[profh0011]

My computer was down for a day, and yesterday, while I had virtually nothing to do but watch TV, I decided to dig out arguably the MOST DEPRESSING tv series I had on DVD!

My late friend robin in Wales, not long before he passed away, had become very cynical about Gerry & Sylvia Anderson's shaky marriage, and believed that much of what was seen on UFO was a direct reflection of just how bad things were going in their real personal lives.  He once said he felt that several of the earliest episodes filmed were so NEEDLESSLY, POINTLESSLY downbeat and depressing, that he felt that the whole show got off to a rocky start and only barely recovered at all.  Some of those earliest episodes, I look at and wonder why the HELL they were ever done the way they were.

If you watch the series in (mostly) production order (the way they are on the DVD set), you can REALLY get a sense of slowly-building continuity, which was destroyed when they juggled the running order to hold the obviously-"lesser" stories back (an act which directly resulted in the NYC ITC execs giving Anderson an ultimatum about "no Earthbound stories" if he wanted to do a 2nd season) while pushng the stronger ones up.  Had they never done the "lesser" stories AT ALL, or written them off completely, OR, better yet, given them a LESS-HOPELESS rewrite before filming, UFO might have lasted long enough to resolve it's "big story".  I HATE whenever any TV show has one "big story" that is NEVER finished.  Who would want to read a novel if the last chapter was missing?  (Somebody should have beaten Roy Huggins over the head about this issue.  He felt it was a "mistake" to ever have filmed the 2-hour "finale" for his show, THE FUGITIVE.  I feel that finale is the ONLY reason I can put up with re-rewatching the 118 episodes that come before those last 2.)

"Identified" starts out with someone recording a film of a UFO landing, them getting shot, and a woman they were with apparently disappearing.  This is followed by a scene that, interestingly, is a virtual REPEAT of a near-identical scene in the pilot episode of Irwin Allen's VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA.  A car driving down a lonely highway is attacked from the air.  In both episodes, the motorcycle escort is blown off the road, before the car itself is, killing everyone inside.  On VOYAGE, the original Captain of the Seaview was killed, resulting in Lee Crane being recruited to replace him.  On VOYAGE, both Ed Straker's commandng officer and a UK Minister are killed in the car, in this case done with MINIATURES, which makes that part of the scene look like we're watching an episode of CAPTAIN SCARLET.  It's also interesting that in the CS pilot, the car with Captains Scarlet & Brown was also blown off the road, and both men were killed.  Except, they never found Scarlet's original body.  (WAS the CS we saw throughout the show the original, or a Mysteron duplicate? Is that why ONLY he survived and broke out of his programming?)

This episode spends an inordinate amount of time spelling out the format with ENDLESS "expositional" dialogue, which gets monotonous, awkward & un-natural by the time it's over.  Thank goodness Gerry & Sylvia only worked on this ONE episode.  No way to know how much or little they and/or Tony Barwick actually did on the finished screenplay.

Ed Straker (Ed Bishop) nastily chews out his communications man, and makes a cryptic reference to "You think this job is HARD?", and, "Sometimes it hits close to home."  This would be followed up directly in 2 later, EXTREMELY-downbeat, cybnical and pointless episodes (which, apparently, a LOT of really cynical viewers somehow actually rate as their favorites-- WHAT IS WRONG with people?).

Alec Freeman (George Sewell) seems more of a lady's man in this than in any later episode.  He definitely took a liking to Virginia Lake (Wanda Ventham), though, sadly, we didn't see her again until after the shut-down and change of studios, at which point, George Sewell was gone.  I keep thinking any 2nd season should have opened with a scene of both of them meeting up again, just to catch up on things.

We're told the Interceptors have not yet been able to knock out a UFO-- and they don't do it here, either.  Skydiver manages to shoot one down, and for the first time, they find an alien pilot.  But taking him back to the medical wing, he suddenly dies of OLD AGE.  The report shows signs of multiple organ transplants, and the heart is from the girl at the beginning of the episode-- the SISTER of the Skydiver pilot who shot down the UFO!  It all ends with Straker endlessly lecturing about how little they know.  The whole thing creaks to a halt, emphasized by those ominous end titles.  Had the series started this way, but quickly worked its way upward, it might have worked a lot better than it did.

"Computer Affair" was aired 21st instead of 2nd.  (sheesh)  Once again, despite the new "Eutronics" radar equipment, all 3 Interceptors miss their target.  But worse-- they figure out it's on an collission course, and, STUPIDLY, each Interceptor is given a new course SEPARATELY, and the 3rd one gets it too late and is DESTROYED by the impact!  Straker orders the 2 remaining pilot and Lt. Gaye Ellis back to Earth for a formal investigation.  Meanwhile, that UFO was only damaged, and lands in Canada, so Straker pulls out all the stops to search the area for it.  A computer analysis of psychological questioning reveals an emotional connection between Gaye & pilot Mark Bradley, which, apparently, neither one of them was even aware of at the time of the indicent.  A trio of Mobiles (their first appearance on the show) goes after the UFO, and the 1st one is blown to atoms.  The 2nd hangs back, and the men go in on foot, and manage to capture its pilot, who DIES in interrogation due to a bad reaction to a truth serum.  Alec Freeman actually hands in a resignation, feeling Ed Straker is too hard and inhuman with his people, but after they get a confirmation about Gaye & Mark, he reconsiders.  This is PAINFULLY awkward and not well-written at all.  In purely strategic terms, with 1 lost interceptor and 1 lost Mobile (4 people killed, not counting the alien), this episode is actually a step BACKWARDS from the pillot!

"Flight Path" combines really, really awful writing and some very clever writing.  Meaning, it damn well SHOULD have been a HELL of a lot better than it was.  A SHADO member is kidnapped by aliens and implanted with a device that puts him under their power. He in turn BLACKMAILS another SHADOW member ("Paul Roper", played by George Cole) by threatening to kill his young wife if he doesn't turn over some very specific mathematical information.  Straker finds out, interrogates the man, then publicly lets him go... at which point, a UFO dive-bombs his car and winds up destroying a gas station.  High above, Skydiver DESTROYS the UFO-- the FIRST time they've succeeded in this!  This is a strong point for watching these in order, as it's taken 3 whole episodes before they've managed to COMPLETELY blow up a UFO, without it self-destructing on its own.  (Stupidly, this one was run 15th instead of 3rd, where it belongs.)

Also stupidly, they didn't send anyone to protect George's wife until she was already murdered.

Following many hard hours of computer analysis, and Ed Straker using a slide rule (and a 3-D model of the Earth, Moon & Sun) Straker finally figures out that a UFO is planning to attack Moonbase by coming in very low to the Moon's surface, with the Sun at its back, at a point where there is so much sunspot activity that their radar will be completely knocked out.  Solution?  ONE man, out on the surface, with a rocket launcher-- and George volenteers, to "make things right".  They don't tell him his wife's dead, and Straker actually says, "Maybe we won't have to."  George DESTROYS the UFO with his 2nd shot, but in the explosion, his space suit's damaged, and he dies before help can arrive.

WHO THE F*** writes S*** like this???

Point by point.  The second George was contacted by the alien-controlled blackmailer, he should have immediately told both Freeman (his friend) and Straker (their boss).  Guards should have been immediately posted around his home (presumably, without his wife knowing about it).  When the attacker broke into the woman's house the 2nd time, she shot him with a shotgun blast.  He fell to the floor, and she just STOOD there, PETRIFIED with fear, as this half-dead guy crawled across the floor to grab his gun and shoot her dead.  HOW in the HELL did she just stand there and LET herself be murdered?  She had every chance to pick up the gun and shoot the attacker again, or just kick it out of the way while calling the cops. That one scene alone made me want to THROTTLE whoever wrote this episode, as well as whoever okayed the script.  The whole secret attack trajectory thing was clever.  But it made ZERO sense to only have ONE man with ONE rocket launcher on the surface.  Two or more would have done the job quicker, without further loss of life.

Simply, this episode is as DEPRESSING as it is, because somebody WANTED it that way.  NO MATTER how little sense it made.

It makes me think, if they had aired these episodes in the order it was made, they might never have gotten past the first 13.

And I think my analysis and "rewrite" above proves this NEVER needed to be the case.

As it happens, the 4th episode filmed, "Survival", had "Paul Foster" (Michael Billington) lost, believed dead, on the surface of the Moon, forced to get along with a stranded UFO pilot, until they were right on the verge of being rescued.  But because his radio was damaged, he couldn't tell them the alien had helped him, and the alien was shot DEAD.  On return to Earth, Paul's girlfriend pushed him away because she thought HE WAS DEAD, and he can't explain, because of SHADO's insane level of "security".  She changes her mind, but only after he leaves, and has no way to get back in touch with him.  That was 4 needlessly downbeat episodes IN A ROW.  Seriously-- WTF???

