I have watched a ridiculous amount of sci fi over the years and UFO still remains my favourite series, it has it's faults and missteps but it always delivered the goods.
@@lpquagmire3621 space 1999, at least series one, it went off the rails when commander Connie took a back seat, and old professor bloke just went missing the alien space woman the could shape shift, end up be monster battle, any lazy scripts, on air in a room no problem I will just turn into an XXX then don't breath ???
@@douglasarthur2673 I always wanted one of those interceptors, but went for the SHADO mobile. Just a shame the plastic missile broke so easily and in those days, when plastic broke, that was it! Did get an Eagle from Space 1999... my pride and joy. I should get an MPC model kit of that, and build one, but it's always sold out and about 130 USD - besides which I couldn't build a model properly if my life depended on it. I wonder how much original Corgi stuff might be available on eBay? It's 8 am, haven't been to bed yet and now you make me want to find my Eagle and play with it! Gee.. thanks a lot 🤣
It was Britain's gain and America's loss when Mr. Bishop decided to make his career and life in the UK... The same was true with Mr. Shane Rimmer, another American expat.
@@Armadacon Capt Scarlet was practically the Supermarionation version of those Japanese Mangas. Very dark, violent and adult. Probably quite wrong for the TV market it was selling to, but awesome as Hell for fans! :)
In fact UFO make sit pretty clear that the best Earth could hope for is to force a stalemate and the aliens give up. Kind of like Captain Scarlet, where the Mysterons are clearly the superior hand and it's a "war of nerves". SHADO never really "wins" it is simply preventing a checkmate, and often this is only at great cost.
That was an advantage that British production had. In the 50s, 60s US television had standards of practice that required the bad guy to not get away with it by the epilog. This is why Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller and One Step Beyond has the closing comments by the host to put a bow on a story where a murderer, liar or thief appeared to have prospered. Even if the situation defeated good. Twilight Zone rode a fine line, but more often the good guy came out OK and the evil one was defeated. Westerns did this too and so did Star Trek. You'd watch a complete tragedy, but there'd suddenly be a last scene with an optimistic event or a knee slapping joke....forgetting the 5 extras that died horribly 10 to 20 minutes ago.
Bishop certainly has some interesting opinions on UFO but must say I disagree with him on most. Giving Straker definable character flaws and personal dilemmas as well as alien incursions to repulse was both bold and novel in an era where main protagonists were typically one dimensional. As such Straker was a far more complex figure than the archetypal flawless commander stoically ordering the destruction of UFO’s each and every week he could so easily have been. Far from diluting the show’s core premise a humanised Ed Straker enhanced it!
I think he's reflecting on the fact that it didn't propel him to stardom and so something must have been wrong. But 26 * 1 hour episodes is quite a long run really.
The biggest problem is that you never knew when it might be on! In the USA, it was never on a reliable schedule, you would just stumble on it at random times on Sunday afternoons as filler. We were always thrilled when we managed to find it.
@@brettbuck7362 similar problems in the UK - the ITV network had some wild regional variations. I remember it being late afternoon/early evenings on a Sunday, but the first broadcast was Wednesday, 16th September 1970, probably ATV and in the 1830 slot.
I think UFO was the best sci -fi action series. Once again Gerry ,Sylvia and all the team proved time and time again that they were the best. UFO has not really dated as some sci -fi has. I liked the contrast between the action episodes and the human ones like the episode A Question Of Priorities. With UFO you get the best of both worlds (human and alien) It was such a shame that UFO only ran for one series.
not dated? its set in future but looks very analogue 70,s, i suppose thats unavoidable, they really should have expanded gab drakes role,-good actress, attractive intelligent character ,should have been developed
@@stephenpochly7003 I rewatched the first episode of Space 1999, it was such Crap, the acting was poor, the whole thing was like Bad Sci Fi at its worst, Why did they do it, why did they have to let ITC America Dictate to them, such a loss, UFO could have used some story lines that ran more then one episode and a little bit more into the script writing but the acting was pretty damn good, and over all the concept was Epic, and to learn the Aliens were not even what they thought and were just using the bodies and parts to form another being to transpose their minds into, it was getting too damn good
Futuristic 70s design is strikingly beautiful (or is it just me?)! The colours, shapes of cars and phone handsets, furniture, helmet visors, even the tech designs. There’s a visual language going through everything which makes it credible. Kudos to these designers on set
Agreed. The show is just fabulous from a design point of view. I regret that the 1980s didn't actually have fashions, cars, interiors and spacecraft as cool as those depicted. One of the problems with any proposed remake is that I worry that everything would end up redesigned, and they just couldn't make it as damn ... yes, beautiful to look at. Or anywhere near as groovy.
Much of the futuristic design used in sci fi in the 1960s and 1970s tended to be exaggerated There was a sense things were going to change a lot more rapidly than actually they did in real life. I recall not long after Armstrong and Aldrin set foot on the Moon that NASA's next major goal was to land a human on Mars by 1980. Well here we are in 2024 and that's unlikely to happen anytime soon. UFO got it wrong. Space: 1999 got it wrong ... still no Moonbase in 2024. Lost in Space got it wrong ... no human mission to Alpha Centauri in 1999. Back to the Future ... Real 2015 was nothing like BTTF 2015. Star Trek seems to be the only one that has got it right to this point. Setting stories hundreds of years into the future is probably a much safer bet than going for the near future.
Gabrielle is right. The show's incredible longevity suggests that the majority of narrative decisions made in the series were correct. Equally Ed is correct that some of the latter shows pointed to a struggle to maintain the original story line. Who am I to argue with the star of the show, but it wasn't a thin series plot, so much as maybe over ambitious production goals at times. And as for A Question Of Priorities, that's right up there as one of the most popular shows with fans. I still watch all the shows right through a couple of times a year and it never loses its sparkle. A true TV classic.
Viewed through more mature eyes, UFO objectified women terribly. I still love the show decades later, but can understand how women could have viewed it quite differently. Despite it's flaws, it was so much better than Space 1999, that I now consider unwatchable.
I have this on DVD boxset. It's a fantastic series that, in my opinion, should have been commissioned for more than just the one series. I watched it as a kid and, to be honest, never get tired of re-watching it. I liked the fact that each episode concluded with loose ends, or on a sour note. And, of course, the womenfolk were bloody gorgeous.
UFO is a stand-out sci-fi series. It’s such a shame it was cancelled. However, if I were given the choice of remaking UFO or Space:1999 it would be UFO. It’s darker tone and concept make it perfect for our modern tv drama environment. Of course, there will be those who would never want it to be remade, and I kind of get that, but it is exciting to imagine what they would do with the series now. UFO is amazing!
According to Anderson (YT video) Space 1999 came about because a certain US TV company executive didn’t want to commission a second series based on earth.
UFO is most definitely food for a reboot. It has massive potential. I'm amazed it hasn't happened. The reboot of Battlestar Galactica was amazing, and the source material was nowhere near as good as UFO.
Remakes/sequels are a mixed blessing. Some are good, like Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (how could anyone not love Baby Groot..?) but most are absolutely awful.
Gerry Anderson always said UFO was his favorite of all the TV series he ever did. It stands the test of time because it’s still even today, a future you’d want to live in.
I was a fan of the series right from the first episode. I hated when it stopped. I was about 14 at the time. A friend told me it was stopped because it got too near the truth. It would be easier to say which episodes I didn't like. I was ill with Cancer 17 years ago and watched the whole series while I could. I got better. I have the theme tune as my ringtone now.
Glad to hear that you recovered. As for your ringtone, it really is a great tune isn't it. But let's face it, every tune that Barry Gray came out with in those days was pure gold.
Even when I was a young kid watching the show in reruns in the late 70s, I actually loved the "soap opera" themes of many of the episodes. It really set the show apart from other sci fi. And that's probably a major reason why I enjoyed the reimagined Battlestar Galactica too.
It was interesting that Ed raised "A Question of Priorities" although I was surprised by his negative take on it. Gerry Anderson said that ITC in New York didn't ike that episode because of its very human focus and that presumably they wanted more "action" - he rightly disagreed. However it is the human issues that make that one of the most memorable episodes and help to show that UFO was very much an adult series. As well as the whole drama of Straker's son it also has the fascinating possibility of an alien defector. As someone else mentioned in the comments you can't separate action and a "battle against the aliens" from the personal lives of those involved. If UFO had essentially just been an action show uninterested in human emotions and relationships it would have been far less effective.
Every show goes through growing pains in the first season. Unfortunately UFO only had one season to work with. It was all in all very superior in many ways; especially for its time 🤗
@@An.Individual back in the day most shows were 25-30 episodes a season. Star Trek’s first season was 29 ; I believe. Even TNG and Deep Space did 25-26 episodes per season 🖖
Cheers guys for a great start to a hectic Saturday. Still one of the best sci-fi shows ever done with a great back story, yes it has faults but how many of those can be written by budget and interference from higher up (Lew Grade).
Interesting to hear the various points of view. With respect to Ed Bishop, however, I think one must appreciate that the creative teams had only less than an hour to pack in everything and make it coherent. Thanks to the love affair with the US market, Anderson and the creative teams always worked under that damacles sword of cancellation, which inevitably, and unjustifiably happened toward the end of the series. If the UK had given the teams, say, a five year run then I think you would seen storylines and themes expanded as the series matured. As it is, though, everyone involved had ( and still has ) something to be very proud of in UFO.
@@kevinyoung3499 yes you are correct, but there was a long break in production of 5 months, because production was shifted from MGM Borehamwood to Pinewood studios Buckinghamshire and led to the departure of Gabrielle Drake and George Sewell .
I’m currently writing the second volume of my UFO guide books. It’s focused on Straker’s private life. I’ve read Ed Bishop’s comments and I think you’d have to be misinterpreting to think he disliked his character or the way it was developed. His one major regret was that UFO never went to a second season. I agree with him there. UFO was a masterpiece in my opinion. I corresponded briefly with him in the 1990s and found him a good sport with a great sense of humour and he had some funny and interesting ideas about how Straker could have been revived. Basically it did not go wrong. I assume Mr Bishop was speculating on why it wasn’t a longer running show and he seemed to be assuming it was not commercial enough. In truth it was cut short because Lew Grade found it was easier to sell a new show than a second season of an existing one.
I think that the only Anderson shows that deserved a 2nd season were Captain Scarlet and UFO. I'd have much rather they'd gone along with the original plans and end up with something like UFO: 1999.
