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By
WADE GOSSETT
First, some perspective: I
saw "UFO," a Gerry and Sylvia Anderson series
about a secret organization waging covert war
against mysterious alien, during its original 1970
British TV run and I absolutely adored it. Why?
Well, I was a kid who loved all things sci-fi and
I hadn't seen the original "Star Trek." "UFO" was
the first honest-to-goodness sci-fi TV series I
had ever seen.
Which explains why it did not live up to my
expectations when I saw it again, now as a
grown-up who's seen and read tons of hard sci-fi.
The main problem is the emphasis on procedure
rather than plot. Each episode takes more time
showing us how a specific task is undertaken and
conducted rather than providing any answers to who
the heck attacking aliens are, or why they're
attacking Earth.
The premise is thus: It is the 1980s, and a
high-tech secret organization going by the
acronymic SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien
Defence Organization) is defending Earth from
aliens in flying saucers. It was the Andersons'
first live-action TV series after creating
"Stingray" (1963) and "Thunderbirds" (1964).
"UFO" ran for a single season, and all 26 episodes
are on this 8-disc megaset. Ed Bishop played
Straker, the American head of SHADO, although the
rest of the actors were predominately British, and
this was after all basically a British production
in every other aspect.
Extras include commentary tracks by Gerry and
Sylvia Anderson, director Alan Perry, and actors
Mike Billington, Ed Bishop and Wanda Ventham,
alternate video outtakes, production stills
galleries and a Gerry Anderson filmography.
While far more adult in tone and storylines than
other Anderson creations, "UFO" is still their
baby, for all that implies: the Anderson's were
innovators, especially in design, but they were
also fetishists. It's obvious that they spent far
less time devising intelligent plots than coming
up with futuristic clothes (like metallic
miniskirts and purple hair for women), sets and
devices. It can all be campy fun, but I found most
episodes to be uninteresting. Some tried to tackle
issues of race and sexism, with mixed results.
There was obviously a progressive intelligence
behind the series and the courage to avoid
perpetually feel-good plots and happy endings. But
the obsession with how everything looked got in
the way of telling compelling stories. Compare
"UFO" with "Star Trek": the far more basic
production design of the latter never got in
the way of producing solid sci-fi stories that are
now classic. Eventually the Anderson's would
redeem themselves with the much better TV series,
the more "Trek"-like "Space 1999." |
