dalotek are the same as those worn by SHADO astronauts. Must be one company supplying for all space ventures. You'd think SHADO would want their own.

I always loved those sub-surface Interceptor hangars disguised as craters, but I always used to wonder if the pilots had to climb back up the chutes when they came back. Hey, I was six.

It's nice to see Foster cultivating a friendship with Freeman. Both that and the romantic angle harken back to Foster's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day in Survival, losing his girlfriend but making an overture of camaraderie to Alec. (Nicely placed, Mr. Levenson!)

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.

UFO - A Question of Priorities

“This movie hates us, doesn't it?” - Crow T. Robot, on 'The Giant Spider Invasion'
For a series dedicated to cynicism and the unhappy ending, A Question of Priorities sets the gold standard. No one gets away unpunished, least of all the audience. How to rate it – a 6, a 9? It's a frustrating hour, but then it's designed to be such and excels at it. It's one of the finest episodes in the series yet one I always dread having to watch again. I don't like downers.

Ed Straker's son lies in hospital after being struck by a car. The boy is in critical condition and needs medicine available only in America. Straker puts SHADO resources into play to make that happen, but time is running out.

Meanwhile, an alien on the run from his own kind has made a mad dash for Earth, crashing off the coast of Ireland. Taking shelter in the home of an elderly blind woman, he has built a radio transmitter in an attempt to reach SHADO, but that same signal is picked up by the UFO sent to kill him.

Both these men, Straker and the alien, will be thwarted – by luck, by fate, by the opposing agendas and even the best intentions of others, perhaps by some god or other. Without invoking religious faith (hardly needing to), this is an existentialist story.

We'll never know what drove these men to make crucial decisions. If there's one detail that ties them together it's that Straker and the alien are close-mouthed about what they are thinking. Good friend Alec Freeman cannot miss that Ed is upset, and gives him multiple opportunities to confide. We can guess why Straker spurns them, but we'll never know the truth. It costs him at a crucial moment. Likewise the alien does not speak when perhaps he might have found an ally in the woman who sits terrified, a prisoner in her home. I continue to wonder at the silence of these aliens – an inability to speak, or even to understand spoken language? He has a transmitter but does not speak to his listeners. All we know is that he wants to be taken by SHADO and that his people will kill him to prevent it.

Both are faced with impossible choices. A SHADAIR transport might reach Ireland in time to take the alien before its fellows can. Or it might reach London in time to save the boy. There's no guarantee the medicine will be enough, nor that the alien will prove a turning point in the war with the extraterrestrials. When Freeman, not knowing of Ed's plight, redirects the transport, Straker freezes and allows the diversion to stand. His son's life, or the safety of the human race? Likewise the alien, when he realizes the hunter UFO has locked on to him, can remain where he is or take the beacon away from the house, sacrificing his own already-doomed life but saving the woman.





Why does Straker freeze?  I think the words froze in his throat because he was blocked by his own silent nature.  Oh, he was misusing  the organizations resources, but to hell with that - it's his son's life.  No...this is a man who cannot reveal himself even to save his son.  A psychological block.  It just won't come.

There's nothing much else I can say. It's all on the surface, every painful minute of it, except for what remains unspoken.. We're thoroughly invested in this most riveting of episodes. No deus flies in from the machina. No one is saved. Every effort to do the right thing is brutally smacked down. I gave away a spoiler of sorts in one of my first two episode reviews: I said that Ed Straker is a man who's had his humanity damaged. This is the one I knew was coming. It has an inevitability to it. There's still something tender to him, but he'll never show it even to his closest friend. It's buried too deep.

10 model boats gifted to a loved one.

Next week I want some catharsis!!