@@zypalitra8080 A second season of UFO would have been brilliant because, whatever form it took, we would have had more of Ed Straker, the most complex and realistic character in any Anderson show.
I think Ed Bishop would have made a more credible Commander of Moonbase Alpha than Martin Landau. Landau was an exceptional actor but he never seemed that comfortable as Koenig. While Ed Bishop seemed very at ease as Straker.
@@michaeldeal8060 It's hard to imagine Space: 1999 without Landau, (although the season 2 episode Dorzac does well with Alan, Tony and Maya in the lead). But more of UFO would have been extremely welcome. Ed Bishop once said Straker was a well rounded character and could have benefited from some expansion of the format, had they gone on. In the interview we see in this video, I think he was playing Devil's advocate and questioning the series creative decisions. But in most interviews, he was very positive about the show and I think he was generally very proud of it.
Would Mr Bishop be open to performing as the voice for a CGI or Cartoon version of a new series of UFO? I think it would be brilliant to renew the series and find out what happened to everyone next.
I think Ed is being a little hard on the series. I was 10 in 1970 when I saw this & thought it superb - I still do. BTW, favourite episode is Sub smash:)
A great show, well ahead of its time. I still have my SHADO mobile and Moon base interceptor, although the missile's long gone. I think Ed's right, though. After Star Trek appeared UFO seemed a bit parochial in comparison. Gabrielle was one of my first crushes. She's still beautiful.
Good interviews, interesting about the quality (35mm) some credit to Brendan Stafford (lighting cameraman who returned to work on space 1999 series 2 Sound of Silence / Mindbender and timelesh (shot at pinewood) very well made episodes and particularly like the long sleep (sepia toned sequences) think also the change in Directors for the 2nd block of episodes helped look forward to more informative Ufo content.
Certainly one of the best opening credits and theme tunes ever!...along with all the gerry and Sylvia stuff...usually at the hands of the late barry gray..genius..not forgetting Derek meddings sfx...gone but not forgotten 👍big fan..gazzz
I have yo say that i disagree with Mr Bishop. These episodes humanised his character. Lots of people were making pupoet comments and wooden references. Which were largely unfair. His character was driven. Determined in the exteme and steadfast. To show that these were chouces for him and keeping it up was costly to him was very affecting. It also gave us a glimpse of the wider world that he was battling so vigorously to protect.
I agree, and although AQOP seems a bit contrived now, it was less so then (less resources/technology available) and the fact remains that the decision would have to be made if, God forbid, that situation occurred in real life. I think you're also absolutely right that they gave Straker depth, much needed I would argue because sometimes the character could be a surprisingly petulant boss! Which brings me, strangely, to what I think is the worst episode (or ending at least): Close-up. Here Straker has a *genuine* reason to be furious (the loss of a hugely expensive probe) but instead goes off on a jarring tangent about the wonders of science, marveling at what looks like one of those 'can you guess what it is?' electron micrographs you probably saw in an annual!
@@jamesthecat The thing about AQOP is that it leaves Straker with nothing to personally fight for. Sure he can fight for "the future of humanity", but WHO is he fighting for? His wife? His son? AQOP's in a funny position in the series, too. If it had been near the end, it could've been the moment that Straker finally snaps. Tangentially I think the worst episode (at least for me) is Timelash, as it veers too close to the silliness of The Avengers for me (I like the Avengers but it's 100% not suited for the tone of UFO)
It’s strength was in assuming its audience had some brain cells, for a young adults tv show it had some very mature scripting, it didn’t dumb itself down.
This is one of my favorite sci-fi shows from the golden era of television. The great irony, perhaps, is that with the veil of secrecy surrounding UFOs [aka UAPs] being lifted in the real world as we speak, we're finding out that the real thing is FAR more mysterious [and technologically advanced] than what we predicted in fiction in 1970. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction. If the series were to be rebooted today, you'd have to employ the real "phenomenon" as the antagonist.
@@RobertFalconer1967 A reality only for the inexperienced and gullible who have no knowledge of centuries of worldwide evidence of ultraterrestials - the djinn , the Fae , Devas , Missing 411 , cryptids etc .
I agree with Ed myself. Question of Priorities while a worthy story and very well acted, but I don’t find it a very pleasant watch. It’s unpleasantly stressful wishing the outcome may be different every time I watch it. My favourite episode is one that tends to get a little lost amongst them. The Psycho-bombs. It’s so ambitious and the guest stars are great!
I think that QoP is an important episode for Straker's growth, but it's as you said "not a pleasant watch". Straker is a completely ruthless individual who'd do anything that he needed to do, but QoP's ending gives Straker nothing to personally fight for anymore.
@@zypalitra8080 Agree with all this. I just thought of how he must appear from his wife’s POV. She was positive he was being unfaithful, then he was no doubt partially blamed for their son’s accident and then finally he let them all down after promising to fix the situation. It’s an uncomfortable family drama in the middle of a sci-fi series. I must have watched it 20 times, but tbh I now avoid it when it’s shown.
I think QoP despite it's disturbing nature,brings a very human side to things. We all have priorities in life and have to make sacrifices to different extremes depending on the circumstances, and this is what the QoP episode depicts, leaving an ethical and philosophical " nasty taste in the mouth".
As a child, I was VERY disappointed by episodes like 'A Question of Priorities' and 'The Square Triangle' due to their lack of blowing up aliens, but as an adult, they are probably my favourite stories.
UFO was probably the most underated Sci Fi show ever made and deserved so much more, certainly it would be ripe for a big budget TV reboot, because Ed is right it had so much to offer and such a huge story arc that could have been played out.
I only found out about the series a few years ago on the Horror channel which has been renamed Legend. I've seen a lot of Sci-fi shows in my time, and this one holds up with the best of them. I just wish we got more seasons. Ed's portrayal of Striker was great in my eyes.
I think this show had some amazing episodes that were very thoughtful and well written and way ahead of what other sci fi series was doing at the time i.e. it was not all green bug eyed monsters , it was character driven and very well written . For me it is to look at dated but because of the writing and the acting you don't notice that aspect. I love it!
A fascinating yet frustrating series, rarely seen in the US after its initial run. I agree with Ed! (An example: In "Square Triangle," an alien crash lands in the English countryside; but most of that show focused on a couple whose relationship was crumbling.) My favorite episode, "The Cat with 10 Lives," was written by David Tomblin, one of the writers for The Prisoner.
I love the style of this show, it's a marvel of filmmaking. It just couldn't be made today with the same charm, but maybe AI could update a few parts and bring it to a new audience.
I think Ed is forgetting that a second series was planned, which might have tightened up some of the issues he makes. Unfortunately that series was never made after ITC's New York office got nervous after viewing figures dipped slightly as series one progressed. But he does make some sense in what he says, especially some of the acting outside of the main characters not being quite good enough. A similar problem also hampered Space 1999 too, where some of the actors in minor roles were very hammy. I think the series has also dated badly, much more so than Space 1999. The effects still look pretty good for a TV show but the fashions are a bit laughable now plus the fact it was set in the then future of 1980 doesn't help. Ed does make a point that the quality of the camerawork and photography does help keep it very watchable though. As for favourite episode, mine was (I think) called Timelash, where the always excellent character actor Patrick Allen taunts Straker on the Harlington Straker film sets.
Yeah, and Star Wars looks incredibly dated due to those 70's long hairdos and disco pants🙄Everything dates eventually, even today's Marvel movies will date badly 50 years from now.
The episode that showed Straker's decision to set aside the needs of his family in order to prevent a UFO incursion was an examination of his dedication to the mission overriding personal needs and was quite intense for the time. The good guy losing out by doing his job was pretty rare back then unless he was sacrificing his own life to be the hero. This episode was a new direction for an hourly TV show competing with others where everyone gets saved and alls well that ends well.
To Mr Ed Bishop,Commander Starker was like Capt James T Kirk in that the one thing that was most important to the both of them.One was SHADO and to the other his ship and crew.Both great t.v Shows in there own way.
I tend to disagree with Bishop. The series is about an interstellar war, being fought by humans, and I don't see how interpersonal human drama detracts from that or comes across as dissonant. Edit: worse, I think his points are inconsistent. "Aliens attacking Earth for our organs" is a limited premise when compared with, say, Star Trek. Worse, we want to keep the aliens mysterious. The science side is fairly weak, although not the worst. So an emphasis on the soap opera side seems like an obvious way to counter that.
UFO is my favourite Sci-Fi series and A Question of Priorities is my favourite episode. For me, Gerry Anderson peaked at UFO. I can never watch Space 1999 as it is such a disappointment after UFO. There should have been at least one more series with as many of the original cast and characters as were available.
What a gut wrencher. I just want to yell at his wife about how selfish she is, but she doesn’t have a clue what he’s dealing with. Truly between a rock and a hard place.
It was the first TV show to make me cry. I couldn`t bear to see my hero (Straker) in such turmoil. Losing his son then being told by his ex wife she never wants to see him again. Utterly heartbreaking.
I love Scifi and have watched many dozens of different programmes over the past 50 years but nothing gets me going like UFO. it's the best, my phone ringtone is still the UFO theme and I still deeply hate the guy who pulled the rug on Series 2 and forced the change to Space 1999.
The human tragedy elements in UFO are the reason I became such a fan of the series, and its compelling central character Ed Straker. The ONLY reason. By far the best thing that came from the Andersons. (Only in the last year - thanks to TH-cam - I introduced the series to a friend and she got addicted to the show. A new fan. She wouldn't have liked it all had it not been for the quirky dramas.)
Gerry Anderson was a genius ahead of his time. I even went in a Thunderbird at pontins holiday camp in the early 70s it went to the ‘moon’ by way of an onboard tv screen lol - and I believed it! He made my childhood and my active imagination as we all played with Action Man and vehicles
I was 11 year old in 1970, and never saw UFO until maybe 10 years later as reruns. I'm still watching it. It is many times better than Space 1999 that followed it. That show went completely off the rails. I wish they had continued to make more episodes of UFO.
The danger would have been degenerating as Space 1999 did with the 2nd series, abysmal in every way compared to the 1st. The Prisoner stopped when it was decided that the series had exhausted the quality episodes. As good as UFO was, maybe it finished at the right time especially as the last episode (the hippy doctor and the bomb in the farmhouse) was too strange for credibility.
