UFO (British TV series)

• Colonel Edward "Ed" Straker (Ed Bishop), Commander-in-chief of SHADO, is a former American Air Force colonel, pilot and astronaut originally from Boston, Massachusetts, who organised SHADO following a series of UFO attacks in 1970. Straker masquerades as the head of Harlington-Straker Film Studios, SHADO Headquarters being located directly below the studio.
• Colonel Paul Foster (Michael Billington) is introduced in the second episode "Exposed". A former test pilot, his plane was critically damaged when SHADO's Sky One intercepted and destroyed a UFO flying near Foster's jet. His persistent investigation of the incident threatened to expose SHADO's existence, so Straker offered him a position with SHADO.
• Lieutenant Gay Ellis (Gabrielle Drake), seen as Moonbase commander during the first half of the series. Lt. Ellis is occasionally portrayed as lacking self-confidence, and at other times as a take-charge officer. She is briefly reassigned to SHADO HQ when it is suggested that she may be romantically involved with interceptor pilot Mark Bradley ("Computer Affair").
• Colonel Alec Freeman (George Sewell), Second-in-command of SHADO, a former pilot and intelligence officer, is SHADO's first officer (and very first operative recruited into SHADO by Straker) for 17 episodes in the series (Sewell left following the change of studios, being later unavailable when series production resumed at Pinewood Studios). Freeman is Straker's closest friend and right-hand man and, occasionally, his muscle.
• General James Henderson (Grant Taylor), President of IAC, Straker's superior officer, serves as the president of the International Astrophysical Commission, which is a front for SHADO and is responsible for obtaining funds and equipment from various governments to keep SHADO operational. Straker and Henderson clash frequently over the needs of SHADO and economic realities.
• Colonel Virginia Lake (Wanda Ventham) first appears in the opening episode ("Identified"), as the chief designer for Westbrook Electronics, the contractor for the SHADO's Utronics faster-than-light tracking system. During the last eight episodes, Lake returned to take over the post of SHADO first officer, replacing Alec Freeman.
• Captain Peter Carlin (Peter Gordeno), during the first third of the series, Carlin is the commander of the submarine Skydiver and pilot of its interceptor aircraft, Sky One. In 1970, Carlin and his sister found a UFO and were attacked; he was shot and wounded and his sister vanished. He joined SHADO in the hope of finding out what happened to his sister, and eventually learned that her organs had been harvested in "Identified." Gordeno left the show after six episodes because he wanted to avoid typecasting.
• Lieutenant Nina Barry (Dolores Mantez) is one of Straker's first recruits into SHADO. Barry works as a space tracker at Moonbase and later replaces Lieutenant Ellis as its commanding officer. She also serves aboard Skydiver in "Sub-Smash".
• Captain Lew Waterman (Gary Myers) is initially an interceptor pilot on the Moon; he is later promoted to captain, and replaces Peter Carlin as commanding officer of Skydiver and pilot of Sky One.
• Lieutenant Keith Ford (Keith Alexander) is a former television interviewer who became a founding member of SHADO and its main communications officer. Actor Keith Alexander left the series after the production break, so the character disappears at the two-thirds mark of the series.
• Lieutenant Ayshea Johnson (Ayshea Brough) is a SHADO headquarters officer in 14 episodes, and later becomes SHADO's communications officer following the departure of Lt. Ford.
• Doctor Douglas Jackson (Vladek Sheybal) is the SHADO psychiatrist and science officer. He serves a number of capacities within SHADO, including acting as prosecution officer during the court-martial of Paul Foster. It is implied that "Douglas Jackson" is not the character's birth name, as he speaks with a strong Eastern European accent.
• Lieutenant Joan Harrington (Antonia Ellis) another Moonbase operative, was one of the organisation's earliest recruits, as seen in "Confetti Check A-O.K.".
• Miss Ealand (Norma Ronald) is a SHADO operative who masquerades as Straker's movie studio secretary. She is the first line of defence against anyone entering SHADO HQ via Straker's office/elevator. The character is not seen in most of the post-studio change episodes, being replaced in two episodes by Miss Holland, played by Lois Maxwell.
• Lieutenant Mark Bradley (Harry Baird) is a Caribbean-born interceptor pilot based on the Moon. He becomes romantically involved with Lieutenant Ellis for a time, leading to a temporary assignment at SHADO HQ on Earth, and later briefly assumes the position of Moonbase commander. Baird left the series after filming four episodes, but appeared in stock footage in two later episodes.