UFO - Survival

Can-o'-worms alert: there is an astonishing exchange about racial politics between Straker and Mark Bradley. It went right over my head as a kid, and catching up with the show a few years ago I thought the scene naïve at best (“Racial prejudice burned itself out five years ago!”), and maybe a little embarrassingly wooden. Today, in light of the tragic and frustrating last few years of my nation's culture, I suddenly find the writing of this scene uncannily prescient. Look, says the white guy (paraphrasing), don't pull the race card, we're a post-racial society now! The black guy replies, Really? Is that what you see from your perspective? Sound familiar? Just...wow. Was writer Tony Barwick that observant of humanity* or has this same conversation been going on for decades or more, each generation so oblivious as to think it's new to them? There's a sobering thought.

For the record, Straker is sincerely offering a position of authority to Bradley because Straker believes him to be the best man for the job. And that's exactly the consideration Mark wishes to be assured of. They're on the same page but it takes communication to establish it.

It's a minor scene that seems tangential to the plot, but I'm beginning to think it's the key to the story. We're so close, yet so divided. If we're lucky a little communication is all it takes.

The promotion is due to the unfortunate (presumed) death of Paul Foster, of late risen to Commander within SHADO. Sneaking onto the Moon's surface under cover of a meteor shower, an alien has shot out a window at Moonbase resulting in the death of one of the personnel. Foster barely escapes and takes the death personally. He believes the alien to still be on the moon and persuades Straker that a search be mounted. Naturally, Foster wants to spearhead the effort himself though Straker advises restraint: Straker wants a UFO if not its crew. The operation results in the loss of both the UFO and a Moon craft, and apparently in the demise of Foster himself.

Foster, however, is still alive with a damaged transmitter and limited oxygen. Reaching Moonbase alive may be an impossibility. Complicating matters, one of the UFO crew is also still alive on the surface with him.

Here he is – the enemy. You can say that of either of them. Foster is face to face with the being that killed his colleague; the alien faces his assigned target. Separately they face guaranteed death – Foster cannot make it back unaided, and the alien with his ship destroyed faces any number of sad fates if he turns himself in. Cooperation is the only chance either has. Happily, both find survival to be a deeper instinct than their respective missions.

Call it enlightened self-interest on their parts if you must, but the choices they make evoke an emotion for the audience. We're rooting for both of them to make it out of the episode alive. That's the most satisfying thing about Survival, I think, that we are emotionally invested in a central character we care about, and also in one that comes as a complete surprise. It's refreshing and reassuring to find the nominal villain can be “human” after all. Too often UFO is a show that tempers its audience's emotional response with a layer of detached observation. This time when the resolution is reached, we feel it keenly.

Setting the action on the moon's surface with at least one of them incapable of radio contact is a brilliant touch, I think. Foster and the alien must communicate without the aid of spoken language. We have yet to hear an alien use English, except as spoken through a psychic human conduit. A Computer Affair raised the possibility that they may not even understand English. Without words, each must try harder to think like the other in order to understand and be understood. It heightens the necessity of trust. Words can fail.

Words fail Foster when rescue comes, able to speak to his fellow astronauts but not clearly enough to prevent them from killing the alien on sight. It's a simple case of “us versus them”. A 'them' is inherently hostile and cannot be tolerated. Foster is an 'us'.

Back on Earth, as the story closes, words again fail Foster as he is unable to communicate with his girlfriend due to the need for secrecy. It's no substitute, but for solace he makes an overture of friendship to Alec Freeman, someone he knows can essentially 'speak his language' concerning the secret life they share. Freeman is an 'us'. One of the family. "Home", as Straker reassures Foster he's going.

"Home?"
"Moonbase." SHADO. Not a warm house with a wife or the apartment of a lover. Foster's 'us'es have been defined for him.

My takeaway going forward is this: Foster has had an experience unique to him alone within SHADO, a bond however brief of unity with the enemy. I believe that over the course of the series so far we have seen him being groomed by Straker as a protege. If he diverges from Straker's mold to become his own man, it will be because of this singular experience. Odin gained great wisdom, and it cost him an eye. Foster has personally witnessed the needless death of two colleagues (one on each side of this war) and the loss of a love relationship to attain the empathy he now holds.