Agreed, UFO is far superior to Space1999. The sets and whole design of the show was much better, the stories more engaging, the characters more relatable.
Rewatching in 2023 I enjoy Space 1999 and UFO, need to just go with the bizarre storylines like the Bernard Cribbins hysterical robot. It’s Gerry Anderson sci fi, it’s expected to be fanciful and bizarre.
A remake? Oh no! Can you imagine the gender and race swapping, and general Wokeism? I'd rather watch the original, even if it is a little clunky at times!
@@lemming9984 Speaking as a proud transwoman, the problem wouldn't be transpeople, whose presence would fit with UFO's futurism and general high [medical] tech advancement, and the problem wouldn't be racial diversity, which the original already did very well, as did Star Trek. The PROBLEM would be that today's anti-integrity, culturally relativist, and outright nihilistic _anti-Western-civilization_ writers couldn't even grasp the romanticism which made the original so great. Thus any transpeople in a remake would very likely pay too much homage to entitled low-passability clowns like on Tiktok, and any blacks or other "diverse" races would pay too much homage to entitled street thugs like you see in flash-mob robbery videos. And the relativism and nihilism wouldn't stop there. It would all too probably devolve even further into: beautiful women wearing micro-skirts and boots is sexist and harms all vagina-havers, maybe the aliens aren't so evil after all, since they're just trying to survive - and what's so different about them harvesting us when we harvest animals as food when we should all be happy Bambi-loving vegans anyway? And blah-fn-nihilistic-low-IQ-blah. Bad philosophy and bad values would be the problem. Which means that ultimately a failure to understand the original - when philosophy and _most_ values were demonstrably superior - would be the problem. Think the pathetic V reboot, or even The Munsters. The problem runs so much deeper than casting a t-girl or a black person.
I wish there was a current british scifi series with the same production and script values, and more importantly, this necessity to have every diversity tickbox, ticked like with Dr Whocaresanymore
All Time Favorite Episode "TIMELASH" with Wanda Ventham in it she was so sexy in that Purple outfit. Ed Bishop at his best. Great show I bought it on DVD when it first came out. I still think they could have dun a season 3. Thanks.
I'm a bit puzzled by Ed's critical comments, maybe they reflect the different perspective of an actor compared to a viewer and even more so a fan. What I thought he might say was that the earlier episodes filmed at MGM would have benefitted from more experienced cast and crew as occurred at Pinewood. The MGM episodes are very good but the later ones at Pinewood are superb. One of the things that helped was bringing in the likes of David Tomblin who had such an imaginative approach and maybe that led everyone to raise their game. More than fifty years after it was produced the show still has many fans and that is testimony to its qualities and style.
I think the more downbeat episodes made the show. I love QOP. It shows Straker human and very real. Eds very critical, even though the wideness of the scripts gave him opportunities to develop integral elements on the character of Straker.
I used to watch this as a kid. Great ideas and was a good show for its day. I do agree that a wider vision was needed. It was a rich idea and I like that women were portrayed as leaders as well. So this was a forward thinking concept. It was fun back then!
One thing I disagree with Ed . Question Of Priorities was a goodie. Added depth to formula. early episodes in production order was also incredibly good. Of the last 8 episodes at MGM were different because you cannot do a early season one formula of any show like say, Star Trek story and character development in a season 3 shoot. Because the series has changed and developed. Also has found it’s niche, strengths, and main characters are new and different. UFO was the same. Several cast members left new ones began. Perhaps the reason why ITC had broadcast order place very late episodes at the beginning. Funny watching Foster then having him later join Shado and then not appearing off and on. Alec, Gay Ellis too. Before internet snd seeing episodes. I actually thought Those actors were in the whole series to end. Just not in a episode here and then as a large organisation would be.
Yeah I was surprised to have gaps of absence from people of whom I essentially gathered were continual regulars. In my opinion, the best way to watch them is to just watch them in whatever order takes your fancy (with the exception of episode 1, of course)
Its do sad that many of the cast are nolonger with us , and tjat a beautiful actress like Suzanne Neve is now 84. Its heartbreaking seeing her as she looks now, compare to her in episodes she appeared in. But it happens to all of us, I was just 11 when this first screened, and I loved it.
It's too bad there wasn't a second season. I have the series on DVD and just watched some episodes 50 years after the first time I viewed the show. The Psychobombs! Getting to know more about Straker's personal life was a great addition to the show I thought, although Ed doesn't think so.
I respect Ed Bishop's opinion but I also think that the more narrow focus was a positive thing. Sci Fi TV shows of that period always seemed to have way more ambiton and scope than their budgets and the technology of the day would allow. They would often come off as cheap in some way. Not UFO. I'm still knocked out the the fantastic writing, the costumes and set design and the visual effects that were truly amazing for the late 1960s. A narrow scope often allows films and TV do amazing things with limited resources, look at Ridley Scott's 'Alien' for example. Certainly UFO is a step above Space 1999 for this very reason (Also because the groovy 60's outfits and music of UFO are so much better than the ugly 1970's styles of space 1999. Flared trousers, polyester jump-suits and sideburns do not belong in space!)
These are a couple of interviews that I've not seen before. To respond to Ed Bishop, I think he was a better actor than story/script writer. Better that he stuck to acting than having any input into UFO, which I thought was pretty much perfect and still do. To say stuff like the series premise was too narrow in one breath and next breath to say that exploring Straker's private life was to far from the premise, makes no sense. Gabrielle Drake looks lovely and what she had to say was both balanced and logical. Let's be honest this series is still winning new fans and probably a few new fans are joining up because of Gabrielle Drake. 😉 I still think it was a huge mistake to cancel UFO in favour of Space 1999.
It didn't go wrong ANYWHERE the hollywood buffoons just wanted their own man in the lead and so we got space 1999 which was unfortunately a ridiculous premise and never had any chance to go anywhere. The third season should have been SHADO sending out its own ships to find the aliens and so on, and that would have been fantastic.
Ed Bishop... what a total sci-fi legend🌌‼️: Commander Straker from UFO, Captain Blue from Captain Scarlett & The Mysterons, Space Pilots from Space 2001 - A Space Odyssey & Saturn 3, Detective Elijah Bailey from Asimov's Caves of Steel as well as the narrator from Stephen King's audio drama's: I am the Doorway/One for the Road + Ray Bradbury's Sunset on Shoreline. RIP you awesome-eternal legend ☄️☄️☄️ My favourite Ed Bishop performances: 🌟Commander Straker in UFO 🛸 🌟Captain Blue in Captain Scarlet & The Mysterons 👽 🌟Detective Elijah Bailey in BBC audio's (& Isaac Asimov's) The Caves of Steel 🤖 🌟Captain Tom Decker in the anthology series Out of the Unknown's episode: Beachhead 🌐 🌟Private security guard Carson in the anthology series Thiller episode: Nurse Will Make It Better 👨🏻⚕️👹🌋 🌟Space Pilot in Space 2001 - Space Odyssey 🚀☄️ 🌟Space Pilot in Saturn 3 ☄️🚀 🌟Narrator in Stephen King's audio I am the Doorway & One For The Road 🧛🏻♂️🦇⚰️
My favourite Ed Bishop performances, apart from UFO are the BBC Radio Four series of Raymond Chandler's Marlow books where he plays the private detective Philip Marlow.
@@MikeBaldock-g5i he also did BBC's audio version of Ray Bradbury's scifi Golden Apples of the Sun as well as Stephen King's 'One for the Road' & 'I am the Doorway' ...
As much as I love Ed Bishop and UFO, I have to disagree with his assessment. Bringing in the human elements as well as perpetuating the mystery of where the aliens come from and how they operate is what made the series work. It wasn't, IMHO, as limiting a concept as he believed it to be, and this is borne out by certain subtle hints in various episodes. An example is "The Psychobombs," wherein the aliens have brainwashed three humans and given them superhuman abilities for the purpose of using them as weapons against SHADO. The implication is, the aliens have more extensive operations on Earth than it was thought, and this opens up the potential of additional plotlines exploring this. If anything, the main problems with the series were the producers, not the writers or actors.
I agree w Striker ab that episode being problematic. I was watching the whole series on DVD w my son. I was shocked that they let the kid die and Straker was suddenly a bad guy. Nearly a deal breaker. That one episode is torture.
Really enjoyed this series as a teenager - especially the cars and other vehicles. Really love Barry Gray's music too. The opening sequence music is the perfect 1 minute piece.
I used to love UFO so much that when it was on at 1pm on a Sunday Afternoon, I used to watch the Politics programme beforehand for the whole hour - and I was 8 years old !!!!! Sad, but true !! In this age of remakes, this is one I could really live with !
I partially agree with Ed's first point. I don't think the issue is having emotional stories. I think (from what I've seen of the show) it was often a case of 'This is the action episode ' and 'This is the emotional one', rather than blending the two together.
There's nothing wrong with having an episode with emotions but little action. One of my favorite TNG episodes was "The Inner Light." A Patrick Stewart tour de force with almost no special effects and no adversary. It's one of the most highly regarded of the entire series. Likewise, "A Question of Priorities" is widely considered one of the best of UFO.
Ed was too hard on the series. It's still popular in 2023, enough to justify more than one channel in the UK alone picking it up. I certainly don't agree about it being predictable, although it was cheesy at times (Foster having hallucinations in the sauna) and overly sentimental (Straker's divorce), it was usually paced well, and sometimes had a good twist (Close Up).
I started watching UFO in 1975 here in Brasil. I was 13 years old. Although, my family's was a 1965 Philips b&w 25" screen tv set, I could clearly see the overall quality of this series. It stood out even from Star Trek. Everything was amazingly beautiful and well made. The opening, the theme song, the soundtrack and the stories. Can you believe I got to listen to The Beatles' 'Get Back' for the first time watching a scene of a party where Cel. Foster is dancing accompanied by a beautiful lady? Usually, when we watch our favorite old TV series on higher definition, we spot its failures in sound and image quality. In the case of UFO (and Thunderbirds) it got much much better. And thus without making use of artificial upgrading. Thanks for posting.
