This show was created by Gerry Anderson. It combines live action with elaborate models for special fx. It comes after the Thunderbirds which was done with marionettes, and it is before Space 1999.
What I learned -
[ul]
[li]It is okay to lear at women at work and get into their personal space.[/li][li]Smoking on the job is probably good for you, especially in air controlled vehicles like submarines and spaceships.[/li][li]Large bars in the office are a status symbol.[/li][li]Cool cars in the future have gullwing doors, even if the cars are brown.[/li][li]Purple wigs should be standard issue for military outfits.[/li][li]You can tip a submarine to a 45 degree angle to launch a jet, and the crew inside the submarine won’t tip over.[/li][li]SID is a ripoff of HAL, but with a British accent.[/li][li]Old tv sets may not have picked it up, but the guys wear way too much eyeliner for a DVD transfer.[/li][li]Straker is a jerk.[/li][/ul]
I love the crazy sets and colors from the 1970s which may never be repeated. What did you learn?
It’s OK for women to wear skin tight mesh bodysuits.
Secret government agencies that fight UFO invasions are real.
It’s OK to reuse models. (I noticed that several models were reused in Space 1999)
It’s on my list of vastly underrated TV shows.
I just in the past minute learned that Wanda ‘Col. Virginia Lake’ Ventham is none other than the mother of. . . Benedict Cumberbatch (Khan, Dr. Strange).
Strange that the term “yoo-fo” never caught on in the States, in the same way most other acronyms are, when possible, pronounced as words.
They probably learned that it was OK to smoke in your space ship from the otherwise excellent 1950s movie It! The Terror from Beyond Space. They had whole cartons of cigarettes stashed in their lockers on that ship. and the women always prepared the coffee.
And MAD Magazine used “SID” as their parody of “HAL” (in 201 Minutes of a Space Idiocy long before this, in 1969.
It’s never OK to “lear” at women. Or even to “Leer” at them.
… And of course, the Americans paid for everything! :rolleyes:
I liked how SHADO was founded based on the kind of stuff Art Bell used to talk about on his late-night radio show (crop circles, livestock mutilation, alien abductions…).
I used to have a minor crush on Ayshea, one of the Moon Station staff - she was a children’s tv show presenter (Lift Off with Ayshea) and also appeared sometimes with Roy Wood’s Wizzard on Top of the Pops -but when I watch the show now, I can never figure out which one she is! Maybe I’m confused by the purple wigs!
Straker really is an asshole, isn’t he? And an empire builder.
He’s probably the right guy for the job, but I sure wouldn’t want to work for him. I like that the show exists in the “real world”, in that, someone has to pay for all this. I appreciate how some episodes involve begging for budget, and ordering spare parts. You just don’t see that, and yet, they made it work. Henderson knows the alien threat exists, and yet he still has to keep rein on Straker. If Straker had his way, the entire moon would be armed, and there would be space going aircraft carriers. And maybe it should be that way.
Given that, A Question of Priorities is an awesome episode. Straker gave up everything for the job. Maybe that explains (some) of his jerkiness.
However, Mindbender kinda of ruined the show. Now we all know that Moonbase is just down the hall from SHADO control.
Pro Tip. If you have a super sekret organisation, it isn’t a good idea to plaster the name all over public vehicles.
I just went and played the theme music. Do do do do!
I like that the Interceptors were actual interceptors, in that, if they missed, they are done. They can’t turn around and get in a dog fight.
But then you get just misguided thinking. The Andersons thought people would be wearing wigs in the future. And that Britain would switch to left hand drive.
And no right thinking engineer would put a launch (and landing!) pad right on top of an inhabited building!
Did you notice the transfer shuttles looked like fish from head on?
Here’s a question I can’t find an answer to. IN Wisconin Green Bay stations, during first syndication, I swear the episodes were half hour long. I remember specifically because when Sparce 1999 came out, I noticed hey went to an hour long. But UFO was never half an hour. Did anyone else get cut episodes in syndication? Or did I dream the whole thing?
That could explain why the episodes made no sense, but we just chaled that up to being British. True, episodes like Mindbender and Timelash make little sense even in an hour.
Yes Straker was a jerk, although I’m sure the actor who played him was a great guy. Ed Bishop.
Everytime a work friend was accused of something out of character Straker immediately assumed they were guilty and was ready to pull the lever. Maybe it happens once, but three or four times? Often to poor Paul, lol. I would get the hell out of Dodge.
I agree Mindbender kinda ruined the show by showing the actual sets they where shooting in. So many of the decisions that often worked for the show where made just to save money. You would think from the size of TV production budgets that they have all the money in the world, but some decisions like the purple wigs were partly based on saving money on styling the women’s hair.