The action in this one is exceptionally handled with expert fx work and deftly built tension. As well, the human interaction is pitch perfect, neither histrionic nor underplayed but natural. There are nice quiet touches like Bradley confirming his authority once placed ("I didn't think I had to ask for permission"), Harrington's look of "you're insufferable" when Straker sends her to fetch coffee, and the discreet editing of Freeman breaking the news of Foster's death to Foster's love interest.

If I have one quibble, it's this: if it's such a rare opportunity to get a UFO in undetected then why waste it on the mere shooting out of a window? The earlier plan to attack the base head-on with a UFO (Flight Path) was more ambitious and one would think much more rewarding.


10 circles drawn in moondust for a poignant and satisfying hour of drama.





* ”...bird. Black bird.”  (this note refers to a line spoken by Lt. Ellis in the "Computer Affair" episode and would have been understood by the group watching with me on IMDb.  See that review for an explanation.)

UFO - Computer Affair

“The decision and the responsibility must be yours.”

That's the responsibility hanging over Lt. Gay Ellis when an attempted UFO interception results in the death of a pilot who is awaiting instructions from her. What went wrong? Straker wants to know. Ellis and the two surviving astronauts are ordered back to Earth for evaluation. It is revealed that Ellis is attracted to pilot Mark Bradley (what's more the interest is reciprocated). However, this doesn't answer the crucial question: did it affect her judgment?

Meanwhile, the UFO that got through the Interceptor defense has been damaged and lands in the forests of Canada. SHADO scrambles to put together a team to capture the vessel and its occupants.

I think the word that sums this one up might be 'ambivalence'. So far I've enjoyed the way the writing and editing assume that we are intelligent enough to connect the dots if we're provided enough dots. The Computer Affair is just a little hazier than usual (for example, it might help if we understood better how these flight logistics work), and more provocative for it.

We first learn that something is up with Ellis through Alec Freeman: when the pilots launch, Ellis hands Bradley his helmet. It's an innocuous gesture, yet an obtrusive edit draws our attention to Freeman finding it suspicious. Is politeness a breach of protocol? Is it out of character for Ellis? His hunch is correct, but it strikes me as more intuitive than substantive. What's more intriguing is that when SHADO analyst Dr. Shroeder deduces the very same thing, Freeman balks. It's not the conclusion that bothers him, clearly, as he secretly agrees. His verbalized objection is to the method by which the conclusion was reached - computer analysis, albeit guided and interpreted by a human. Underlying this, I think, is a more basic motivation – he wants to protect Ellis, but his hands are tied in the matter. So, he keeps to himself that he already knew she was attracted to Bradley and protests with the only argument he has, that Shroeder's results are too flimsy to credit. Ironic, given his own intuitive leap earlier.

Freeman doesn't hide his unhappiness with Shroeder, or with Straker for backing the Doctor. Ellis, it looks, is going to take the fall. Freeman ought to know better, and so should we. Straker always, always plays it close to the vest. How many times does he have to say it, he wants to know why it happened. As well he should! There's no mention of blame, no talk of punishment...his manner, though, is aggressive as to be leading. He gives every appearance of a man on a headhunt, and he's known to be cold. Freeman, the one person who knows Straker best, has made another assumption.

All this talk of Freeman in what ostensibly is Gabrielle Drake's hour. UFO has placed a woman in a position of not only authority but of grave responsibility. More, she is engaged in what has always been considered a strictly male calling: war. That's a provocative move for a show circa 1970, a female warrior in command of a squadron of male fighter pilots. Computer Affair is the episode that sets out to justify that move. To do so it takes on the usual objection, that a woman is simply too emotional to be a warrior, that she is too prone to attachments. No man ever had feelings!

