Sky 1 flight image** by Paul Money ©
I have to admit it, I'm a big kid at heart and quite spoiled of late when I discovered ITVX have most of their series on that streaming platform. We already subscribe to it for various reasons but over the last 2 months I've gradually worked my way through all 26 episodes of UFO.
Now when it was made I was but a mere lad and to be honest, I was only interested in 3 things about the series, the amazing futuristic vehicles, Barry Gray's wonderful score for the episodes (I reckon there will be a blog at some point in the future about his music for the Andersons),
and of course the Moonbase ladies who all had purple hair!
A number of the episodes were based on Earth and at the time I found them boring as sometimes they dealt with side topics such as how Commander Strakers family life fell apart as he couldn't discuss his secret life, an odd episode about an alien getting accidentally mixed up in a murder plot between a wife and her lover plotting to kill her husband and a few others in the mix too.
THEY BORED ME!
But that was then.
Now I'm getting somewhat close to the official retirement age (queue violins please) and watching the series again, I have been quite surprised to find I enjoyed almost all the episodes. I guess I'm more mature these days (now, now, don't be like that! 😂).
You pick up more of the nuances going on in each episode, don't get me wrong, I still love the launch sequences of the Lunar Interceptors, it sends a shiver down my spine when I hear the music start for that and for when SkyDiver launches Sky 1 to intercept and destroy an incoming UFO.
But I now appreciate all those earth based stories as well as quite often they highlighted the stress the main characters often faced when trying to secretly defend the earth, although they did often put Colonel Paul Foster (Michael Billington) through hell in some episodes!
Naturally, because of the era it was written and produced there is some sexism on occasions but overall one thing I noticed with UFO and indeed Space 1999 was how women were often given important positions, Colonel Virginia Lake (Wanda Ventham) becomes second in command in the later episodes. In SHADO HQ there is a good mix, almost 50% of males/females in important roles and features Lieutenant Ayshea Johnson (Ayshea) .
SkyDiver also has several female operatives whilst Moonbase is effectively run by three ladies, Lieutenant Gay Ellis (Gabrielle Drake), Lieutenant Nina Barry (Dolores Mantez) and sometimes Lieutenant Joan Harrington (Antonia Ellis).
Men however dominate the operation of the ground based SHADO mobiles and the Lunar Interceptors so perhaps if a reboot is ever considered they could look at having ladies in those roles.
One of the puzzling things was the order in which the episodes were shown as they were not in production order and indeed a few episodes would be out of sync if you watched in production order. For example, Paul Foster is introduced in episode 2 'Exposed' as he sees a UFO whilst a civilian and is so persistent is trying to find out the truth he is recruited to SHADO (SHADO - Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation - but you knew that anyway didn't you!) .
Yet that episode was the 9th to be filmed and episode 4 finds him stranded on the moon with an alien and they help each other, yet episode 4 was the 4th to be produced.
So networks who showed the series in production order had him on the moon as a well established character, then later on, he isn't even a part of SHADO until we see him joining it! I wonder how many were confused or even noticed at the time?
Some characters simply disappear partway through the series if you go by the production order but the clever thing is that as SHADO operatives would be expected to have different work shifts /rosters and so didn't always appear in every episode anyway but at the same time most channels showing UFO didn't show them in the UK in production order. Ed Bishop aka Commander Ed Straker is the only one in every episode but there was a reason why some disappeared: the studio they were filming at was closed down and sold so there was a five month long break in producing the one and only series of UFO.
Hence lead characters such as Col Alec Freeman (George Sewel), the aforementioned Lieutenant Gay Ellis and Lieutenant Keith Ford (Keith Armstrong) seem to vanish (they became involved in other projects and were not available to carry on) so as mentioned the order in which their episodes are shown means you don't fully notice as you expect personnel to rotate their duty roster. Another initial main character, Peter Karlin (Peter Gordeno) the Captain of SkyDiver and Sky 1 pilot, left after 6 episodes as he didn't want to be typecast - a shame really as he played his role well in my opinion.
So overall I found I enjoyed rewatching the series and wish it had been given another season.
There were plans for UFO 2 (called UFO 1999) but it was Lew Grade who seemed to squash that as he was trying to capture the US market and when UFO was screened over there, the feedback was that the episodes based on the moon got the higher ratings (purple wigged ladies in charge of Moonbase maybe? 😉). Thus UFO was cancelled (despite an attempt to produce a movie based on it). Instead, Space 1999 was created but with the instruction that there should be no Earth centric episodes.
I do like the first season of Space 1999 but with hindsight, Grade was wrong and there should have been a second season of UFO building upon the strong basis of the first season.
Indeed, in one early episode Straker is trying to get more funding for more Moonbases so can you imagine what we've missed out on - yes lots more ladies in purple wigs!
Oh, and more Luner Interceptor/Sky 1 launches 😁
Well, that's my thoughts anyhow!
By the way, did you know there are at least two actors in UFO that starred in some of the Bond films?
See if you can name them without using a search engine!
More info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_(British_TV_series)
Cheers for now.
Paul
* Yes, I am an Anderfan!
** A model of Sky 1 Lorraine bought me set against a patchy cloud/blue sky taken by Paul