UFO is probably the first science fiction series I remember. I was born in 1966 and so would have been between 4 and 5 years old when the series was transmitted for the first time. It’s interesting that at that age, all I was interested in are the models and effects, explosions, etc and I know that I probably would have found episodes such as Question of Priorities; Confetti Check - AOK; Close Up, etc; rather boring, but viewing them when much older I felt differently - and this was precisely the point: The Anderson’s we’re making an adult series and knew that the couldn’t succeed with flash-bang-wallop spectacle by itself. I remember watching the late night BBC2 repeats towards the end of the 80’s and again when BRAVO picked them up in the 90’s and I appreciated the attempt to show that these were real people and that the job they did created emotional and mental fall-out and also affected those around them. Okay, so because of the series format, such issues rarely lasted beyond the episode they appeared in and then everyone seemed to be remarkably well-adjusted again until the next trauma reared its head, but non-stop action week-in; week-out would have quickly become tedious in the extreme, so I think the balance struck between action and drama was pretty good. My all-time favourite episode is E.S.P because to me, the balance is pretty much perfect and the idea of John and Stella Croxley being collateral damage in the ongoing battle of wits between SHADO and The Aliens is brilliant and creepily, hauntingly executed to boot! John Stratton gives such an unhinged, vulnerable performance and it’s stayed with me all these years. Hopefully, Ed Bishop in this interview segment is simply rueing the fact that he never got the chance to develop Cmdr. Straker even further, but definitely to my mind, showing that he had a life, relationships, trust-issues and everything else is a strength, not a weakness and definitely contributes to my being able to regularly repeat watch the series 50 + years later and never be bored with it.
That theme song used to send kids in Australia into a frenzy. A friend put his foot through a wall, jumping into his bunk pretending it was a spaceship like in the intro.
It’s a shame there was only one season of such an excellent show, but at least those 26 episodes are still around. I live in the US and I keep hoping DVD’s or Blu-rays of the show will become available on DVD or Blu-Ray that will work on the players in the US. I loved watching “UFO” in the early 70’s when I was a kid in California, and watching them again now I realize all over again how great it was. One thing I was always curious about, that was never explained in the show, were the purple wigs the women wore only on moon base. I know it’s silly and shallow, but it was so bizarre. What could possibly be the reason to make very attractive women look goofy? I’m sure there’s a logical explanation, it’s just weird that not once in any episode did anyone mention the wigs. And why purple, this was several years before punk rock hit the UK.
Every episode was awesome..as child UFO was suspenseful and thrilling ,...as a late 50yr old now, BRING IT BACK....SITTING there with my dad and brothers on a late Friday evening ..words cannot explain how good a TV show it was
I was in my mid-teens when it came on the TV screen and I thought it was sexy as hell. And both then and now, that wasn't solely about voyeurism... it was such an exciting time of change (both for me and humanity around the world) and it promised a liberalisation and improvement in how we interacted with each other that's dwindled over the decades since.
Personally I don’t agree with ed those episodes with the human elements especially where his tragic story is shown added depth to the thing. It would have been good to see more of that. Especially characters like Peter Carling who lost his sister, freeman who needed a back story and Delores. I love uFO and those episodes are what I really liked. Although I always loved seeing skydiver in action
Apparently UFO inspired the hugely successful Neon Genesis Evangelion, at least with the characters of Straker and Freeman. Evangelion also has episodes where it dwells more on the daily lives of the Nerv team, like the episode with Straker's son.
Love both shows with a great passion. NGE also cribbed the fast-flashing on-screen text from UFO & Space: 1999's intro, too. I think that there's more similarities between characters (at least in my mind) - Gen. Henderson/Keel Lorenz (at least physically), Paul Foster/Kaji, Virginia Lake/Ritsuko Akagi, Gay Ellis/Misato etc. Almost makes me want to write a fanfic combining the two somehow.
There's a lot of references in Eva to various Anderson productions. As well as to the likes of the Ultraman series (which also has heavy Anderson influences). I'm pretty sure Hideaki Anno would have jumped at any chance to collaborate with Gerry on something.
3:46 The same "thing" in many shows, the action/"mythology" episodes compared to the "personal"/background,"filler" episodes. Personall, I liked a mixture of the two. Get to know the "why" the character and the "how".
When he says it's bad for the audience to "get ahead of the characters", I was reminded, several episodes of THE NEW AVENGERS made this mistake. Whereas many of the best episodes were intriguing mysteries where the last piece doesn't fall into place until the last act, you sometimes had things where they TOLD the audience what was going on before the theme song came on, and it made the heroes look like idiots because THEY didn't know what was happening. One thing that was a shock to me was HOW MUCH BETTER "UFO" works as a whole if you watch them in PRODUCTION ORDER. There is a painfully-slow but steady story arc wherein, in the first half, SHADO is struggling and barely has their act together at all. But then, in the 2nd half, they ARE getting their act together, but the aliens are constantly upping their game and the odds with more and varied and more bizarre things they're doing. So if you watch if in the order they're on the DVDs, it just builds and builds and builds. But this was completely DESTROYED when the stories were shuffled like a deck of cards and run AT RANDOM. Pushing the later episodes forward to try and grab audience earlier, while holding back the lesser earlier ones only makes those early ones look WORSE than they are. You need to see them in order, so the whole series unfolds slowly like a novel. The whole problem started when the show never got on the air at all until ALL 26 episodes were already finished. This also had the added problem that Century 21 closed up shop before the series even debuted, and everyone involved had to find other jobs. By the time the show gained any popularity at all, there was no one around to do a "3rd set of 13", so to speak. Every time I get to the final episode, the tragic epilogue of sorts, "The Long Sleep", I think, "THIS WAS NO TIME TO CANCEL THE SERIES!" When you see those last 13 episodes in the correct order, by the end, it just SCREAMS for a 2nd season that never happened. As an aside, "Priorities" may be my least-favorite. It had 2 parallel plotlines, and BOTH ended tragically. Had it been one or the other, I think it could have worked better. Having massive suspense over will John live or die was fine, having John DIE was too much, and pointless. My late friend in Wales suggested the whole mess was one more reflection on just HOW BAD Gerry & Sylvia's marriage had gotten by that point. Ed did all he could to try to save his son's life, and then his ex blames HIM for what happened. When, in truth, she was just a lousy mother. She didn't want "her" son seeing his father, and somehow the kid runs out into traffic, but that's supposedly Ed's fault. A better resolution would have been that thanks to Ed's efforts, John WAS saved, and after, Ed would resolve that he's GOING to see his son WHENEVER he wants.
Here in the East Midlands/ITV area as it was known back in 1970,I was 10 years old when UFO was broadcast,ITV even put a countdown timer on the screen about 12 hours before the programme was to start.I remember watching it with my dad and even though some of the episodes are pretty Meh !! (Too many personal issues,not enough actual UFO/Alien stuff) it's still an all time fave of mine.....
I have this instinctive feeling that a certain George Lucas saw UFO and borrowed an awful lot of ideas like the Interceptor fighter pilots and the whole spitfire world war 2 element. I dont think we would have had the end Death Star sequence of Star Wars or the success of Star Wars at all without UFO.
I loved UFO as a kid 50 years ago. I recently found every episode online and have enjoyed watching them again. The only thing I find funny about it is the laughably futuristic year of 1980 that it takes place in. That's only 10 years after the show was filmed.
Even Ed compares UFO with Star Trek sadly. Imo UFO felt more "real" and is just as relevant today as Star Trek. Ed'''''s portrayal of Straker was nothing short of brilliant.
I have watched a ridiculous amount of sci fi over the years and UFO still remains my favourite series, it has it's faults and missteps but it always delivered the goods.
What about SPACE PRECINCT?
Loved it , esp.the girls with the tight , pert arses
@@lpquagmire3621 space 1999, at least series one, it went off the rails when commander Connie took a back seat, and old professor bloke just went missing the alien space woman the could shape shift, end up be monster battle, any lazy scripts, on air in a room no problem I will just turn into an XXX then don't breath ???
It was one of the first things I ever watched on TV (1972 )Tues morning at 10:30 on BBC2 just after the test transmission for TV service engineers.
What faults?
Ed Bishop was one of the best actors from the show
Correction: With respect, Mr. Bishop was and is one of the best and unappreciated actors ever.
In anything he ever did, be it James Bond films, Kubrick films, anything.
nss
Loved Straker's car. Had the Corgi model as a youngster.
@@douglasarthur2673 I always wanted one of those interceptors, but went for the SHADO mobile.
Just a shame the plastic missile broke so easily and in those days, when plastic broke, that was it!
Did get an Eagle from Space 1999... my pride and joy. I should get an MPC model kit of that, and build one, but it's always sold out and about 130 USD - besides which I couldn't build a model properly if my life depended on it.
I wonder how much original Corgi stuff might be available on eBay?
It's 8 am, haven't been to bed yet and now you make me want to find my Eagle and play with it! Gee.. thanks a lot 🤣
Ed Bishop. Such a great actor in this and many other shows, So underrated. Loved this series
It was Britain's gain and America's loss when Mr. Bishop decided to make his career and life in the UK... The same was true with Mr. Shane Rimmer, another American expat.
He was in diamonds are forever
Rimmer was from Canada.
This was the first 'adult' SciFi TV show, because it demonstrated that the 'good guys' do not always win in every episode.
Captain Scarlet had some downbeat endings.
@@Armadacon Capt Scarlet was practically the Supermarionation version of those Japanese Mangas. Very dark, violent and adult. Probably quite wrong for the TV market it was selling to, but awesome as Hell for fans! :)
In fact UFO make sit pretty clear that the best Earth could hope for is to force a stalemate and the aliens give up. Kind of like Captain Scarlet, where the Mysterons are clearly the superior hand and it's a "war of nerves". SHADO never really "wins" it is simply preventing a checkmate, and often this is only at great cost.
@@adriansherlockdamondark.1094Especially given how influential Gerry Anderson was on Japanese media.
That was an advantage that British production had. In the 50s, 60s US television had standards of practice that required the bad guy to not get away with it by the epilog.
This is why Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller and One Step Beyond has the closing comments by the host to put a bow on a story where a murderer, liar or thief appeared to have prospered. Even if the situation defeated good.
Twilight Zone rode a fine line, but more often the good guy came out OK and the evil one was defeated.
Westerns did this too and so did Star Trek. You'd watch a complete tragedy, but there'd suddenly be a last scene with an optimistic event or a knee slapping joke....forgetting the 5 extras that died horribly 10 to 20 minutes ago.
Bishop certainly has some interesting opinions on UFO but must say I disagree with him on most. Giving Straker definable character flaws and personal dilemmas as well as alien incursions to repulse was both bold and novel in an era where main protagonists were typically one dimensional.
