UFO - The Sound of Silence

I've gone through this series some five times now and The Sound of Silence never makes enough impression to remain much in memory. I think now I know why: this is what you get when a story sketch is treated as if it were a developed script.

The opening pageant is promising as a UFO approaches Earth behind an American space program craft. SHADO defenses are stymied by the close proximity. It's a taut, well-directed bit of business but has little to do with the plot that follows. Actually, it establishes a tension that what follows tries to maintain itself upon.

The UFO makes it to the English countryside and hides in a lake on a private estate. This is a gamble, as the alien craft cannot last long in water. Foster leads a force of Mobiles scouring the area. Meanwhile, life goes on oblivious for the family – the father, his son Russell (a famous showjumper), and Russ' sister. Oh, and Cully the Hippy who makes a habit of trespassing there. We know he's a hippy because he has a bad wig, is contemptuous of others and their property, and is cruel to animals. None of the characters are well-developed, we know them by their response to each other. For example, Russell hates hippies and that's pretty much the sum of the characterization he's endowed with. Soft-spoken and even-handed. Anne is more jovial. Roughly speaking, they're about as developed as Russell's horse. If we weren't already familiar with Foster and Straker, they'd be non-entities in equal measure here.

UFO, your era is showing. Cully is pure stereotype. Dialog is scattered lightly with “hippy”, “fuzz” and a highly non-PC line, jokingly offered, trading on racist tropes on Native Americans. It's not strong enough to cause much offense but does stand out.

If the people are in the dark about the alien presence, the horse isn't. Nor is Cully's loyal-to-a-fault dog, a pleasant type that puts up with having wood and knives chucked at it. Get close to the lake and you'll notice how the entirety of the local wildlife has gone nervously silent. It's a smart idea around which to base an episode, that animals have a sixth sense about the aliens' presence. This could be good.

Foster is paying attention. Russell has gone missing and been reported. On meeting the family and getting a tour of the property, Foster realizes where the UFO must be. Another excellent action sequence ensues as the craft is drawn into the open. I have to say, the fx crew earn constant praise for their miniature vehicles but not enough for their miniature landscapes.

The UFO is destroyed, freeing a canister from its confines. Fearing that the object may be a bomb other destructive device, it is rushed to SHADO HQ (Was that wise? It was, after all, out in the middle of nowhere, do you want to rush a potential WMD to a populated area?) “The closer you are to an explosion: , Straker says, “the better your chances are.” Ummm...okay. Hard to argue with.. Now we have a third fine setpiece as the object is examined and cut into, with all HQ personnel silently on edge. Inside the canister is Russell in hibernation for transport back to the alien home world.

Now this is chilling. It doesn’t tell us anything new, but its the first time we've seen how humans are physically treated as raw resource material. This is what happens to us when we're captured – we're canned like food.

Russell begins to come around, and the direction is very leading. His blank expression and the disorientation through which he sees suggests, dare I say...alienation? Anne looks on hopefully and it looks like an “AHA!” moment. Here's where the horse sense will come in! Russell's horse will tell them whether it's him or not!

Hey, wait, why are you guys giving Anne the amnesia drug now, this hasn't been resolved yet!

Aaaaaand that's where I'm at with this episode. We keep getting elements worthy of exploitation that are never developed. Animal instincts. The problem of telling when a human is still a human. The problems with hiding the real purpose of SHADO from space programs like NASA. The disruption of life on the estate on which the aliens hide. It's all there...and just lays there. Writers David Lane and Bob Bell don't seem to be all that interested in the aliens, and the people themselves fail to engage me. Three riveting suspense sequences and a lot of dull business that doesn't build.

A final scene has Foster visit the farm after life has been returned to normal. We see Russell having fun with his horse (ergo it must be Russell still). Perhaps he's there for another sexual conquest now he's been established as the series' lothario as Freeman was proposed initially. I'd like to think he was making sure the horse took to its owner. No one thought it worth making clear.

So again the problem of applying a number comes up. Subsmash is an ep I really do enjoy more than many, because it's well made, moves well, and entertains...but because it does nothing you couldn't find in any other show I gave it a 5 (that was painful to do). Close-up earned a 3 for being kinda creepy in an offensive way. TSoS suffers neither of these problems and is sporadically lively, but not enough and not in total. It's going to fade from memory like it always does.

4 entitled class-tier attitudes

Asides:

Russell is played by Michael Jayston. Some have speculated that Jayston was not actually born but grown entire from the severed hand of David Tennant.

