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.