The 5th episode finally broke this streak, when "Exposed" went back and "introduced" Paul Foster as a test pilot who witnessed a UFO, and is infuriated that nobody will do anything about his report.  It turns out Straker has him investigated, and goes thru bizarre methods to "recruit" him to SHADO.  Apparently, somebody realized the show needed someone like him, and quickly wrote & filmed this "introduction" episode, the only time where production order is ignored for the sake of "continuity".  Of course, they ran THIS one 2nd-- instead of 5th (or, 4th, where it sensibly is on the DVD box set).

They screwed with continuity AGAIN when the 6th episode-- "Conflict"-- suddenly reveals that Straker's boss, "General Henderson" (Australian actor Grant Taylor) somehow was NOT killed in that car explosion in the pilot, but severly injured, which was WHY Straker was assigned to head up SHADO.  But Henderson lets PERSONAL FRUSTRATION and ENVY get in the way, and he begins a long-running feud with Straker over how SHADO is being run.  You just wanna smash the SONOFAB**** in the face for this stupid B***S***.  It makes me wonder if Ed Straker & General Henderson aren't somehow supposed to be stand-ins for Gerry Anderson and LEW GRADE.  Before this was over, Grade & the people at ITC's New York office would SCREW this entire show ten times over.  It's difficult enough to come up with a series idea, get a pilot made, get it sold, and then produce it, and hopefully find an audience & build raitings-- without the PEOPLE AT THE TOP actively going out of their way to COMPLETELY SABOTAGE all your efforts.

[SuperScrounge]

As I understand it, someone told Gerry Anderson that he should do a show for adults instead of the kiddy shows he had been doing, so I think the more depressing, grim and gritty feel of UFO was a result of trying to do something 'adult' instead of for kids.

[profh0011]

My goodness, I really got carried away with this the last 2 days...



"Survival" begins as a direct follow-up up to "Flight Path".  Once again, a UFO comes to the Moon flying low over the surface from the direction of the sun, and a different kind of radar interference.  This time, it lands, and one of its occupants goes out onto the surface and fires a projectile at a wondow in Moonbase, resulting in explosive decompression and the death of an astronaut.  One sudden change in this episode was, Gaye has been replaced as Moonbase Commander by Paul Foster (his first appearance when it was written & filmed).  Straker goes to Moonbase to investigate, countermands Foster's orders to seek and destroy, hoping this will be their chance to get their hands on a UFO in the Moon's LACK of atmosphere, since we've seen in "Computer Affair" that the things self-destruct after awhile in Earth's atmosphere.

Foster's friend is killed at the beginning, Foster barely manages to survive by the end, but, the alien who actually saved his life is killed, LOSING them a chance to actually communicate with an alien who might actually want to cooperate.  And Paul loses his steady girlfriend at the end, so it's lose-lose-lose.

PLANET OF THE APES was the worst thing to happen not only to sci-fi but movies in general in 1968.  For the next decade, TOO MANY mvoies and even some TV shows got downbeat and negative and hopeless.  WHO NEEDS or wants that S***?  (I read the book back in 1969, and it's NOTHING like the bad hopeless attitude of that F***ing movie.)

Crazy enough, it feels odd to watch "Exposed" before "Survival", even though I know it was intended that way.  "Exposed" actually feels like a "2nd pilot", the way "Where No Man Has Gone Before" came after "The Cage".  Somebody must have looked at Paul Foster while they were filming "Survival" and realized, "Hey-- THAT's what this show NEEDS!!!"  Somebody young and handsome who they could believe was a lady's man (like Kirk), not a hard-nose like Straker or an awkward wanna-be lech like Freeman.  I'd forgotten, this is ALSO the episode where they reveal (in one throwaway line of dialogue they snuck in) that "General Henderson" is STILL ALIVE.  We saw him return in the NEXT episode filmed.

This is the FIRST TIME we see 3 UFOs approaching Earth at the SAME time!  2 of them get destroyed by Interceptors (a real FIRST!) the 3rd, by Skydiver in upper orbit (well, they've already had a better track record).

The friendship of Straker & Freeman feels more relaxed in this one, we even see Straker SMILE when he shows off his new suit.  The strange thing is HOW MUCH of this episode focuses on Foster, putting Straker & Freeman far in the background even more than in "Flight Plan".  AND, this one ALSO introduces Dr. Jackson (Vladek Sheybal from FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE).

I wonder if someone on the production team realized they weren't really doing it right and decided to modify things here, or if someone ABOVE them saw what they were doing and pointed it out?  After a lot of bizarre stuff, "Exposed" was the FIRST episode of the show to have anything resembling an "UPBEAT" ending.  (It's understandable why they ran it 2nd, but I'd have preferred the 2nd & 3rd episode had never been made at all-- or, been drastically re-written before they were filmed.)

Every story (or nearly every one) needs some kind of tension for dramatic effect, but there should be some kind of resolution that makes you WANT to come back to see more.  When they wind up having 2 or more sub-plots running side-by-side, and ALL of them have BAD ENDINGS at the same time... there's a PROBLEM.  And this sort of thing wasn't done happening yet by any means.

[profh0011]

I responded to someone who said the MOST depressing episode was their FAVORITE.  Oy!



I was thinking about this again just yesterday... probably the ONLY story I know with a really downbeat ending that I actually LOVE is the 1978 film THE BIG SLEEP.  Maybe it was my having seen it in a theatre, and never once getting lost with the complex plot (when virtually EVERY other Raymond Chandler story is an indecipherable mess, even when watched a dozen times). Maybe it was the settings, the fabulous cast, the simple authenticity to the novel (which I READ about a month after seeing the film).  Maybe it was Candy Clark's personality somehow coming thru her performance... who knows?  I didn't like "Carmen" in the Bogart film, and the version in the BBC radio show was shockingly unhinged.  But despite her nutso behavior in the Robert Mitchum film, I found myself LIKING Camilla.  So finding out she was the one responsible for EVERYTHING else that got started around her at the end was quite a painful shock to me, even if one friend I shared the film with had said, THREE times while watching, "She's a real whacko!"

I think the bit that really helps (which I'm pretty sure was in the book) is right at the end, when Marlowe tells her sister, "Maybe they can cure her. It's been done."  After all the hell the guy saw and went through, he offers a slight ray of hope.  That really shows he's not a hopeless cynic, as the version fo Marlowe in the 1975 film FAREWELL MY LOVELY was (played, crazy enough, by the same actor).  My Mom having spent so much time in a mental hospital probably had an effect on the way I responded to the film.



My problem with "A Question of Priorities" is twofold.  First, Straker's ex-wife is totally unreasonable, and a bad mother.  It's not his fault the kid ran out into traffic.  And he went out of his way trying to save the boy's life.  Yet somehow, she blames HIM for all of it.  B***S***.  Second, the alien subplot, which pointlessly ends with the guy getting killed before they can meet him.  Essentially, they have TWO plots running side-by-side.  To have one or the other end badly, to me, as a writer, would be acceptable.  To have BOTH of them end badly, is just someone DETERMINED to make a show that's depressing, for the SAKE of being depressing.  And yes, I agree with my late friend Robin, this WAS a direct reflection on the disintegration of Gerry & Sylvia's marriage, which apparently had begun to fall apart as far back as THUNDERBIRDS!

I've said it before, if I'd been story editor on that show, and that script had crossed my desk, I'd have left the alien subplot just as it was, but would have ended the other subplot with John being SAVED at the very last minute, and, as a direct result of it, Straker standing up to his ex, TELLING her, "He's MY son, too-- and from now on, I'll see him WHENEVER I WANT TO."  This is a man who's entire personal life has been destroyed because of his dedication to his job, and it would have been a wonderfully-positive step to have him alter his priorities just enough to help restore some balance in his life.  Instead, the way it plays out, it's one big "F*** YOU" to the characters and the audience.  The last time I watched it, I fast-forwarded over all the scenes involvig Straker's wife & son.  I don't need to watch that S*** again.  (I also skipped the flashback episode about how his marriage disintegrated in the first place.  BOTH stories, if watched in production order, come in the first HALF of the run.  After that... things finally begin to get better.)

[paw broon]

Prof, I've not seen that version of The Big sleep but the Bogart/Bacall version is a favourite of mine.
As for UFO, I hope you'll get around to it's much more entertaining sequel, Space 1999. Especially as Super Space Theater has just been released here as a blu ray box set.  Not the episodes but the movies put together from episodes, plus the original Italian tv movie.  Wonderful stuff.
https://hmv.com/store/film-tv/blu-ray/space-1999-super-space-theater

[profh0011]

I've bene slowly working my way thru every Gerry Anderson project I can get on disc...