Phantasm: Ravager

(0ne mild spoiler)

The Tall Man is dead. Long Live the Tall Man.

“The American way of death”, that's what the man said. Coscarelli, that is, Don Coscarelli. He was talking about Phantasm and what he wanted to explore with that film. What he ended up with, I think, was a movie about how it's sometimes scarier to be the one surviving. Young Mike has lost his parents and now lives in daily unchecked terror of losing what little he has left of all he knows of life: his older brother Jody loves him but aches to dump him with someone else and take off. It's a movie that deals with the bonds of loyalty and abiding love between the brothers an their friend Reggie, a local ice cream vendor. That latter has always resonated with me, but as I grow older the fear of loss – and specifically of abandonment of being alone - strikes a deeper and deeper chord.

The trio have become entangled with a mysterious Tall Man, an alien of sorts in human form who empties cemeteries, re-animating and transforming the dead into armies of slaves. The Tall Man proves to be their dissolution, and Mike, Reggie, and Jody will spend the next three sequels trying to find each other across the countryside, across dimensions, and even across time. Phantasm: Ravager, the fifth and probably final film in the series, has been promoted as the one that will bring resolution.

On a personal note, I saw this at the Hollywood Theater in Portland, Oregon, with a crowd of Phans all roughly my own age. I'd guess that most of us have been with Phantasm from the beginning. The bond of abiding love isn't just between the brothers and the Ice Cream Man. If someone put a razor-forked metal sphere to my head and forced me to choose just one horror film as my favorite, it would be Phantasm. Besides an investment in the heroes, the emphasis on surreal dream-logic driven narrative strikes a chord with me. So does the score, and just about everything else.

Phantasm benefited from an alchemy of elements – the chemistry of the cast, the imagination of Coscarelli and his collaborators, dreamy imagery, an iconic score from Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave, science fiction, horror, humor...I think even the year, 1979, was a vital ingredient. Phantasm was informed by the sentiments, concerns, and the language of cinema of the Seventies but it's premise and physical, visceral realization of fantastical subject matter looked forward to what Eighties cinema would become within and without the horror genre after the likes of The Evil Dead (1981) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). Phantasm is swimming in gateways: I think the film itself was a gateway for the genre and for Coscarelli himself who went from grounded dramas (Jim, the World's Greatest and Kenny & Company) to unhinged fantasia like Bubba Ho-Tep and John Dies at the End.

Phantasm Ravager picks up not long after the finale of Phantasm IV: Oblivion. As Oblivion ends in Death Valley, the Tall Man has taken Mike's mind (literally, encased in a metal orb). Reg, armed with his signature quad-barreled shotgun, sets off into the maze of inter-dimensional gateways to rescue his friend.

We don't know how long he's been wandering the desert (“Some fuckwad jacked my Cuda.”) but not too long we assume from his inner monologue and state of his clothes. He's still on Earth but as later dialog suggests it may not be his Earth. A couple of killer sphere drones aren't far behind him. Even closer is a nasty shock when he suddenly finds himself in a wheelchair in the garden of a care facility. “They bring us here to die”, says a fellow patient. The patient has a familiar face. Mike is there too, coming to visit him with great concern. Mike knows nothing about tall men or other planets. What he knows is that his dear friend has been diagnosed with dementia.

Which life is real? Have all of these adventures been a hallucination? Trying to placate Reg's alarm, Mike floats a theory he's heard of alternate realities. Reg may have gone Billy Pilgrim, unstuck between realms. I believe that there is actually more than one Reg, one for each alternate reality, and that as some hop back and forth, their experiences are bleeding into the mind of yet another. As a theory this covers a number of discontinuities in previous films as well – there's more than one Mike and Jody, relatively aware that they are dealing with shifting realities and misaligned memories but not knowing why. In fact, Ravager offers no reason to believe that anything in the movie takes place in what DC Comics would call “Earth 1”.

Ravager is Reg's story as he bounces back and forth between realities, either of which may be unreal. The Tall Man has wiped out civilization on one Earth, but the seemingly normal in the hospital one may be a trick. Once again, in ways that are uncomfortable and heart-sickening, it resonates with my own life. Reggie faces the loss of his own mind at the end of his life preceded by the loss of identity, dignity, autonomy, and sanity. Which is the more desirable existence, an ignominious decline and death as a nobody in an uncaring facility or being the hero of a fantastical realm standing against impossible odds to defend the love of dear friends? Which is more credible?

