It's Movie time!!!! 7 - No one remembers the original premise.

As I've been playing a lot of "Prison Architect" recently, it's become a necessity to have something on in the background while I wait for money to build up and/or for the inmates to kill each other.

                                                           (1977 Theatrical poster)

An embarrased looking Christopher Lee stars alongside an equally embarrased looking Robert Vaughn (although arguably Vaughns role is less embarrasing) in this B-move romp about an alien invasion.
The people of the planet Alpha, situated in the constellation Orion arrive in our solar system and begin abducting people to perform experiments on. The abductees are then returned to Earth, but as the Alpha people (who call themselves the Legion of the winged serpent) are powerful telepaths, the abductees have been implanted with a post hypnotic suggestion to commit suicide shortly after their return.
Professor Duncan (Vaughn) is a UFO researcher who takes an interest in the sudden spike in UFO sightings and abductions, and believes an invasion is coming, and he is right!.
The aliens leader Ramses (Lee) explains that their secret mission is to find a new homeworld for their people, as their solar systems star is about to go nova.
Earth suits the aliens needs, however as it is already occupied by humans, the Intergalactic league of races, represented mostly by large headed aliens originating from Zeta Reticuli, will oppose them, so Ramses must deal with them before he can put his evil plot to make all humans commit suicide, via the use of a telepathic dommsday weapon, into action.

Despite this film being obviously filmed on a low budget, it somehow manages to be enjoyable in a "I turned off my brain" sort of way. I quite liked the way the story included various bits and pieces from UFOlogy and stories from alledged abductees.



Overall - 7/10

                                                 (Theatrical poster for 1962 English dub)

 In the year 1985, glorious Communist revolution taken over world!, and with petty things such as capitalism put firmly in the past, mankind works toward make benefit for glorious planet Earth!.
During a project to irrigate the Gobi desert, an alien artifact is found, which proves that the Tunguska event was actually the result of an alien spacecraft crashing on Earth.
The worlds leading scentists find that the artifact contains some sort of message, and originated from the planet Venus, so, the scientists embark on a mission into space on the spaceship "Kosmostrator" to make contact with the Venusians in the hopes of establishing a peaceful relationship.....however, they get a bit more than they bargained for....

This film was made in East Germany in 1960, and thus the original version contains much more communist related material than the english dub does, however the film itself is a very interesting one, albeit somewhat scientifically inacurrate and fantastical.
Even amongst all this communism and speculative fiction, the films main message is an anti war one, told via a simple "fantastic adventure" type storyline. 

Overall - 7/10

                                                               (2014 Theatrical poster)

David is a film archivist who finds that his wife is having an affair, his initial reaction is one of anger but he seemingly refrains from carrying out his violent urges and returns home to his son Billy.
In the course of his work he finds out that the house he lives in was connected with some unsolved murders for 100 years ago. When his wife doesnt return hime, he calls the police, and, sure enough, her body is later found at the bottom of the local canal.
Overwrought with grief, he embarks on a series of erratic behaviours, including claiming to have seen ghosts in the house and at the canal, and blames his wifes death on the haunting.
The question is, was it ghosts who killed his wife?, or is he insane?

Yeah, this isn't a half bad film, albeit a little slow paced, and figuring out what has actually happenned keeps you guessing right to the end. 

Overall - 7/10

                                                               (1996 Video release)

This failed TV pilot takes place in some unspecified future time where the Earth has become so overpopulated that the human race has began reaching out into space and colonising planets.
Several years before the film begins, one of the first colonies, Cynosura, declared its independance from Earth and began its own aggressive expansion (we are helped to realise that the Cynosurans are definitely the baddies because they dress in black uniforms and behave like nazis, whereas the good guys generally wear white or blue uniforms).
The story introduces us to a group of six eager space cadets, who are assigned to the Democratic Republic of Earth corvette "Surprise" for their training cruise. The cadets are drilled by a tough veteran space captain and his equally tough executive officer, however when they begin what they think is a training exersize in the Maraz system, they find themselves under attack by a Cynsuran attack fleet, which has been sent to exterminate the colony on Maraz so they can claim the planet for themselves.
The Captain and the XO are killed in the battle, and it is left up to the cadets ingenuity to defeat the bad guys and save the colony.