FIREBALL XL5
STINGRAY
THUNDERBIRDS  (I skipped the movies, but will probably get them eventually)
CAPTAIN SCARLET AND THE MYSTERONS
JOE 90
THE SECRET SERVICE
Journey To the Far Side Of The Sun (my GOD, this is ABYSMALLY awful!)
UFO
THE PROTECTORS  (really more Lew Grade's show)

TERRAHAWKS

The truth is, I hate SPACE: 1999 with every fibre of my being.  Everything's wrong with that show, and it never should have existed.  In recent years, I've learned so much about the behind-the-scenes details of how it got made in the first place, and what happened while it was being made, and every single thing I learn makes me want to avoid ever watching it again more and more and more.

But boy am I looking forward to upgrading SPACE PRECINCT to disc.  It's my #1 FAVORITE Anderson series. It had the best characters, and the best WRITING by a wide stretch.

[profh0011]

"Conflict" has the aliens place a device in orbit that's attached to a piece of "space debris" (in this case, a leftover part of Apollo 8 ) which can attach itself to a spacecraft entering Earth's atmosphere and change its re-entry angle to make it crash.  Paul Foster directly disobeys orders to fly another ship back to Earth, but he manually alters his re-entry angle so it's too high and risks going right off into space.  When the alien object then changes his angle, it's high enough that this time, he doesn't get killed.  Straker's devious mind figures out that the aliens want to use this as a diversion to draw the Interceptors away from the Moon, to clear the space debris from Earth's orbit, so they can sneak in a UFO to attack SHADO HQ.  Not bad, although as Moonbase is on the Moon, there's always the problem of it orbitting Earth and therefore NEVER being in the same spot at any given time if or when aliens approach, presumably from the same general direction.

But the MAIN focus of this episode is General James Henderson, who inexplicably has a personal vendetta against Straker and SHADO.  He's standing in the way of SHADO getting increased funding, he's looking for any excuse to have Straker removed from command, and he's bull-headedly DISBELIEVING every single thing Straker tells him, accusing him of lying to protect his job, his men, and his organization.  The man is clearly insane, when you consider he was nearly killed in "Identified", and if anyone, should be the number one person SUPPORTING everything Straker is doing.  In "Confetti Check A-OK" (episode 13 in production order, JUST at the end of the first half) we learn that Henderson was recovering from the car explosion, which is why he was passed over and Straker was unexpectedly promoted into the position of running SHADO, which the two of them worked so hard to make happen.  It's NEVER outright explained in the entire series, but one has to read between the lines to realize, Henderson has become frustrated and bitter from being passed over, and he's being completely irrational, taking it out on the one man whose side he should be on the most.

Straker manouevers Henderson into being inside SHADO HQ right at the time he's certain a UFO attack on the base is imminent.  And Captain Carlin, piloting Sky One, DESTROYS the UFO right over SHADO HQ (damn, that guy was good at his job, better on average than any of the Interceptor pilots), Henderson actually apologizes and agrees to push for funding for a project to clear all space debris.  Straker offers to walk him to his car-- a moment which really shows that Straker IS the bigger person... and Henderson KNOWS it.

Stupidly, this was not the only time Henderson was such a pain-in-the-ass.  But, in real life, people like him NEVER learn anything.  I've experienced it too many times in my own life.

[profh0011]

"The Dalotek Affair" -- told as a "flashback" to an event 6 months earlier (they really were screwing around with the passage of time in some of these early episodes) has the aliens do a fly-by with 3 UFOs, who then turn back.  Straker wonders if it was a diversion?  IT WAS.  A small device (that's 2 in 2 episodes) lands on the Moon which can CUT OFF their radar & communications.  Complicating it is a commercial mining operation nearby.  Straker & Foster accuse their equipment of using some kind of broadcasting frequency that interferes with SHADO's frequencies.  When a Moon shuttle crashes on landing, Foster has the "Dalotek" equipment forcibly removed.  But the Dalotek people find the alien device, and mistake it for something "the military" set up.  It takes so DAMNED long for anyone to connect that the radio interference started at the exact same time as the "meteor" crashed, it makes everyone on both sides look like IDIOTS.  It also makes me think this episode was written for a half-hour slot and then PAINFULLY padded out to an hour.

Once again, the aliens are trying to get around Moonbase's security, but when SHADO blows up the "installation" device, the Interceptors are able to destroy the attacking UFO without a problem.

The OTHER "problem", as some have pointed out, is that once Dalotek's base is damaged in the process, they have to bring its people to the Moonbase... and before sending them back to Earth, inject them with an "amnesia" drug.  That's bad enough. But Foster gets romantic with the girl there... then meets up with her on Earth 6 months later and decides to pick up where they left off, even though she has NO memory of ever meeting him.  Which seems kinda creepy.  Alec Freeman, who watches Paul Foster do this, I suppose, might have felt even creepier if it had been him doing it.

Tracy Reed is the same actress who played George C. Scott's girlfriend in DR. STRANGELOVE.

[profh0011]

"Ordeal" -- The timeline jumps ahead 2 months and we find Paul Foster has been shuffled around to work with the SkyDiver crew, and Interceptor pilot Waterman has now replaced Carlin as the SkyDiver Captain.  (Carlin is never seen again.  Was he killed between episodes?)  Foster has a furlough coming up, but first, has to spend 2 weeks at SHADO's health clinic. But before that, he goes to a lady friend's house for a wild party with lots of dancing, loud music, and way, way too much drinking. When he shows up for his physical, he's barely coherent.  After lots of exercise and a massage, he goes into a "solar shower" (really a steam room).  And then the 2nd half of the story starts, when the temperature goes up too high, he can't open the door to get out, an ALIEN walks in and overpowers him, and as he's dragged out, everyone else in the health spa has been killed.  They force him into a spacesuit, and he finds himself having to breath LIQUID.

Straker feels Foster was kidnapped to get all his info on SHADO, and so orders Waterman to shoot down the UFO.  But... he MISSES.  And this is after we've seen, consistently, that SkyDiver has a more successful KILL rate than the Interceptors.  The UFO heads off in the opposite direction from the Moon.  But then, as it was apparently "damaged" before it ever got to Earth, it comes back, CRASHES on the Moon, somehow Foster escaped alive (HOW??), and SHADO's med team work to get him out of the spacesuit and back to breathing AIR.  But as he's choking, he wakes up in the steam room.  Yeah.  IT WAS ALL A DREAM.  Uh huh.

Among many other things, Gerry Anderson had a couple of obsessions. One was, every one of his TV series had at least one "dream" episode, and another was, every one of his series had a "flashback" episode ("clip show").  UFO had both.  In fact, UFO's "clip show" doubled as a dream episode!  But that was later.

When I saw this for the first time in ages, I got very angry to find out "it was all a dream".  My late friend Robin, however, pointed out the implications of where the big story might have been forced to go, IF Waterman had actually NOT shot down the UFO with Foster inside it. He might have been up on charges of insubordination, or incompetence, or removed from duty, or transferred.  And come to think of it, when someone mentioned "emotional ties" to Foster, it made me wonder if they were suggesting Waterman was gay.  (Who knows?)

KNOWING it's a dream, however, some interesting observations can be made. The aliens KILL everyone at the clinic, escept Foster.  He must have a REALLY highly-developed opinion of himself and his own importance.  Dr. Frazer (Basil Moss) is in charge of the health farm, and he's the same man Foster met in "Exposed".  In the dream, Frazer is KILLED.  Later, Dr. Jackson (Vladek Sheybal) supervises getting Foster out of the alien spacesuit-- but this only happens in the dream.  It occured to me, Foster re-meeting Frazer may have inspired his subconscious to also remember Jackson.

The UFO was apparently damaged before it ever got to Earth.  But we never saw that happen.  Dreams usually seem to start "in mid-story", and you have to mentally catch up to what you "missed".

Meanwhile, with Foster in SkyDiver for 2 months, Gay Ellis is back in charge of Moonbase.  She'd been in charge for the first 3 episodes, but hadn't been seen there since Paul Foster was introduced.  I think Gabrielle Drake is the best-looking woman on this show (at this point), but her character hardly ever seems to exhibit any emotion at all. (She NEVER smiles.)

When we see Straker & Freeman, they're barely registering any emotion at all, which may be how Foster tends to see them.

No matter how you look at this, however, one thing is VERY strange.  Generally, when a person dreams, they see things from THEIR OWN point-of-view.  But about 80-90% of Foster's dream, he's seeing things from various objective points of view, when HE WASN'T THERE.  Which really does suggest this was NOT originally written as a dream episode, but changed to become one very late in the game... probably at Gerry Anderson's insistence.  TSK.