Freeman heads up the task force in Canada hunting the downed UFO and takes Ellis and Bradley with him. He's giving her a chance to prove herself, and she takes it. The overt charge over her is that she will allow her emotions to compromise her judgment, that she will not follow procedure. That was never the real concern, though, but whether a woman can put the mission above fear for a loved one in harm's way. More irony, then, because she proves herself capable precisely by putting her own need above the mission – she sends in Mark's team rather than the one in the better position. Instead of losing her job, she secures her place. It's the wrong move tactically but the right one to prove her steel.

That's plenty for one show, isn't it? No, writer Tony Barwick had to go even further by touching on interracial relationships! Oooooh, let's really make the men nervous, she's a white woman attracted to a black man! Barwick skates over the topic, just bringing it up enough so as not to pretend it isn't an issue...but ignoring it enough to demonstrate (quite rightly) that it shouldn't be an issue. There's an awkward moment where racism is thrown in Bradley's face just to see how he'll react, and he coolly blows it off. No such blatant trap is pulled on Ellis, but she panics when she has to respond to the word 'black' in a free-association test. She's not blind to it, it's on her mind. What exactly it is that's on her mind is never forthcoming. Was Barwick just being skittish? I don't know. Sometimes you can say a whole lot more by saying less.*

Decision and responsibility...is it just me or have Bradley and Ellis not acted on their mutual attraction to this point? When Shroeder points it out to them, they react with genuine surprise. There's never an outright statement to this effect but I read into it that they were surprised to hear that the affection was reciprocal, and a little startled that it was finally spoken aloud for the other to acknowledge. The episode's coda is the first time we see the two as a couple when they go out on a date – Ellis the warrior has also taken command of her love life. There's no either-or sacrifice here. She's capable of both.

In the end, though, it's still more of a Freeman episode, and what a humiliating hour for him it must be. On the one hand, he's made a solid effort to support a colleague he values. Assuming she's a friend might be too strong given the stiff formality of the early exchange between them when he arrives on Moonbase. Now I'm really in danger of reading too much into the tale, but dare I suggest that his defensiveness toward her is based on attraction – that he is troubled by the same affliction everyone suspects her of, an affection that will impair his judgment? He misreads Straker (albeit that Straker remains stubbornly unreadable) to the point that Alec tenders his resignation. It's not the first time Freeman has let his emotions sweep him into precipitous action.

Would Straker have fired Ellis if not for the final computer analysis revealing that her actions saved the lives of the other two pilots? We'll never know. He wanted answers and he got them. Perhaps it was an object lesson that saved her, a lesson in decision and responsibility taken when he had a live alien captive for the second time and through his own rash choice caused the death of this invaluable asset (and, it must be said, living being - I guess the Geneva Convention doesn't apply to extra-terrestrials? Interrogation does not supercede the health of your prisoner.)


9 purple anti-static wigs for having the balls to go there. It would have been ten but for Straker's senseless choice with the alien.

Asides:  Shane Rimmer!  He doesn't get any lines, though, and so does not appear in the credits list.

There's a production gaffe for the interceptor liftoff, as the third craft passes behind a rock outcropping something white or bright seems to fall off the model. It might be light hitting one of the miniature handlers, I can't tell.

I can tell this was an early production because Ellis is wearing that same Spock-browed wig with the quizzical look from Identified.

It's uncanny, Gabrielle Drake in Moonbase uniform really does look exactly like a living anime girl right down to the eyes and figure. Must have really made an impression on me as a kid, because the sight of her with normal hair just doesn't look right to me.




*Admittedly a trick I never learned.

UFO - Confetti Check: A-OK

And now for something completely different. We have a flashback to the days when people still wore neckties, the British still drove on the British side of the road, and Ed Straker's instincts for security were not yet hyper-developed – oh, not by half. Nowhere near enough.

It's a story of the birth of SHADO, and the death of Straker's marriage. General Henderson is about to make his push for the Earth defense program that he and his colleague (protege?) Colonel Straker so passionately believe in, but as he is still recuperating from the crash we saw in Identified he must send Straker in his place. The international committee is so impressed that they name the Colonel as head of the program, with Henderson in charge of funding. If Henderson is disappointed, he hides it well. After all, he and Straker are friends an colleagues, and Straker is clearly the right man for the job.