I can see why this TV pilot failed, as it borrows a hell of a lot from other sci-fi shows of the time, and has a lot of mid 90s cliches. the special effects are of poor quality for the time, and the acting is terrible, with the good guys being whiter than white saintly figures and the bad guys being little more than comic book villains.
The series itself, had it been picked up, could have gone on to be an interesting drama along the lines of something like "Space: Above and beyond", but only if it shed its "young adult" type of writing style, but alas, the pilot failed to impress, and the series never happenned. 

Overall - 5/10

Serial offender - Children of the Dog star (TVNZ 1984)

Children of the Dog star was a six part sci-fi childrens serial first broadcast in New Zealand in 1984.

While not based on any previous books, the series borrows concepts and postulations from the 1976 pseudoscience book "The Sirius Mystery" by Robert Temple.

Set in the New Zealand outback during the mid 1980s, the series sees the 12 year old Gretchen on holiday at her uncles homestead in rural New Zealand.
One of the first things Gretchen notices when she arrives is a strange weather vane on the roof of the homesteads barn, which her aunt refers to as "the brass daisy". Her uncle says that the daisy has been there for as long as he can remember, and is sort of a mascot for the farm, but he has no idea where it came from.
Gretchen meets Robby, a young Maori boy, who lives with his uncle in the nearby town. Robby is a bit of a tearaway, and has been sent to live with his uncle in the hopes that it will straighten him out somewhat. Robbys uncle is the chief of the local Maori peoples, and as such, owns extensive ancestral lands in the area, including a large area of swampland, which local property developers are trying to buy so they can drain and build on it. Robby amuses himself by disrupting survey efforts on the land by the developers, of which his uncle disapproves, but understands why the boy does it. He explains to Robby that the land is "Tapu", or "forbidden", as it is said in local legends that the swamp holds a great evil, and will wreak terrible catastrophes on anyone who interferes with it, as many Maori tribes people before have found out when they have tried to do things with the swamp land.
As time passes, Gretchen notices that the brass daisy behaves strangely, making strange sounds and seemingly moving of its own accord, not only this but it also seems to be able to move objects with some kind of telekinetic force.

As it turns out, the brass daisy is in fact an alien artifact, part of a sentient space probe named "Kolob". Kolob was sent to Earth along with 2 other similar sentient machines by a race of people who live on a planet orbiting Sirius many thousands of years ago, with a mission to educate the primitive peoples of Earth. Unfortunately, Kolob crash landed in the swamp, scattering its various parts all over the area, the brass daisy being its core processing unit.

Gretchen, Robby and another boy named Bevis scour the swamp to find his missing parts and reassemble him so he can complete his mission, the problem is that when they assemble Kolobs various parts, their effects have some bizarre consequences.
The series eventually ends with Kolob being fully reassembled and making contact with the people of Sirius, but then in a bit of a twist ending, the series final scene is a cliffhanger, which has never been explained or resolved.

I remember watching this series when it aired on ITV some time round about 1985/86, and it was the first serial show I recall watching. although until recently I hadn't rewatched the series, because it was never released on video or DVD, nor did it get a replay on any TV channel due to licensing issues.
The series is a very well and intelligently written piece of teen fiction, and it has a distinct "Wyndam-esque" feel to it, being somewhat similar to the book "Chocky" (Which also received a TV adaptation in 1984, leading some people to confuse these two series), albeit less scary in nature.

The series plays with some very interesting concepts, such as the ancient astronaut theory, and the theory that early man was influenced by these alien visitors.

Although the series is now available on DVD, it is somewhat difficult to obtain, however the entire series is available on youtube, and I heartily recommend a watch for those who like sci-fi but want a bit of a change form the usual fayre.

Space: Above and Beyond (1995-1996)

Space: Above and Beyond (Also known variously as Space 2063, Squadron 58, Space Marines, Space War 2063, Space Commando, Star Squadron and many others, depending on which country you are from) was a short lived military Sci-Fi TV series created by X-Files writers/Creators Glen Morgan and James Wong as a side project while that series was still ongoing.

                                                               (Series Title Card)

The first, and only, series takes place between the years 2063 and 2064, a time in which mankind has begun to explore and colonise not only the outer solar system, but also due to the discovery of predictable but highly mobile wormholes, other star systems as well.

The series begins proper when the first extra-solar colony, named "Vesta", comes under attack by an advanced alien species, ironically while the colonies leader delivers a speech about mankind being alone in the universe.
A second colony, named "Tellus" is planned, however the colony ship is attacked and heavily damaged as it makes its landing run on the planet.