[profh0011]

"The Square Triangle" -- A single UFO approaches on a path to southern England, and Straker decides to let it through, hoping to get his hands on it INTACT, beforer it disintegrates in Earth's atmosphere.  He tells Freeman, "We're waging a losing battle here, because we don't know what we're fighting or why."  As it happens, the alien kills a game warden, leaves his body in the UFO, then walks off as it EXPLODES. He then walks into a house... and is shot 5 times by the wife of the owner... who was waiting for her husband to come home. The woman-- and her lover-- are politely taken back to SHADO HQ, where Straker explains the situation.  "So, everyone's lives are in deadly danger all the time!" He then explains about the amnesia drug.  "Would you like some more coffee?"  I find that line somehow HILARIOUS.  Meanwhile, the husband surprises Foster when he arrives home, and Foster suggests the man return to London, where they'll "send his wife presently".  Foster realizes a cold-blooded murder was planned (shades of COLUMBO) but they have no hard evidence, and the epilogue shows the wife some time later standing over her husband's grave.

This entire episode seems a direct follow-up to the last few in a row (if you're watching them in the correct order, as I am).  "The Dalotek Affair" introduced the idea of the amnesia drug.  People may forget the last 12 hours, but, we never see them confused about why they can't remember those 12 hours or what happened during them.  "A Question Of Priorities" had a lone alien land on Earth and then try to contact SHADO, presumably to give them info about exactly what's going on, but, he was killed moments before they could meet!  And "Ordeal" showed that Gay Ellis was back in command of Moonbase, while Paul Foster was being shifted around, first spending 2 months in SkyDiver, and now, assigned to SHADO HQ itself.  Simple continuity like that was totally destroyed when someone at what passes for a network shuffled the running order like a deck of cards, and trying to figure out a sensible order in like fashion just DOESN'T WORK.  The show makes so much more sense simply watching in production order, that, frankly, I was SHOCKED by how much doing this improved the show on pretty much every level.

By this point, they're also getting more recognizable guest-star each episode.  This one had Adrienne Corri, Patrick Mower and Alan Cuthbertson, all of whom I know from other things.

They must have really liked actor Anthony Chinn. He played the alien in this episode, returned to play a member of SHADO in "Sub-Smash", and then became a regular on THE PROTECTORS.

[profh0011]

It is a tragedy that this show started out SOOOO downbeat and hopelessly depressing... was interrupted a few episodes into its 2nd half for 6 whole months... lost some of its cast but picked up some new people... and, NOT ONE episode was broadcast until ALL 26 were finished.  And then they shuffled the entire set like a deck of cards, COMPLETELY destroying what would have been very obvious continuity and slowly BUILDING MOMENTUM (like a good novel).

When they stopped filming the 2nd time, the entire studio was forced to close down, and everyone involved had to go find other jobs.  (That's how Derek Meddings started working on the Bond films... starting with LIVE AND LET DIE, which was a piece of CRAP compared to most of the others.)

And then you had the added ignominity of the New York ITC execs further interfering, when, after they "held back" so many of the lesser episodes, those lesser episodes saw PLUMETTING RATINGS near the end, so they told Gerry Anderson, if he wanted to do a 2nd season, there had to be NO Earth-bound stories whatsoever.  Which was completely against what the entire damned show was all about!  THOSE A**H***s!!!

This show was decades ahead of its time, but a few of those earliest episodes NEVER should have been filmed as written.  And I have NEVER seen any tv series so completely SABOTAGED as this one was.  (Not even DOCTOR WHO.)

[profh0011]

"Court Martial" -- SOMEHOW... a newspaper gets information about when Skydiver is going to surface and rendezvous for supplies.  As Paul Foster was the person who transmitted this information, General Henderson (perhaps being resentful of how Foster acted in "Conflict") jumps the gun, accuses him of ESPIONAGE, and demands a Military Court Martial. If found guilty-- AND HE IS-- the sentence is DEATH.  You know, this is the kind of thing that makes me wish an alien had actually targetted and taken out Henderson-- a 2nd time-- and succeeded.  Alleged "good guys" like this we DON'T F***ING need.

Jackson-- the man who psycho-analyzed Foster when he was being looked into as a possible SHADO recruit-- is the prosecuting attouney. He comes across as far more slimy in this than in any other episode.  So much so that I'd describe it as inconsistent character writing.

A large check drawn on a Swiss bank account was also deposited in Foster's account, and he has no idea where it came from.

Despite everything being purely circumstantial evidence, Foster is found guilty, and there's only 14 days to file an appeal.

MEANWHILE... movie director Carl Mason (Neil McCallum, who had a brief stand-out role in THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE-- no wonder he looked so familiar to me)-- has been trying to talk to Straker for 3 days, and they practically get into a physical altercation before he FINALLY gets to tell the "studio head" that he feels Foster is guilty of STEALING the idea for his movie and selling it to a rival studio.  This finally gives Straker a direction to start investigating, and he finds multiple bugging devices in Foster's apartment, tracks them down to a shop that sells such things, and under extreme duress, gets the name of the person who bought them-- "Jane Grant" (the first of the 3 extremely-devious female "Number 2"s in THE PRISONER episode, "Many Happy Returns"). She was only in it for info about the film studio-- the possible-military info was completely as an aside.

Straker manages to covince the woman that if she doesn't sign a statement admitting what she did, "Someone will DIE."  He gets the affadavid, and calls Henderson on the phone, only to be told that just as he was signing the paperwork for his appeal, Foster ESCAPED-- ran-- and was SHOT by Shado security.

A thoroughly-depressed Straker goes to see Henderson, hands him the signed confession, and is only then told that Foster was shot with a anasthetic bullet-- Jackson's idea.  When Henderson says, "You probably think I'm a bull-headed idiot!", Straker pulls out a pen that recorded his words, and plays them back multiple times right in Henderson's face-- to Jackson's EXTREME amusement.  As he leaves, this is probably one of the only times we see Straker smiling-- and Jackson was outright laughing.  Maybe he's not afraid he might lose his job by doing so right in Henderson's face.

Foster figures out that an actor's agent who offered to do him a favor was the one who secretly sent him the mysterious check, and he tells the guy's client, "Get yourself a new agent, honey!"

WHO would have imagined such a NASTY, VISCIOUS story as this one, would turn out to be the show's TURNING POINT?  "Court Martial" wound up being the MOST UPBEAT, "FUN" episode so far, a full 11 episodes in.  After this (not counting the 13th episode, which in more modern days might have been the 1st season finale), things IMPROVED and continued to improve, ALL the way to the end.

[profh0011]

"Close Up" -- Straker gets the idea to put a high-tech camera into orbit around the Moon, and have it follow a UFO back to its home planet.  I believe an IMDB reviewer (not me) said this entire episode was a complete waste of an hour.  Watching it now, I have to agree.  On the surface, this almost sounds like a good idea, but the way it's handled, virtually every single part of it winds up making NO SENSE at all.

1- They go through a complex set of manouevers trying to "force" an incoming UFO into a particularly trajectory, and then, have it turn back and head home.  WHAT? I've watched this multiple times, and it makes no sense at all.  Not only have we previously seen UFOs fly rings around SHADO vehicles, if the thing came to Earth on a particular mission, why would it turn back?  The only time we've ever seen UFOs retreat was in "The Dalotek Affair", where the whole idea was the UFOs acting as a diversion to sneak a radio-jamming device onto the Moon's surface without anyone noticing.

2 - I have a hard time believing that the SHADO satellite could travel at a speed to match the UFO, or, that the UFO would not notice it was being followed, ALL THE WAY back to its home planet.

3 - The "defect" in the design which causes depth of field and distance to not be transmitted, so they wind up having no idea what they're looking at, seems so basic and important to the project, I find it hard to believe it would have been overlooked.

At the end, Straker rambles philosophically like we haven't seen him do since the epilogue of "Identified".  And, he's talking to Henderson, who calmly agrees to the money needed to fix the problem.  I guess after how he acted in "Court Martial", maybe Henderson was beginning to come to his senses about Straker & SHADO.

There's one very awkward scene where Straker has a cup of coffee with Lt. Gay Ellis.  She looks uncomfortable the whole time.  He tells her she's working too hard, then mentions she's an attractive woman.  He then tells Foster not to mis-interpret a conversation by its ending.  Looking back at it now, I don't think Straker was coming on to her.  I think in light of the HORROR we saw in "A Question Of Priorities", Straker at this point is slowly realizing just how out of balance his own life has been by focusing TOO MUCH on his job, to the total exclusion of everything else.  And I suspect he looks at Gay realizes how similar they are on that level, and just wanted to be sympathetic and share some advice based on his own experiences.

[profh0011]

"Confetti Check A-OK" -- This is a flashback showing how SHADO was set up, and how Straker's marriage disintegrated-- at least partly due to his MOTHER-IN-LAW.  It's clear his father-in-law was more sympathetic toward the situation, probably realizing more than Straker ever did just how much of a problem his wife AND daughter really were.

