Customer Reviews

UFO Vol. 1 (Exposed and a Question of Priorities) [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Husband and wife team Gerry and Sylvia Anderson (of Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet fame) were well known for their Supermarionation series' during the 1960's....."U.F.O." was their first outing into the world of live action. Ed Bishop (Col. Ed Straker), George Sewell (Alec Freeman), Vladek Shebal and others were already regulars with the Anderson production camp, having provided voices for their puppets for years.

At times sexy, at times confusing, at times intriguing, "U.F.O." was a mixed bag, comprised of 26 very uneven episodes. At it's best, it was a campy mix of Star Trek and James Bond, with more than a dash of cold-war paranoia thrown in for good measure. At it's worst, it could become somewhat trite and self-absorbed, taking itself far too seriously (I believe you could count that number of smiles throughout the entire series on one hand...a flaw "Space: 1999" was later to also be accused of, although one I take exception with.)

The basic premise? Earth has become the 'subject' of extraterrestrial invasion, with the aliens' goal being one of procuring human 'parts' to prolong their dying, sterile race. A multi-national task force is brought together, with the end result being SHADO (Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defense Organisation). The organisation's Earth base is located underneath Harlington-Straker Film Studios (where else?); the primary lunar installation is referred to simply as "Moonbase". Earth defense is provided by a fleet of nuclear submarines known as "Skydivers", each with an attack aircraft mounted on it's nose, and launchable from underwater. Mobiles and various other land-based craft round out earth-based forces. Moonbase defense is primarily supplied by a fleet of Interceptor craft, each carrying a nuclear missile attached to it's nosecone.

"U.F.O." featured only enough character development to explain it's situations, not to actually allow you to develop a liking or dislike for them. It has had an amazing impact on Japanese science fiction and animation; several of the craft featured in "U.F.O." (as well as earlier Supermarionation series) have been the obvious influence for those of Japanese movies.

"U.F.O." was cancelled after a run of 26 episodes. Talks began sometime in 1973 between the Andersons and Lord Lew Grade (of ITC) to create a new season, but that quickly became the basis for "Space: 1999" (after Anderson mentioned the idea of blowing up the Earth, which didn't set at all well will Lord Grade...)

Both "U.F.O." and "Space: 1999" were childhood favourites of this reviewer; to this day, they remain valid, entertaining series.

An excellent series from 1970 that ran one year. It was re-tooled into "Space 1999" by creator Gerry Anderson. "A question of priorities" is an excellent episode that has Straker wrestling with the problem of what is more important: Finding a downed UFO pilot or the life of his son. Very little "crash-boom" effects but excellent writing and without the "it all works out at the end of the hour" ending!

Purple-haired go-go dancers who live on a geodesic-domed Moonbase, submarines which launch military aircraft from their nose cones, liquid-breathing aliens wearing freaky contact lenses and weird body paint, and a movie studio that conceals the headquarters of the world's last best hope for alien defense, SHADO. I mean, come on, people, what's not to love here? This was one of the first shows I used to watch with my parents, and we all loved it! Commander Ed Straker is just so icy and unflappable in the face of a seemingly hopeless alien invasion, the aliens are weird and yet kind of pathetic (they're stealing our bodily organs, it seems their world is badly polluted...so they came to Earth???), and well, you gotta love the Interceptors, Moon buggies, Skydiver (the flying sub thing), and of course, SID, Space Invader Detector, a kind of orbital watchdog which sounds like an English butler. Is this show serious drama? Of course not! Is it as camp as a Boy Scout gathering? You bet your knee-high Mod boots it is. It is enjoyable, spooky, exciting? Damn right. If "The X-Files" had been made in late-Sixties England, this is pretty much how it would've turned out. "UFO" is flat-out cool; it's not "Star Trek" or "Twilight Zone," but it is FUN.

For years i spoke about how much this show impacted me as a child for it seemed "real" to a kid, unlike star trek which seemed pure fantasy, this show seemed to me as a ten year old watching it in re-runs as if it could be a live broadcast of the adults encounter's with "aliens"...yet none of my friends knew of the show for it didn't have the U.S. following Star Trek did. I'm just glad to know i didn't imagine moonbase, or SHADO, but that someone else did and my childhood fantasies of space exploration were the better for it. Now if only someone else of great foresight will see to it that the show is saved in it's entirety on DVD, for there obviously is a market for other grown-up Kids like myself who enjoy a pleasant reminder of our childhood fantasies acted out on t.v. by other adults who also refused to let being a grown-up intrude on their imaginations.

Please read Greg A. Ulbrich's excellent review (below) for a history of the UFO series. As a child I loved this series (and had to sneak into my parents bedroom to watch it because it was aired past my bedtime.) It had a haunting and eerie quality to it which frequently gave me nightmares, and I considered it to be light years ahead of its only contemporary rival Star Treck. It was much more of an adult science fiction series than any of its rivals, and did not spell out the plot as clearly as other mainstream science fiction series' (leaving the viewers to come to their own conclusions about what was motivating somebody to do something, or what was going on in a characters mind). The characters (especially Straker) were often thorny and hard to warm up to, and displayed a variety of human faults (including occasionally getting into unwise sexual liasons).

I was a little disappointed however, on reviewing the series as an adult, and it did not have the same kind of mistique that it did when I was a child. The acting is strikingly deadpan, which was also part of its charm. I don't know whether this was deliberate on Gerry Anderson's part, or just a consequence of his working with puppets too long (Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet etc.)

These two episodes are among the best of the series. Especially the "Priorities" episode, where Commander Straker must choose between saving his sons life (and re-kindling his relationship with his ex-wife) and hunting down an Alien defector.

If you were a fan of the series, or if you like slightly off-beat science fiction I would highly recommend it. I would not recommend it however for the general viewing audience, as they would no doubt find the show to be very slow and drab. Even in its day the program relied more on its eerie atmosphere than it did on excitement or special effects. (The average viewer may find Andersons use of puppet scale special effects and models, left over from Thunderbirds, particularly cheezy.) I loved this series, and still do, but it is definitely only for fans of the off-beat.

UFO Vol. 1 contains the very best episode of UFO ever, "A Question of Priorities." An intelligent script and BRILLIANTLY directed this episode finds Commander Straker"s son struck and critically injured by a car. In the mean time a UFO lands in southern Ireland and its occupant, a defector alien, enters a home occupied by a blind woman and her pet bird. Commander Straker must decide whether to do all he can to save the earth from a downed UFO or save his only begotten son. I give this video five stars for this episode alone even though the other episode on this cassette, "Exposed" is a marginal episode. There IS a UFO exploding in this episode which is an excellent special effect. Play it in ultra slow-motion and see.

This is an excellent video pack except it is addressed to fans only. Gotta know what happened before 'cause it contains the original episodes 4 & 8. That's my only reproach to the company that released it: why only 8 episodes available since there are 26 and that real fans like myself would buy them all? The ones I wanted most were ORDEAL where Paul Foster got abducted by the aliens and got "greened" and CLOSE UP in wich SHADO got pictures of the aliens world (episodes 9 & 13. Anyways, it's a must for you collectors out there and who knows maybe Today Home Entertainment will eventually do somethin'...

This series brings me back memories of my childhood, an epoch that is gone and will never come back, sigh... sigh....

Of the four sets, this is the best! I have them all and am patiently waiting for more to be made available.

first episode shows a good outline of shado and their operations.how they recruit and how they deal with the alien prescence.not much sfx in this episode but a good story none the less. episode two is a rare view of strakers home life and the problems he has to deal with other than shado.also a guarded look at the aliens,is he a defector?a rebel or just confused?