The Tellus colony ship is what sparks the beginning of the series storyline, as prior to its launch a colonist named Nathan West is forcibly removed from the program on the orders of US Government senators for political reasons. This removal separates him from his long term girlfriend Kylen, whom he pledges he will find and be with again, which leads him to enlisting in the US (Space) Marine corps, as there is a slim chance that he will be stationed to system monitor duty in the Tellus system, which will allow him and Kylen to be together again, the destruction of the Vesta and Tellus colonies puts a damper on this plan though, as for the first time, mankind has to fight a war against a completely alien enemy.

Initially, the series plays out along the lines of what is seemingly a "humans v evil aliens" type storyline, however, as time passes, it slowly becomes apparent that the aliens, who are nicknamed the "Chigs" (due to their passing resemblance to a chigoe flea - their real name is never revealed) are not as evil as it was thought, and that the cause of the war is not a straightforward question of "Us vs Them".
Nathan West is eventually assigned to USMC 58th Squadron, attached to the Carrier vessel USS Saratoga, where, during the course of the pilot episode, they distinguish themselves by thwarting a Chig plan to directly attack the planet Earth.
The remainder of the series follows the members of 58th Squadron as they fight their way through the war one day at a time, hampered by the various bits of infighting and politics that are as still prevalent amongst mankind in the future as they are now.



Numerous plot arcs and story lines are followed in this series, and, unlike most Sci-Fi offerings of the time, are intelligently written, examples include:-



Racism/Prejudice - Part of the series backstory is that about 5 years prior to the series beginning, mankind fought a war against "The Silicates", a race of human created androids intended to perform labour considered dangerous or too menial for humans. At some point, a computer programmer, seeking to revenge himself upon a supervisor who took credit for his work, inserted a virus in the Silicates programming, which urged the androids simply to "take a chance" instead of following logic. This petty decision led to all of the worlds androids rebelling, which in turn erupted into open conflict, causing the deaths of millions of people.
In response to this, Human genetic engineering gave birth to a race of artificially created humans, referred to as "in-vitros", who are created in laboratories and who were originally intended to be used as soldiers to fight the AIs. However, this backfired, as in-vitros, known mostly by the derogatory terms "Tanks" (referring to both their method of birth and the fact that they are generally tougher than normal humans) and/or "Nipple-necks" (due to them having a noticeable navel on the back of their neck, as opposed to being on the stomach as it is on a normal human) are "born" with the physical age of 18, but the mental age of a newborn baby, they are then quickly and brutally rushed through education and indoctrination, which although instilling the required level of military knowledge into them, instils none of the psychological knowledge which normal humans acquire through years of life (most of the in-vitros shown during the series appear to have an adolescent type of mindset).As such, the in-vitros are considered to be both lazy and cowardly, as during the AI war, very few of them actually fought or performed any of the duties they were created for.

Most humans are shown to treat in-vitros with extreme prejudice, who for most of the series are shown to be treated as little more than slaves and/or animals.This leads to various plot lines where they are openly defiant and rebel against humans, and are even used by humans in plots to cause trouble with the war effort.

Loyalty/Betrayal -  One of the recurring themes is the intense loyalty that 58th Squadron develops for each other, sometimes at the cost of disobeying their superiors. Conversely, one theme that also recurs is betrayal or distrust of "outsiders". Numerous characters pop up during the series whose motives and true intentions are either never made clear, or who outright betray everyone. While this is an expected trait from AIs (all of whom harbour an intense dislike of humans) when it is displayed in other humans, it usually ends up being something shocking or unexpected.

Conspiracies/Cover ups -  One thing that crops up at various points in the series is the involvement of the megacorporation "Aero-Tech" in numerous aspects of both the war and human space exploration in general. Aero-Tech is shown to be a major aerospace company who manufactures space craft for the various Earth governments, but also seems to have numerous hidden agendas, and, who as it turns out, may have had a hand in inadvertently causing the war in the first place, a fact which they try, using various underhanded means, to cover up.

Psychology/Torture - Throughout the series, both the humans and the Chigs are shown to make extensive use of disinformation and psychology to try and outwit each other, up to and including psychological torture and "reprogramming" of individuals to perform some purpose inherent to their respective war efforts. On the human side, things such as hypnotic suggestion and psychological programming are used to make people believe things that are not true, or to coerce them into performing deeds which they normally wouldn't. Both the Chigs and the AIs are shown to make extensive use of terror tactics and terror weapons in order to destabilise the human war effort.

