UFO

UFO 2gc5z

1970
UFO
UFO

UFO 2gc5z

7.9 | TV-14 | en | Drama

A secret, high-technology international agency called SHADO defends Earth from alien invaders.

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EP1  Identified
Dec. 31,1969
Identified

SHADO engages in its first battle with the enemy. Sky One cripples an alien ship which crash-lands in a lake. Straker's team capture its pilot, a strange blue-skinned humanoid - and the grim secret behind the aliens' are revealed.

EP2  Exposed
Dec. 31,1969
Exposed

An XV-104 test plane wanders into a UFO target area and the pilot, Paul Foster, makes sightings of both the UFO and Sky One. Angry and frustrated that no one believes his story, Foster suspects a cover-up and decides to conduct his own investigation into the activities of ex-USAF Colonel Ed Straker.

EP3  The Cat With Ten Lives
Dec. 31,1969
The Cat With Ten Lives

The body of an Alien, recovered after a UFO attack on Moonbase, reveals some startling new evidence which overturns all SHADO's previous theories about the Aliens. For Interceptor pilot Jim Regan, the news has tragic consequences as he becomes possessed by the mind of an Alien held in the body of a Siamese cat!

EP4  Conflict
Dec. 31,1969
Conflict

When an Alien Limpet UFO causes the destruction of Lunar Module 32, Straker demands a clean-up programme by the International Astrophysical Commission to remove hazardous space debris from Earth orbit. But Straker finds himself butting heads with I.A.C. chairman James Henderson, who wants a complete shut-down of SHADO operations...

EP5  A Question of Priorities
Dec. 31,1969
A Question of Priorities

"Important? What can be more important than your own son's life?" Straker faces the toughest decision of his career when his son is critically injured in an accident. The drug that can save his life can only be ferried from New York in time aboard a SHADO Transporter - the same Transporter that is in the prime position to track an Alien defector on the West Coast of Ireland.

EP6  E.S.P.
Dec. 31,1969
E.S.P.

John Croxley's talent for extra sensory perception is heightened after his wife is killed when a UFO crashes into their house. With his mind under the influence of the Aliens, Croxley learns the secrets of SHADO and lures Straker and Freeman to the remains of his house - to kill them!

EP7  Kill Straker!
Dec. 31,1969
Kill Straker!

When a Lunar Module is attacked by a UFO, Straker makes a split-second decision that endangers the astronauts, but ultimately saves them. Later, he is surprised to find his authority being questioned by his most loyal officer, Colonel Paul Foster, who spearheads a campaign against him. Then an attempt is made on Straker's life...

EP8  Sub-Smash
Dec. 31,1969
Sub-Smash

Suspecting a UFO to be responsible for the sinking of a freighter, Straker, Foster and Nina Barry investigate in Skydiver. Attacked by an undersea UFO, the submarine is downed on a ledge on the sea bed and the crew are trapped. While Straker fights against his claustrophobia, Nina faces a living nightmare...

EP9  Destruction
Dec. 31,1969
Destruction

A Naval vessel shoots down a UFO in the Atlantic, but the iralty rejects further investigation into the incident. Straker suspects a cover up and wants to know why, so Foster courts iral Sheringham's secretary, Sarah Bosanquet. What they discover could mean the end of all life on Earth...

EP10  The Square Triangle
Dec. 31,1969
The Square Triangle

"Unfortunately for them, an Alien came through that door instead of her husband." In the woods between Clare Cross and Lingbury, an injured Alien stumbles into a lonely cottage and is shot down by Liz Newton and her lover Cass Fowler. Liz and Cass are taken to SHADO HQ for questioning, but when Liz's husband arrives at the cottage, Paul Foster realises that the Alien's death was no accident!

EP11  Close Up
Dec. 31,1969
Close Up

Straker gets approval from above to build a probe with a camera that will track a UFO back to its home planet. Inexplicably, the Earth technology is capable of following a UFO travelling 8 or 9 times the speed of light and follows it home. The episode ends with a SHADO guy trying to convince Straker that they were wasting their time, even though they picked up some great pictures of the planet.

EP12  The Psychobombs
Dec. 31,1969
The Psychobombs

A UFO imbues three young people with incredible powers. One blows up a radar station, a second steals fingerprints and tries to get aboard a Skydiver sub, blowing it up. The third, a woman, tries to blow up SHADO HQ but the UFO that is feeding her power has now been destroyed.

EP13  Survival
Jan. 06,1971
Survival

Foster, whose radio is knocked out and his oxygen line cut, is presumed lost (but they did a crummy job, not even trying to find his body) during a confrontation with a UFO on the moon's surface. Foster is found by an alien, and together, they cross the lunar landscape, developing a friendship when the alien must try to do make-shift repairs on Foster's suit to keep him alive. At the end, a Moonmobile crew finds Foster and misunderstands his intent when he points them to the alien nearby.

