UFO episodes ranked by The Anorak Zone

[michaellevenson]

UFO episodes ranked by The Anorak Zone who ranked them 5 years previously hence the places up or down signs. Lots of interesting behind the scenes info here too.
I don't agree with a lot of these placings, but the top episodes I do concur. I agree Close Up , Ordeal and Dalotek Affair are poor, but I would put Confetti Check A-O.K down there too. ESP I quite like, I'd place it maybe just outside top 10. Top 4 I agree with, but I'd certainly put Psychobombs and Kill Straker higher, in top 10.

26 The Dalotek Affair
↑ Down 5 Places



Perhaps the only genuinely below-par episode of UFO, The Dalotek Affair is the series at its most tacky and inane. The idea of a private company setting up on the Moon and inadvertently threatening the security of Moonbase is a decent one, but it's clouded with slapdash production and too many childish innuendos. The cast are at their least charming here, and Straker's involvement doesn't really change a single thing, though it's telling he's able to piece together all the clues and make sense of the plot when he watches back a video clip and hears the word "balls".
      The entire story is told in excruciating flashback, as Paul Foster relates the tale of a top secret security breach to Alec Freeman... in the middle of a crowded restaurant. Instead of giving every diner the "amnesia drug" he gave to the residents of the private company, he instead uses it as a kind of reverse rohypnol, using his knowledge of the company's scientists to chat up their female operative when he sees her in a restaurant some months later. It's an inexplicably amoral piece of characterisation, yet the viewers are supposed to be charmed instead of repulsed.
      In an earlier review this story was five places higher, and praised as "supremely watchable garbage". It's damning the episode with faint praise, but on repeat viewings even that begrudging compliment doesn't stand up to close scrutiny.

25 Ordeal
↓ Up 1 Place



Ordeal perhaps isn't so bad if you're really in the mood for a lighter, jokier take on the show, and is more just inessential than anything else. UFO does, like many series with a 26 episode quota, struggle to make them all essential viewing. In fact, if you were being really unkind, you could suggest that half the episodes could be skipped without missing anything vital to the series.
      This article will try to avoid discussing plot resolutions too much to avoid revealing any surprises, but Ordeal does - spoiler - end with a "it was all a dream" climax, meaning 27 minutes of the episode was all in one character's mind. As a result it is, by definition, a time filler, and no more. Well, unless you're a viewer who likes seeing the handsome Colonel Paul Foster (Michael Billington) with his shirt off for most of the episode, then it's a higher priority in your viewing habits.
      Nineteen of the series' episodes were directed by personnel who had previously worked on Gerry Anderson's puppet-based productions, including this one. In an interview with Starlog magazine (Issue 71, 1983) Billington described the role as "moderately enjoyable", but that the directors were largely inexperienced with working with actors. "It wasn't that they were bad, it was just hard for them to contend with directing real people."

 

[michaellevenson]

24 E.S.P.
↑ Down 13 Places



The one intriguing thing about UFO is the question of what the aliens actually want. Their motivations appear to change in some episodes, and it's hard to draw any real conclusions when they can't communicate. It's one thing that makes the series so alluring, particularly that eerie, doom-laden reveal of the alien planet on the end titles. Having alien invaders who can express their intentions is one thing, but aliens landing and you don't quite know why... it's even more chilling.
      E.S.P. offers some answers, with John Croxley, a man cursed by ESP who channels the aliens. Claiming they're from a dying planet and only want to survive, he also tries to shoot Straker and Freeman while under their influence, so it's questionable how much of it is truthful. Experienced actor John Stratton portrays Croxley, and, while fine, it's very much an "acting" performance, a throwback to the day when men would call each other things like "fools" and "old boy", and away from the concept of method. Although "of its time", this slightly non-naturalistic tone of acting might be regarded as hammy today, given that the concept of theatrical acting has disappeared from television in the main.
      While UFO is generally a pretty well-made show, a certain suspension of disbelief has to be applied, as it operates with many different materials, ranging from Gerry Anderson models to habitual blue screen for car journeys. Anyone watching has to overlook the fact that you'll never see someone exit one of the SHADO mobile trucks, or that a UFO will never be in the same shot as a member of the cast. All of these elements detract in this instalment, particularly with an unintentionally amusing scene where sped-up footage of a cat meets a shot of a toy saucer crashing into a "house" while guest star John Stratton reacts with everything he's got. It's arguably the cheapest-looking episode of UFO, and does strain credulity. Writer Alan Fennell had also only written for Gerry Anderson's puppet shows before this, and with some corny expositionary dialogue in the final few minutes, it does show.
      One thought about the series is how difficult it would be to operate undercover in today's world. Although the UFOs only ever seem to land in deserted country areas, with the age of camera phones and worldwide social media, it would be harder to keep things under wraps. If nothing else, the presence of the word "SHADO" on the side of all the trucks would surely give the game away.
      George Sewell recorded a commentary track for the episode in June 2004, moderated by Jaz Wiseman. Rather than focusing specifically on the episode itself, George discusses the series as a whole, including how he was never a smoker, and tried to learn for the series so it would look realistic on screen. Sewell is light-hearted, positive and enthusiastic, but the commentary can be a little awkward to listen to as Wiseman unsuccessfully tries to prompt George for specific memories of the series. As George had either forgotten most of it, or simply enjoyed the whole experience no matter what, it doesn't bring a lot to the surface, but Sewell is likeable company. Strangely, the commentary only featured on the Australian DVD release and wasn't reproduced elsewhere.