The crux is that Straker has just married, and he cannot reveal the truth about his work to his new bride Mary. It's a tough call. Ed Straker makes one of the worst gambles he's ever made – that he can handle both the job and the marriage.

After last week I've decided to start paying attention to who is writing each episode. Confetti was penned by Tony Barwick, who served as script editor as well as writing a large portion of the series. If anyone knows this show and how to write it, it oughtta be Barwick. Confetti has some nice touches throughout from continuity to foreshadowing. An example, Straker's first official act as husband is to sign himself and his wife into a hotel but his pen has run dry.

It's a fine character piece, if you've seen enough of the show to realize that the Ed Straker of this flashback bears little resemblance to the detached, cynical man he'll have become by 1980. This Ed Straker is full of easy optimism and ready warmth. Crucially, he's also not that good about keeping a secret except in the one case in which he arguably should have taken a risk. He couldn't hide his newly married status from the hotel staff, and later when interviewing SHADO candidates in private he totally fails to realize that he is being spied upon – this knowing his wife's suspicions of infideltiy.

As the episode is only some fifty minutes, we can;t delve too deeply into these people to know their faults. Is Mary not patient enough to allow for the strains of the job? Then again, night after night of a no-show husband who won't call, what else can she think? Though he clearly loves Mary and cares for her, Straker's passion seems more for the job than his marriage. At least, that's where his passion is being spent. Maybe he's just not good at the personal things. Whatever the case, the honeymoon is over- no, scratch that, it never began.

UFO wouldn't be the show it is without something chilling, and is at its most daring when it's our supposed protagonists who are clearly the menace against all our expectations. Long-time friend Freeman advises Ed that he absolutely cannot confide in Mary because to do so would be to risk the security personnel of their own outfit targeting her for death. Here we've been trusting that Straker and Henderson's initiative is a force for good, and suddenly they're monsters! How did that happen? Was that part of Henderson's/Straker's vision? How did he get himself mixed up in this? A better question: why, if he knew, if he loves his wife, would he have accepted a position that would endanger her life?

Once again, the between Straker and Henderson are brilliantly nuanced, though this time they depend on our familiarity with other episodes. If you've just tuned in for the first time, the ironies will be lost on you.

I can't decide whether this is a script credibility problem or the tragic sign of a man who was different – optimistic and trusting.

The episode ends with Freeman driving him away from the ruins of his home life. “I'm sorry about this”, he says to Straker, “You know I wouldn't have done it if it hadn't' been absolutely necessary.” What is he referring to? Evidently an edit for time, but it makes no difference. It's just the same story it will always be for Straker. The job is his life and will bear no mistress.

Ten furloughs and a little personal awakening.

Personal reaction...I don't know what I'd do in Straker's place. Well, yeah, that's a telegraph from Captain Obvious, none of us are currently heading up a shady, murderous organization to save the world from aliens (you're not, are you? Guys?). Still, not telling Mary is a choice that I can take in intellectually given the consequences but which doesn't resonate personally. I think Id have told her.

I can't recall seeing this as a child, but I surely did – never missed an ep. I do recall that there were times when the dramatic thrust went right over my head (hi, Captain, nice to hear from you again!). Yeah, I usually followed the plots but the human element didn't ring any bells with my life experience of a whole six years. Oddly, that was one of the draws of this show. I didn't get the drama, but I appreciated that this fantasy indulgence (the good stuff) didn't talk down to me for being a kid.

UFO - Flight Path

Stress. Let me emphasize that, it's important. Stress.

Shado operative Paul Roper has been compromised. Feeding a program into the outfit's advance warning satellite, SID (Space Intruder Detector), he receives back a mysterious calculation which he gives to an unknown agent. What looks like a series of coordinates involves an impending date. Straker, Freeman, and Ellis scramble to make sense of the numbers before it's too late.