EP14  Mindbender
Jan. 13,1971
Mindbender

After a UFO inexplicably destroys itself less than two miles from Moonbase, a mysterious crystal rock is recovered, and it causes the person in its vicinity to hallucinate. The man on Moonbase who found it thinks Mexican bandits have taken over Moonbase. It gets transferred to Straker's office, and he hallucinates that SHADO is simply a set for a TV series, he is an actor named Mr. Burns, Moonbase can be reached by stepping through two doors from the main control room at SHADO HQ, and "Mr. Straker" is not available. Straker breaks the hallucination by jumping in on the scene while the "character" Gen. Henderson is doing a close-up of the line they were doing when the hallucination began.

EP15  Flight Path
Jan. 20,1971
Flight Path

A SHADO Technician, who is being blackmailed for information by an unknown party, is caught by Freeman, but not before the information is ed. The Technician, Paul Roper, divulges what information he gave to the blackmailers, to SHADO. After much work on the cryptic data, they discover it is part of a plan by the aliens to attack the Moonbase in a way that would be undetectable. Now it's up to Roper to redeem himself, as he is sent on the suicide mission to stop the attack. If he fails, the base will surely be destroyed.

EP16  The Man Who Came Back
Feb. 03,1971
The Man Who Came Back

Reported missing, presumed dead, after a UFO incident which has left SID disabled, astronaut Craig Collins turns up alive and well. But as an operation to complete repair work on SID is planned, Colonel Lake and Colonel Grey discover that Collins is not the man he used to be...

EP17  The Dalotek Affair
Feb. 10,1971
The Dalotek Affair

Two of the SHADO people, dining at a fancy restaurant, begin to recall this event after one of them sees a diner who was part of Dalotek. A private company installed a facility on the moon which discovered an alien device that disrupted Communications between Moonbase and SHADO on Earth.

EP18  Timelash
Feb. 17,1971
Timelash

While picking up Lt. Lake at the airport, Straker and Lake find that time has been frozen except for them. Sawdust hangs in mid-air, Lt. Ellis is frozen mid-word on a viewscreen, and one man is taunting them, apparently working for the aliens.

EP19  Ordeal
Apr. 14,1971
Ordeal

Foster is abducted by aliens from a health spa and is being taken out into space, presumably back to the alien homeworld. However, the UFO was damaged and returns to the moon, crashing there. While the Moonbase personnel try to free Foster of the alien environmental suit, Foster wakes up in the steam room at the health spa. The episode begs explanation for how Foster dreamed in such orderly detail, including Carlin missing a shot and Straker angry at the missed shot, and Dr. Jackson's off-line comments to Straker before they go onto a visual link to Moonbase to guide them through removal of Foster's alien helmet.

EP20  Court Martial
May. 01,1971
Court Martial

Foster is suspected of being a security leak, but during the trial, Straker and gang discover that Foster's apartment was bugged and shut down the disreputable business that is selling the spy gear.

EP21  Computer Affair
May. 15,1971
Computer Affair

After a pilot is killed when Moonbase operatives fail to give him course change information, the personnel are recalled to Earth for an investigation. A UFO crashes in northern Canada and the personnel are assigned to the operation to find the UFO. Gay Ellis is to coordinate the movement of the mobiles trying to approach the UFO.

EP22  Confetti Check A-O.K.
Jul. 10,1971
Confetti Check A-O.K.

A flashback episode in which Straker recalls his marriage, followed by stormy days as he must work covertly to get SHADO up and running and recruit personnel. All this leaves his wife angry at his absence, suspicious at the things he might be doing (her father photographs Straker meeting a woman in a parking garage, a woman who will be working at SHADO). In the end, she gives birth to their son.

EP23  The Sound of Silence
Jul. 17,1971
The Sound of Silence

A UFO hides in a lake on a country estate of a well-known equestrian, and the equestrian himself vanishes. When SHADO tracks down the UFO and manages to destroy it in an exchange of pot-shots, the UFO breaks up and leaves a thing floating in the water. Treated as if it is a bomb, it is brought back to SHADO and examined, with unexpected results.

EP24  Reflections in the Water
Jul. 24,1971
Reflections in the Water

A mysterious dome is found under the sea, that at first looks like the Moon crashed into the ocean. Inside the dome, they find duplicates of SHADO HQ personnel, using non-alien technology - cassette tape recorders - to imitate SHADO instructions to Moonbase and Skydiver.