23 Close Up
↓ Up 2 Places



UFO's most rewarding moments come when the series tries to flesh out the characters, particularly the taciturn lead, Commander Ed Straker. Unfortunately, for every episode where the character is given depths, there's an episode like Close Up where the central figure of the series is made to look like a complete buffoon.
     Close Up contains an oddly spikey relationship between Straker and a Moonbase operative, the beautiful Gay Ellis (played by Gabrielle Drake). An underdeveloped and completely out-of-character subplot features Straker making odd overtures to Gay, including his insistence that "and don't ever forget, you're a very attractive girl." However, Gay is angry with Straker all episode, and it's not clear why - it's like the episode contains an elephant in the room but no one remembered to introduce the elephant. This is all doubly strange when you consider it's written by the same man behind Computer Affair, where Straker learns that Gay is in a relationship with Mark.
     Later, when Straker returns to Earth, an underling spends several moments making his superior officer look a complete cretin by explaining how a new space camera is worthless, and illustrates the point by showing him a shot of Gay's "private area", magnified several thousand times over. Straker, ever stoic, seems oddly unconcerned by two of his underlings getting together to make him look an utter fool, or the fact that Gay's crotch looks like an alien planet when seen close up. It's a thin plot for a 50 minute show, and the basic point is hammered home repeatedly before the final credits roll.
     Incidentally, when this article was first uploaded it got mixed reactions from some UFO fans out there, some of whom regarded it as a bit unkind to the show in spots. I've certainly enjoyed the show a lot more on this rewatch, and toned down some elements, but it must be made clear that even my most disparaging write-ups of UFO are filled with tongue-in-cheek affection for the series, rather than genuine derision. Like any series, UFO could be incredibly variable, but even at its worst, it was never less than watchable...

 

[michaellevenson]

22 The Responsibility Seat
→ No change



It's hard to dislike an episode as idiotic as The Responsibility Seat, a nonsense mess of a story with logic almost as haphazard as its lacklustre editing. Key scene has to be where the usually intuitive and intelligent Ed Straker has to get voice identification to prove that Jane Merrow's journalist is up to no good... despite the fact that she's previously bugged his office, ran from him, and smashed him over the back of the head with an ornament, giving him concussion and nearly killing him.
     Possibly because we get ample shots of Merrow's chest in this, one of the most sexist episodes of them all, Straker is distracted and won't listen to reason until it's confirmed for him by the base computer. Merrow was frequently active in the ITC roster, and, as with her treacherous role in The Prisoner, was known for playing femme planktelles. The BluRay release contains a special feature, "The Women of UFO", wherein Merrow says she had clashes with Sylvia Anderson, who thought she was "withholding her performances" when not acting in close ups. It's a tactful way of addressing it, I guess.
     The secondary story is Colonel Freeman, suffering the pressure of having to give orders in Strakers' absence, despite the fact that Straker must have taken time off before anyway and, as a Colonel, he would be used to giving orders in the first place. (In fact, this does happen, in Survival) Add to this some delirious Soviets with the worst "Russian" accents you've ever heard, and it's a mish-mash of inanity that's somehow easy to love.

21 The Psychobombs
↑ Down 1 Place



The scope of UFO is sufficiently wide to ponder what stories could still have been told. While comic strips and some novelisations were released, the series itself still had potential when it ended. One striking idea would be what would happen if a terrorist threat faced SHADO in the middle of an alien landing? Well, The Psychobombs is that idea, but rendered in pulp terms. At the time the episode was made, IRA activity was ongoing, and a chance for some political commentary via association was there, but sadly dropped in favour of cult favourites Mike Pratt, David Collings and Deborah Grant being bestowed "super powers", including the ability to bend solid steel.
      Of note is that, for quite a sexual series, then Clark (Collings) and his wife are shown in separate beds. Speaking of Collings, then his ability to play characters older than himself is quite insultingly flagged up in this instalment: his character is identified as "44", despite the fact that in real life he'd only just celebrated his 30th birthday when filming began. (Mike Pratt gets a compliment in the other direction, a 39-year-old actor playing 35.) Speaking of trivia, then Straker claims to be from Boston in this episode, though this could be a line he gives to a person he doesn't trust.
      Collings and Grant took part in From Earth to the Moon, a 90 minute documentary about the making of the series that featured on the UK BluRay. Particularly notable is Grant describing the fun that she had in part, though she genuinely fell backwards at the end as she wasn't informed that the "electric cables" were fitted with fireworks. They completed the take, then took her to first aid for burn treatment.