Although S:AAB didn't really tread any new ground (similar plot lines were explored in the TV series "Tour of Duty") , it did bring forth a fairly interesting, although sometimes dry, Sci-Fi tale which was set close enough to "now" to still be recognisable to the causal viewer, but just far enough into the future to allow for convenient Sci-Fi trappings to give the writers enough freedom to explore plotlines without having to make too many nods towards realism.

Although the series was well recieved, its convoluted plot and expensive special effects, coupled with it "schedule hopping" led to the decision being made not to commission a second series.
As such, the series ended on a cliffhanger, which the creators hoped to resolve in a possible feature length episode or movie, however as time went on, people lost interest in the project and thus it never materialised.
Since then the creators have given rough outlines to what would have happened if the series had continued, including most of 58th Squadron being killed or captured and the various survivors encountering personal problems, both due to their experiences and with the replacements for those killed.

In the years that have passed since the series aired, actor Joel de la Fuente, who played Lt. Paul Wang in the series, has been vocal in his criticism of the way in which the series handled stereotypes, labeling his character as being little more than a stereotypical "Asian coward" and most of the other characters as being "cardboard cut outs". Understandably, de la Fuente has not been asked to take part in many of Morgan/Wongs other projects since, unlike many of the other people who starred in this series.

S:AAB is a nice series, but some of the series 24 episodes are just downright boring to watch, as the writers seemed to be trying too hard to make the series cerebral, and ended up instead making convoluted and dialogue heavy scenes which confused many viewers and created plot holes.

Its not a bad series, but its not a great one either....

Alien Nation : The Series (1989-1990)

Following on from the original film , the Alien Nation TV series continues the story of a "future" (the series is set roughly in 1991/1992) United States which becomes inhabited by 250,000 aliens after their ship crash lands in the Mojave desert.

Although the series was intended to be a direct follow on to the film, there were numerous small changes made to characters and back story, for example, the two main characters, Matthew Sykes (renamed "Sikes" in the TV series) and "newcomer" Sam "George" Fransisco (renamed simply "George Fransisco" in the series, his original pun name said to have been foisted on him by a bored immigration official) are now played by Gary Graham and Eric Pierpoint as opposed to James Caan and Mandy Patinkin respectively.
In addition, Georges family was slightly changed, With his son now being named "Buck" instead of "Richard" as given in the film.

I first encountered this show as part of Yorkshire televisions "late night" weekend slot, as it usually aired on a friday or saturday night during the early/mid 90s. Itwas strange as i thought that there were at least 2 or 3 series of this show made, the series itself consisted of a single series of 22 episodes, each lasting 47 minutes, and the concept is explored further than it was in the film.
Several new aspects are added to the background of the "newcomers", whose race is named officially as the "Tenctonese", although the pejorative terms "Slag" or "Spongehead" are used by people to refer to them on occasion, a point which in the first episode, George explains to Sikes that calling him a Slag is the equivalent of calling someone a "nigger" or a "kike". Although the newcomers show they too have prejudice by referring to humans as "terts".

The series does have a couple of plot arcs, and each episode generally consists of two story lines running simultaneously in some way.  Themes explored include:-

• The culture shock that ensues from humans suddenly having 250,000 completely alien people dropped on them, which leads to various racist themes being explored, such as jealousy that the newcomers are generally stronger, smarter and more resilient than  humans. So much so that during the course of some episodes, a human centric "purist" movement is shown to exist, which spreads various rumours and lies about the newcomers. The irony of this is is that many black, oriental and Hispanic people end up repeating the same things about newcomers as what was once said about themselves, for no other reason than to express hatred towards something different.
• The new types of crime that spring up once the newcomers begin integrating into human society. Although a lot of this crime is pretty much the same as human crime (drug traffiking, prostitution, theft, murder, gang warfare etc) the problems end up becoming more complex being as that they involve an alien culture, and as such, many of the human characters do not always understand what is happening. 
• Inter species relationships are also explored, with Sikes slowly becoming more and more attracted towards his newcomer neighbour "Cathy", as well as a few episodes depicting both aliens and newcomers in mixed or same sex relationships (it is also shown that the newcomers have no taboos about same sex relationships amongst either their own people or inter species, although some do have prejudice about mixed sex inter species relationships).
•  An interesting sub plot throughout the series is the introduction of a ruling class of newcomers called "overseers", nearly all of whom went unnoticed on their arrival on Earth and all of whom seek to once again take control of the "lesser" newcomers. George finds the overseers detestable, as do most of the other newcomers once they have been freed from their influence. One episode deals with a terrorist obtaining a cannister of the mind control gas that the overseers used to keep the slaves in line, and several episodes deal with the police finding and closing down operations to create "Jabroka", a drug which has roughly the same effect on newcomers as crack cocaine does on humans.
• Sikes and Georges ongoing struggle to make arrests despite interference from the ambitious and somewhat buffoonish Captain Grazer.

