Ep 1.
IDENTIFIED
Before watching....
UFO has always been a bit of a mysterious series to me. I love "Space 1999" - which I have found out is actually a kind of mutated offspring from UFO, expanding on the Moonbase idea from that series. So it should be interesting to finally watch this show.
The only other strong memory I have of UFO is an annual that lay around our house for a number of years while I was growing up. It had photos and text stories etc from the show and made it seem a very bizarre - and quite scary looking production. I had to concoct what I thought the show was about from that lone annual, so let's see how the actual show itself fares in the cold light of day, away from what I imagined it to be, with it's terriying aliens etc.
So onto this opening episode......
Nice punchy edited intro. They knew how to do title sequences then, getting the set up/format of the show across to the audience in as short a time as possible. Like the music too.
What a brutal start to, not only the episode, but the entire show. Three people executed ruthlessly.
I do wonder if they ever considered doing this with puppets as a supermarionation project?
More alien aggression as our hero's escort cars are attacked. Straker can't seem to get from A to B without being set upon. So far the aliens in this show are not showing themselves in a good light - to put it mildly.
Cast names popping up on screen now. George Sewell I mostly associate with REMEMBRANCE OF THE DALEKS and Gabrielle Drake I know of as the sister of the famous and doomed musician, Nick Drake.
Was that a nod to THE AVENGERS at 6:35. Sure looks like it.
With that slow pan in to the moon, I could not help thinking that the moon is now an egg. Damn New Who. And then the buildings on the moon surface made me think of - to my mind - similar lunar living environments shown in MOONBASE 3.
I wonder what the logic and reason behind the purple hair/wigs is? Is it just to look futuristic? Is it meant to be a dyed hair fashion statement? Or are people really somehow born with that hair colour now due to some bizarre offscreen explanation? It looks striking and memorable to be sure, but seems perhaps a little bit the wrong side of daft? I have always wondered about this re: UFO.
This series seems to have a very healthy budget, in the way in which we leap from set to set, various environments, outside location filming, detailed sets and vehicles and planes, etc.
To be honest it seems a little bit all over the place at the moment - a bit restless - at the expense of getting to know characters properly yet. Not a gripe, but looking forward to it settling down in it's location/scene hopping so that we can pause for breath and get to know the regulars a bit better.
Wanda Ventham. Didn't know she was in it. As a guest star in just this episode or as a regular remains to be seen.
Yes, this is starting to feel very much like a shop window display store front episode for the forthcoming rest of the series. Not a criticism or a bad thing - just an observation. We are shown the day to day operations in each of the bases and glimpse how they behave during their casual down time too.
Blimey! I thought that that was Zen, the Liberator computer from BLAKE'S 7 at 25:00.
Thanks goodness they are saying "Get me Alec Freeman" - instead of Alan Freeman the disc jockey. Dedicating records to the aliens just would not work in a combat situation.
Having SHADO being beneath a movie studio has the potential for fun in at least one episode. Hope they do something with it at some point, with the aliens infiltrating a movie that is being made up on the surface - something like that. Hope so anyway.
I am fairly sure - from the long distance shots - that that is the snide villainous guy from REVENGE OF THE CYBERMEN in the submarine periscope scenes. Time might tell.
The finding of the body moves the plot along. I didn't expect us to actually see an alien in custody at this stage of the series, so that's a surprise. But will he live through the operation?
Must admit, am slightly confused and wondering if this is an actual member of the alien race - or perhaps a human captive that has had his internal organs transplanted and tampered with, along with the side effect of the green skin in order to throw humanity off the scent of the real aliens? I suspect that I am overthinking things and that he really is an alien. I was slightly disappointed when the contact lens blank eyes turned out to be... ermm ... contact lens blank eyes - with very human eyes underneath.
Oh dear, he's copped it. Well that's that then.
And he was an alien.
So they have come to Earth to harvest our organs - much like the organ stealing aliens in STAR TREK VOYAGER.
Poor Peter, with the bad news about his sister.
So, overall, nice pilot episode - and I finally, after decades, have a better understanding of what the heck was going on between the covers of the above annual. Ed Bishop makes for a charasmatic lead and had a nice outro speech.
It's nice to finally start catching up on the SPACE 1999 prequel-ish series.