 

[michaellevenson]

20 The Cat With Ten Lives
↑ Down 11 Places



By some way the hardest episode of UFO to rank, The Cat With Ten Lives is objectively better than several entries ranked above it, but also is impossible to regard as part of the same series.
      It guest stars Alexis Kanner, giving a typically mannered performance that has its moments of brilliance but also feels like he's in a different programme to everyone else. The plot is the strangest and most "out there" UFO ever did, which is the main reason why it's difficult to rate: an alien consciousness occupies the body of a cat, which in turn telepathically controls Kanner, causing him to turn against SHADO while hissing and raising his fingers like claws.
      It's all given a quality production (save for the end, with uncustomarily poor model work) but it's hard to slot it in as part of the same series. It's even stranger with the order in which it was broadcast... produced 19th, it features new revelations about the aliens that goes against what is learnt about them in the other episodes. This would be fine if it went out later, as it falls under "newly discovered information"... but broadcast third, in September 1970, it not only alludes to some elements that viewers weren't even aware of at the time, but expressly contradicts them.
      There is a subplot about Kanner's onscreen wife being kidnapped for organ harvesting (rather bluntly stated to Kanner by Colonel Virginia Lake) after we've found out she's pregnant. However, what is a very dark revelation, even for this series, isn't reflected on too closely, pushed down in the narrative in favour of a telepathic cat controlling Kanner even when the cat's left on Earth and Kanner's on Moonbase.
      It's a bizarre, left-field narrative, funny for the wrong reasons, and watchable for same. At this stage it was obvious that any time a guest star appeared in the series they'd be dead before the end titles, which is another problem with that broadcast order... this shock twist technique should have been presented to viewers with better episodes. Instead we get Kanner's death after a group of dogs - who just happened to be around - chase the cat and break the telepathic link.
      Lastly, it can't go unmentioned that two guest stars featured prominently in The Prisoner: Kanner is joined in a scene by Colin Gordon. With two of the regulars (Billington and Ventham) also having had roles in the series, it means that altogether five of the performers in this episode had also appeared in the McGoohan series. Maybe McGoohan was aware of this particular episode as a result, explaining why he once somewhat cruelly described UFO as "junk"?

19 Conflict
↑ Down 1 Place



UFO often has a more adult stance than many other SF series by concerning itself with the minutiae of bureaucracy. Episodes like Close Up and Destruction are more focused on legislation and boardroom meetings than the actual aliens themselves. While commendable, it can make these episodes a little slower if you're not in the mood, and the biggest problem surrounding Conflict is that someone chose to call a more talky episode "Conflict", giving a false expectation of the contents.
      Things do, however, get tense in the final moments as Straker takes a massive risk with everyone's safety just to prove a point. What begins as an effort to cut through red tape over funding ends with the possible destruction of the entire Earth SHADO HQ, all based on a hunch. That said hunch turns out to be correct is fairly standard stuff, though no less engaging because of it. On a purely objective level, then Conflict is better than many of the episodes ranked above it, but simply isn't as much fun.

 

[michaellevenson]

18 Computer Affair
↓ Up 6 Places



Computer Affair is one of a couple of UFO episodes that touches on racial tolerance. While well-meaning and earnest, such topics can often come over as ham-fisted when dealt with on television, and UFO is certainly no exception. In another episode (Survival) Commander Straker will tell black pilot Mark Bradley that he's so oblivious to skin tone that it wouldn't make a difference if he was "polka dot with red stripes". In the scripting stage it's charming and sweet... in execution it's toe-curlingly trite.
     Here we first learn of a relationship between Mark and Gay, revealed because Gay hesitated in a word association test over the word "black". Elsewhere, Straker kills an alien by feeding it a truth serum after it refuses to talk, despite no indication that the aliens can speak English. As a result, his second-in-command, Colonel Freeman (George Sewell), threatens to resign and insists he won't change his mind... then changes his mind about thirty seconds later.
     The real problem with episodes like this is that the viewers are made blatantly aware of a situation - Gay and Mark's relationship - before the characters are. So that rather than being taken by surprise, the audience is left waiting for the UFO personnel to catch up. Despite all of these faults, and many more, the goofiness of this episode is immensely watchable.

17 Kill Straker!
↓ Up 6 Places



Previously derided as "one of UFO's sillier instalments" with a "one-note plot dragged out over 50 minutes", Kill Straker! is actually a fair bit better than given credit for six years ago.
     Sure, UFO is at its best when it gets dark and has left-field plot twists, and a "Paul Foster is brainwashed into killing Straker" plot doesn't really go anywhere you wouldn't expect. But it's well put together and performed, even if we do get a shot of three white pilots entering the chutes for the Interceptors... before cutting to a shot of Mark in one of them. We all know that it wouldn't matter if Mark was polka dot with red stripes, but even so, it's one of the more notable mistakes in the series, along with things like the Interceptors being called back before firing in The Square Triangle... then returning to base without their missiles.
      In 2003 the episode was released on DVD as part of a set in America, featuring a commentary track by Michael Billington and director Alan Perry. Jokey, informative and engaging, they reveal a great deal about the episode, including the revelation that Ed Bishop found Vladek Sheybal "difficult" to work with, and that when he hits Michael at the end of the episode, he's actually hitting him for real. The rewarding commentary was licensed for use to a later Australian DVD release, but didn't appear on any of the UK products.