Understand that I love all of the films in this series. They're a wonderful set of adventures that spark the imagination and are compelling for the bonds they showcase. Still, II, III, and IV d not deal with issues as I and V do. This, I think, is what ultimately makes Ravager and elevates it above its low indie budget.

If you want solutions, this is not the film for you. From the beginning, a vital part of the allure of the Phantasm universe is the fact that we are presented with facets of a mystery without explanation, and no small amount of discontinuity in the narratives the heroes' lives. Currently many phans are disputing the worth of Ravager for its nondisclosure. For myself, the last thing I wanted was an explanation which could only serve to make that realm a smaller one, severely and needlessly amputating the many possibilities suggested by these films. Simply, it's a richer universe in our imaginations than it could be if confined to the screen. I do, however, wonder what the Tall Man's purpose with Mike is...in Ravager he calls Mike an experiment.

The closure promised is not of the plot points, those are MacGuffins. What matters more is the the bond. Always the bond. Jody, Mike, and Reggie have been apart since 1979, sharing each other's company only in brief respite from the nightmare and Mike only as a wraith of dubious alliance after having been transformed by the Tall Man. Ravager brings them together again for the first time. Their long search is rewarded.

One of the reasons I expect that there will never be another sequel is the recent passing away of Angus Scrimm, the Tall Man. Mr. Scrimm was a versatile and much beloved character actor who's indelible, captivating, and intensely scary portrayal of the Tall Man made an immediate impact. There could never be another Tall Man. Without him, the conflict of our protagonists has no center and no weight. I never had the pleasure of meeting Angus Scrimm but everyone who did attests that he was the kindest, most outgoing of souls. The audience I was with applauded loudly his first appearance in Ravager and the dedication to him in the closing credits. You played a good game, sir.

It's a delightful performance. Scrimm's Tall Man is an exercise in graceful menace as his face and vocal inflections dance from arrogance, amusement, frustration, curiosity all bubbling just underneath his unshakable poise. In Ravager for the first time we his calm demeanor break in the face of Reggie's loyalty. “WHHYYYYYYYYY?, shouts the Tall Man, in a surprising lament. It's the opposite of Anakin Vader's infamous “NOOOOOOO!” - compelling instead of cringeworthy.

Scrimm also gives us another glimpse of Jebediah Morningside, the human who first opened the doorway to the alien realm and whose body became the template for the entity known as the Tall Man. Morningside was a kind and decent man who wanted nothing but good for his fellow man. Jebediah is another resident in the care home. One quiet moment broke my heart: Jebediah crossing the hall and looking up at Reg, his body shockingly old and frail, taken by the ravages of time. The sad look in his eyes...I may avert mine when I see it again. “I'm afraid this body of mine is nearly finished.” It's an ironic note from Jebediah, an omen from the Tall Man, and an acknowledgment from Angus to us his many fans.

Noted above, the movie is limited in budget. That's putting it mildly, Ravager began as a series of webisodes involving the adventures of Reggie as the Tall Man sweeps across the Earth. These were the work of David Hartman, formerly an animator at Disney who contributed to earlier Coscarelli films. These were done with Coscarelli's blessing, and with the original writer/director's collaboration they modified the series into a feature film. Having tasted studio interference, Ravager was self-financed. Hartman directed. This results in some of the fx work not being up to par and the camerawork being subject to diminished means. Frankly, it looks a lot better than I'd feared. Working a coherent – and achievable - story from these shorts must have been quite a challenge, given the tantalizing but unused sequences that appear under the closing credits. They're ambitious bits set in the North against monster-sized spheres, once scene pitting a jet fighter against them. Some of the scenarios that did make it in (like the devastated Earth and the Red Planet) are left unexplored... disappointing but understandable for the limitations involved.

I'd also feared seeing it with an audience, given some of what Ravager has met online. Phantasm is a big thing with me...I was too young to see it at the theater but knew from the trailers that it was something special. When it debuted on American network TV(CBS Friday LateNight, 12:35 AM. following “The Zombie” episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker) I sat alone in the dark, back turned to a large living room, next to the front door that creaked and cracked as the house settled. It's one of my fondest memories sharing this with friends who were similarly watching at their homes.. I am grateful and delighted to say that seeing the Ravager was also rewarding, in a bittersweet way. The audience applauded many times throughout as beloved players Reggie Bannister, A. Michael Baldwin, Angus (always Angus!), Kat Lester, and Gloria Lynn Henry made their entrances. Reg's and the Tall man's lines elicited cheers and laughs. Even the Cuda got a hand.

To Messrs Coscarlli and Hartman, to the casts and crews of all five, thank you.

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!