A discussion on BAUT reminded me of a TV show I haven’t thought about for a couple of years: "UFO". Of course, YouTube has the goods on the opening title:
When I was a kid I loved that show. I watched reruns years later and was impressed with some of it, embarassed by others. But I wonder… the DVD of the series is out. I guess I have something to do After The Book Is Done.
I still love that opening theme, and the last sting is so great! I’d love to see someone rescore it for orchestra, like the new Doctor Who music. That is fantastic stuff.
1980. Heh. The show concept is ripe for re-imagining, though, like Battlestar. That would be very, very cool.
October 25th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
I don’t remember ever watching UFO, which is strange. It would’ve been right up my alley.
October 25th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Oh I remember UFO. My parents kept watching it in french! I could not stand the cheesiness though.
I’m pretty sure it aired not that long ago here too. They like re-running old gems like that.
October 25th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
Haha, Wow! UFO. That brings back memories. Although I can’t remember if they are good or bad memories!
October 25th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Get the deluxe boxed set. It has commentary and a few other extras. I loved the sound the UFOs made. Favorite episode: the one where the guy stops time. I’d rather see this rerun on the Sci Fi Channel than wrestling. (Why *is* there wrestling on Sci Fi?!?!?!)
October 25th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Ok Phil, I managed to find a free MIDI file of the intro music. In addition to being an astronomy fan, I’m an amateur composer and orchestrator. Perhaps I could use my sequencer and sound library at home to orchestrate this. It may not sound quite as slick as the BBC Symphony does on Doctor Who, but it could be interesting nonetheless.
Never heard of the show before, but hey, I’m only 27.
October 25th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
UFO is on several times a day in HD on Dish Network Channel 9486, the Family Channel. Next scheduled at 9:30PM MDT tonight. I can’t decide whether it’s camp or cool!
October 25th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
I wasn’t a big fan of UFO as a kid but I think occasionally they borrowed some Ghia and Bertone styled auto show cars to get the “cars of the not too distant future” look to it. The cars and purple haired moon base girls were cool.
October 25th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
I must have missed that part of the ’80s where female uniform regs changed to metallic miniskits, go-go boots and purple wigs. You’d think I would have paid more attention.
October 25th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
I’ve always thought this was one of the coolest shows, but I’m also fascinated with the depiction of the “future” in science fiction.
Surprisingly though, if you can manage to ignore the funky costumes (purple wigs and go-go boots) and the incredible degree of chauvinism, the story lines are really interesting.
I’d love to see it re-done too, but more like Doctor Who was worked over rather than Battlestar Galactica (which I didn’t care for much). New actors, new sets, new costumes, new scripts, but the stories themselves really don’t need much work.
October 25th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Over here in the UK there was a “childrens” UFO shown in the usual Saturday morning TV slots BUT there was a darker, more serious, UFO shown late at night. The late night version seemed to my 7/8/9 year old self to deal with much “scarier” subjects. I remember one late night episode dealing with stopping time and what happened in the split second of time where Straker was trapped between time. Very cool.
I agree that you could view UFO as camp – but overall it was great.
Reimagineering? Yes! But… only with an Anderson connection. And it has to retain it’s peculiarly British Americanisms! Don’t do to it what they did to AbFab, The Office and now the IT Crowd…
October 25th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
I never saw UFO when I was a kid. I DID see another of Gerry Anderson’s sci-fi offerings: Space 1999.
The Eagle is on my all time favorite space vehicle list.
October 25th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Wow, I have absolutely no idea what show this is. I have never even heard of it before today. Of course, I was born five years after it apparently took place (if I am correct in assuming that the “1980″ flashing on screen means the year).
October 25th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
UFO – now you’re talking my subject. The show with the coolest-ever alien spacecraft, and the future fashion that was so wrong on so many levels. Here are a couple of tidbits.
The cars were all put together for the Anderson’s movie, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (released originally as Doppelganger). The larger cars were built on Ford Cortina platforms (I think), while the little six-wheeled things were based on Mini Mokes.