 

[michaellevenson]

16 Court Martial
→ No change



The concept of a main character on trial is not a unique one in TV sci-fi. It had happened in multiple episodes of various Star Treks (including an episode actually titled "Court Martial", which aired four years before this one), as well as numerous other genre shows. The big problem with such a concept - a central character is placed on trial, usually with the sentence being death - is that it requires you to believe that such an outcome might happen. And although the guilty verdict is revealed right away and UFO is a perversely dark series, it's just too much of a stretch to believe that Foster really will be executed as an military spy come the end titles.
      Eventually Straker gets to the bottom of things and discovers that Foster was bugged without his knowledge, in what he admits is a "hairy coincidence". It's still not clear what will happen to the spy (Georgina Cookson, fresh from betraying No.6 in The Prisoner) and how they'll stop her revealing what she knows. Even stranger is that her signed affidavit to prove Foster's innocence is written under coercion by Straker, threatening to make her deaf and give her brain damage with an audio gun unless she signs. Presumably after the series ended Straker took up a job with the West Midlands police force.
      This is also the episode that brings back the engaging Władysław Rudolf Z. Sheybal (Vladek Sheybal) as Dr. Doug Jackson. This was his third appearance in the series in terms of production order, after which he appeared in half the remaining episodes to be recorded, a very magnetic performer. The only downside here is that his role doesn't really make any sense... he's acting as prosecution to Foster, and isn't a core part of the SHADO team, even though other episodes show otherwise. ITC series are often great fun, but can regard interepisode continuity as a mere formality at times.

15 Survival
↑ Down 2 Places



Foster and an alien are trapped together on the Moon's surface, but learn mutual trust and friendship. If that sounds like a thin idea for a 48 minute episode, then Dennis Quaid got almost two hours of it in 1985 with Enemy Mine. It's an episode that sums up UFO in many ways, as it contains lots that's good, and lots that's pretty terrible... complete with Straker's aforementioned "polka dot" speech. However, it scores fairly high here for a customary dark twist, even if it doesn't all make perfect sense.
      There is a feeling that perhaps the world building of the future could have gone further. The title sequence flashes up "1980", and Foster tells us here that it's April 12, 1981. When Paul visits his girlfriend, she's playing The Equals single "My Life Ain't Easy" from 1967. How much more impressive would it have been if they'd at least tried to predict a musical style? That said, the top two singles for the date were by Bucks Fizz and Shakin' Stevens, so maybe it's a wise move they stuck with Eddy Grant's old band instead...

 

[michaellevenson]

14 Reflections In The Water
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Previously highly-ranked, a fresh take on these episodes sees Reflections In The Water drop a couple of places. Often with the Pinewood episodes, they're better directed, but can be more narratively sparse. As a result, the already underplayed emotional content has even less chance to emerge, causing the series to feel oddly clinical. Wanda Ventham (Colonel Lake), while fine, isn't really presented as an equal for a lot of her appearances, and so the three-way combative chemistry that was present with George Sewell is absent, and the programme does feel like it's missing a vital element, even though many Ventham episodes are ranked far higher.
      Reflections in the Water is the inevitable doppelgänger episode of UFO, yet doesn't have the budget to present us with a single splitscreen, and so we get the two highest-ranked members of SHADO improbably risking their lives without even the chance to confront "themselves" onscreen. Add to this some appalling slowfighting, sophisticated alien reproductive devices that resemble tape machines and a jazz-funk clips package to start off the episode and the poetically-named Reflections In The Water doesn't seem to add up to a great deal. Even stranger is that the opening montage inexplicably gives away the climax.
      Yet there's decent stuff in there, with Straker displaying the increasing desperation, prepared to drug one of his own team to get results, and although SHADO being able to hold off and destroy a mass attack of 25 UFOs does seem to be a stretch, it also shows the increasing desperation of the aliens themselves. Lastly, there's the BluRay release of the series. While the programme has never looked better, the high definition does sometimes uncover some serious sins... such as the little old man, pictured, who plays "Straker" during the fight scenes.

13 Exposed
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One of the big debates about UFO is always what order it should be watched in. The series was bought up by regional networks in the UK and shown in different orders throughout, something very common with a lot of ITC shows where continuity wasn't a major issue. This does make it look as if SHADO has a revolving personnel, rather than half the cast just leaving halfway through, so is, in one sense, preffered. And mixing them up does mean that two of the wittiest and innovative episodes - Timelash and Mindbender - don't follow each other back-to-back as they do in the production order.
      However, that production order is preferred in almost all other ways, as the style of the show evolves, and the mix of narrative-driven early episodes clashes badly with more esoteric, stylistic episodes later in the run. The only requirement is that this fifth-produced episode is watched fourth, given that it's the introduction of Michael Billington as Paul Foster, but the second episode he recorded, after Survival. In fact, it's strange to think that while the Straker-Freeman-Foster line-up is the most dramatically compelling, they only appeared together in just over half the episodes.
      A functional but decent episode is marred slightly by Paul getting beaten up by two men in polo necks to a lounge jazz theme, UFO once more showing its less credible side. And while Michael Billington brings a lot of presence to the series, his wig is always a distraction, even when it's a shorter one as here. In fact, his wig glue should have received its own credit for the scene where Straker eccentrically tortures him with a big fan.
      The story ends with Foster laughing at Straker's offbeat sense of charm, even though Straker has spent most of the episode arranging to have him beaten up, or letting him think he's going to shoot him dead. Paul Foster, it seems, is just one of those happy-go-lucky guys who never holds a grudge. Watchable stuff, although, unlike the best of UFO, there's never really any sense that the story will go in an area you didn't expect.

