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"Mindbender" -- Not for the first time, a UFO closes in on Moonbase low to the surface during sunspot activity. But then, 4 miles away, it takes off-- before then suddenly exploding!  WHY? Straker and Foster form one of two teams searching the area for wreckage.  Nobody finds anything except for a rare crystal rock, as a "memento" (maybe to "use as a paperweight").  Suddenly, the man who picked it up begins hallucinating, seeing Mexican Banditos all over, gets into fights and shoots someone dead before getting killed himself.  Back on Earth, Henderson has stopped by again, truthfully less hostile than before, about the latest budget report, which isn't ready because Straker has Virginia Lake using the computer non-stop trying to figure out what the hell went on at Moonbase.  When Straker asks Lake for "moral support", the look on her face shows she's warming up to Straker.  Another astronaut, in SHADO HQ, suddenly goes berserk, and sees aliens everywhere.  When he holds Lake by force, Straker has no choice but to shoot him dead!  Soon after, he's brought the first dead man's personal belongings, and handles the crystal, just as Henderson returns and starts to argue.  And then SUDDENLY... Straker finds himself standing on the set of a TV show filming the adventures of SHADO, and everyone refers to him as an actor playing "Ed Straker".  WHAT THE HELL? He runs outside, sees himself, but it's really his stuntman.  He's told by Miss Ealand he should be watching his "rushes", and in the theatre, watches events from his own life unfold-- the car crash that nearly killed himself and Henderson, his son John as he got hit by a speeding car, his ex-wife screaming she never wants to see him again.  Somehow, Straker's will is so strong, he KNOWS-- it's all a dream-- but how to "get back"?  He eventually makes his way back to the very spot and moment where it all started, holds up his empty fist, which earlier held a gun, and throws it.  And then SUDDENLY, we see the crystal hit the wall and shatter into a thousand pieces.  Realizing the crystal was a "booby trap" affecting the minds of whoever touched it, he explains what happened to everyone around him.

Now this was really a VERY disorientating episode!  2 things Gerry Anderson liked to do, in pretty much every one of his TV series, was a "dream" episode, and an "clip show".  In "Mindbender", he got to do BOTH at the same time!  And, in doing so, I'd say this was arguably one of the BEST "clip" shows I've ever seen.

I have had enough very-vivid dreams in my lifetime, where either I could not understand what was going on, or, I actually KNEW I was dreamng, but couldn't wake up, that watching this was absolutely uncanny.  Many dreams are JUST like this!  Not the specific details, but the way things aren't as they seem, or where you'd swear you recognize where you are, only it doesn't look like that at all, or people you know AREN'T who they are in the dream.

The opening sequence on the moon was actually reused from "Flight Path".  Later, the "rushes" feature clips from "Identified" and "A Question Of Priorities".  Paul Foster (not really) in the dream smiles when John gets killed and says, "This oughta make a GREAT episode!"  I've heard Gerry Anderson say that himself, and many fans claim it's their favorite-- but I HATE that story, for the way it's so EXCESSIVELY mean-spirited, and had 2 separate plot-lines, BOTH of which had pointlessly-downbeat endings.

This was the latest episode involving alien mind-control, a running theme in much of the 2nd half of the run.

Al Macini, as astronaut "Andy Conroy", looks to have only appeared in 2 episodes-- this one and "The Cat With Ten Lives".  I'm actually surprised those 2 were broadcast in the correct order, although, while in production they were 19 and 24, as broadcast they were 3 and 14 (sheesh).  Conroy became only the 2nd recurring character to get KILLED on the show, after Michael Mundell as Interceptor pilot Ken Matthews (who was in "Identified" and "Computer Affair").  On that score, the 2 Interceptor pilots virtually "bookend" the series.

The entire 2nd half of this episode takes place all around the film studio.  There's a giant hand prop seen, and it returns in the next episode, all of which takes place around the film studio.  Crazy enough, Straker damages some of the computers in SHADO HQ in both this episode and the next one, though you don't see it happen in this one.  I forget which website I read it at, but someone a few years back clued me in that "Mindbender" and "Timelash" were filmed IN THAT ORDER (24 and 25), but despite this, the A&E DVD box set swapped their order on the disc.  I can only imagine the reason for this was someone figured Gerry Anderson tended to do "clip shows" at or very near the end.  When I got the DVD set, I tried watching those 2 episodes BOTH ways.  (Lucky thing it's easy to do that with DVDs.)  I concluded, without any doubt in my mind, that "Mindbender" absolutely SHOULD be watched right before "Timelash".  If you watch them back-to-back that way, they feel like a 2-PARTER-- and, by the end of "Timelash", you'll probably feel EXHAUSTED.