As such Straker was a far more complex figure than the archetypal flawless commander stoically ordering the destruction of UFO’s each and every week he could so easily have been. Far from diluting the show’s core premise a humanised Ed Straker enhanced it!
I think he's reflecting on the fact that it didn't propel him to stardom and so something must have been wrong. But 26 * 1 hour episodes is quite a long run really.
I agree!
Agreed, his personal conflicts remind me of "Sink The Bismarck".
The biggest problem is that you never knew when it might be on! In the USA, it was never on a reliable schedule, you would just stumble on it at random times on Sunday afternoons as filler. We were always thrilled when we managed to find it.
@@brettbuck7362 similar problems in the UK - the ITV network had some wild regional variations. I remember it being late afternoon/early evenings on a Sunday, but the first broadcast was Wednesday, 16th September 1970, probably ATV and in the 1830 slot.
I think UFO was the best sci -fi action series.
Once again Gerry ,Sylvia and all the team proved time and time again that they were the best.
UFO has not really dated as some sci -fi has.
I liked the contrast between the action episodes and the human ones like the episode A Question Of Priorities.
With UFO you get the best of both worlds (human and alien)
It was such a shame that UFO only ran for one series.
I agree. Read my comments.
not dated? its set in future but looks very analogue 70,s, i suppose thats unavoidable, they really should have expanded gab drakes role,-good actress, attractive intelligent character ,should have been developed
it ran for 2, actually and they should have continued it instead of the crap space 1999
@@deathsee Totally agree
@@stephenpochly7003 I rewatched the first episode of Space 1999, it was such Crap, the acting was poor, the whole thing was like Bad Sci Fi at its worst, Why did they do it, why did they have to let ITC America Dictate to them, such a loss, UFO could have used some story lines that ran more then one episode and a little bit more into the script writing but the acting was pretty damn good, and over all the concept was Epic, and to learn the Aliens were not even what they thought and were just using the bodies and parts to form another being to transpose their minds into, it was getting too damn good
Futuristic 70s design is strikingly beautiful (or is it just me?)! The colours, shapes of cars and phone handsets, furniture, helmet visors, even the tech designs. There’s a visual language going through everything which makes it credible. Kudos to these designers on set
Agreed. The show is just fabulous from a design point of view. I regret that the 1980s didn't actually have fashions, cars, interiors and spacecraft as cool as those depicted. One of the problems with any proposed remake is that I worry that everything would end up redesigned, and they just couldn't make it as damn ... yes, beautiful to look at. Or anywhere near as groovy.
Much of the futuristic design used in sci fi in the 1960s and 1970s tended to be exaggerated There was a sense things were going to change a lot more rapidly than actually they did in real life.
I recall not long after Armstrong and Aldrin set foot on the Moon that NASA's next major goal was to land a human on Mars by 1980. Well here we are in 2024 and that's unlikely to happen anytime soon.
UFO got it wrong.
Space: 1999 got it wrong ... still no Moonbase in 2024.
Lost in Space got it wrong ... no human mission to Alpha Centauri in 1999.
Back to the Future ... Real 2015 was nothing like BTTF 2015.
Star Trek seems to be the only one that has got it right to this point. Setting stories hundreds of years into the future is probably a much safer bet than going for the near future.
I had the huge pleasure of briefly working with Ed on a voiceover. He was delightful and intelligent. Great guy.
Gabrielle is right. The show's incredible longevity suggests that the majority of narrative decisions made in the series were correct. Equally Ed is correct that some of the latter shows pointed to a struggle to maintain the original story line. Who am I to argue with the star of the show, but it wasn't a thin series plot, so much as maybe over ambitious production goals at times. And as for A Question Of Priorities, that's right up there as one of the most popular shows with fans. I still watch all the shows right through a couple of times a year and it never loses its sparkle. A true TV classic.
wonderful comment...
He's also right about the actors, there's so much ham you could stock Tesco's.
And she got “the proof of the pudding” expression right - most people don’t.
👍👍👍
Viewed through more mature eyes, UFO objectified women terribly. I still love the show decades later, but can understand how women could have viewed it quite differently. Despite it's flaws, it was so much better than Space 1999, that I now consider unwatchable.
I have this on DVD boxset. It's a fantastic series that, in my opinion, should have been commissioned for more than just the one series. I watched it as a kid and, to be honest, never get tired of re-watching it. I liked the fact that each episode concluded with loose ends, or on a sour note. And, of course, the womenfolk were bloody gorgeous.
They were really women too! Probably best if they don't remake it and leave our memories intact.
Yup me too-has the dvds
UFO is a stand-out sci-fi series. It’s such a shame it was cancelled. However, if I were given the choice of remaking UFO or Space:1999 it would be UFO. It’s darker tone and concept make it perfect for our modern tv drama environment. Of course, there will be those who would never want it to be remade, and I kind of get that, but it is exciting to imagine what they would do with the series now. UFO is amazing!
Space 1999 was too ridiculous for words.
According to Anderson (YT video) Space 1999 came about because a certain US TV company executive didn’t want to commission a second series based on earth.
UFO is most definitely food for a reboot. It has massive potential. I'm amazed it hasn't happened. The reboot of Battlestar Galactica was amazing, and the source material was nowhere near as good as UFO.
@@dudovich13 Totally agree! Watched them both again as an adult and I couldn't believe how bad 1999 was.
Remakes/sequels are a mixed blessing. Some are good, like Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (how could anyone not love Baby Groot..?) but most are absolutely awful.
I only recently found UFO and have enjoyed every episode. The only thing I didn't like was the series ended way too soon.
Gerry Anderson always said UFO was his favorite of all the TV series he ever did. It stands the test of time because it’s still even today, a future you’d want to live in.
As long as your organs weren't harvested.
The voice of captain blue on Captain scarlet for me was his greatest role.
Very true, I would love to see my old school turned into a medical centre ;-)
I'm not sure I'd want to live in the world where we have to be on guard against aliens but then again you can say maybe we are now
@@STho205happens on earth in some places unmentionable
I was a fan of the series right from the first episode. I hated when it stopped. I was about 14 at the time. A friend told me it was stopped because it got too near the truth. It would be easier to say which episodes I didn't like. I was ill with Cancer 17 years ago and watched the whole series while I could. I got better. I have the theme tune as my ringtone now.
Glad to hear that you recovered.
As for your ringtone, it really is a great tune isn't it.
But let's face it, every tune that Barry Gray came out with in those days was pure gold.
@@buddhistsympathizer1136 I'm still so happy that I have it. Thanks.
So glad that you won your fight and also concur on the greatness of the theme :)
Even when I was a young kid watching the show in reruns in the late 70s, I actually loved the "soap opera" themes of many of the episodes. It really set the show apart from other sci fi. And that's probably a major reason why I enjoyed the reimagined Battlestar Galactica too.
It was interesting that Ed raised "A Question of Priorities" although I was surprised by his negative take on it. Gerry Anderson said that ITC in New York didn't ike that episode because of its very human focus and that presumably they wanted more "action" - he rightly disagreed. However it is the human issues that make that one of the most memorable episodes and help to show that UFO was very much an adult series. As well as the whole drama of Straker's son it also has the fascinating possibility of an alien defector. As someone else mentioned in the comments you can't separate action and a "battle against the aliens" from the personal lives of those involved. If UFO had essentially just been an action show uninterested in human emotions and relationships it would have been far less effective.
Can only agree. I thought that was an outstanding episode
I liked the episode where 2 tripping hippies mess around with some aliens trying to plant a super-nuke bomb in a barn.
that was the final episode - The Long Sleep.
Every show goes through growing pains in the first season. Unfortunately UFO only had one season to work with. It was all in all very superior in many ways; especially for its time 🤗
I agree. See my comments.
Is 26 * 1 hour long episodes really one season? PS filmed over 16 months with 6 month break in the middle.
@@An.Individual back in the day most shows were 25-30 episodes a season. Star Trek’s first season was 29 ; I believe. Even TNG and Deep Space did 25-26 episodes per season 🖖
Perhaps the Big Finish adaptation could build on it. 🤔
Cheers guys for a great start to a hectic Saturday. Still one of the best sci-fi shows ever done with a great back story, yes it has faults but how many of those can be written by budget and interference from higher up (Lew Grade).
Interesting to hear the various points of view. With respect to Ed Bishop, however, I think one must appreciate that the creative teams had only less than an hour to pack in everything and make it coherent.
Thanks to the love affair with the US market, Anderson and the creative teams always worked under that damacles sword of cancellation, which inevitably, and unjustifiably happened toward the end of the series.
If the UK had given the teams, say, a five year run then I think you would seen storylines and themes expanded as the series matured.
As it is, though, everyone involved had ( and still has ) something to be very proud of in UFO.
Ed Bishop was an incredible talent...
Did Ed,have a good life after U f O? THANKS YOU
It was cancelled....
That is where 'IT' went wrong.....
It should still be going on to this day.....
It was terrible that it only got one series.
@@stevenclarke5606 There was! I can tell because when season 2 came along both George Sewell & Gabrielle Drake had left the show.
@speakfreeley4473 no there was only one season. The second season was cancelled but was re-jigged and became Space 1999.
@@kevinyoung3499 yes you are correct, but there was a long break in production of 5 months, because production was shifted from MGM Borehamwood to Pinewood studios Buckinghamshire and led to the departure of Gabrielle Drake and George Sewell .
@@stevenclarke5606 No there weren't.
I used to love this series so much when I was a kid. Never missed an episode... in Australia!
Back in 1972 I was 13, and never missed an episode. Great series. Still enjoy it. In Connecticut, USA
I’m currently writing the second volume of my UFO guide books. It’s focused on Straker’s private life. I’ve read Ed Bishop’s comments and I think you’d have to be misinterpreting to think he disliked his character or the way it was developed. His one major regret was that UFO never went to a second season. I agree with him there. UFO was a masterpiece in my opinion. I corresponded briefly with him in the 1990s and found him a good sport with a great sense of humour and he had some funny and interesting ideas about how Straker could have been revived. Basically it did not go wrong. I assume Mr Bishop was speculating on why it wasn’t a longer running show and he seemed to be assuming it was not commercial enough. In truth it was cut short because Lew Grade found it was easier to sell a new show than a second season of an existing one.