 

[michaellevenson]

12 The Sound Of Silence
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The curious part of reviewing a series is, of course, personal expectations. Sometimes a favourite episode won't contain much rewatch value, whereas a duller, more run-of-the-mill story might have more to enjoy the second or third time around. While The Sound of Silence hasn't fallen as much as some, its drop out of the top ten does say more about how it stands up to repeat viewings rather than its own intrinsic qualities.
      The episode itself was written by a pair of directors, and so relies more on mood and visuals than the dialogue. As a result its narratively thin... still strong enough for a high ranking, but not as narratively interesting as some entries which have weaker direction but stronger plots. Often esoteric, it features such off-kilter characters as a woman who jokingly suggests she skinny dip with her own brother, and a hippy and his dog who end up mutilated. The brother and sister (Michael Jayston and Susan Jameson) appear on the BluRay documentary, "From Earth to the Moon", and reveal that the moment where Jameson is thrown from her horse was actually unplanned and really happened.
      The first seventeen episodes of UFO were filmed at MGM Borehamwood from April-November 1969. After the closure of the studio, the remainder of the series was picked up in Pinewood studios from May 1970, starting with this one. These final nine episodes are often darker, stranger, and even more adult, and are a nice compliment to the series. Most notable in the second recording block however is the loss of several lead characters. As the actors involved weren't in contract and had offers to appear elsewhere, then many faces disappear without onscreen explanation, most notably Colonel Freeman and Gay Ellis. Freeman, in particular, acted as Straker's confidant and conscience, and his absence can be felt.

11 Destruction
↓ Up 3 Places



Destruction is the most engaging of the "procedural" episodes of UFO, where the script isn't so concerned with overt action, but instead boardroom politics, diplomatic negotiations and red tape. Essentially working as a detective story, SHADO discover that deadly gas has been dumped into the sea, which is being targeted by aliens to destroy all life on Earth. It's an intriguing concept, with little bits of trivia like the knowledge that Moonbase has only been in existence for 5-6 years at this point. In all, it's a reasonably layered episode that is notable for far more than acclaimed actor Steven Berkoff pulling an unintentionally funny face as an Interceptor pilot.
      One thing frequently mentioned when discussing UFO is that Gerry Anderson's first non-puppet effort was the feature film Doppelgänger (1969), which featured many of the same costumes, sets and music cues as UFO. More significantly, it also starred no less than 14 performers who went on to appear in UFO, including Ed Bishop, George Sewell and Vladek Sheybal.
      Released outside the UK under the far less spoiler-insensitive title of Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, it's a watchable albeit ultimately unsatisfying effort. Some of the actors from it who appeared in this particular UFO episode are Jon Kelley (Skydiver Navigator, uncredited in the movie), Alan Harris (uncredited here as Skydiver Engineer) and Philip Madoc (Ship Captain).

 

[michaellevenson]

10 Identified
↓ Up 7 Places



A very high number of television series have issues with their opening episodes, and UFO is no exception. Although it is, in retrospect, a lot better when you're used to the series, and finally scrapes into the top ten here, it's not a particularly striking introduction to the concept, and even creator Gerry Anderson acknowledges his own direction lacks pace.
     There is the feeling that the show isn't quite there yet, with George Sewell as Colonel Freeman walking around muttering sub-Bond innuendo and being incredibly lucky that SHADO doesn't have a HR department that can investigate sexual harassment. Although the only nipples we see belong to the string-vested men aboard the underwater Skydiver, there is also too much of the camera having a "wandering eye" when it comes to the female form.
     Anderson recorded a commentary track for the episode, and isn't backward about this aspect of his personality, explaining that he thought Gabrielle Drake was "absolutely stunning" and that "I found her... extremely... attractive. I used to tell everyone about this. Except my wife, of course." It shows. A scene where Drake is lazily applying lipstick in the middle of a yellow alert situation is incredibly demeaning to the character.
     The worst moments come with Ed Bishop being forced to tell one of his security team the entire basis of the series, something he'd already know, but exposition is always a necessarily evil in opening stories. There's always a certain amount of inherent cheesiness in UFO - it is, after all, a series that features purple wigs and a lounge jazz soundtrack - but things pick up in the closing moments when we attend a funeral for a woman whose organs were harvested by aliens. It's not an opening episode to get you hooked, but it is one that can be appreciated on repeat viewings.