In this episode, Grant Taylor, who played General Henderson, looked as if he's suddenly lost about 40 pounds since his previous appearance. By the end of 1971, he passed away at only the age of 54. (Having this broadcast 14th instead of 24th really becomes too obvious when "Court Martial" was aired 20th.)  Although Straker gets into an absurd argument with Henderson, in which the General starts going "BAAAAA!!!!!" like a sheep, it seems clear to me this only happened during Straker's dream, a reflection of how much tension there'd been between them for so long.  But before this moment (and after the dream ended), Henderson actually was far more reasonable than he'd been in previous episodes.  His main concern was just to get the budget report in on time, otherwise, BOTH their jobs could be on the line.  And, as he said, HE could leave anytime, but not Straker, who has "a monkey on his back"-- that of DEDICATION to his job.  I actually take that as a compliment, coming from the man.

An odd detail I noticed was hot the scene of the motorcade being attacked by the UFO from "Identified" and seen again here, parallelled the near-identical motorcade being attack in "Eleven Days To Zero" but then having that footage be re-purposed with different characters being killed in a later episode of VOYAGE.  (I forget which one!)  Funny how a scene like that should appear TWICE on BOTH shows.

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"Timelash" -- in SHADO HQ, Ed Straker suddenly appears, smashing computer equipment. Security follows him out thru the film studio until he comes across an unconscious Virginia Lake.  In the medical wing, Henderson urges Jackson to use a "dangerous" drug to bring "SHADO's most expensive piece of man-power" back to his senses.  Earlier... he's picked Lake up from the airport, and en route she was clearly flirting with him.  Then a UFO raced by, blasted the road, and then their car was hit by some unknown energy beam. On reaching the studio, it suddenly went from night to daylight, and, EVERYONE was frozen in place.  Time has suddenly STOPPED! But oddly, it doesn't affect things that were not "moving in time", which includes the elevators.  Lake sees someone running around, and it turns out it's communications man Turner, who brags the aliens have offered to put him in charge when they come and "take over".  A long, long chase and running battle goes all over the studio, until Straker manages to shoot Turner by aiming where he WASN'T.  He then fires a bazooka shell and takes out the UFO.

Many feel this is the best episode of UFO, and, frankly, I'd agree.  It's always struck me as a variation on the very 1st episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE I ever saw, "A Kind Of Stop Watch", where a man is able to walk around and do whatever he wants (including committing a robbery) while everyone else is frozen in time... untl the watch breaks and he's stuck in that instant.

There's been a slowly-developing friendship between Ed Straker & Virginia Lake, and it's really beginning to blossom here.  That's good, as they spend the bulk of the episode working together, running around, shooting, fighting, and when she gets knocked out by Turner, there seems real concern on his face.  They use a dangerous drug to speed up their reflexes, and when it starts to wear off, he takes a 2nd dose, telling here, "I made my choice a long time ago", indicating that his job does tend to take preference over his life and his safety.

Much of this episode ties in with “Mindbender”. Early-on, Straker & Lake are saying it’s like a dream or a nightmare. We see Straker running down the same hallway he did in the previous episode.  That strange giant hand prop turns up in both episodes! The 2nd half of “Mindbender” took place in the studio, and nearly ALL of the “Timelash” takes place in the studio.  And Straker damages computers in both episodes.  They really do feel like a 2-parter, but after watching them both ways, I’m convinced “Timelash” is the LATTER of the 2.  Somebody at A&E Video screwed up by swapping them.

Straker shooting down the UFO with a bazooka parallels Paul Roper doing the same thing in “Flight Path” (episode 3, but broadcast 15th—just 3 weeks before this was—TSK!).

It was nice to see Henderson actually pay Straker a compliment for the 2nd episode in a row.  Clearly, he was coming to his senses by this point.  This was his last acting job before he passed away.  Jackson actually had a hint of a smile on his face by the end.

When this was broadcast, it was the 18th episode, and the last before they took a 2-month break.  8 episodes were “held back” until later, I’d say 7 of them were “lesser” stories, and some were even shown at a much-later time slot, due to “adult” content.  It’s NO DAMN WONDER the later episodes, run after this, got terrible ratings in the US, all lumped together that way.

I see “Timelash” as the real “action climax” of the series.  There’s only ONE episode left to go, and it works effectively as an “epilogue” for the season.