The series is unashamedly a "buddy cop" type program, but also has elements of being a sci-fi soap opera, with many of the "B" plots being little more than simple "aliens/humans not understanding each other" type affairs, but for some reason, it really works well, and quickly establishes a core group of likeable characters performing believable actions within their almost normal environment.
There are numerous examples of comedy in there as well, ranging from simple cultural misunderstandings (such as Georges wife being utterly repulsed by the concept of Halloween), right down to instances of heavily satirical and/or black humour. 

But, despite how well the series was received, its days were numbered as after only a single series. This came as somewhat of a surprise to viewers, and to the production crew, who had expected to at least get a second series based on the shows approval ratings. The problem was, the show aired on FOXs "Fox Network" during its early days as a prime time TV channel, and, due to the network not attracting as much investment from advertisers as they had expected, cuts had to be made to the network budget, and, Alien Nation, being an expensive show to make due to the large amount of special effects and make up needing to be applied to actors playing aliens, ranked as one of the shows which had to go in order to save money.

The story didn't end there though, with five feature length TV movies being produced between 1994 and 1997 which picked up from where the series left off and resolved all the unfinished story lines.

The show still enjoys somewhat of a cult following today, and is one of my firm favourites.

War Of The Worlds - The series (1988-1990)

The War Of The Worlds TV series was first envisaged as a concept in the 1970s by Director George Pal and was intended to be a direct follow on the the 1953 movie, however the series did not make it to screens due to no interest in it.
In 1988 however writer/director Greg Strangis managed to pitch a similar concept which found favour amongst US TV executives who were, at the time, quite keen on making TV series based on successful films, as the same year saw a "Friday the XIII" TV series and a "Nightmare on Elm Street" TV series.

Two full series were made, however there are massive differences in the settings and tone of the second series compared to the first, so much so that barring a couple of shared characters, the second series could be considered to be something entirely different based on a similar premise.

Series 1 (1988-1989)

The back story goes that both the events of the 1953 Film and the 1938 Radio Broadcast were actually real attempted alien invasions, however following the end of the 1953 invasion, the aliens (note - the aliens are not referred to as "martians", as a rule in all episodes, as the concept of life on Mars had long since been disproved and thus useless as a believable plot point) did not die when exposed to Earths bacteria, instead, the aliens entered a state of torpor, and thus, after the 1953 war ended, thousands of "dead" alien bodies were sealed into oil drums and sent to storage areas all over the world, supposedly for scientific research purposes, but in reality they were quickly hidden away along with any spacecraft and artifacts so that the worlds governments could quickly and quietly rebuild and forget about the horrifying events of the invasion.
35 years pass and in present day (1988) a group of environmental terrorists attack and take over a military storage compound, which they intend to hold for ransom due to it being used to store nuclear waste. Unfortunately for them the facility is also one of the places that sleeping aliens are stored, and, in the process of their assault on the facility, the terrorists cause the aliens to become exposed to radioactive waste, which reanimates them. The aliens quickly counter attack, and demonstrate that they have the ability to merge their bodies with a human body, thus allowing them to appear as human (This was actually a cost saving measure so that numerous difficult to produce alien costumes didn't have to be made and maintained, plus it also allowed the aliens to directly influence the plot. It should also be noted that throughout the entire series, the aliens are never seen clearly).

The aliens are discovered when they make a transmission requesting orders from their superiors, and this leads to the introduction of the series' main characters:-

Dr. Harrison Blackwood  (Jared Martin) - The adopted son of Dr. Clayton Forrester and Sylvia van Buren. Harrison is an eccentric scientist who carried on Dr. Forresters work on the aliens, even though after the great cover up no one believed in aliens any more. He becomes head of "The Blackwood Project" a secret group dedicated to finding and stopping the aliens before they take over the world. Blackwoods curiosity quite often gets the team into trouble.