9 The Man Who Came Back
↓ Up 10 Places



The Man Who Came Back was previously slated in this ranking, where my main issue way back in 2013 seemed to be that it revolved around characters unfamiliar to the viewer. To an extent, it's true. There's Colonel John Grey, a high-ranking member of SHADO who even covers for Straker, played by Gary Raymond. (Raymond was reportedly due to play Colonel Lake before they changed the gender of the character and, in an odd coincidence, one of his first jobs after the series was playing a character called "Paul Foster" in The Doctors).
      The other new character is Colonel Craig Collins, played with the usual scene-stealing presence of Derren Nesbitt. Nesbitt's performance may be a little more showy than the somewhat clinical turns of the regular cast, but with him strutting around Moonbase like a preening peacock, charming everyone with a bottom lip like a cumberland sausage, he's a real fun addition to what could otherwise have been a pedestrian "alien control" plot.
      Although made over a year after Flight Path, another episode with a guest character who is known to the regulars but not to the viewers, they were screened in consecutive weeks on ATV. It makes an odd pairing, but does also undermine my prior complaints with the episode, given that I seemingly had no such issues with Flight Path.
      The only real weakness here is the Shatnerism of Straker's "they can never get your soul", and the admittedly curious relationship that Lake had with Collins, and the burgeoning one she has with Paul Foster - neither are mentioned in the series again. Lastly, lovers of Mary Whitehouse-related trivia might note that this is the only UFO episode with swearing in it, as Colonel Grey demands a "bloody telephone!"
     As with Kill Straker!, the episode Timelash had a commentary track for a 2003 American DVD release that was later licensed for an Australian release, but not the UK ones. The reason for its mention here is that commentators Wanda Ventham and Sylvia Anderson don't discuss much of note about the episode they're commenting on (save for a reference to Patrick Allen needing a jockstrap), but do reference this one quite a bit.
      As the discussion moves on to actors that were "difficult", then Alexis Kanner from The Cat With Ten Lives gets brought up, while this episode's Derren Nesbitt is described by Ventham as "renowned for being dangerous to have around". While both say he was fine when it came to the recording of the episode itself, Ventham says she was particularly untaken with the kissing scene, given that it was early in the morning, it was scripted as a firm kiss, and Nesbitt's breath smelt of smoke. SHADO Radio Operator Tamara Paulson (Anouska Hempel) also gets mentioned for her part in this and three other episodes, as Sylvia Anderson notes "she had an attitude, didn't she?"
      Lastly, Ventham confirms that Raymond auditioned for her part, and, despite George Sewell's claims that he left the series because production closed down for five-and-a-half months and he'd got work elsewhere, Sylvia repeats another version of events that has done the rounds - that the American backers asked for him to be removed as they felt he wasn't good-looking enough to be in the series. Poor old George.

 

[michaellevenson]

8 Confetti Check A-O.K.
↑ Down 2 Places



There's suggestions that, had a second season of UFO been made, it would have featured less "domestic", Earth-bound episodes, as these were less popular in America where it was originally a hit. It's a shame, because it means most of the higher-rated episodes here wouldn't have made it to a second run.
      There's no model cars or purple wigs here; while the love scenes between Straker and his wife can be a little syruppy, it's a perfect character study of the show's troubled lead. Featuring great ironic foreshadowing (Straker and Henderson begin the story as great friends) and showcasing the breakdown of Straker's marriage, it also tells the full story of the origins of SHADO.
      Script editor Tony Barwick was the most prolific writer on the series, being credited with a dozen of the teleplays in the series. What's shocking is how the same man can be behind such a wide variance in quality: the same person who gave us Mindbender, A Question of Priorities and this episode also crafted Close Up, The Responsibility Seat and Ordeal. But if UFO's lack of quality control is all part of the fun, then Confetti Check A-O.K. is one of the peaks.
      In 1974 a compilation movie was released, titled Invasion: UFO. While it was mainly made up of around half an hour each of Identified, Reflections in the Water and Computer Affair, other episodes made up smaller bridging sequences, such as around a minute of The Man Who Came Back and ESP. Confetti Check-A-Ok had around five minutes of footage used for the film, and, whatever the relative merits of the movie, the footage from this episode was well implemented, as it explains immediately what happened to General Henderson after the car crash in Identified, rather than keeping viewers waiting ten months to find out. In fact, the two segments go so well together it's surprising they weren't part of the same episode.

