UFO (British TV series)

The series' premise is that in 1980, Earth is being visited by aliens from a dying planet, who are abducting humans and harvesting their organs for their own bodies. The alien incursions may also be a prelude to a possible full-scale invasion. The series' main cast of characters are the staff of a secret, high-technology international military agency called SHADO (an acronym for Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation) established by the governments of the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, France, and Germany to defend Earth and humanity against the mysterious aliens and learn more about them, while at the same time keeping the threat of an alien invasion hidden from the public. SHADO has a variety of high-tech hardware and vehicles at its disposal to implement a layered defence of Earth. Early warnings of alien attack came from SID, the Space Intruder Detector, an unmanned computerised tracking satellite that constantly scans for UFO incursions. The forward line of defence is Moonbase from which the three lunar Interceptor spacecraft, that fire a single explosive warhead, are launched. The second line of defence includes Skydiver, a submarine mated with the submersible, undersea-launched Sky One interceptor aircraft, which attacks UFOs in Earth's atmosphere. The last line of defence is ground units including the armed, IFV-like SHADO Mobiles, fitted with caterpillar tracks. On Earth, SHADO also uses two SHADAIR aircraft, a Seagull X-ray supersonic jet (e.g., in the episode "Identified") and a transport plane (e.g., in "A Question of Priorities"); a transatlantic Lunar Carrier with a separating Lunar Module (e.g., in "Computer Affair"); a helicopter (actually, a small VTOL aeroplane with large rotating propellers (e.g., in the episode "Ordeal"); and a radio-controlled Space Dumper (e.g., in "The Long Sleep"). The Moonbase has hovercraft-like Moon Hoppers/Moonmobiles that can be deployed for transportation or reconnaissance. The alien race is never given a proper name, either by themselves or by human beings; they are simply referred to as "the aliens". They are humanoid in appearance, and the autopsy of the first alien captured reveals that they are harvesting organs from the bodies of abducted humans to prolong their lifespans. However, the later episode "The Cat with Ten Lives" suggests that these "humanoids" are actually beings subject to alien mind control, and one "alien" body recovered was suspected of being completely Homo sapiens, "possessed" by one of the alien minds—a concept central to the Andersons' previous Supermarionation series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. Their faces are stained green by the hue of a green oxygenated liquid, which is believed to cushion their lungs against the extreme acceleration of interstellar flight; this liquid is contained in their helmets. To protect their eyes, the aliens wear opaque sclera contact lenses with small pinholes for vision. (The show's opening titles begin with a shot of one of these contact lenses being removed from an alien's eye.) The personal arms of the aliens resemble shiny metal submachine guns; these have a lower rate of fire than those used by SHADO. The aliens' spacecraft can readily cross the vast distances between their planet and Earth at many times the speed of light (abbreviated and pronounced as "SOL"; e.g., "SOL one decimal seven" is 1.7 times the speed of light), but are too small to carry more than a few crew members. Their time on station is limited: UFOs can only survive for a couple of days in Earth's atmosphere before they deteriorate and finally explode. The UFOs can survive far longer underwater; one episode, "Reflections in the Water", deals with the discovery of a secret undersea alien base and shows one UFO flying straight out of an extinct volcano. A special underwater version of the standard UFO design is seen in "Sub-Smash". In flight, they are surrounded by horizontally spinning vanes and emit a distinctive pulsing electronic whine that sounds like a Shoooe-Wheeeh! (produced by series composer Barry Gray on an ondes Martenot). The craft is armed with a laser-type weapon, and conventional explosive warheads can destroy it. ==Cast and characters==

UFO had a large ensemble cast; many of its members came and went during the course of the series, with some actors—such as George Sewell and Gabrielle Drake—leaving midway through the series, during the production break necessitated by the change of studio facilities. It is established early on that SHADO personnel rotate between positions, so the occasional disappearance of characters—some of whom later returned in other positions—fits the concept of the series. Also, owing to the scheduling of the series not reflecting the production order, some episodes featuring departed cast members were not broadcast until late in the series, which can give the impression that no major cast changes occurred. Only Ed Bishop appeared in every episode. Interceptor pilot Steve Minto was played by Steven Berkoff. Lieutenant Sylvia Howell, a Skydiver technician, was played by Georgina Moon. ==Episodes==

