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).

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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.