Norton Drake  (Phillip Akin) - A paraplegic computer genius who intercepted the aliens first transmission. (In the pilot episode of the series, Norton sported a faux Caribbean accent, however this was dropped for the series proper, although in the first few episodes he still uses it, however the actor playing him re dubbed his lines in his own voice) Norton, as well as being a top notch research scientist is also an expert hacker, and helps the team get access to information by bypassing governmental "red tape" from time to time with his skills.

Lt.Col Paul Ironhorse  (Paul Chaves) - A US army special forces operative of native American ancestry who serves as the liaison between Dr. Blackwood and the military. Ironhorse is a staunch conservative and generally prefers military action over scientific investigation, putting him at odds with the pacifistic Dr. Blackwood, however over time the two grow to hold a respect for each other.

Suzanne McCullough (Lynda Mason Green) - A Microbiologist and single mother who comes to work for Dr. Blackwood prior to the arrival of the alien threat. Throughout the series Suzanne works on numerous biological methods of identifying or attacking the aliens, as well as finding out more about them. Suzanne is a very "by the numbers" scientist, which causes problems with Blackwoods eccentric approach to science.

The Blackwood team are tasked with researching and finding ways to combat the aliens, however the aliens themselves face numerous problems. Firstly, although they have been resurrected by the radiation, its effect of killing the germs that harm them also causes their bodies to break down from radiation sickness, meaning the aliens can only spend short periods inside a human body before they too begin to disintegrate. Secondly, the aliens do not have access to their advanced weapons or technology this time round, so therefore have to make do with crudely adapted human technology, or hopefully be able to scavenge some of their own equipment from secret storage facilities, or left over from previous visits to Earth.
Over the course of the series the aliens revive more of their own kind and try numerous strategies to subvert and kill mankind, some of which end up being horribly successful (yes that's right, the baddies win sometimes), but the series does end on a fairly high note, as it turns out that humans may have allies from space as well as enemies, although by the end of the series, it is established that an alien colonisation fleet will arrive within a few years.

Series 2 (1989-1990)

Series 2 saw some major changes to the shows format. Firstly, the setting was changed from "present day" to "almost tomorrow", this allowed for the timeline to be moved on to accommodate the arrival of the alien colonisation fleet.
Also, and more bizarrely, the aliens from the first series (the "Mor-Tax") were replaced with another set of completely different aliens, the "Mothren", with little to no explanation given as to why.
Also, Ironhorse and Norton are killed off in the first episode, and instead replaced by a mercenary called John Kincaid (played by a pre-Highlander: The Series Adrian Paul).


In this series, Earth has fallen into a period of chaos and great social upheaval, leading to an almost total breakdown of civilised society.
The Mothren arrive on Earth, and, unlike their predecessors the Mor-Tax, have no trouble whatsoever adapting to the environment, however they find it inconvenient that the humans haven't been massacred, allowing them to begin full colonisation procedures, however, over the course of the series they try to complete their mission of finding a new home world, despite their many internal conflicts.



Overall Thoughts



While the series' original concept, and thus the first series itself was quite good, it completely went to pot with the changes made for the second series.
The first series mixed sci-fi with elements of adventure and horror, and was genuinely scary to me when I first saw this series as an 11 year old, especially some of the gruesome ways that the aliens killed people.
A nice touch was that Jared Martin was instructed to copy actor Gene Barrys mannerisms in his portrayal of Harrison Blackwood, so as to make another link between the film and the series.
Another nice touch was the episode "An eye for an eye", which first aired on the 50th anniversary of Orson Welles' 1938 radio broadcast and pays tribute to it by having the Blackwood team visit the setting of the radio play and tangling with aliens with help from some of the town militia who fought them during the 1930s.
The series also had a lot of environmentalist themes, as well as some cleverly crafted bits of satire and black comedy, most notably that each episode of series 1 was titled after a biblical quote, which had an ironic connection to the plot for the episode.
Series 2 was just awful, with far too many plot and character changes to make the two series' related in any way, even the episodes of it themselves are boring, save for one episode which involves Blackwood travelling back in time to the 1950s.