Owing to the fragmented nature of the ITV network in the UK at the time, the 26 episodes of UFO were broadcast out of production order, and every broadcaster showed the episodes in a different sequence. The list below, drawn from Chris Bentley's ''The Complete Book of Gerry Anderson's UFO'', details the running order shown on Associated Television (ATV; in the Midlands). Alternative viewing orders • Prod: The studio production order. • ATV: "Official" ITC sequence. This is the sequence in which the episodes were originally scheduled to be broadcast in the UK by ATV. • UFO Series: Recommended order by Marc Martin of http://www.ufoseries.com. • Fanderson: Recommended by Fanderson and used on British DVDs. • ITC: Order used for VHS release in the UK. The North American DVD release of the series usually follows the production order, with a few diversions; a website ufoseries.com for the show offers seven possibilities of viewing sequence. According to The Complete Gerry Anderson, the episode "Exposed" was intended to be aired second, but it was produced fifth and appears as the fifth episode in the American DVD release. It was only when the entire series was repeated by BBC Two in 1996–1997 that the series was shown in chronological production order in the UK for the first time. On the website shadolibrary.org, Deborah Rorabaugh has created a timeline of events in chronological order, using a few known dates and facts. For example, "Exposed" should come before all other episodes featuring Paul Foster, and there are a few definitive dates given (two newspaper dates, a death and script date). ==Production==

Following lukewarm ratings for Joe 90 (1968–1969) and the cancellation of children's espionage television series The Secret Service (1969) after only 13 episodes, Lew Grade approached Gerry Anderson to look into creating his first live-action TV series. Anderson worked with his wife, Sylvia, and producer Reg Hill to create a science fiction adventure series based on UFOs. Anderson said the core idea for the series was that UFO sightings were a common issue during the late 1960s, and that the idea of aliens harvesting human organs came from the work of Christiaan Barnard and his pioneering transplant operations. The creative team initially envisioned an organisation called UFoeDO (Unidentified Foe Defence Organisation), which was to become the secret SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation). Seventeen episodes were filmed at these studios before they closed at the end of 1969. Production resumed at Pinewood Studios when studio space became available in June 1970, making UFO a 17-month-long production by the time the final nine episodes were completed. After the break, George Sewell (who played Colonel Freeman) and Gabrielle Drake (Lieutenant Ellis) were no longer available, and left the series. Harry Baird, who played interceptor pilot Mark Bradley, had left the series after just four episodes, citing contractual problems (although he reappeared in a few later episodes from stock footage). Skydiver Captain Peter Carlin, played by Peter Gordeno, left after eight episodes out of a fear of being typecast. The different writers and directors, as well as a production break when MGM-British Studios was closed, resulted in episodes of varying quality. During the shooting of UFO, David Lowe and Sydney Carlton raised funds to form a company called The Explorer Motor Company, dedicated to the mass production of these cars for sale to the public. A plastic mould was made of the Straker car, in preparation for mass production, but the company never got off the ground. The blue SHADO Jeeps — six-wheeled light-utility vehicles — were also originally supplied for Doppelgänger. The bodies were made of marine ply, fibreglass and perspex, built on a Mini Moke chassis incorporating an extra rear axle and modified by re-positioning the windscreen rearwards. As with the other SHADO vehicles, they incorporated gull-wing doors operated by a prop man out of shot. As with all the Anderson series of that period, very few original series props and miniatures have survived, and these are now highly valuable collector's items. Miniatures from the series known to still exist include: • Two of the alien flying saucer UFO miniatures • A single large-scale miniature of Sky One • One large-scale and one small-scale miniature of the Moonbase Interceptors (which survived because they were given to Dinky for production of its Interceptor toys) • The (badly damaged) front section only of the smaller miniature of the Space Intruder Detector (SID) • The large-scale model of the SID2 orbital shuttle • One prime mover of Marker Universal Transporter truck (the lorry and trailer used to secretly transport the SHADO Mobile vehicles to their operation sites) • One large-scale SHADO ambulance • One large-scale Harlington-Straker Studio transport truck (The model, based on the Mk 1 Ford Transit, had previously appeared in the final Supermarionation series The Secret Service) ==Broadcast==

UFO confused broadcasters in Britain and the United States, who could not decide if it was a show for adults or for children. In the UK, the first episodes were originally shown in the 5:15 p.m. tea-time slot on Saturdays, and then on Saturday mornings during an early repeat, by both Southern Television — which began broadcasting UFO almost two months before the London area — and London Weekend Television. That the Andersons were primarily associated with children's programming did not help matters. In the US, the series first aired between 1972 and 1973. In 1996, the series was repeated in the UK on Bravo and BBC2. ==Reception==