Apart from that, we see Straker ordering a SHADO operative who's married to take a 2-week furlough.  Obviously, he doesn't want the people in his command making the same mistake he did.  And again, this comes right after his conversation with Gay in "Close Up".  When these were broadcast, "Close Up" was 11th, "Confetti" was 22nd.  Here, they're back-to-back.

[profh0011]

"The Responsibilty Seat" -- Straker is interviewed by Jo Fraser (Jane Merrow), about his running a film studio.  But after, she leaves her bag in his office, then goes back to retrieve it.  On being told about this, Straker gets justifiably paranoid, as her handbag had a tape recorder in it, and while he was out of the office, Lt. Ford called up to his office saying, "Commander Straker".  Straker decides to track Fraser down and get the tape back, to avoid any possible security leak (as happened in "Court Martial").  He confronts her in her hotel room, demands the tape back... but then she hits him on the head and runs out.  (OOHHH, she SHOULDN'T have done that!!)  He goes after her in a high-speed car chase, then, instead of handing her over to the police, has a drink with her... then invites her back to his house for dinner!  Watching this right after "Close Up" and "Confetti Check", it's easy to see that focusing too much on his job has been on Straker's mind A LOT.  (Stupidly, while this was made 14th, it was aired 25th.  Connections between episodes got totally destroyed when they did stuff like that.)

However... first, Straker finds out she lied about working for a wire service, she's only a free-lancer trying to make it in the business.  But later, after Miss Ealand has done a voice-security check on her, he learns she has a criminal record a mile long, and he tosses her out-- just as she was planning to go to bed with him.  She actually ADMITS she may have considered setting him up for some kind of blackmail scam-- "at first".  OHHH... It makes you wonder, when she left her bag in his office, the way it was shot, it made it look like she did it deliberately.  But what could she have hoped to record, if she had NO clue beforehand that he was involved with the military?

MEANWHILE... 3 UFOs approach (the first time since "Exposed"), 2 are blown up by the Interceptors, the 3rd gets away.  Something pops up on radar, so Alec Freeman orders SkyDiver to check it out, and it's only a weather balloon.  But something else is going on, on the moon.  A mining truck is heading straight for Moonbase.  Turns out it's Russian, Foster talks with their boss, and he can't contact the men onboard.  Foster is sent out in a Moonmobile, fires 2 "warning shots" and gets no reaction.  Straker orders him to destroy the vehicle, but he replies, "Give me a couple minutes to try something."  And he doesn't say what, until his co-pilot tells Straker that Foster is going to try to get onboard the vehicle.  He does-- find 2 Russians suffering from an air leak-- and following their boss's instructions, he shuts down the power, avoiding a collission by the smallest distance (but only after getting into a fist-fight with the 2 Russian pilots, who don't realize what's going on).  After, the Russian boss says, "Thank you for your cooperation."  HAH!

As usual, Foster likes to play things his own way, in defiance of his superior (shades of James Bond & M).  The final scene between Straker & Freeman, each man is giving the other more benefit of the doubt that the situation warranted, and you can see just what good friends these guys really are.

As with "A Question Of Priorities", this episode had 2 parallel plotlines going on-- one personal, the other, SHADO related.  Unlike that one, here, ONE of the 2 plotlines had a happy ending.  REAL PROGRESS, I'd say.

I like to think about how this show might have gone, had they aired the first 13 episodes as a "1st season".  Had they done that, this episode would have been the 2nd season opener.

After this, the rest of the series KICKS into HIGH GEAR and never lets up!

[paw broon]

Oh dear, prof, and there's me thinking we were getting along so well. 
It's not only my opinion that Space 1999 knocks spots off UFO.  The new blu ray box set makes for exciting. thrilling viewing, and the quality of the restorations is excellent. (these are the films made from episodes - much tighter)
While I sort of enjoy some episodes of UFO, it often seems more like a soap opera with the odd alien thrown in.  And the George Sewell character's behaviour, at times, just isn't acceptable nowadays imo.
As for the interceptors, they always remind me of a flying ice lolly.
But there are some good points, although, in the end, it's unsatisfactory.
I've read quite a bit about the demise of UFO and on balance, I think the powers that were at the time did the right thing.
As the Italian tv film is new to me, I didn't know that Patrick Allen was in it, and I've recently invested in new blu ray releases of Night of The Big Heat and The Body Stealers.
So with that in mind, I hope I haven't ruined a beautiful friendship
I'm sure you'll come back with a suitable riposte.

[profh0011]

"E.S.P." -- A man who has an extraordinarily-powerful E.S.P. ability loses his wife when a UFO deliberately crashes into his house and kills her.  Soon after, Straker receives a package in the mail he thinks is a film script, but instead, it's a extremely-detailed dossier on the entire SHADO organization and all its members.  Straker investigates the man thru his psychiatrist, who tells him the man called him earlier that day with a message telling Straker & Freeman to meet him at the ruin of his house.  There, he confronts them with a gun, blames Straker for the death of his wife, and says he's going to kill both of them at midnight.  It gets really spooky when he apparently begins speaking in the words of one of the ALIENS. "Why are you attacking us? We mean you no harm. Our planet is dying. Resources are gone. We must come to Earth to survive!"

Foster, who was nearly killed when the UFO exploded near his Mobile, gets advice from his doctor to re-visit the house where it happened.  When he does, he comes upon the scene above, and shoots the man dead. Straker notes that Freeman, on seeing Foster arrive, must have been thinking, "SHOOT him!", and at the last minute, the man (whose power was apparently greatly increased by the aliens a year earlier) regained control of himself just in time to allow Foster to put him out of his misery.

This is a REAL tragedy, but unlike, say, "Flight Path", I found the writing to be EXCELLENT from start to finish.

John Stratton (who I've seen in both DOCTOR WHO: The Two Doctors and SHERLOCK HOLMES: The Sign Of Four, the latter with Peter Cushing) is "John Croxley", who's suffered from having E.S.P. his entire life, but in the last year it's gotten completely out of control.  It's clear the aliens somehow were able to increase his power while also slowly begin to take over his mind.  We've seen them do that with technology in "Flight Path", but this is something different and much scarier.

Douglas Wilmer (one of my top favorite SHERLOCK HOLMES actors) is "Dr. Brünner", a very sympathetic man who wants to help, bu ti s brushed off by his patient.

Crazy enough... the finale, where Straker & Freeman go to the wrecked house at night to confront Croxley... reminds me of a visually-similar climax in the 5th-season GET SMART episode, "The Mess Of Adrian Listenger", which had low-key comedian Pat Paulsen as the story's villain.  Weird connection, but, there it is.

In the wake of the alien who tried to meet with SHADO in "Priorities", this episode gives us the very first words ever heard coming from the aliens.  But what exactly was going on here?  We CAN'T take the aliens' words verbatim, as they've been attacking Earth, murdering and destroying, for as many as twenty years by this point. There's so much being suggested or hinted at here, that it makes it so much of a shame that the show never got a 2nd season to explore the big story more.

INSANELY, while this is the 15th episode-- but was broadcast 6th.  Obviously, I'm not the only one who thought this was a really good one-- but that's NO EXCUSE for screwing with the running order the way they did.

[profh0011]

"Kill Straker!" -- While Foster & Craig heading for Earth, an approaching UFO forces them to increase their descent angle, but as they're doing so, some kind of energy beam hits their craft, and affects their minds.  It turns out Foster wound up pulling up and skimming off the Earth's atmosphere into space, and made it back to the Moon after 15 hours out of touch due to his communications antenna benig damaged.  But when Straker wants to hear what happened in his own words, Foster gets very hostile, and accuses him of putting him at risk with his decisions, and "empire building" with his desire to build 4 more Moonbases.  Craig tries to kill Straker while he's sleeping, then attempts to blow up the Moonbase. 

Following this, Foster privately contacts General Henderson, telling him about Straker's plans for more Moonbases, and Henderson insists on confronting Alec Freeman about it.  Henderson points out that Foster has always been Straker's #1 supporter in everything, so when Foster suddenly says Straker is becoming unhinged, he has to take notice.  Freeman insists there's "nothing" to it.

And then Foster tries to KILL Straker and make it look like self-defense.

After both of them are nearly killed via an air leak, Jackson diagnoses Foster, and finds the aliens implanted a single thought deep in his brain, which is to KILL STRAKER.  And while he seems fine now, Jackson worries that there's no way to know if or when it might ever come back to the surface again.  Freeman says, "Then he's FINISHED!"  The implication is, Foster will have to be KILLED, for "security".  But Straker confronts Foster in a locked weapons stories & target room, and by the end, Foster has gotten his hands on a rifle, and Straker is yelling "KILL me!  KILL me!"  When he doesn't... Foster is in tears, and Staker apologizes.  "I had to be sure.  If you were ever going to kill me, it would have been then."  The story ends with Straker, Freeman & Foster heading to see Henderson, to ask for increased funding.

