UFO

A while ago I wrote here about the Italian science fiction film Eyes Behind the Stars (1978), in retrospect, the thing that the film most reminds me of is the Gerry Anderson TV series UFO (1969-70).  Like the film, UFO features an official international organisation, part of whose job is to suppress evidence of UFO contacts and landings.  Unlike 'The Silencers' that feature in Eyes Behind the Stars, the Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation (SHADO) is so secret that its existence is known only to a handful of high level government officials around the world, whereas 'The Silencers' seem to be known to just about everybody in the military, police and security.  All of SHADO's bases are secret - from its HQ hidden under a film studio near London, to its moonbase and fleet of submarines.  Another key difference is that while 'The Silencers' suppress UFO evidence in order not just to avoid public panic but also to prevent the possibility of conflict with the technologically superior aliens, SHADO is actively engaged in a secret war against the aliens.  In the world of UFO, the aliens have found that they are similar enough to humans that they can use their body parts to prolong their lives, abducting earth people in order to harvest their organs.  It has to be said that UFO is one of the most relentlessly downbeat science fiction series ever screened in the UK.  For all of its technological prowess, SHADO constantly seems on the back foot, always a step behind the enigmatic aliens, who themselves constantly evolve the nature of the threat they pose.  

The downbeat nature of SHADO's mission is mirrored by the various sub-plots concerning the private travails of its members.  Its head, Commander Straker (Ed Bishop) sacrifices his marriage to the organisation, letting his wife believe that he is having an affair rather than reveal that, rather than being a film producer, he is actually head of an ultra-secret organisation.  He suffers further tragedy in losing his young son.  Injured in a road accident, the boy's survival is dependent upon medical equipment which needs to be shipped from the States.  Despite bending the rules to have it put on a super secret SHADO flight, he then has to divert the flight to deal with an alien threat, dooming his son.  Other members of the team likewise suffer various relationship difficulties, brain washing, blackmail and burn out, with their stories rarely having a positive outcome.  Although, in contrast to 'The Silencers', SHADO doesn't resort to murdering witnesses, preferring to use drugs to erase their memories of UFO incidents, it is prepared to allow crimes, including murder, by third parties to go ahead, if stopping them would expose alien activity or SHADO operations.  They also take a hard line when it comes to dealing with its own members who are suspected of betraying the organisation, not afraid to use torture, blackmail and even, it is implied execution.  

It is interesting watching UFO's episodes in more or less production order, (like many TV series of its era, aside from the opening couple of episodes which set up the scenario and characters, episodes were originally shown by ITV regions in a pretty random order), as a degree of overall 'story arc'-type progression can be seen.  As noted before, the alien threat effectively evolves, with them finding new techniques to circumvent just about every defensive advance that SHADO makes.  Moreover, the very nature of the aliens changes as discovers more about them, with it eventually emerging that they are actually non-corporeal beings that inhabit bodies they have constructed from human parts, hence their constant need for new victims - it isn't just for organ transplants, but whole bodies as required.  Their ability to change host bodies means that, eventually, SHADO realises that any body or anything, could be under their influence (we have an alien-possessed cat in one episode).  As the series progresses, we find that the aliens can also place humans under their control using brain implants, brainwash and reprogramme people to be their agents and even manipulate time to 'resurrect' the recently dead and deploy them as agents.  

Another fascinating aspect of watching the episodes in production order is that you gain the impression of SHADO being a large organisation, with staff constantly rotating between posts, with some characters disappearing and new faces taking their places.  Some of this was intentional, with characters like new recruit Colonel Foster rotating through several postings as he familiarises himself with the organisation, for instance.  Some, however, was the result of some of the original cast only being signed to short-term contracts, which either they or the producers didn't renew - original Skydiver 1 captain Peter Gordeno simply vanishes after half a dozen episodes, for example, being replaced by the moonbase's original interceptor leader.  The most sweeping changes, which come around two thirds of the way through the run, were the result of a six month production hiatus, during which production moved from Elstree studio to Pinewood.  Of the main cast, only Ed Bishop's Commander Straker and Micheal Billington's Paul Foster remained.  George Sewall, as Straker's deputy, vanished, to be replaced by Wanda Ventham, (returning, her character having appeared in the first episode, then vanished), while Skydiver 1 now found itself under the command of an unnamed captain played by David Warbeck. (Confusingly, though, the original actors remained in the title sequence for the entire run of the series).

Something else that struck me about UFO the last time I watched it all the way through was the way in which some of the episodes, particularly in the latter stages of the series, could almost have been rewritten from unused Captain Scarlet scripts. Indeed, there are similarities with the earlier Gerry Anderson series from the outset: the implacable alien threat, the secret bases (moonbase and its interceptors could almost be Cloudbase and its interceptors, with the earth-based SHADO mobiles analogs for Spectrum's SPVs).  But as the series progresses, UFO's aliens seem to become more and more like the Mysterons.  It isn't just their non-corporeal nature, ability to raise the dead and use them as their agents (which is suspiciously like the Mysterons' 'retrometabolisation' of both dead humans and destroyed human machines to turn to their purposes), but also the cryptic clues that they start giving to SHADO as to what their next plan will involve.  That was very much the Mysterons' modus operandi in Captain Scarlet - it was always the deciphering of these clues which led to Spectrum's victories.  By the end of UFO, the main difference seems to be that their aliens prefer to remain anonymous, whereas in Captain Scarlet, the Mysterons always introduce themselves while making a threat, ('We the Mysterons...').

Of course, UFO was live action rather than using puppets, like Captain Scarlet.  That, however, is one of its weaknesses: the characters are so dour that, ultimately, they lack the charisma of the Captain Scarlet puppets.  (Notably, as well as playing Ed Straker in UFO, Ed Bishop had also provided the voice for Captain Blue in Captain Scarlet).  Both series, though, share some excellent model and effects work - the one criticism of this aspect of the series which could be levelled at UFO was that many of the sequences were used over and over again, making them over familiar.  Another weakness are the scripts, which are often over-convoluted plot-wise, frequently confused and confusing in plot terms and saddle the actors with some leaden dialogue.  Many of them, particularly from late in the run, also feel overly padded out, reinforcing the suspicion that they may have originated with unused twenty five minute Captain Scarlet scripts.  Perhaps the biggest handicap UFO suffers is the fact that it all feels so relentlessly downbeat, with its protagonists faced with a seemingly endless threat - there really aren't a lot of laughs in their world.  It has to be said that UFO proved to be a poor predictor of the future (it was set in the then distant 1980s), in that the UK never did switch to driving on the right, let alone driving American cars, string vests never became a fashion item for men any more than purple wigs did for women and, sadly, racism wasn't eliminated.

Still, some aspects of UFO live on in current TV: the exterior of the film studios SHADO front was actually the main office building at Elstree, which these days doubles as the hospital exterior in the BBC's Holby City.  Every time I see an establishing shot of the hospital, I half expect to see one of the futuristic SHADO cars parked outside.  Likewise, I live in hope that one episode Mr Hansen's office might descend into the real, underground, SHADO headquarters, full of computer banks with flashing lights.  A man can dream...