I think that the only Anderson shows that deserved a 2nd season were Captain Scarlet and UFO. I'd have much rather they'd gone along with the original plans and end up with something like UFO: 1999.
@@zypalitra8080 A second season of UFO would have been brilliant because, whatever form it took, we would have had more of Ed Straker, the most complex and realistic character in any Anderson show.
I think Ed Bishop would have made a more credible Commander of Moonbase Alpha than Martin Landau. Landau was an exceptional actor but he never seemed that comfortable as Koenig. While Ed Bishop seemed very at ease as Straker.
@@michaeldeal8060 It's hard to imagine Space: 1999 without Landau, (although the season 2 episode Dorzac does well with Alan, Tony and Maya in the lead). But more of UFO would have been extremely welcome. Ed Bishop once said Straker was a well rounded character and could have benefited from some expansion of the format, had they gone on. In the interview we see in this video, I think he was playing Devil's advocate and questioning the series creative decisions. But in most interviews, he was very positive about the show and I think he was generally very proud of it.
Would Mr Bishop be open to performing as the voice for a CGI or Cartoon version of a new series of UFO? I think it would be brilliant to renew the series and find out what happened to everyone next.
Big big mistake not to have made another series
I think Ed is being a little hard on the series. I was 10 in 1970 when I saw this & thought it superb - I still do. BTW, favourite episode is Sub smash:)
A great show, well ahead of its time. I still have my SHADO mobile and Moon base interceptor, although the missile's long gone. I think Ed's right, though. After Star Trek appeared UFO seemed a bit parochial in comparison.
Gabrielle was one of my first crushes. She's still beautiful.
Did you know that you can buy replacement parts for these models, including the missiles? Look up Steve Flowers Model Supplies...
Good interviews, interesting about the quality (35mm) some credit to Brendan Stafford (lighting cameraman who returned to work on space 1999 series 2 Sound of Silence / Mindbender and timelesh (shot at pinewood) very well made episodes and particularly like the long sleep (sepia toned sequences) think also the change in Directors for the 2nd block of episodes helped look forward to more informative Ufo content.
Certainly one of the best opening credits and theme tunes ever!...along with all the gerry and Sylvia stuff...usually at the hands of the late barry gray..genius..not forgetting Derek meddings sfx...gone but not forgotten 👍big fan..gazzz
I have yo say that i disagree with Mr Bishop. These episodes humanised his character. Lots of people were making pupoet comments and wooden references. Which were largely unfair. His character was driven. Determined in the exteme and steadfast. To show that these were chouces for him and keeping it up was costly to him was very affecting. It also gave us a glimpse of the wider world that he was battling so vigorously to protect.
I agree, and although AQOP seems a bit contrived now, it was less so then (less resources/technology available) and the fact remains that the decision would have to be made if, God forbid, that situation occurred in real life.
I think you're also absolutely right that they gave Straker depth, much needed I would argue because sometimes the character could be a surprisingly petulant boss! Which brings me, strangely, to what I think is the worst episode (or ending at least): Close-up. Here Straker has a *genuine* reason to be furious (the loss of a hugely expensive probe) but instead goes off on a jarring tangent about the wonders of science, marveling at what looks like one of those 'can you guess what it is?' electron micrographs you probably saw in an annual!
@@jamesthecat The thing about AQOP is that it leaves Straker with nothing to personally fight for. Sure he can fight for "the future of humanity", but WHO is he fighting for? His wife? His son? AQOP's in a funny position in the series, too. If it had been near the end, it could've been the moment that Straker finally snaps.
Tangentially I think the worst episode (at least for me) is Timelash, as it veers too close to the silliness of The Avengers for me (I like the Avengers but it's 100% not suited for the tone of UFO)
It’s strength was in assuming its audience had some brain cells, for a young adults tv show it had some very mature scripting, it didn’t dumb itself down.
This is one of my favorite sci-fi shows from the golden era of television. The great irony, perhaps, is that with the veil of secrecy surrounding UFOs [aka UAPs] being lifted in the real world as we speak, we're finding out that the real thing is FAR more mysterious [and technologically advanced] than what we predicted in fiction in 1970. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction. If the series were to be rebooted today, you'd have to employ the real "phenomenon" as the antagonist.
The Alien-Demon deception , Project Bluebeam , the Babalon Working .
@@gosforthlad Not a deception. Reality.
@@RobertFalconer1967 A reality only for the inexperienced and gullible who have no knowledge of centuries of worldwide evidence of ultraterrestials - the djinn , the Fae , Devas , Missing 411 , cryptids etc .
I agree with Ed myself. Question of Priorities while a worthy story and very well acted, but I don’t find it a very pleasant watch. It’s unpleasantly stressful wishing the outcome may be different every time I watch it. My favourite episode is one that tends to get a little lost amongst them. The Psycho-bombs. It’s so ambitious and the guest stars are great!
I think that QoP is an important episode for Straker's growth, but it's as you said "not a pleasant watch". Straker is a completely ruthless individual who'd do anything that he needed to do, but QoP's ending gives Straker nothing to personally fight for anymore.
@@zypalitra8080 Agree with all this. I just thought of how he must appear from his wife’s POV. She was positive he was being unfaithful, then he was no doubt partially blamed for their son’s accident and then finally he let them all down after promising to fix the situation. It’s an uncomfortable family drama in the middle of a sci-fi series. I must have watched it 20 times, but tbh I now avoid it when it’s shown.
I sometimes wonder if episodes like QoP might have influenced Hideaki Anno's portrayal of certain characters in Evangelion... 🤔
I think QoP despite it's disturbing nature,brings a very human side to things.
We all have priorities in life and have to make sacrifices to different extremes depending on the circumstances, and this is what the QoP episode depicts, leaving an ethical and philosophical " nasty taste in the mouth".
'love "The Psychobombs!" Deborah Grant, the explosion of SkyDiver 3... It all clicked on that episode.
As a child, I was VERY disappointed by episodes like 'A Question of Priorities' and 'The Square Triangle' due to their lack of blowing up aliens, but as an adult, they are probably my favourite stories.
UFO was probably the most underated Sci Fi show ever made and deserved so much more, certainly it would be ripe for a big budget TV reboot, because Ed is right it had so much to offer and such a huge story arc that could have been played out.
You could say Dark Skies was that reboot- and it didn't last. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't UFO - sometimes a show just works.
@@Julius_Hardware fair point. Not to mention the crap Independence Day sequel.
I only found out about the series a few years ago on the Horror channel which has been renamed Legend. I've seen a lot of Sci-fi shows in my time, and this one holds up with the best of them. I just wish we got more seasons. Ed's portrayal of Striker was great in my eyes.
I think this show had some amazing episodes that were very thoughtful and well written and way ahead of what other sci fi series was doing at the time i.e. it was not all green bug eyed monsters , it was character driven and very well written . For me it is to look at dated but because of the writing and the acting you don't notice that aspect. I love it!
A fascinating yet frustrating series, rarely seen in the US after its initial run. I agree with Ed! (An example: In "Square Triangle," an alien crash lands in the English countryside; but most of that show focused on a couple whose relationship was crumbling.) My favorite episode, "The Cat with 10 Lives," was written by David Tomblin, one of the writers for The Prisoner.
I love the style of this show, it's a marvel of filmmaking. It just couldn't be made today with the same charm, but maybe AI could update a few parts and bring it to a new audience.
I think Ed is forgetting that a second series was planned, which might have tightened up some of the issues he makes. Unfortunately that series was never made after ITC's New York office got nervous after viewing figures dipped slightly as series one progressed. But he does make some sense in what he says, especially some of the acting outside of the main characters not being quite good enough. A similar problem also hampered Space 1999 too, where some of the actors in minor roles were very hammy.
I think the series has also dated badly, much more so than Space 1999. The effects still look pretty good for a TV show but the fashions are a bit laughable now plus the fact it was set in the then future of 1980 doesn't help. Ed does make a point that the quality of the camerawork and photography does help keep it very watchable though.
As for favourite episode, mine was (I think) called Timelash, where the always excellent character actor Patrick Allen taunts Straker on the Harlington Straker film sets.
That's one of my favourites too, really off the wall. Love the chase in tiny cars!
Yeah, and Star Wars looks incredibly dated due to those 70's long hairdos and disco pants🙄Everything dates eventually, even today's Marvel movies will date badly 50 years from now.
The episode that showed Straker's decision to set aside the needs of his family in order to prevent a UFO incursion was an examination of his dedication to the mission overriding personal needs and was quite intense for the time. The good guy losing out by doing his job was pretty rare back then unless he was sacrificing his own life to be the hero. This episode was a new direction for an hourly TV show competing with others where everyone gets saved and alls well that ends well.
Ed was wrong. Priorities was a great episode.
To Mr Ed Bishop,Commander Starker was like Capt James T Kirk in that the one thing that was most important to the both of them.One was SHADO and to the other his ship and crew.Both great t.v Shows in there own way.
I tend to disagree with Bishop. The series is about an interstellar war, being fought by humans, and I don't see how interpersonal human drama detracts from that or comes across as dissonant.
Edit: worse, I think his points are inconsistent. "Aliens attacking Earth for our organs" is a limited premise when compared with, say, Star Trek. Worse, we want to keep the aliens mysterious. The science side is fairly weak, although not the worst. So an emphasis on the soap opera side seems like an obvious way to counter that.
UFO is my favourite Sci-Fi series and A Question of Priorities is my favourite episode. For me, Gerry Anderson peaked at UFO. I can never watch Space 1999 as it is such a disappointment after UFO. There should have been at least one more series with as many of the original cast and characters as were available.
'A Question of Priorities' was one of the best episodes of the whole series imo.
and Suzanne Neve (her wife) excels in this episode!
What a gut wrencher. I just want to yell at his wife about how selfish she is, but she doesn’t have a clue what he’s dealing with. Truly between a rock and a hard place.
An absolute masterpiece of science fiction tragedy.
It was the first TV show to make me cry. I couldn`t bear to see my hero (Straker) in such
turmoil. Losing his son then being told by his ex wife she never wants to see him again.
Utterly heartbreaking.
Thar episode was more appropriate for a soap opera than for a sci-fi show.
I love Scifi and have watched many dozens of different programmes over the past 50 years but nothing gets me going like UFO. it's the best, my phone ringtone is still the UFO theme and I still deeply hate the guy who pulled the rug on Series 2 and forced the change to Space 1999.