Poor Foster has gone through such hell since his plane went down back in "Exposed".  He almost died on the Moon in "Survival" (which was actually filmed earlier, but, never mind), he had a dream about being kidnapped by aliens in "Ordeal", he was falsely accused of espionage in "Court Martial", and now THIS.

General Henderson, meanwhile, has gone from totally-irrational in "Conflict" to merely bull-headed in "Court Martial" to somewhat more sensible here.

What's really INSANE is that this episode, the 16th, was broadcast 7th, while "Court Martial", the 11th, was broadcast 20th!  So "Kill Straker" was broadcast BEFORE "Court Martial", even though after what Foster went through here, it would make ZERO sense for what happened in "Court Martial" to happen AFTER it.  (Then again, on STAR TREK, "Court Martial" was broadcast about a month after "The Menagerie", even though the opening scene in "The Menagerie" makes it a DIRECT SEQUEL to "Court Martial", which hadn't been aired yet.)  I just wanna go back in time and THROTTLE the idiots responsible for that.

"Kill Straker" is clearly a DIRECT follow-up up to "E.S.P.", as both involve aliens exerting mental control over human beings.  Funny enough, they were actually broadcast back-to-back that way, but far too early in the run.

Just about every character in this (except maybe Craig) seems more human than in earlier episodes.  Gay Ellis actually smiles a bit, Mark Bradley gets a few lines of dialogue, Doug Jackson seems sympathetic (even though he's relaying a terrible diagnosis to Straker).  Even Henderson's Australian accent sneaks out a bit!

To me, the big difference isn't between the 2 different studios the episodes were filmed at (and the changes in cast that happened as a result of that), so much as between the first 10-- and the following 16 episodes.  Had this been run in (mostly) production order, and stretched out over 2 seasons of 13 episodes apiece, I wonder if it would ever have made it to the 2nd season-- but if it had-- the 2nd season would unquestionably be considered a HUGE IMPROVEMENT over the 1st on every possible level.

[profh0011]

"Sub-Smash" -- An underwater alien device is blowing up ships at sea.  Straker assembles a special crew aboard SkyDiver to seek it out. The sub is SERIOUSLY damaged in an attack, but Waterman in Sky One manages to blow the alien device to atoms once it tries to fly away.  However, only one airlock is working, it takes 45 minutes to empty, and an alternate escape tube turns out to be jammed.  Although Lt. Jim Lewis & Col. Paul Foster manage to get out, Lt. Tony Chin dies of injuries, while both Straker & Lt. Nina Barry are trapped when the power gives out and the airlock no longer functions at all.  Alec Freeman manages to set off an explosive charge under the sub, knocking it free of the bottom, allowing divers access thru the torpedo tubes.  Right after a nurse in the SHADO medical wing tells Straker smoking os off-limits, he thanks Freeman for a box of cigars.

If ever an episode of UFO reminded me of an episode of Irwin Allen's VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, this was it.  I've lost count of how many episodes of VOYAGE were just endless, high-tension nightmare roller-coaster rides that left you exhausted by the time they were over, as the crew desperately try to just survive until the end of the stories.  And although it sometimes seems like SkyDiver is a cool combination of Stingray (the submarine) and Fireball XL5 (a spaceship where the "command module" separates and flies off on its own), the interior of SkyDiver has ALWAYS struck me as way too small for its purposes, and, as seen in this episode, BADLY-designed on just about every possible level.  I mean, for God's sake, WHO in the HELL came up with that long, skinny "escape tube" that Nina has to CRAWL thru-- only to have to then crawl all the way back once she finds out it's malfunctioned and WON'T open?  On the up side, before the alien attack, this episode probably has the MOST-impressive exterior shots of SkyDiver ever seen on the show.  It somehow LOOKS much bigger than it has before.

Anythony Chinn makes his 2nd appearance on the show, this time as the ill-fated "Tony Chin" (not much thought into that character name).  A pleasant surprise I was unaware of for decades was Paul Maxwell's appearance as Jim Lewis, who tells Nina of the time he and a crew of 60 were trapped in a submarine, but all of them got out alive.  Maxwell, of course, was the VOICE of STEVE ZODIAC on FIREBALL XL5!  Having Nina temporarily transferred from Moonbase seems a follow-up to her having been recruited to SHADO by Straker in "Confetti-Check".  Although there was never any personal relationship between them, it was her interactions with Straker in that episode that gave the Private Eye his mother-in-law hired fodder to suspect marital infidelity.  (I'm still surprised that P.I. wasn't arrested on espionage charges, or at least, warned off because of military security.)

Apart from the technical design problems, this is a very good episode-- it's just NOT one of my favorites.  Also, it's a DAMNED SHAME that the studio they were filming at was permanently closed down right after this, resulting in a 6-month delay before production picked up again.  As a result, George Sewell, Gabrielle Drake and several other supporting actors vanished from the show without any in-story explanation, and we never got to see Alec Freeman, Gay Ellis or the others after this. Efforts by network programmers or fans to try to make sense of this by re-arranging the broadcast schedule, to me, JUST DON'T WORK, as doing so completely destroys the character development and continuity that is SO OBVIOUS, if you watch them in production order.  I prefer to just think they were tranferred around to different departments as a better explanation for why we never saw them again... and, had the show returned for an actual 2nd season, they could always have popped up again, if the actors became available later.

Perhaps the biggest absurdity of that scrambling of the schedule is that this episode contains flashback to both "Priorities" (ep.8 ) and "Confetti-Check" (ep.13).  As broadcast, "Sub-Smash" was 8th, "Priorities" was 5th, but "Confetti-Check" was 22nd!  So both the flashback about John being born and the character bit about Nina would have been meaningless if this was seen beforehand rather than after.

[profh0011]

"The Sound Of Silence" -- A UFO follows a returning space probe so closely Straker has to let it through.  But both SkyOne and the Mobiles are having a hard time finding it in a remote area.  Meanwhile, a famous show-jumping horse rider is having trouble on his estate with a trespassing hippie and his dog, and late at night, the trespasser is apparently murdered by an alien.  The next day, the horse returns without its rider, and as it was less than 3 miles from the UFO siting, Foster's sent to investigate.  Both the hippy and his dog are found dead and mutilated, and Foster concluded by the total lack of noise in the area of a small lake, that the UFO is hiding underwater. Depth-charges bring it to the surface, and in a fierce battle (perhaps the best seen yet on this show), one of the Mobiles is destroyed but so is the UFO.  After, a small capsule floats to the surface.  Taken to SHADO HQ, at first suspected of being an explosive device, it's finally discovered that the missing horseman is inside it.  His sister is brought in to help him recover, and both are given the amnesia drug to forget, and soon, Foster shows up at their ranch to get "riding lessons".

This is not a bad story, but, it's a VERY SLOW episode, which feels like a half-hour story painfully padded to an hour.

Michael Jayston (DOCTOR WHO: The Trial of a Time Lord) is "Russell Sloan", the show-jumper who's probably too arrogant to be likable.  Susan Jameson (61 episodes of CORONATION STREET) is "Anne Sloan", his sister, who Freeman takes a liking to by the end.  Richard Vernon (THE TOMB OF LIGEIA) is "Pa Stone".  Andrea Allan (CARRY ON COWBOY), who played a nurse in "Priorities", appears in his first of 4 episodes as Moonbase Operative "Carol Miller".  I suspect she was cast to replace Gabrielle Drake, as she's the prettiest one up there now.

This is the 2nd episode IN A ROW where a UFO has hidden itself underwater, in order to prevent disintegration in Earth's atmosphere.  However, as broadcast, "Sub-Smash" was 8th, while "Silence" was 23rd.  OY!!!

At the end, I have to assume that all 3 members of the Stone family were given the amnesia drug, since if it was only Russell & Anne, their father would wonder why HE remembers Foster but the others don't.