7 The Long Sleep
↑ Down 2 Places



The BluRay release was worked on by colourist Jonathan Wood, and, as mentioned elsewhere, in the main looks excellent. However, Wood regularly performs work that specialises in ensuring the continuity of colour balances and saturation across entire products, so that the stock basically looks the same throughout. This isn't actually too bad on the film stock of UFO, and much more noticeable on things like Doctor Who, where a mix of outside film and indoor video tape means that performers often have unnaturally red faces to make things look "uniform".
      It's probably in the remit, though isn't, of course, restoration in its purest form, as it's not "restoring" the product, but altering it. Taking two separate artefacts and trying to use artificial means to make them look the same seems to be missing the point that these various materials aren't the same, and that attempting to prove otherwise brings about its own problems. In 2006 Deborah Grant recorded a DVD commentary with Wood for the Australian release of The Psychobombs, an exclusive commentary track that didn't make its way to the UK release. There Wood states that: "I did my best when I was doing the grading on these [...] to match in the saturation of the grass and things with the actual live action."
      The reason for its mention here is that it's the episode where it's most obvious that grading work has been done. Even though many of the cast (Bishop particularly) were given "tan" make up, there is a distinct lobster effect to the skin tones throughout that can be distracting. Of course, the solution is to turn down the colour volume, but as it's mainly related to the red hues, that then causes its own issues with everything else being unnaturally muted as a result.
      Yet it's impossible to fully detract from the brilliance of The Long Sleep, arguably the bleakest instalment of UFO, where the only let up is a bomb disposal expert who specialises in black humour. The last episode to be produced, it features explicit drug use and attempted rape, followed by the death of an innocent. There are times where UFO's off kilter sense of what incidental music should be can be distracting and dating - the attempted rape is played to another jazz bongo riff - but the series does, at least, possess its own unique identity in this regard.
      Not all of it makes perfect sense. Set in 1984 (so the "present" of the entire series has taken place over a four year period) it has aliens coming back to the Earth to try to find a bomb they'd planted back in 1974. The question that this raises is why, if the aliens were capable of making a bomb that could destroy Britain in 1974, hadn't they simply built another in the decade following? And how likely is it that the houseboat on which the detonator was thrown would still be stationed there ten years later, and with the detonator still on board?
      But it also reflects the series' pitch-black, pessimistic leanings when Straker speaks of an Earthquake in Turkey, 1974, that killed 80,000 people. Thankfully such an event never took place, but it's a fitting inclusion for a show that was always at its best when refusing to look up. Perhaps the only missed opportunity is that the girl who hid the detonator before falling into a coma is killed by something the aliens did to her. It would have been even more stark if she'd died as a direct result of the serum that Straker administered to her, knowing it could potentially kill her.
      There was said to be talk of a second season of UFO, but falling ratings in the US put paid to it, and what was mapped out as a follow-up eventually became the somewhat sterile Space: 1999. How true this is is open to question, but the season of UFO we did get is very special indeed...

 

[michaellevenson]

6 Sub-Smash
↓ Up 9 Places



Preconceptions can play a part when watching a TV series. Gerry Anderson will always be known first and foremost as a maker of children's puppet serials, which, while an admirable profession, can be a distracting mindset to take into a series like UFO, which utilised this modelling skillset. Yet while some of the models look a little "clean", and you have to suspend disbelief to pretend that they're in the same reality as the actors, they're actually very well done. In particular, the explosions are genuinely spectacular, and were, in real life, genuinely dangerous to achieve.
      But it's not just the models... here, a story about a crashed sub with a claustrophobic Straker lends thoughts to two theories: 1. The claustrophobia is just a fairly cheap plot function, and B. The "crashed" sub interior is achieved via the camera being tilted, otherwise known as a Dutch angle. In actual fact, neither are true. Ed Bishop recorded a commentary track for Sub-Smash in January 2002, where he reveals that not only was it the set that was actually tilted, but that the inspiration for the episode came from the knowledge that Bishop and Dolores Mantez both suffered from claustrophobia in real life. With no one else in the commentary booth to bounce off, Bishop does fall into a habit of watching the story and forgetting to speak, but when he does he's enthusiastic. In all, while far from essential listening, it does make it feel as if you're watching the episode with a warm friend.
      So Sub-Smash isn't without its faults... narratively it doesn't contain many surprises (a "will Straker get out alive?" plot is pretty self evident in the answer, even for a show as dark as this) and the choice of blue screen for shots where Paul Foster looks out over the blue ocean was unfortunate. But what makes this episode far more than just a "functional" episode, and what causes it to rise so highly in this ranking is the final ten minutes, where Straker, losing his mind from lack of oxygen, has his life flash before his eyes, haunted by the tragedies that have befallen him. He thinks the words of a sea burial, and the serial rewards moments of genuine profundity, such as Straker's final reflection that "That's what life's all about, I guess... the things we never say."

5 Flight Path
↓ Up 2 Places



An intriguing episode in that, unusually, it's left to a guest star to carry it. George Cole, forever to be known as Arthur Daley, here takes such a lion's share of the action that it's over twelve minutes before a regular character even appears.
     Sometimes the leaps of logic involved in the plot don't hold up to close scrutiny, but what really rewards is that it's the first episode that's truly downbeat. The sight of Cole dying alone on the moon and giving his love to his wife - unaware she's been killed, the information clinically withheld from him by Straker - is a chilling, perverse one.
     While there are better episodes of UFO, this is what it specialised in more than the camp and the action sequences... human tragedy and offbeat resolutions. Just the third episode to be made, Flight Path showed early on that this series was prepared to go a little darker than most...