The human tragedy elements in UFO are the reason I became such a fan of the series, and its compelling central character Ed Straker. The ONLY reason. By far the best thing that came from the Andersons. (Only in the last year - thanks to TH-cam - I introduced the series to a friend and she got addicted to the show. A new fan. She wouldn't have liked it all had it not been for the quirky dramas.)
Gerry Anderson was a genius ahead of his time. I even went in a Thunderbird at pontins holiday camp in the early 70s it went to the ‘moon’ by way of an onboard tv screen lol - and I believed it! He made my childhood and my active imagination as we all played with Action Man and vehicles
This will be extremely interesting.
I was 11 year old in 1970, and never saw UFO until maybe 10 years later as reruns. I'm still watching it. It is many times better than Space 1999 that followed it. That show went completely off the rails. I wish they had continued to make more episodes of UFO.
It was the Cold War back then. The series served a purpose.
The danger would have been degenerating as Space 1999 did with the 2nd series, abysmal in every way compared to the 1st. The Prisoner stopped when it was decided that the series had exhausted the quality episodes. As good as UFO was, maybe it finished at the right time especially as the last episode (the hippy doctor and the bomb in the farmhouse) was too strange for credibility.
Agreed, UFO is far superior to Space1999. The sets and whole design of the show was much better, the stories more engaging, the characters more relatable.
@@John-wd5cb How did it serve its purpose by being shown in the graveyard slot and getting cancelled after only one season?
Rewatching in 2023 I enjoy Space 1999 and UFO, need to just go with the bizarre storylines like the Bernard Cribbins hysterical robot. It’s Gerry Anderson sci fi, it’s expected to be fanciful and bizarre.
Absolute Classic .. It would a great candidate for a remake today.
Nothing could be better than the original!
A remake? Oh no! Can you imagine the gender and race swapping, and general Wokeism? I'd rather watch the original, even if it is a little clunky at times!
@@lemming9984 Speaking as a proud transwoman, the problem wouldn't be transpeople, whose presence would fit with UFO's futurism and general high [medical] tech advancement, and the problem wouldn't be racial diversity, which the original already did very well, as did Star Trek.
The PROBLEM would be that today's anti-integrity, culturally relativist, and outright nihilistic _anti-Western-civilization_ writers couldn't even grasp the romanticism which made the original so great. Thus any transpeople in a remake would very likely pay too much homage to entitled low-passability clowns like on Tiktok, and any blacks or other "diverse" races would pay too much homage to entitled street thugs like you see in flash-mob robbery videos.
And the relativism and nihilism wouldn't stop there. It would all too probably devolve even further into: beautiful women wearing micro-skirts and boots is sexist and harms all vagina-havers, maybe the aliens aren't so evil after all, since they're just trying to survive - and what's so different about them harvesting us when we harvest animals as food when we should all be happy Bambi-loving vegans anyway? And blah-fn-nihilistic-low-IQ-blah.
Bad philosophy and bad values would be the problem. Which means that ultimately a failure to understand the original - when philosophy and _most_ values were demonstrably superior - would be the problem. Think the pathetic V reboot, or even The Munsters.
The problem runs so much deeper than casting a t-girl or a black person.
I wish there was a current british scifi series with the same production and script values, and more importantly, this necessity to have every diversity tickbox, ticked like with Dr Whocaresanymore
All Time Favorite Episode "TIMELASH" with Wanda Ventham in it she was so sexy in that Purple outfit. Ed Bishop at his best. Great show I bought it on DVD when it first came out. I still think they could have dun a season 3. Thanks.
I'm a bit puzzled by Ed's critical comments, maybe they reflect the different perspective of an actor compared to a viewer and even more so a fan. What I thought he might say was that the earlier episodes filmed at MGM would have benefitted from more experienced cast and crew as occurred at Pinewood. The MGM episodes are very good but the later ones at Pinewood are superb. One of the things that helped was bringing in the likes of David Tomblin who had such an imaginative approach and maybe that led everyone to raise their game. More than fifty years after it was produced the show still has many fans and that is testimony to its qualities and style.
I think the more downbeat episodes made the show. I love QOP. It shows Straker human and very real. Eds very critical, even though the wideness of the scripts gave him opportunities to develop integral elements on the character of Straker.
I used to watch this as a kid. Great ideas and was a good show for its day. I do agree that a wider vision was needed. It was a rich idea and I like that women were portrayed as leaders as well. So this was a forward thinking concept. It was fun back then!
Incredible theme. Just one of many from Gerry Andersons shows.
One thing I disagree with Ed . Question Of Priorities was a goodie. Added depth to formula. early episodes in production order was also incredibly good. Of the last 8 episodes at MGM were different because you cannot do a early season one formula of any show like say, Star Trek story and character development in a season 3 shoot. Because the series has changed and developed. Also has found it’s niche, strengths, and main characters are new and different. UFO was the same. Several cast members left new ones began. Perhaps the reason why ITC had broadcast order place very late episodes at the beginning. Funny watching Foster then having him later join Shado and then not appearing off and on. Alec, Gay Ellis too. Before internet snd seeing episodes. I actually thought Those actors were in the whole series to end. Just not in a episode here and then as a large organisation would be.
Yeah I was surprised to have gaps of absence from people of whom I essentially gathered were continual regulars. In my opinion, the best way to watch them is to just watch them in whatever order takes your fancy (with the exception of episode 1, of course)
Its do sad that many of the cast are nolonger with us , and tjat a beautiful actress like Suzanne Neve is now 84.
Its heartbreaking seeing her as she looks now, compare to her in episodes she appeared in.
But it happens to all of us, I was just 11 when this first screened, and I loved it.
Should have had UFO series 2 rather than 1999.
It's too bad there wasn't a second season. I have the series on DVD and just watched some episodes 50 years after the first time I viewed the show. The Psychobombs! Getting to know more about Straker's personal life was a great addition to the show I thought, although Ed doesn't think so.
I respect Ed Bishop's opinion but I also think that the more narrow focus was a positive thing. Sci Fi TV shows of that period always seemed to have way more ambiton and scope than their budgets and the technology of the day would allow. They would often come off as cheap in some way. Not UFO. I'm still knocked out the the fantastic writing, the costumes and set design and the visual effects that were truly amazing for the late 1960s. A narrow scope often allows films and TV do amazing things with limited resources, look at Ridley Scott's 'Alien' for example. Certainly UFO is a step above Space 1999 for this very reason (Also because the groovy 60's outfits and music of UFO are so much better than the ugly 1970's styles of space 1999. Flared trousers, polyester jump-suits and sideburns do not belong in space!)
Interesting stuff. He's probably right.
These are a couple of interviews that I've not seen before.
To respond to Ed Bishop, I think he was a better actor than story/script writer.
Better that he stuck to acting than having any input into UFO, which I thought was
pretty much perfect and still do.
To say stuff like the series premise was too narrow in one breath and next breath to say
that exploring Straker's private life was to far from the premise, makes no sense.
Gabrielle Drake looks lovely and what she had to say was both balanced and logical.
Let's be honest this series is still winning new fans and probably a few new fans are
joining up because of Gabrielle Drake. 😉 I still think it was a huge mistake to cancel UFO
in favour of Space 1999.
It didn't go wrong ANYWHERE the hollywood buffoons just wanted their own man in the lead and so we got space 1999 which was unfortunately a ridiculous premise and never had any chance to go anywhere. The third season should have been SHADO sending out its own ships to find the aliens and so on, and that would have been fantastic.
UFO was better than Star Wars, Star Trek, Space 1999, Farscape and Battlestar Galactica.
Fight me.
Ed Bishop... what a total sci-fi legend🌌‼️: Commander Straker from UFO, Captain Blue from Captain Scarlett & The Mysterons, Space Pilots from Space 2001 - A Space Odyssey & Saturn 3, Detective Elijah Bailey from Asimov's Caves of Steel as well as the narrator from Stephen King's audio drama's: I am the Doorway/One for the Road + Ray Bradbury's Sunset on Shoreline. RIP you awesome-eternal legend ☄️☄️☄️
My favourite Ed Bishop performances:
🌟Commander Straker in UFO 🛸
🌟Captain Blue in Captain Scarlet & The Mysterons 👽
🌟Detective Elijah Bailey in BBC audio's (& Isaac Asimov's) The Caves of Steel 🤖
🌟Captain Tom Decker in the anthology series Out of the Unknown's episode: Beachhead 🌐
🌟Private security guard Carson in the anthology series Thiller episode: Nurse Will Make It Better 👨🏻⚕️👹🌋
🌟Space Pilot in Space 2001 - Space Odyssey 🚀☄️
🌟Space Pilot in Saturn 3 ☄️🚀
🌟Narrator in Stephen King's audio I am the Doorway & One For The Road 🧛🏻♂️🦇⚰️
My favourite Ed Bishop performances, apart from UFO are the BBC Radio Four series of Raymond Chandler's Marlow books where he plays the private detective Philip Marlow.
@@MikeBaldock-g5i he also did BBC's audio version of Ray Bradbury's scifi Golden Apples of the Sun as well as Stephen King's 'One for the Road' & 'I am the Doorway' ...
As much as I love Ed Bishop and UFO, I have to disagree with his assessment. Bringing in the human elements as well as perpetuating the mystery of where the aliens come from and how they operate is what made the series work. It wasn't, IMHO, as limiting a concept as he believed it to be, and this is borne out by certain subtle hints in various episodes. An example is "The Psychobombs," wherein the aliens have brainwashed three humans and given them superhuman abilities for the purpose of using them as weapons against SHADO. The implication is, the aliens have more extensive operations on Earth than it was thought, and this opens up the potential of additional plotlines exploring this. If anything, the main problems with the series were the producers, not the writers or actors.
I believe Bishop came to the UK because he would find getting roles easier by playing Americans. Once here he never returned to the States.
I agree w Striker ab that episode being problematic. I was watching the whole series on DVD w my son. I was shocked that they let the kid die and Straker was suddenly a bad guy. Nearly a deal breaker. That one episode is torture.
Really enjoyed this series as a teenager - especially the cars and other vehicles. Really love Barry Gray's music too. The opening sequence music is the perfect 1 minute piece.
He certainly knew how to write a good theme.