[profh0011]

"The Cat with Ten Lives" -- 3 UFOs approach Moonbase but veer off, as a diversion for another 3 UFOs, which get into a battle with Moonbase's new ground defense tanks.  (I suspect these are remote-control, as there's no evidence they're actually manned.)  Interceptor pilot Jim Reagan, on leave, takes part with his wife in a friendly seance during which he goes into a trance.  On the way home, they stop to pick up a stray cat-- but are then kidnapped by a pair of aliens.  When he wakes up, the cat is there, but his wife is missing.  Straker cold-bloodedly puts him back on active duty immediately, which shocks Col. Virginia Lake. When a UFO that got thru their defenses and disappeared rises from a lake and heads into space, Reagan again goes into a trance and fails to take it out. Straker admits he made a mistake and orders Reagan to have a 2-week furlough, and orders Dr. Jackson to do a full exam of him.  Following an exam of an alien found on the wreckage of the Moon, Jackson proposes all they thought about the aliens previously may be wrong.  The alien is completely human, and Jackson theorises the possibility that the aliens may not actually have physical bodies at all, and all the organ-snatching may be to keep their human "bodies" going as a way to give them "vehicles" to operate in space.  Reagan clobbers Foster and takes his place on a mission to escort a returning Venus probe, but when he breaks formation and switches off his radio, Straker suspects he's being controlled by the aliens-- via the cat-- and from the film studio, borrows a pack of dogs to track the cat down.  Presumably they catch and kill the cat, and Reagan awakens just in time to veer off from Moonbase, crashing and destroying only his interceptor, and himself.

This is a really downbeat episode, but unlike several of the earlier one, extremely complex and well-written.  David Tomblin, who contributed so much to THE PRISONER, was both writer and director here, and I have no doubt he's responsible for the casting of Alexis Kanner, who played such an utterly bizarre character as he did in 2 episodes of that show.

The other new Interceptor pilots are Al Mancini (KELLY'S HEROES) and Steven Berkoff (who would later play a major Bond villain in OCTOPUSSY, and another villain much later on SPACE PRECINCT).

After the previous episode was so low-key, things kick into high gear and get REALLY complex here, with a dense story and extremely-intricate editing, at times nearly bringing the pacing up to the high-speed opening theme montage.  Lois Maxwell (most famous as "Miss Moneypenny" in the Bond films) fills in for Miss Ealand. I can tell what a good actress she is, as in one scene, she exhibits more personality and warmth than Miss Ealand did in all her scenes up to this point!  The fact that Miss Ealand is mentioned suggests that while the actress was unavailable right here, they must have know that she was coming back soon.  "Miss Holland" is apparently on loan from "Section 9" and usually works for someone named "Blake"-- who we never learn any more about.  It's just one more detail and example of subtle "world-building", which I imagine might have been followed up on, had the show managed to get a 2nd season.  Wanda Ventham's "Virginia Lake", not seen since the pilot, returns as a regular, replacing George Sewell's "Alec Freeman".  She somehow almost matches Ed Straker's unemotional intenseness here, but as the show continues, she slowly gets more and more to do.

Vladek Sheybal, in his own usual weird way, manages to show more personality than usual, and Ayshea Brough gets more to do than ever before, considering she's been in pretty much every episode up to this point.  (Apparently, she's gotten a promotion since "Keith Ford" disappeared off the show.)  Also in the cast are Colin Gordon (THE PINK PANTHER) and Windsor Davies (who later voiced my FAVORITE character on Anderson's TERRAHAWKS!).

Someone at the IMDB said this episode was "silly", but to me, the big problem was, as usual, having the episode order scrambled for broadcast.  Here we have one of the later episodes, which clearly shows the series was getting more and more complex and intense.  It's episode 19-- yet insanely, it was broadcast 3rd!  That just COMPLETELY screwed over any sense of character development or continuity!

This was the 3rd episode in a row with a UFO hiding underwater. It was also developing the idea of humans under mind-control of the aliens, as seen earlier in "E.S.P."

[profh0011]

"Destruction" -- A navy ship on a scouting mission sites a UFO and blows it out of the sky. When the event hits the news, and Henderson says it will be officially denied the next day, Straker wants to know what the ship was doing in that area, and so assigns Virginia Lake to SkyDiver. In the tradition of Irwin Allen's VOYAGE, she insists on taking the sub down far below its safety limits, until it's obvious they just can go any further. Henderson & Straker visit Adm. Sheringham about the incident, but he gets very nervous and ushers them out quickly.  Then Straker has Paul Foster "investigate" the Admiral's secretary, Sarah Bosenquet, who has a professional-looking telescope set up in her flat.  Col. Lake begins spying on that, and it soon becomes obvious the girl is using the telescope to send a high-frequency message into space-- especially when Interceptor pilot Steve Minto is knocked unconscious while parked in its path. It seems Sarah's father was one of the men in charge of building Moonbase, but disappeared 5 years earlier on the Moon, and Straker believes Sarah is either being forced-- or controlled-- by the aliens.  Henderson then brings Adm. Sheringham right into SHADO HQ, revealing everything about the UFO threat, to get him to tell what's going on with his ship that required so much security that even SHADO couldn't find out about it! It seems the ship is being used to dump a dangerously-toxic nerve gas into a deep trench, where its casings will last long enough for the gas to eventually become non-lethal.  But as Straker suspects (and then confirms) the UFOs have found a way past Moonbase radar, he fears they may attack the ship-- which could cause the death of ALL life on Earth!  Sure enough, a pair of UFOs approach, and can only be detected by SIGHT.  Minto takes out one, but the other gets through.  The Navy ship's missile system is disabled, and it stays out of gunner range.  But then SkyOne blasts out of the water, and TAKES OUT the UFO.  After, a far-more-reasonable than usual Henderson talks with Straker, who wonders HOW many others like Sarah are out there being used by the aliens.

Building on the previous episode, this was the most intense and COMPLEX episode yet! (It was also the 4th in a row having a UFO hide underwater.)  Once again, the broadcast schedule ruined any sense of building moment, as this 20th episode was aired 9th.  They were getting better guest-casts by this time.  Philip Madoc (INVASION EARTH 2150 A.D.) was the Ship's Captain. David Warbeck (TWINS OF EVIL) was the SkyDiver Captain. Edwin Richfield was Adm. Sharingham (2 years before he played virtually the same part in the DOCTOR WHO story The Sea Devils).  Stephanie Beachum was Sarah Bosenquet (2 years before she played Jessica Van Helsing in DRACULA A.D. 1972).

Straker mentions that Adr. Sharingham will have to be given the amnesia drug when he leaves SHADO HQ, but nobody mentions doing the same with the entire crew of the Navy destroyer who not only saw 2 different UFOs but also SkyOne take out the 2nd UFO! Considering all the damage done to the ship during that incident, how would using the drug "explain" away things?  I think it reaches a point where all this excessive "security" about SHADO and the UFOs just becomes absurd, and invoking "The Official Secrets Act" might be a more sensible way to go.

I have to rank this as one of Dennis Spooner's best writing efforts I've seen on any show he ever worked on.

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"The Man Who Came Back" -- Another TRIO of UFOs are approaching, and one veers off to intercept a deep-space capsule piloted by Craig Collins.  We don't see what happened, but soon after he's declared dead, and Straker is annoyed that Miss Holland has neglected to move his file to the deceased list.  But Collins turns up alive on a remote island, and brags that their "survival training course" really works.  During the attack, SID was damaged, and Collins, as one of the men who helped put the satellite into orbit, is the obvious man to do a spacewalk to repair it.  Virginia Lake is temporarily assigned to Moonbase, where Collins seems annoyed that Paul Foster has moved in on "his" girl.  She says she grieved for awhile, but then stopped grieving. She also takes offense to his acting as if she's his "property". Col. John Grey, who's acting as Straker's right-hand man while Lake is on the Moon, has had personal problems with Craig, and Straker advises him to put those aside.  But while on the Moon, Craig tries to kill Grey while he's asleep.  Later, while working out, he causes Foster to suffer broken bones! The only obvious man left now to join him reparing SID is Straker-- who considers Craig one of his best and oldest friends, as they both went thru astronaut training together and originally put SID in orbit.  Dr. Jackson has been experimenting with an isolation chamber, and has made a strange discovery.  While in the chamber, Craig's mind becomes a total blank. Grey confronts Craig with this, accusing him of being under control of the aliens-- and Craig beats him into a near-coma.  Straker & Craig go into orbit, and Grey recovers just in time to contact Straker and warn him, just at the moment that Craig tries to kill Straker.

Here we have ANOTHER episode where the aliens are using mind-control over humans, following "Flight Path", "E.S.P.", "Kill Straker" and "The Cat With Ten Lives". Most of these have been in the 2nd half of the run, and there's a growing sense of paranoia and uncertainty if you watch these in the right order.

SHADO continues to move their personnel around, obviously so people get more well-rounded experience, and also not get bored just staying in one job.  It's interesting to speculate on how this episode might have gone if the cast hadn't had such a large turn-around in the later episodes.  For example, John Grey (Gary Raymond), who we never saw in any other story, seems slotted in instead of Alec Freeman (George Sewell), even though by this point, that role was already being filled by Virginia Lake (Wanda Ventham).  Lake in this story is on Moonbase, filling the slot left by Gay Ellis (Gabrielle Drake), in a much-larger role than Ellis ever got in earlier stories. Foster spends most of his time at Moonbase in this one, but I can't be sure who's supposed to be in charge of Moonbase here, Lake or Foster. (Though, it seems Lake has the seniority.)  Collins having been romantically involved with Lake suggests that Craig is filling the slot of the departed Mark Bradley (Harry Baird), although, there was never any indication that Straker & Bradley were actually friends.