Tony Jones of starburstmagazine.com gives the series a favourable review: "To a large extent, UFO is still very watchable [...] even if effects have moved on considerably in the past several decades. The music works, the costumes are memorable, and even if some of the future looks rather dated now, the stories themselves are still strong". Paul Mounts comments that even if many episodes "seem ponderous by today's standards", the series is "really all about those extraordinary visuals, the thunderingly exciting Barry Gray signature music [...] thrilling title sequence [and] overarching scenario". He argues that the final nine episodes, filmed after the move to Pinewood Studios and featuring increasingly "action-orientated" plots, were an improvement on the first 17. Other reviews have been more critical. In 1972, a commentator for the Los Angeles Free Press wrote that UFO "plays like a combination of the worst traits of Batman and Star Trek". A 1973 review by Cleveland Amory criticised the writing and dialogue, the "plaster cast" of supporting characters, the level of violence, and a perceived sexism from some characters, commenting that "outer space, even in 1980, is still crawling with male chauvinist pigs." He also wrote that "[t]he idea that anything in outer space must be an enemy is perhaps one of the most offensive things here." According to Gary Westfahl, the series has "an intriguing premise [...]; the special effects were impeccable; and even the acting was better that usual. But Anderson proved unable to imaginatively develop his story, as later episodes reveal that the aliens were People Who Look and Act Just Like Us, and the show slowed down to stupefied inertia as the aliens increasingly focused all of their energies on repetitive schemes to kill the show's hero, Stryker." According to a retrospective by Den of Geek, UFO "caught perfectly the depressive and fatalistic Zeitgeist of 1970s cinema, with relentlessly bleak endings and a hell of a lot of suffering on the way to them. It mixed inventive scripting with frequently trite dialogue and vice versa; it put highly charged emotional, adult situations in the hands of actors who were often wearing absurd purple or platinum wigs [...] It kept you off-guard in a manner that few other shows have ever achieved, intentionally or otherwise." Some reviews have commented on the series' mix of themes. In an article for Cinema Retro, Tim Greaves writes that UFO was the Andersons' first step "towards something aimed at a more mature audience, its storylines touching upon some distinctly adult themes. Not only was there the ever-present core threat of aliens abducting humans and harvesting their organs to sustain their dying race; there were flirtations with adultery, divorce, interracial romance and the recreational use of hallucinogenic drugs [...] The very appearance of the aliens was disconcertingly sinister, sporting eerie liquid-filled helmets [...] Additionally, the characters regularly made flawed decisions and not all the stories concluded happily. There was also a pervasive frisson of sexuality throughout the series [...]. Peter Hutchings of Northumbria University argues that in trying to be more "adult-centred" than earlier Anderson productions, the series "[contained, limited or diminished] its generic science fiction elements". He notes that only six of the first 17 episodes focus squarely on the alien threat; in other episodes, the aliens are incidental to storylines that have little grounding in science fiction, such as the organisational politics of SHADO and "tensions between emotional expression and operational efficiency". ==Aborted second series==

In late 1972, two years after the 26 episodes were completed, the series was syndicated on American television. Many stations which carried the series were affiliated with CBS; they tended to schedule the show in the Saturday evening hour leading into All in the Family, the hugely popular comedy which was the highest-rated program on all of U.S. television at the time. The ratings of UFO in New York were initially high enough to prompt ITC to commission a second series. Unwilling to let the UFO 2 pre-production work go to waste, Anderson instead offered ITC a new series idea, unrelated to UFO, in which the Moon would be blown out of Earth orbit taking the Moonbase survivors with it. This proposal developed into Space: 1999. ==Merchandise==

As with many Anderson productions, the series generated a range of merchandising toys based on the SHADO vehicles. The classic Dinky die-cast range of vehicles featured robust yet finely finished products, and included Straker's futuristic gull-winged gas turbine car, the SHADO mobile and the missile-bearing Lunar Interceptor, though Dinky's version of the interceptor was released in a lurid metallic green finish unlike the original's stark white. Like the Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet models, the original Dinky toys are now prized collector's items. All the major vehicles, characters, and more have been produced in model form many times over by a large number of licensee companies; the Anderson shows and their merchandise have always had widespread popularity, but they are especially popular in Japan. ==Compilation films==