I love this episode. It deftly blends every element that makes UFO what it is without ever being heavy-handed. Foremost it's a human drama – or a humanist drama, if you like. Roper's actions are traitorous but understandable as his wife has been threatened with death if he does not cooperate and quickly. We have to wonder why he does not go directly to Straker and tell him. Perhaps he doubts that his wife can be kept safe if he betrays his blackmailer? Or maybe it's that he does not know who he can trust within Shado. The question is unimportant, because the real answer is stress. As his routine psychological workup reveals, the man is making very poor decisions due to increased anxiety. It's alarming enough to cause Straker himself to be concerned.

Therein lies the greater personal drama, and a fine bit of character building for Freeman. Prejudiced by his friendship to Roper, Freeman initially balks at the psych evaluation. He's the humanist of the show, the compassionate one whose moral vision keeps Straker on his toes. In Flight Path, Freeman's judgment is at fault not once but twice: when Straker sets up a clever ploy to out what he suspects must be still another inside man Freeman takes it upon himself to muck things up. He does this out of concern for Roper but his rash action puts his friend's life in greater jeopardy as well as throwing the operation for a loss. He is fretting over his friend, for SHADO, and for the sudden unsturdiness of his own instincts. He is making bad choices.

Further to that point, panic will cause Roper's wife to freeze at a key moment. In contrast, Straker and Ellis keep cool heads and puzzle out the plot: a planned attack on Moonbase at a critical time when their defenses will be lowered.

None of this thematic material is overly, uhm...no, never mind. Belabored, that's it. Anyway, we have the week's thematic focus, a strong personal drama as noted with the tug-of-war between Straker's command style and Freeman's sense of ethics lending a much-needed human element to what could have been a dry espionage tale, and the plot earns UFO's keep as both an action program and a science fiction fantasy – all neatly woven together as a satisfying, cohesive whole. Gerry Anderson firmly establishes that UFO is a more somber affair than the average kiddie fantasy as things end on a down note without having to speechify or sacrifice pace and action.

There are two great action setpieces, among the best in the series. The first is a terrific bit involving a UFO attacking a car at night, with a breathtaking first swipe right over the car's roof and ending with a fiery crash. Done with miniatures and expert editing, it's highly convincing and exciting. The second exploits tension as a showdown on the surface of the moon indulges sci-fi fans in the kind of off-Earth environment that thrills us, again brilliantly crafted from editing to fx work. This is the very stuff that had me tuning in when I was six.

8.5 moondunes to fly your saucer behind. It's not challenging material but taut and seamless. Minus half a point for the auto deal (see below).

* * * * *




Asides: A line of dialog spoken by Straker about “a bronze SHADO car” reveals a blatantly sloppy bit of intelligence cover. No, not sloppy, criminally negligent and downright moronic. Everyone in SHADO drives the same make of car! You'd think that would be easy to spot and investigate, that one auto manufacturer is supplying the same car to everyone in this “secret” organization.

Thoughtful spacesuit design , allows the wearer to slip their own wristwatch over the sleeve. Ought to build one into the suit.

More bad thinking, why insist that there be only one defender with rockets to intercept the UFO?

The paranoia at the heart of the show's premise brings back a note that went unexplored in the pilot, “Identified”, that alien agents may have already placed moles with n SHADO.

Lt. Ellis has swapped wigs with another of the moonbase personnel, who now wears the quizzical-expression wig from Identified.

Ayshea gets a spoken line of dialog!

SID reports that he has “relocated” a UFO which had hitherto not been mentioned. It's not a discontinuity, but suggests that the script ran long: filmed or unfilmed, material was surely cut. Always happens with these productions.

In the future world of 1980, we will have no time for any wall art but mod expressionism.

First appearance of the insectile “Moonhoppers”, another wicked cool design.