One of the female Moonbase operatives, Joanna, was played by Shakira Baksh, who later married Michael Caine. Producer Gerry Anderson later said that he had lost his temper with her so badly on the set of UFO that he always feared the idea of running into Michael Caine at some actors' function, and being punched on the nose by him.[4]

Interceptor pilot Steve Minto was played by Steven Berkoff.

Lieutenant Sylvia Howell, a Skydiver technician, was played by Georgina Moon.

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). UFO Episode Timing.

• Prod: The studio production order.[7]
• ATV: "Official" ITC sequence. This is the sequence in which the episodes were originally scheduled to be broadcast in the UK by ATV Midlands.
• 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.

A number of the episodes were cut and compiled to create compilation films.

Invasion: UFO was a 1980 compilation of scenes from "Identified", "Computer Affair", "Reflections in the Water", "Confetti Check A-Ok", "The Man Who Came Back" and "E.S.P." featuring new title music.

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 UFO's composer, Barry Gray, had his name confused with Bond composer John Barry.

• UFO – Allarme rosso... attacco alla Terra! (lit. 'UFO – Red alert... attack on Earth!', KENT, 1973) from episodes "The Cat with Ten Lives", "The Psychobombs" and "Timelash"
• UFO – Distruggete Base Luna (lit. 'UFO – Destroy Moonbase', KENT, 1973) from episodes "The Cat with Ten Lives", "Confetti Check A-Ok", "Flight Path", "The Psychobombs", "A Question of Priorities" and "Kill Straker!"
• UFO – Prendeteli vivi (lit. 'UFO – Catch them alive', INDIEF, 1974) from episodes "Computer Affair", "Ordeal", "The Sound of Silence", "Destruction" and "Reflections in the Water"
• UFO – Contatto Radar... stanno atterrando...! (lit. 'UFO ["Radar" as a proper name] contact... they are landing...!', INDIEF, 1974) from episodes "Exposed", "Survival", "Court Martial" and "Sub-Smash"
• UFO – Annientate SHADO... Uccidete Straker... Stop! (lit. 'UFO – [imperative] Annihilate SHADO... Kill Straker... ["Stop!" as a telegraphic pause]', KENT, 1974) from episodes "Identified", "Computer Affair" and "Reflections in the Water"[8]

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.

Following lukewarm ratings for Joe 90 (1968–1969) and the cancellation of children's espionage television series The Secret Service (1969) after only one series, 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.[9] 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).[1]

Many of the props and actors that had appeared in the Anderson-produced 1969 movie Doppelgänger were utilised in the series. The creators looked ten years ahead and placed the series in a 1980s future. Sylvia Anderson also designed the costumes for the show, including the Moonbase uniforms and purple wigs that female staff wore; the wigs were to become a major reference point for the series.[1]

UFO featured key motifs and plot elements that shared a conceptual continuity with nearly all of Anderson's previous television work. Every series from Supercar onward focused on the heroic exploits of a secret but benevolent group or agency (the Supercar team, World Space Patrol, WASP, International Rescue, Spectrum, WIN, BISHOP, SHADO), operating from a remote or hidden base, and equipped with futuristic technology and/or advanced transport vehicles, whose mission is to protect the people of Earth from danger and disaster, and counter the nefarious schemes of a sinister, devious and elusive enemy (Masterspy, the Subterrains, the Aquaphibians, The Hood, The Mysterons, the aliens).

In addition to the shift from using marionettes to real actors, another key point of difference is that while Anderson's previous series were explicitly made for all ages, UFO was a deliberate attempt to court young adult and adult viewers. Some UFO episodes included serious adult themes such as divorce, drug use, the challenge of maintaining work/family balance, mind control, alien abduction, illegal organ harvesting, and murder.

Principal photography commenced in April 1969 with production based at MGM-British Studios in Borehamwood. 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 Alec Freeman) and Gabrielle Drake (Lt. Gay Ellis) were no longer available, and left the series.