I like how Doug Jackson (the always-creepy Vladek Sheybal) is experimenting on his own. The aliens are upping their game, and they need someone in SHADO to do the same.  This is at least the 2nd time he's admitted to Straker that he "could be wrong", but we can tell, HE ISN'T.  He acted like such a total JERK in "Court Martial", it's way better to have that episode in the past by here, while it hadn't turned up yet when broadcast!

I do find it bizarre that SHADO had to use a NASA rocket launch in order to get into orbit to repair SID, when it seems to me, they should very well have been able to use their own Moon Shuttle!  It strikes me as nothing but an EXCUSE to re-use footage from the film JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN, which was technically-efficient but horribly-written.

For someone Staker considered a good friend, Craig consistently comes across and smug, arrogant and annoying as hell throughout this entire episode, and I have to wonder how much or little of that was due to alien control.  He keeps calling Grey "Master", he gets possessive and rough with Lake, and during workout / briefings, he's so excessively physical with Foster he acts as if HE's Foster's boss, not the other way around.  Sad to say, I didn't feel that sorry when he wound up killed at the end.  I've also seen actor Derren Nesbitt on THE PRISONER, RETURN OF THE SAINT, and WHERE EAGLES DARE.

This was written by Terence Feely, one of the most consistenly-good writers I've ever seen from England.  He's also done episodes of THE PRISONER and THE NEW AVENGERS, and his work stands out wherever it shows up.

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"The Psychobombs" -- SHADO has successfully taken out at least 5 more UFOs, but 1 has gotten thru, and Straker wants it found!  3 innocent people are mesmerized by the aliens, and 1, a woman, while being needlessly harrassed by a policeman, winds up KILLING the cop, then goes to work the next day completely unaware of it.  Straker picks up a hitch-hiker who, while being dropped off, knocks Straker for a loop. When he wakes up, he finds a type-written ultimatum to SHADO to "surrender" and shut down all their operations, or their bases, their submarines, and their HQ, along with Straker, will be destroyed.  One of the victims, in a trance, walks into a SHADO radar station. He's carefully searched and screened not to have any weapons of any kind on him, but also professes total ignorance of how he got there.  But while being escorted to a security cell, he grabs a pair of heavy electrical cables, and, inexplicably, the ENTIRE BASE is destroyed in a COLOSSAL explosion! SkyDiver 3 is the next target, when their new Captain is murdered and impersonated by the 2nd man, who's somhow burned the real Captain's fingerprints onto his own. Straker orders the sub to crash dive while the man is on the conning tower, but, too late! Jackson tells Straker of a theory he has involving the human nervous system, which, if pushed far enough out of balance, could somehow connect with all the forces of the entire universe.  Foster & Lake use the computer, and find a report about the murdered cop in the same area as the radar base, and track down the woman to her apartment building, then her work office, where they find her boss murdered.  Foster meets the woman, and very pleasantly, takes her out for lunch. Hours later, she feels like she's known him for ages.  Lake is shocked when she hears Foster is bringing the woman into SHADO HQ, even if it is on Straker's orders.  While she's being interrogated, Straker orders SkyOne to find the still-missing UFO, which has been in Earth's atmosphere almost 2 days.  Luckily, it takes off and is spotted.  The woman breaks free, walks into the control room and grabs a pair of electrical cables, when Straker distracts her about the "ultimatum".  She demands total surrender, but he says, "I can't do that."  He then announces the UFO has been destroyed.  She grabs the cables, and is nearly electrocuted.  Col. Lake gets a report that the UFO has been destroyed.  "How did you know?"  "I didn't."  HOLY S***!!

After 3 fabulous scripts in a row by guest writers, regular writer Tony Barwick returns with what has to be his best work on the series to date!

Another terrifying "alien mind control" story, which has been an ongoing theme ever since "E.S.P.". Among the guest cast are David Collings (DOCTOR WHO: The Robots Of Death), Mike Pratt (RANDALL & HOPKIRK DECEASED), and Tom Adams (THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD), the latter as the ill-fated Skydiver Captain.  Deborah Grant, who plays "Linda Simmonds", was in 31 episodes of BERGERAC-- but, I've never seen that show! 

Although a "fleet of submarines" had been mentioned very early in the series, this is actually the first time since then that they've made a point of mentioning that they do, in fact, have several SkyDivers, and this is the only appearance of both SkyDiver 3 and the massive cavern that serves as its base (sort of a cross between the launch bay in STINGRAY and the cave seen in the 1961 film THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND). Colonels Foster & Lake are seen working together here, but there's no indication of any romance going on, which confirms there wasn't anything serious going on in the previous episode "The Man Who Came Back".  But Foster's way with ladies continues unabated, and his behavior with the woman who at times is under the aliens' control is almost shocking.  One might almost hope she recovered after the end of the story, but given SHADO's almost-insane obsession with security, she probably won't remember them or Foster after this.

The number of UFOs being sent against Earth, the increased destructive capability the aliens are unleashing, and their blatent "ultimatum" to Straker just shows how much they're continuing to up their game.  Which makes it all the more absurd that this 22nd episode was originally broadcast 12th.  More and more, I'd like to get my hands around the throat of whichever ITC exec in New York was responsible for SCREWING this show over so completely, then, making sure that a 2nd season could NEVER be produced!

Barry Gray's music is more ominous than ever in this episode.  There's a recurring theme he uses involving the growing menace which I have the strong feeling was also used somewhere else, but for the life of me, I can't remember where it might have been.

Jackson's line when he says to Straker, "I have a theory..." became the running catch-phrase of "Dr. Tiger Ninestein" more than a decade later on TERRAHAWKS.  That show paid tribute to virtually every previous Gerry Anderson series, but I'd forgotten that line came from this episode.

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"Reflections In The Water" -- As SID reports an entire fleet of UFOs gathering 4 hours away, a manned deep-space probe is destroyed.  A ship in the mid-Atlantic is destroyed by something they report looks like a "metal flying fish".  A diver is murdered off the coast of Cornwall, and rising water temperatures are reported, just as SkyDiver found them in the mid-Atlantic.  Straker & Foster join SkyDiver to search the area of the destroyed ship, find an underwater dome, and inside, spot a SHADO agent, "Anderson". Suspecting he's turned traitor, they heavily interrogate him, including using what Dr. Jackson says is an "infallable" drug.  Straker & Foster return to the dome and break in, and find not only a duplicate of Anderson, but of Foster, Straker, and the entire staff of SHADO HQ, manning a duplicate of their HQ.  The aliens plan to use this to order Moonbase to NOT attack the UFO squad when they attack.  Straker just barely gets out of the dome before it's obliterated by SkyDiver.  The explosions also set off a cable connected to a nearby volcano, which had been used as a "back door" for UFOs, destroying that as well.  When the mass UFO attack comes, they're all destroyed by a combination of the Interceptors, Moonbase ground defenses (some of which are destroyed as well) and SkyDiver.  Foster says, "They won't try that again.", to which Straker replies, "Don't count on it."

This is another teleplay by David Tomblin, and again, has a very odd feel to it.

At one point Straker seems bored watching the rushes of a film about deep-sea fishing, but the film winds up giving him a clue as to what's going on.  The projection room reappeared in the very next episode, "Mindbender" (which stupidly had been broadcast 6 months before this).  I believe this episode suggests that every UFO that got through and disappeared was hiding underwater and building that base dome.  While they were puzzled how the aliens found out what SHADO HQ and its staff looked and sounded like, I had earlier suspected it was THE CAT that was spying on them, in "The Cat With Ten Lives", as it was wandering all around SHADO HQ for some time.

Knowing how the broadcast order kept screwing with continuity, I wondered if the scene with Anderson being so roughly interrogated & accused of being a traitor might have been run before "Court Martial", but it turns out for once these 2 related scenes were run in the right order, although, MUCH closer to each other than they should have been, as "Court Martial" was 11th but run 20th, while "Reflections" was 23rd but run 24th.  As a result, this was the last really "big" confrontation between SHADO and the aliens, even though the real "climax" was supposed to be 2 episodes later.

When Straker apologizes to Virginia Lake, it's the first time we see in her expression that she's beginning to like him more.  Of course, as broadcast, the episode where they worked very close together had already been broadcast 5 months earlier.

Straker & Foster are seen both using a SkyDiver "escape" airlock together, which suggests they've been modified and expanded since the events in "Sub-Smash", where ONLY ONE person could use the airlock at a time!  I'm just surprised that after "The Psychobombs", they talk as if there's only one SkyDiver, instead of a fleet of them.