EP25  The Responsibility Seat
Mar. 08,1973
The Responsibility Seat

Freeman takes over temporarily while Straker deals with a woman apparently determined to investigate what SHADO is all about.

EP26  The Long Sleep
Mar. 15,1973
The Long Sleep

A woman awakens from a 10-year coma and begins telling the tale about her encounter with aliens, along with her boyfriend, while they were high on drugs. They toyed with the aliens, and the man apparently falls to his death from a bridge or building. The aliens drag him off. She has an accident and falls into the coma. She can't quite everything, but the old boyfriend is back, resuscitated by the aliens, and he drugs her so she tells him where the missing part of a device is. He activates what turns out to be a thermo-chemical bomb that will wipe England off the map when the four chemicals meet in a central chamber.

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7.9 | TV-14 | en | Sci-Fi | More Info
Released: 1970-09-16 | Released Producted By: ITC Entertainment , Century 21 Television Country: United States of America Budget: 0 Revenue: 0 Official Website:
info

A secret, high-technology international agency called SHADO defends Earth from alien invaders.

Genre

Sci-Fi

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UFO (1970) is currently not available on any services.

Cast

Ed Bishop

Director

Gerry Anderson

Producted By

ITC Entertainment , Century 21 Television

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  • Top Credited Cast
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  • Crew
Ed Bishop
Ed Bishop