 

[michaellevenson]

4 Mindbender
↑ Down 1 Place



When an alien rock gives the inhabitants of Moonbase hallucinations, one of the Interceptor pilots goes insane and believes he's in a Western, fighting Mexican bandits. It's a wild, out-there plot, that many other series would have mined for broad laughs. However, UFO being UFO, we see the reality soon after... he's been punching the female staff, and one of his best friends is on the floor coughing up blood and dying.
      Things take an even weirder turn when the rock gets back on Earth, and Straker hallucinates that he's the star of UFO, the TV series. Of course, such meta/fourth wall breaking content isn't unique to UFO, and has been done in series before and since, including a show covered on this site, Gurney Slade. But UFO does it better than most, with a real sense of style.
      One slightly unfortunate element is that all of the cast play "themselves", using their own names, but Ed Bishop already shared the same first name as his character, so this couldn't be done. This said, Ed Bishop was only his stage name, and his friends still called him George, so maybe that could have been substituted instead? It's a trivial point, though, and the odd, vaguely Prisoneresque episode gets by with everyone calling Straker "Howard".
      "Howard" finds himself watching the tragedies of his own life as rushes on a cinema screen, the death of his son just an "episode" ready to air. There's an incredibly neat touch where the line General Henderson was saying when Straker goes into/comes out of his hallucination was "let's get back to realities", and another classic episode wraps. In its finest moments UFO can be such a starkly brilliant series that a lightweight, almost comedic concept can showcase a series of psychological torture.

3 The Square Triangle
↓ Up 1 Place



A fine example of a relatively mundane episode being lifted into something far greater by a classic ending. Alan Pattillo was usually behind the camera for Gerry Anderson productions, and this was the only episode of UFO he'd penned. A shame, as he provides the series with a devastating conceit: when an adulterous wife and her new lover plot to kill her husband, they shoot an alien instead.
     Managing to piece everything together, the central trio of Straker, Foster and Freeman are left with a dilemma: return the amnesia-drugged couple back into society and they'll doubtless try to kill the husband again. Yet the only alternative is to reveal to wider authorities the existence of UFOs, not to mention the problem that this is only (correct) speculation on the part of the SHADO operatives, and that technically the couple haven't broken any law.
     Those expecting some amazing get out clearly aren't aware of what kind of series UFO really is. What makes the climax so disturbing is the casual resignation of the nominal "heroes", contrasted with a final, haunting shot of the wife standing over her husband's gravestone, the end credits and theme playing over her. Chilling.

 

[michaellevenson]

2 A Question Of Priorities
→ No change



Very few series have so enjoyed torturing their lead character as much as UFO. It's possible to feel sympathy for Straker, given that his son only had an accident due to both his ex-wife Mary's insistence that he should leave without saying goodbye to him, and her failure to stop their son running out into the middle of a road. Yet a series of events lead to Straker being the only one able to save the boy's life after he's hit by a car, and the demands of his job prevent this from happening.
     While Ed Bishop is fine at the cold, clinical stuff, the emoting he's called on to do at the climax is notably just outside of his range. Yet this is possibly the point, as Straker is a man who lets his young son watch a movie about strangulation being filmed and not realise that it's inappropriate. Philip Madoc (credited with an extra L in his name) is left standing around awkwardly as the new man in Mary's life, called upon to repeatedly step out of frame so as not to spoil the blocking of shots.
     As with all UFO, there's some moderately corny and misjudged sequences, not least the young Straker accidentally looking into camera during one scene. Yet the tangible pain at the climax and the concept of the series becoming this dark is a punch to the gut that's impossible to forget. A Question of Priorities didn't quite make it to the top spot, but in terms of emotional rawness it's in a league all its own.

 

[michaellevenson]

1Timelash
→ No change



One of the last three episodes to be produced, Timelash was completed between July and August 1970. As this episode, thoughtfully shot by Cyril Frankel, features Straker and Lake trapped inside a "millionth of a second", then it's questionable as to how far the series could have continued once the reality of it has extended into pure sci-fi, however brilliant that pure sci-fi might be.
      Considering how the second season of The Outer Limits took out a lawsuit over alleged similarities between an episode and The Terminator, it's somewhat amazing that this episode didn't receive the same fate. The idea of time being slowed almost to a standstill, with characters existing outside of it, is fairly traditional SF gimmickry. But not only are the basic plot similarities between this and the 1965 Outer Limits episode The Premonition so close that it would be very unlikely to be a coincidence, they both even feature the revelation of that "millionth of a second".
     It's like leaving a definite fingerprint of the source, very similar to Ray Parker Jr. starting his Ghostbusters theme with a "revving up" sound that also featured at the beginning of Huey Lewis's "I Want A New Drug". Sadly for Parker Jr. he wasn't as lucky as Terence Feely apparently was here, and had to settle out of court.
      Yet while the old motto about "genius steals" can cover most of it, what really matters is that Timelash is simply better. Premonition is a dreary, badly-acted episode that was slated on this site as "first class idea, third-rate execution"... whereas Timelash takes that inspired innovation and makes it something very special indeed. Although the villain of the week is just a ranting maniac with little motivation, it scarcely matters... the plot is what drives this one, and all the drama is brought out of this devastating conceit, with it all told as a flashback and the viewers having to wait until they've caught up.
      It's superb stuff, though again, as with Reflections in the Water, mention has to be made of the BluRay edition being too good - any scene with Straker fighting is incredibly obvious in its use of stunt doubles when seen under higher definition. Yet such matters can't hold back the full brilliance of this one, or prevent it from taking the top spot.

 

[michaellevenson]