Due to the series being shown out of production order, their omission was not overly noticeable. Previously, 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). Also, Skydiver Captain Peter Carlin, played by Peter Gordeno, left after eight episodes out of a fear of being typecast.[10]

The different writers and directors, as well as a production break when MGM-British Studios was closed, resulted in episodes of varying quality.[1]

Some episodes feature downbeat or tragic elements. In "Flight Path", a SHADO operative who has been blackmailed into giving crucial data to the aliens redeems himself by thwarting a sneak attack on Moonbase, but is killed in the attempt, and dies not knowing that his wife has been murdered by an alien agent. In "Survival", after another sneak attack on Moonbase, an injured Col. Foster encounters an alien on the lunar surface but, although the alien unexpectedly befriends and helps him, a misunderstanding leads to the alien being killed by SHADO operatives. "Confetti Check A-O.K." is almost entirely devoted to the breakdown of Straker's marriage under the strain of maintaining secrecy, owing to the classified nature of his duties. "A Question of Priorities" hinges on Straker having to choose between diverting a SHADO aircraft to deliver life-saving medical supplies to his critically injured son, or allow the aircraft to continue its mission to intercept an alien who appears to want to surrender to SHADO.

Another episode, "The Square Triangle", centres on a woman and her lover who plan to murder her husband. When they accidentally kill an alien from a downed UFO instead, SHADO intervenes and doses the guilty pair with amnesia drugs. Straker realises, however, that the drugs will not affect their basic motivation and, worse, he cannot reveal the truth to local legal authorities. The end credits of this episode run over a scene set in the near future, showing the woman visiting her husband's grave and then walking away to meet her lover.

Some critics complained that the emphasis on down-to-earth relationships weakened the show's science fiction premise and were also a means of saving money on special effects. Others countered that the characters were more well-rounded than in other science fiction shows, and that science fiction concepts and special effects in themselves did not preclude realistic action and interaction and believable, emotionally engaging plots.

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 5:15pm '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. The fact that the Andersons were primarily associated with children's programming did not help matters. This confusion and erratic broadcast schedules are considered contributing factors in its cancellation, although UFO is credited with opening the door to moderately successful runs of later live-action, adult-oriented programming by Anderson such as The Protectors and Space: 1999.

To defend against the aliens, a secret organisation called SHADO, the Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defence Organisation, is established. Operating under the cover (as well as literally beneath the premises) of the Harlington-Straker Studios movie studio in England, SHADO is headed by Commander Edward Straker (Ed Bishop), a former United States Air Force colonel and astronaut, whose "cover" is his role as the studio's chief executive.[11]

Establishing the main character and principal location as the chief executive of a movie studio was a cost-saving move by the producers: the Harlington-Straker Studio was the actual studio where the series was being filmed, originally the MGM-British Studios in Borehamwood (later moved to Pinewood Studios) — although the exterior of the Harlington-Straker studio office block seen throughout the series was actually Neptune House, an office building at ATV Elstree Studios, also in Borehamwood. Pinewood's studio buildings and streetscapes were used extensively in later episodes, particularly "Timelash" and "Mindbender" — the latter featuring scenes that show the behind-the-scenes workings of the UFO sets, when Straker briefly finds himself hallucinating that he is an actor in a TV series and all his SHADO colleagues are likewise actors. In "The Man Who Came Back", the main set for The Devils, then in production at Pinewood, can be seen in the background of several scenes.

Typical of Anderson's work, the studio-as-cover concept served multiple practical and narrative functions: It was simple and cost-effective for the production, it provided an engaging vehicle for the viewer's suspension of disbelief, it eliminated the need to build an expensive exterior set for the SHADO base, and it combined the all-important "secret" cover (concealment and secrecy are always central themes in Anderson dramas) with at least nominal plausibility. A studio was a business where unusual events and routines would not be remarkable or even noticed. Comings and goings at odd times, the movement of people and unusual vehicles, equipment and material would not create undue interest and could easily be explained away as sets, props, or extras.