I used to love UFO so much that when it was on at 1pm on a Sunday Afternoon, I used to watch the Politics programme beforehand for the whole hour - and I was 8 years old !!!!! Sad, but true !! In this age of remakes, this is one I could really live with !
I partially agree with Ed's first point. I don't think the issue is having emotional stories. I think (from what I've seen of the show) it was often a case of 'This is the action episode ' and 'This is the emotional one', rather than blending the two together.
There's nothing wrong with having an episode with emotions but little action. One of my favorite TNG episodes was "The Inner Light." A Patrick Stewart tour de force with almost no special effects and no adversary. It's one of the most highly regarded of the entire series. Likewise, "A Question of Priorities" is widely considered one of the best of UFO.
@@amightysailingman Well said. I agree.
"..urrry up.." Need to deliver some prototype models later, but don't want to miss this.
love videos like this! more please!
Ed was too hard on the series. It's still popular in 2023, enough to justify more than one channel in the UK alone picking it up.
I certainly don't agree about it being predictable, although it was cheesy at times (Foster having hallucinations in the sauna) and overly sentimental (Straker's divorce), it was usually paced well, and sometimes had a good twist (Close Up).
I started watching UFO in 1975 here in Brasil. I was 13 years old. Although, my family's was a 1965 Philips b&w 25" screen tv set, I could clearly see the overall quality of this series. It stood out even from Star Trek. Everything was amazingly beautiful and well made. The opening, the theme song, the soundtrack and the stories. Can you believe I got to listen to The Beatles' 'Get Back' for the first time watching a scene of a party where Cel. Foster is dancing accompanied by a beautiful lady? Usually, when we watch our favorite old TV series on higher definition, we spot its failures in sound and image quality. In the case of UFO (and Thunderbirds) it got much much better. And thus without making use of artificial upgrading. Thanks for posting.
that was Ordeal where Col. Foster is kidnapped by aliens - which all turns out to be a dream!!!
I grew up watching the show when it was on the air and I still pull out my box set DVDs from time to time. 🙂
UFO is probably the first science fiction series I remember. I was born in 1966 and so would have been between 4 and 5 years old when the series was transmitted for the first time. It’s interesting that at that age, all I was interested in are the models and effects, explosions, etc and I know that I probably would have found episodes such as Question of Priorities; Confetti Check - AOK; Close Up, etc; rather boring, but viewing them when much older I felt differently - and this was precisely the point: The Anderson’s we’re making an adult series and knew that the couldn’t succeed with flash-bang-wallop spectacle by itself.
I remember watching the late night BBC2 repeats towards the end of the 80’s and again when BRAVO picked them up in the 90’s and I appreciated the attempt to show that these were real people and that the job they did created emotional and mental fall-out and also affected those around them. Okay, so because of the series format, such issues rarely lasted beyond the episode they appeared in and then everyone seemed to be remarkably well-adjusted again until the next trauma reared its head, but non-stop action week-in; week-out would have quickly become tedious in the extreme, so I think the balance struck between action and drama was pretty good.
My all-time favourite episode is E.S.P because to me, the balance is pretty much perfect and the idea of John and Stella Croxley being collateral damage in the ongoing battle of wits between SHADO and The Aliens is brilliant and creepily, hauntingly executed to boot! John Stratton gives such an unhinged, vulnerable performance and it’s stayed with me all these years.
Hopefully, Ed Bishop in this interview segment is simply rueing the fact that he never got the chance to develop Cmdr. Straker even further, but definitely to my mind, showing that he had a life, relationships, trust-issues and everything else is a strength, not a weakness and definitely contributes to my being able to regularly repeat watch the series 50 + years later and never be bored with it.
That theme song used to send kids in Australia into a frenzy. A friend put his foot through a wall, jumping into his bunk pretending it was a spaceship like in the intro.
A question of priorities is one of my favorite episodes.
It’s a shame there was only one season of such an excellent show, but at least those 26 episodes are still around. I live in the US and I keep hoping DVD’s or Blu-rays of the show will become available on DVD or Blu-Ray that will work on the players in the US.
I loved watching “UFO” in the early 70’s when I was a kid in California, and watching them again now I realize all over again how great it was.
One thing I was always curious about, that was never explained in the show, were the purple wigs the women wore only on moon base. I know it’s silly and shallow, but it was so bizarre. What could possibly be the reason to make very attractive women look goofy? I’m sure there’s a logical explanation, it’s just weird that not once in any episode did anyone mention the wigs. And why purple, this was several years before punk rock hit the UK.
There's a video on it. Silvia invented the idea to reduce the amount of hairdressing required and it worked great so they ran with it.
I was five and I loved the toys.
Gerry Anderson always said UFO was his favourite series he ever did. It stands the test of time, even now it’s still a future I want to live in.
Every episode was awesome..as child UFO was suspenseful and thrilling ,...as a late 50yr old now, BRING IT BACK....SITTING there with my dad and brothers on a late Friday evening ..words cannot explain how good a TV show it was
I was in my mid-teens when it came on the TV screen and I thought it was sexy as hell. And both then and now, that wasn't solely about voyeurism... it was such an exciting time of change (both for me and humanity around the world) and it promised a liberalisation and improvement in how we interacted with each other that's dwindled over the decades since.
Loved the show, wish someone could bring it back
I'd love a re-run, but definitely not a remake. can you imagine all the gender/race swapping, and general Wokeism? It wouldn't be worth seeing!
Personally I don’t agree with ed those episodes with the human elements especially where his tragic story is shown added depth to the thing. It would have been good to see more of that. Especially characters like Peter Carling who lost his sister, freeman who needed a back story and Delores. I love uFO and those episodes are what I really liked. Although I always loved seeing skydiver in action
Apparently UFO inspired the hugely successful Neon Genesis Evangelion, at least with the characters of Straker and Freeman. Evangelion also has episodes where it dwells more on the daily lives of the Nerv team, like the episode with Straker's son.
Love both shows with a great passion. NGE also cribbed the fast-flashing on-screen text from UFO & Space: 1999's intro, too. I think that there's more similarities between characters (at least in my mind) - Gen. Henderson/Keel Lorenz (at least physically), Paul Foster/Kaji, Virginia Lake/Ritsuko Akagi, Gay Ellis/Misato etc. Almost makes me want to write a fanfic combining the two somehow.
@@zypalitra8080 Good observations! 😎
There's a lot of references in Eva to various Anderson productions. As well as to the likes of the Ultraman series (which also has heavy Anderson influences).
I'm pretty sure Hideaki Anno would have jumped at any chance to collaborate with Gerry on something.
3:46 The same "thing" in many shows, the action/"mythology" episodes compared to the "personal"/background,"filler" episodes. Personall, I liked a mixture of the two. Get to know the "why" the character and the "how".
When he says it's bad for the audience to "get ahead of the characters", I was reminded, several episodes of THE NEW AVENGERS made this mistake. Whereas many of the best episodes were intriguing mysteries where the last piece doesn't fall into place until the last act, you sometimes had things where they TOLD the audience what was going on before the theme song came on, and it made the heroes look like idiots because THEY didn't know what was happening.
One thing that was a shock to me was HOW MUCH BETTER "UFO" works as a whole if you watch them in PRODUCTION ORDER. There is a painfully-slow but steady story arc wherein, in the first half, SHADO is struggling and barely has their act together at all. But then, in the 2nd half, they ARE getting their act together, but the aliens are constantly upping their game and the odds with more and varied and more bizarre things they're doing. So if you watch if in the order they're on the DVDs, it just builds and builds and builds. But this was completely DESTROYED when the stories were shuffled like a deck of cards and run AT RANDOM. Pushing the later episodes forward to try and grab audience earlier, while holding back the lesser earlier ones only makes those early ones look WORSE than they are. You need to see them in order, so the whole series unfolds slowly like a novel.
The whole problem started when the show never got on the air at all until ALL 26 episodes were already finished. This also had the added problem that Century 21 closed up shop before the series even debuted, and everyone involved had to find other jobs. By the time the show gained any popularity at all, there was no one around to do a "3rd set of 13", so to speak. Every time I get to the final episode, the tragic epilogue of sorts, "The Long Sleep", I think, "THIS WAS NO TIME TO CANCEL THE SERIES!" When you see those last 13 episodes in the correct order, by the end, it just SCREAMS for a 2nd season that never happened.
As an aside, "Priorities" may be my least-favorite. It had 2 parallel plotlines, and BOTH ended tragically. Had it been one or the other, I think it could have worked better. Having massive suspense over will John live or die was fine, having John DIE was too much, and pointless. My late friend in Wales suggested the whole mess was one more reflection on just HOW BAD Gerry & Sylvia's marriage had gotten by that point. Ed did all he could to try to save his son's life, and then his ex blames HIM for what happened. When, in truth, she was just a lousy mother. She didn't want "her" son seeing his father, and somehow the kid runs out into traffic, but that's supposedly Ed's fault. A better resolution would have been that thanks to Ed's efforts, John WAS saved, and after, Ed would resolve that he's GOING to see his son WHENEVER he wants.
🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭
🎭 GREAT TELEPHONE ACTING ! ! ! 🎭
🎭FROM ED BISHOP (STRAKER) ! ! ! 🎭
🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭🎭
Here in the East Midlands/ITV area as it was known back in 1970,I was 10 years old when UFO was broadcast,ITV even put a countdown timer on the screen about 12 hours before the programme was to start.I remember watching it with my dad and even though some of the episodes are pretty Meh !! (Too many personal issues,not enough actual UFO/Alien stuff) it's still an all time fave of mine.....
I have this instinctive feeling that a certain George Lucas saw UFO and borrowed an awful lot of ideas like the Interceptor fighter pilots and the whole spitfire world war 2 element. I dont think we would have had the end Death Star sequence of Star Wars or the success of Star Wars at all without UFO.
I believe George also went on the set of Space 1999 to see how the effects were done. In fact a fair number of Anderson's crew worked on Star Wars.
@@minicle426 Interesting! You could say that Industrial Light & Magic was nothing but a copy of Gerry Anderson & Derek Meddings 1960's work.
I loved UFO as a kid 50 years ago. I recently found every episode online and have enjoyed watching them again. The only thing I find funny about it is the laughably futuristic year of 1980 that it takes place in. That's only 10 years after the show was filmed.
Even Ed compares UFO with Star Trek sadly. Imo UFO felt more "real" and is just as relevant today as Star Trek. Ed'''''s portrayal of Straker was nothing short of brilliant.