This is a good series, so long as you only really watch series 1, well acted, and for the most part well scripted. Some of the special effects are a bit bargain basement, and any instance of alien war machines appearing in the series is simply repurposed footage from the 1953 film, but, even though the program is very 1980s in its stylings, and thus may be a little difficult for younger people to get their head round, it is still watchable and entertaining.

EPis0dIC! - UFO - "The Square Triangle" (S01E09 - 1970)

...SHADO mobilises its space interceptors after S.I.D detects an incoming UFO whose trajectory indicates it will land somewhere in southern England. Commander Straker hurredly calculates a rough landing point while Colonel Foster waits for the order to intercept, however at the last minute Straker orders that the UFO be allowed to pass through and land unmolested.

Meanwhile, as S.I.D reports that the UFO has passed through SHADOs outer defence cordons, a woman drives seemingly alone along a deserted road.

The UFO lands in the middle of an area of dense forest, so Straker orders Foster to lead a team of SHADO mobile units to track down the UFO and capture it intact.

The woman is not alone in her car, a young man is with her, she continues driving as he nonchalantly smokes a cigarette.

The SHADO mobiles are deployed into the search area, and begin looking for the alien craft, meanwhile, the woman and the young man reach an isolated cottage, which the man begins looking around suspiciously. The man, "Cass" (Played by a very young Patrick Mower ) tells the woman, "Liz", to "go and get it", she returns from the bedroom carrying a gun.

Straker monitors the mobiles progress, while Alec Freeman enquires why Straker hasn't simply "asked the aliens round for drinks". Straker, in private, explains that he has let the UFO through because as an organisation, SHADO knows very little about the aliens or their spacecraft, therefore, in this instance, he allowed the UFO through in order to capture it intact and learn its secrets.

Cass and Liz are lovers, and Cass has planned that Liz's husband is to die that very night, killed by his own wife in what will look like an accident as he comes in the front door. His planning is meticulous, every detail has been worked out, nothing can go wrong.

In the forest, a security guard and his dog stumble across an alien, the dog attacks the alien while the guard runs off, but is then later killed when another alien shoots him with its machine gun, before dragging his corpse away back to their ship.

The SHADO mobiles close in on the UFO, but, they are too late, the UFO has spent too long in Earths atmosphere, and it spectacularly explodes before they can capture it.

Liz and Cass lie in wait in the darkened house, the front door opens, and, after some cajoling, Liz empties the gun into the figure that enters the house, except, to their horror, the figure that came in the door was not her husband, but instead was the other alien, who had escaped the clutches of the guard dog, and had managed to find his way to the house after damaging his helmet.
Cass panics and tells Liz to go through with the plan as they worked it out, he then leaves in a hurry and tells her to contact him later.

SHADO searches the wreckage of the UFO and finds the security guards body, and then finds his dog, which follows the scent of the alien and leads them to the isolated cottage, where they find the dead alien and a terrified Liz, whom Colonel Foster arrests and has taken back to SHADO headquarters. The SHADO operatives also pick up Cass as he flees, and take him along too.

Later, Lizs husband arrives to find Foster still in his house, after a tense standoff between the two, Foster orders the husband away and says he will be contacted later once they have completed their investigation.

Cass and Liz are reunited and informed of what has happened by Straker himself, initially they don't believe him, but as he points out, whether they believe him or not is irrelevant, as they have been administered an amnesia drug, which will completely erase their memories of the past 12 hours.
Straker knows what they were up to, as do Alec and Foster, however as Foster ironically points out "unfortunately for them an alien walked through that door instead of her husband", Straker acknowledges that although they can erase their memories of the, albeit brief, encounter with an alien and SHADO, it will not erase their intent to commit murder, and also unfortunately, they cannot warn the husband about his possible impending death, nor can they tip off the local police without raising suspicion about themselves, Straker regrettably states that any future events will have to take their course, and Liz and Cass are to be released as soon as their memories are erased.





The episode ends with Liz standing over her husbands grave, before then walking away hand in hand with Cass....


Of all the episodes of UFO, this one is probably my second favourite, (My overall favourite being "A Question of Priorities") simply because in this storyline, SHADO and its ongoing battle against the alien threat is secondary to the story of a murderous love triangle, but then both storylines crash together when a one in a million chance event occurs. I also like how Straker finds himself in a moral dilemma over whether to compromise the worlds safety simply to prevent the murder of one man, but finds himself having to make the difficult decision to allow the man to die so that SHADO can continue operating in secret, even though his two closest friends disagree with him.