In the 1970s and 1980s a number of the episodes were cut and compiled to create compilation films. Among these was Invasion: UFO, a 1980 compilation of scenes from "Identified", "Computer Affair", "Reflections in the Water", "Confetti Check A-O.K.", "The Man Who Came Back" and "E.S.P.", featuring new title music. A subtitled Invasion: UFO was released in Japan as the first of eight VHS and Betamax tape UFO volumes by Emotion Video in 1984, and on LaserDisc format. Italian producers KENT and INDIEF made compilation films which met mixed reviews. The films used music tracks from the James Bond films From Russia with Love and Thunderball, for UFOs composer, Barry Gray, had his name confused with Bond composer John Barry. The Italian films are: • UFO – Allarme rosso... attacco alla Terra! (, KENT, 1973) from episodes "The Cat with Ten Lives", "The Psychobombs" and "Timelash" • UFO – Distruggete Base Luna (, KENT, 1973): "The Cat with Ten Lives", "Confetti Check A-O.K.", "Flight Path", "The Psychobombs", "A Question of Priorities" and "Kill Straker!" • UFO – Prendeteli vivi (, INDIEF, 1974): "Computer Affair", "Ordeal", "The Sound of Silence", "Destruction" and "Reflections in the Water" • UFO – Contatto Radar... stanno atterrando...! (, INDIEF, 1974): "Exposed", "Survival", "Court Martial" and "Sub-Smash" • UFO – Annientate SHADO... Uccidete Straker... Stop! (, KENT, 1974): "Identified", "Computer Affair" and "Reflections in the Water" ==Home media==

In 1986–1987, Channel 5 released a seven-volume VHS collection of episodes (volumes 2–7), preceded by the compilation film Invasion: UFO (volume 1), while a similar series was later released by ITC in 1993. The discs are described as having been "restored from the original film elements with additional grading work and updates applied to select episodes". ==Proposed feature film==

In 2009, it was announced that Robert Evans and ITV Global would produce a feature film adaptation of the series. Ryan Gaudet and Joseph Kanarek were to write the script, which was to be set in 2020. It was announced that the film would be visual effects supervisor Matthew Gratzner's directorial debut and its protagonist would be Colonel Foster, who was to be played by Joshua Jackson. Ali Larter was linked to the role of Colonel Lake. The film did not enter production. ==In other media==

Stories set in the Gerry Anderson UFO series have appeared in various media: • Two novelisations based on the series, written by John Burke under the pseudonym "Robert Miall", were published in the UK and America: • UFO (published in the US as UFO-1: Flesh Hunters). Novelises portions of the TV episodes Identified, Exposed, Close Up and Court Martial. • UFO 2 (published in the US as UFO-2: Sporting Blood). Novelises the TV episodes Computer Affair, The Dalotek Affair and Survival. • UFO comic strips were published in the comics Countdown and TV Action. • UFO episodes were adapted as photo comics in the Italian publication I film di UFO ("The UFO films"). • An Italian-language board game of the race game type was published, called "Distruggete Base Luna" ("Destroy Moonbase"; in reference to the compilation movie), with up to four players, each representing an alien trying to penetrate Moonbase, and one player representing Straker in charge of Moonbase. • Julian Gollop of British independent video game developer Mythos Games has cited UFO as one of the influences for the storyline of the video game UFO: Enemy Unknown even though he thought the series itself was "a bit boring". In particular, an idea of an international counter-UFO organisation and the psionic powers of some alien races. • Character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto drew inspiration from UFO for the character designs for Gendo Ikari and Kozo Fuyutsuki in Neon Genesis Evangelion (from Straker and Freeman respectively). ==Translations==

• French: ''UFO – Alerte dans l'espace'' (France–O.R.T.F.) • German: Ufo – Weltraumkommando S.H.A.D.O. • Japanese: Nazo no Enban Yū-Efu-Ō (謎の円盤UFO, UFO: The Mysterious Saucers) • Italian: UFO (Italy – R.A.I. TV) and Minaccia dallo spazio (Swiss Canton of Ticino) – T.S.I. TV) • Spanish: OVNI (although the Spanish 2007 DVD release title remains UFO) • Brazilian Portuguese: OVNI: Objeto Voador Não Identificado (TV dubbed version) ==References==