Another recurring Anderson leitmotif was the concept of the mechanical conveyor (e.g. the automatic boarding tubes of the Stingray and the Thunderbird craft). In UFO this took several forms – Straker's "secret" office doubles as a secret elevator that takes him down to the SHADO control centre located beneath the studio, and the pilots of the Moonbase interceptors and the amphibious Sky One jet interceptor slide down boarding chutes to board their craft. The interceptors then rise from their hangar via elevating platforms to a launch pad disguised as a lunar crater. The device of the personnel boarding chute or conveyor served both narrative and practical functions – like firefighters responding to a fire alarm by sliding down the fireman's pole to board the fire engine, these personnel chutes/conveyors signified to the audience that the characters were embarking on a perilous mission; they were also a carry-over from the previous marionette series and were one of several plot devices (e.g. the Thunderbirds hover-bikes) which Anderson and his team devised to provide a fast-paced, futuristic and visually exciting way to move the action forward, whilst also minimising or eliminating the undesirable comical effect of seeing the marionettes walking, which might otherwise undercut the dramatic tension of the sequence.

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 would come 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.[12] 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.[13] The last line of defence is ground units including the armed, IFV-like SHADO Mobiles, fitted with caterpillar tracks.[14]

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 the episode "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"). Also, the Moonbase has hovercraft-like Moon Hoppers/Moonmobiles that can be deployed for transportation or reconnaissance.

The special effects (as in all Anderson's shows of this era) were supervised by Derek Meddings, and the vehicles were designed by Meddings and his assistant Michael Trim. As with all these Anderson series, the look and narrative action of UFO relied heavily on the groundbreaking miniature props and special effects sequences created by Meddings and his team, who devised a range of innovative low-cost, high-quality techniques used to create very convincing miniature sets and locations and miniature action scenes featuring ground transportation, underwater, atmospheric and space travel, and dramatic explosion effects. The large-scale miniature vehicles and craft used for close-up filming were extremely detailed and combine innovative design with a high level of fine workmanship. Most production miniatures typically consisted of a mixture of custom-made elements and detail pieces 'cannibalised' from commercial scale model kits.

As with all the Anderson/Century 21 programmes 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:[15]

• 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)

The extraterrestrial 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 for 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, which Straker describes as "a back door to the Atlantic". 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).[16] The craft is armed with a laser-type weapon, and conventional explosive warheads can destroy it. The personal arms of the aliens resemble shiny metal submachine guns; these have a lower rate of fire than those used by SHADO. Later episodes, such as "The Cat with Ten Lives", show the aliens using other weapons, such as a small device that paralyses victims.

Notably for science fiction, 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 post mortem examination 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 Anderson's 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 sequence begins by showing the image of one of these contact lenses being removed from an obviously real eye with a small suction cup, even though the lens is not shown in contact with the eye. The entire lens-removal sequence is shown in the pilot episode.

Only two of the alien suits were made, so at no point in the series are more than two of the aliens seen on screen at any one time. In the episode "Ordeal", Paul Foster is carried by two aliens while he is wearing an alien space suit, but one of those two aliens is always off-screen when Foster is on-screen.

The alien spacesuit costumes were made of red spandex. At the start of production, the alien spacesuits were ornamented with brass chain mesh, as seen in the episode "Survival". Later, this was replaced by silvery panels. In reality, the dark vertical bands on the sides of the helmets were slits meant to allow the actors to breathe.

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),[21] while a similar series was later released by ITC in 1993.[21]

The complete series was released on DVD in the UK and in North America in 2002 and in Australia in 2007. Bonus features include a commentary by Gerry Anderson on the pilot episode "Identified", and an actor's commentary by Ed Bishop on the episode "Sub-Smash". There are also deleted scenes, stills and publicity artwork.

In 2002, A&E Home Entertainment, under licence from Carlton International Media Limited released the complete series on Region 1 (US/North America) DVD.

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 collectors' 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.

In 2009, it was announced that producer Robert Evans and ITV Global would produce a big-screen adaptation of the series. Ryan Gaudet and Joseph Kanarek were to write the script, which was to be set in 2020.[22] It was claimed that the UFO movie would be visual effects supervisor Matthew Gratzner's directorial debut[23] and that Joshua Jackson would play Col. Paul Foster.[24] Ali Larter was linked to the role of Col. Virginia Lake.[25]

Producers Avi Haas and Matthew Gratzner posted on the official UFO film website that the film was under development and planned for a summer 2013 release. However, nothing was completed, and the film's web page is no longer available.