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"The Long Sleep" -- Straker arrives at work with a smile on his face for once, even being very friendly to Virginia Lake.  Then he sees the huge stack of paperwork waiting for him.  But before he can get to that... A 10-year-old UFO-siting case rears its head again, when a woman, "Catherine Frazer", who's been in a coma that long wakes up.  And, it turns out, 10 years earlier, she ran out in front of Straker's car. On reviving, he tries his best to question her about what happened.  It turned out, she'd run away from home , met "Tim", a med student-turned-hippie, the two of them went off to an abandoned farmhouse somewhere in the country, and while on an LSD trip, saw a pair of aliens planting an explosive device. She stole the trigger, he fell off the roof to his death, they carried his body away to their spaceship and departed. She hitched a ride and was almost raped, then, running from that, was hit by a car. Because only 3 days before the accident, a city in India was destroyed in an earthquake and 80,000 people died, Straker suspects the aliens were involved, and it becomes desperate to find out where the explosive device is.  Turns out, Tim is still alive-- but working for the aliens. He gives her a drug to help her remember, he tracks down the trigger, and sets the bomb to explode, moments before Straker & Foster arrive!  Tim then falls dead on the very spot he died 10 years earlier-- his clothes revert to what he was wearing then-- and he becomes a skeleton. The bomb squad can't defuse the bomb, so Straker orders in a rocket to lift it into space, where it explodes.  Back at the hospital, he finds Catherine died at the exact moment the young man did-- and has aged decades in the process!  Jackson suggest the aliens "borrowed" from her lifetime to keep the young man young, and "They didn't know how long he might need, so they took decades."  In a state of shock, Straker walks away from the hospital, accompanied by Col. Lake.

After "Timelash", I consider this an "epilogue."  It's slow, it's moody, it's psychedelic, and terribly sad.  Just when Ed is getting closer to Virginia, he meets this young girl, and in a few days, you can see, he's starting to care for HER, too.  But then, suddenly, she's DEAD, and in the most shocking, inexplicable fashion imaginable.  It seems in nearly every episode in the 2nd half of the run (if you watch them in production order), the aliens are exhibiting more and stranger abilities.  SHADO has been upping their game, but so have the aliens, who, after this, we NEVER learn any more about.

I felt sad for the girl. She said she loved her parents, but felt stifled by them.  She was very foolish to take LSD the way she did.  Then again, the young guy, "Tim", struck me as an idiot.  He quit med school after 2 years.  As she said, he could have had his own practice by then.  But seeing people on TV killed in a war made him think nothing made sense, instead of realizing there was more need for caring people like doctors. And really, taking LSD to "relax" which wound up with him jumping off a roof... that wasn't very productive, was it?

Having Straker be the one who hit Catherine with his car tragically ties in with Straker's SON being hit by a car back in "A Question Of Priorities" (which happened years later).

Knowing the aliens had been responsible for so many deaths earlier made me really wonder about the alien who claimed "We mean you no harm!" in "E.S.P."

I notice an odd, subtle bit of continuity going on over several episodes here.  The projection room at the studio appeared in both "Reflections In the Water" and "Mindbender".  The studio, including one hallway, a giant hand prop, and Straker damaging computer consoles, was in both "Mindbender" and "Timelash".  The use of a hypodermic needle and dangerous drugs, and, the distortion of TIME, was in both "Timelash" and "The Long Sleep".  This could have been coincidence, or, it could be subtle planned "continuity", the exact same sort of thing I've seen in, for example, the 2nd season of NIGHT COURT.  It definitely tells me these last 4 episodes absolutely should be watched in this order.

UFO is another one of those shows that, whenever I get to the end, I find myself really frustrated, and overwhelmed with the feeling that, "This was NO TIME to cancel the show!!!"  Had ITC run the first 13 episodes produced when they were made, it's questionable whether they'd ever have gotten to the 2nd 13.  But if they had, I have no doubt, we would have seen a 2ND SEASON... to, hopefully, "finish" the big story.  Infuriatingly, waiting until all 26 episodes were done before ever airing the 1st one absolutely DOOMED the show and any possible future it might have had.  Some try to blame the show, and a few of the earliest episodes were very questionable, but for the most part, it was the executives who were really responsible for how things turned out-- which almost always seems to be the case.

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Reply to “10 Weirdest Reasons Popular TV Shows Were Cancelled”  (Youtube video)

The thing with "FIREFLY" reminds me of "UFO". Over 26 episodes, the series started out terminally-depressing but had slowly BUILDING MOMENTUM, continuity and character growth. The 2nd half of its production run, it just kept getting BETTER AND BETTER! But ITC insanely waited until all 26 episodes were in the can before airing any of them, forcing the production company to SHUT DOWN, and everyone involved had to get other jobs. Then they scrambled the running order like a deck of cards, pushing "better" episodes up and holding "less" episodes back. For 17 weeks it got HIGH ratings, inspiring ITC to order a 2nd season (after the company no longer existed). But once tons of money was spent creating new sets & props, the lesser episodes COMPLETELY tanked ratings, inspiring the same ITC exec to insist that NO stories be set on Earth (even though most of them had been) or he would refuse to fund a 2nd season. I was genuinely SHOCKED at how much better the show became when I got the DVD set (in "production order"), and have come to feel that "UFO" was decades ahead of its time-- but also, the most-sabotaged show in TV history. I don't know who that New York ITC exec was, but he should have been kicked out of the business. He not only destroyed a TV show, but also a long-running production company (Gerry Anderson's "Century 21").
     (9-28-2024)