as Cmdr. Ed Straker

Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson

Executive Producer

Reg Hill
Reg Hill

Producer

Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson

Producer

Barry Gray
Barry Gray

Original Music Composer

Derek Meddings
Derek Meddings

Visual Effects Director

UFO Audience Reviews 5v2y3p

Micitype Pretty Good
Dotbankey A lot of fun.
Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
Portia Hilton Blistering performances.
inkpen-30556 UFO was produced by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson who up until then had been responsible for a range of internationally successful puppet based shows eg Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet etc. The basic conceit being that Earth was being visited by Aliens who were 'harvesting' humans for organs etc. and the travails of the defence arrangements made to respond to the threat. Set in 1980, there were two aspects to the production: the hardware as presented by model-work and the human interactions as represented by a'live' cast.Firstly, the show has an aspiration to be for 'grown-ups' with many of the stories being to do with inter-human relationships against extraordinary backgrounds. This in itself is very ambitious, and I must say not entirely successful.The nature of the alien threat is never taken beyond the flying saucer escapes interception and generates a threat to which SHADO, the defence organisation, deals with.The show is attractive to watch in of production values and casting. The nature of SHADO, the global defence organisation, is well established but seems very lightweight in of the assets and personnel it controls to deal with the threat. But to be honest, I don't think this works against the show.The main recurring characters are attractive and garner interest. The challenge of dealing with extraordinary situations is the main theme throughout the 26 episodes and in general the scripts superficially arrive at some kind of resolution, not always comforting or simple. The show was an ambitious one, and for it's time (1969/70) was quite successful in presenting and dealing with big issues. But it was never clear to whom the show was being presented to. Often broadcast as a kids show, even where issues involving extra-marital sex or drug addiction were plot themes, you do wonder if the broadcasting networks ever watched the show!Attractive to watch and of its time, the show retains interest and can be recommended to Anderson fans and viewers of 1960s social commentaries/dramas.
catey-49 I was hooked on this show from episode one, although I seem to be one of the few of my friends who re it. I was maybe twelve years old, but I loved the adult themes and personal stories. Plus I had a huge crush on Paul Foster....bet I'm not the only one. He was front and center for the whole last half of the series, by Straker's side every moment. Poor bugger, in almost every episode he gets the crap beat out of him. Or gets to kiss the girl. Or both. So glad I bought the series on DVD.Straker is a super cool character. The platinum hair gives him just the right icy touch, and he is believable as the commander of this life-and-death organization. He is constantly fighting for funding against beurocrats who can only see the bottom line, and his devotion to his work has cost him his marriage and his family. His isolation and loneliness are a constant theme, although they're never spelled out....only illustrated by Ed Bishop's wonderful performance.
naseby This series is about another invasion of UFOs from space (Well, where else, eh!?) SHADO, (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation)is set up to protect Earth from a race bent on destroying us, intelligently, it should be said with a plot involving using human body parts to replenish their own. Basically, the 'spacemen' as it were, were humanoid with a small amount of variation (They had green liquid inside their space helmets). SHADO uses a film studio as 'cover' for its operation.This was a fantastic series, with the 'Commander' Ed Straker (Played by Ed Bishop) aided by British actors, Michael Billington as Colonel Paul Foster, George Sewell as Colonel Alec Freeman and the beautiful Wanda Ventham as Colonel Virginia Lake.As with all Gerry Anderson productions, a fantastic array of craft, not least the UFOs themselves provided the action and excitement and was very well handled, even in spite of today's CGI generation.Particular favourites, were the Interceptors - the name speaks for themselves, which were guided from SHADO's 'Moonbase' to intercept the UFOs before they hit Earth. These had a bulbous 'one shot and forget' missile mounted in the front of the craft and there were three of them that emerged from craters on the moon/Moonbase. Although of course, many attacks were engaged against SHADO's Moonbase. The Moonbase itself was staffed by sexy looking girls (Gabrielle Drake, Antonia Ellis and Dolores Mantez) in skimpy outfits with purple-metallic wigs! Some uniform! But in spite of this, the scenes involving the girls were serious, with them monitoring and co-ordinating counter-attacks against UFO activity.Although the UFOs DID look like they were twirling around on a string, the 'flying' was done quite well. Another craft was the 'Skydiver' - a submarine basically with a submersible aircraft at its front end (Bow?!) which of course would launch from beneath the water into the atmosphere to take on the UFOs. Land-based 'Mobiles', tank-like APCs that had a machine gun turret and missiles took them on at times also.The fashions by Sylvia Anderson, shows she definitely had an eye for style. The men tended to wear many one-piece outfits, with suits that had buttons all the way up to a stub collar (It's been forgotten, but a style of suits like this appeared in Britain in the early 1990's). Why go on about fashions? It seemed to be an integral sub-conscious part of the show. On the Earth base, the women went around in - you guessed it -skimpy tight outfits (apart from Colonel Lake unfortunately!).Although a British series, obviously Ed Bishop was employed to catch an American audience, where the series was very well received. He was sometimes at odds with the gruff 'General Henderson' who acted as the UFO operations sceptic constantly at loggerheads with him.Interesting to note that, Michael Billington, now sadly departed in just 2005 was a handsome actor, and was added to give the series just that bit of sex appeal for the ladies, as most Sci-Fi would be seen as a more 'boys' own' adventure - unless of course you had 'reality Sci-Fi' TV shows in some form! He actually died within a couple of days of Ed Bishop in that same year.Episodes took a strange turn at times. One was where Ed Straker's son was seriously ill following a road accident, showing the angst between him and his missus. But this tied in with Straker desperately searching for a quick way to have vital drugs flown in from America for his son's aid using SHADO's craft - only to have to let his son die when he needed the craft for SHADO operations at the last minute. My favourite episode, I'm unsure of the name, was when 500 UFOs attacked the over-stretched SHADO defences at once.Currently in the UK, the series is being re-run on ITV4. Though the repeats are only a few of the run's episodes and the fact my favourite episode hasn't made it into these re-runs shows they are only running select or minimal ones to keep the sale of the DVD box set firmly on the cards. A lot of British talent appeared, strangely the likes of George Cole, Windsor Davies and Derren Nesbitt along with Canadian Alexis Kanner and even playwright Steven Berkoff appeared as one of the interceptor pilots.
MARIO GAUCI I'm a devoted fan of science-fiction, even if I prefer the intellectual rather than the cheesy stuff: this one - with its hilarious would-be futuristic fashions and gadgetry and the cheap effects - tends to lean towards the latter category, apart from the occasional psychological insight (particularly the contribution of Vladek Sheybal as the space organization's resident doctor), intriguing 'horror' theme or outburst of excitement and suspense...but I warmed up to it after a while and actually found its inherent naivete quite endearing! Given that each episode follows a different plot line, quality is bound to vary but they're all eminently watchable and entertaining (despite some dull patches and a general lack of pace); the series' creators had earlier made sci-fi TV shows involving puppet characters, such as THUNDERBIRDS (1965), but the level of maturity here is clearly higher (if inconsistent).The main characters - Ed Bishop, George Sewell and Michael Billington, ed throughout the series by a respectable array of guest stars - are surprisingly engaging and the score, as redolent of its period as the rest of it(!), is undeniably infectious. Just for the record, I'd name "A Question Of Priorities", "Court Martial", "E.S.P.", "Kill Straker!", "The Cat With Ten Lives", "The Man Who Came Back", "The Psychobombs", "Reflections In The Water", "Timelash" and "Mindbender" among the best episodes - many of which are comparable to what was being done in THE TWILIGHT ZONE series; on the other hand, the weakest would have to be "Flight Path", "Survival", "Ordeal", "The Square Triangle" and "Close Up" - verging from the pedestrian to the overly technical.P.S. The series shared a staggering 11 actors with the sci-fi feature DOPPELGANGER aka JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN (1969) - apart from being partly shot on standing sets from that film, not to mention utilizing some of its music cues!; regrettably, I missed out on its sole broadcast (on late-night Italian TV) eons ago...