Favourite gadget from the series: Skydiver. If I were doing a remake of the show, I would not make the captain of the sub the pilot of Sky 1, though. The SHADO Mobiles were pretty cool too.
Favourite episode: Court Martial. The one where Paul Foster is tried and found guilty of espionage.
Least favourite episode: C’mon, I can’t belive you other people liked Timelash. Straker and the bad guy chasing each other in kiddie-cars for ten minutes straight? Gimmee a break!
I never understood the reason for the purple wigs on Moonbase (they looked cool, though). The story goes that they were anti-static, but men on Moonbase were never required to wear something equivalent.
Sadly, neither Ed Bishop (Straker) nor Michael Billington (Foster) are with us any more. I think it was in 2005 (note to self: check Wikipedia) that the two passed away within a month or so of each other. I had the opportunity to meet Ed Bishop during my sci-fi convention days in the nineties, and I found that he was a lot more enthusiastic about the characters in the shows he was in than some of the guests we have had at conventions.
October 25th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
I never saw UFO when I was a kid. I DID see another of Gerry Anderson’s sci-fi offerings: Space 1999.
Fireball XL-5, anyone?
October 25th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Thanks for the reminder of a cool AND camp show.
It was on in 1970-71
I wonder if the DVD explains the wigs on the moonbase women?
October 25th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
As mentioned, this is much older than 1980. This is pre-Star Wars, as was Space:1999.
That’s the first time I’ve heard the theme music for UFO in 30-whatever years. I just seem to remember it being cooler than that.
Just goes to show that using contemporary music can potentially date a TV show really easily. Lucas was definetly smart by using classicaly-inspired music for Star Wars, as opposed to a contemporary or electronic score-it’s timeless, and will hold up for many years.
Of course, as kids, we watched these shows ‘cos they had cool hardware and lots of explosions. We didn’t seem to care as much then about theme music or hairstyles.
October 25th, 2007 at 5:07 pm
OK fair warning to our younger viewers, and those with found memories of the show. They typically crammed a full 10 minutes of story into each hour-long episode. I’m telling you – these shows are slooooowww.
Cool spaceships and stuff though. Great fodder for role-playing games!
A re-imagining could be cool. Instead of a cold-war with space aliens we could be fighting a covert war against alien jihadis.
October 25th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
Ah yes — “Journey to the Far Side of the Sun”, the movie whose catastrophe is based on the idea that a civilization capable of space flight hasn’t yet figured out whether electrons have a plus charge or a minus.
October 25th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
For those who are not familiar:
UFO (Science Fiction)
Syndicated only
60 minutes
Produced: 1970 (26 episodes)
Released (U.S.): Fall 1972
Cast:
Cdr. Edward Straker………….Ed Bishop
Col. Alec Freeman…………….George Sewell
Capt. Peter Karlin……………..Peter Gordeno
Lt. Gay Ellis…………………….Gabrielle Drake
Col. Paul Foster………………..Michael Billington
Gen. Henderson……………….Grant Taylor
This science-fiction adventure was set 10 years in the future–in the year 1980–when it was discovered that unidentified flying objects posed an imminent threat to Earth. The general public was not yet aware of this unfortunate development, so a secret multinational defense command was set up under a movie studio(!) and called SHADO–Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defense Organization. Its commander was Edward Straker, whose “cover” was that of a movie producer. Others included Col. Freeman, his second-in-command; Capt. Karlin, pilot of the “remarkable” Seagull X-ray craft; and Lt. Ellis, in charge of SHADO’s Moon Base Control.
The stories were filled with violence, green-faced aliens, a number of very sexy females, and the usual array of scientific hardware. Among the gimmicks were an underwater airplane launcher, the ultra-futuristic Moon Base, and a Space Intruder Detector called SID.
The series was produced in England.
October 25th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
It’s not quite what you were looking for, but there are two albums, “SHADO” and “SHADO 2” by Pete Namlook and the Higher Intelligence Agency that are UFO-themed. Bleepy mellow electronica, no obvious connection to the theme music. (But then, I never heard of the show before either…)
October 25th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Here’s a good page for the show.
http://ufoseries.com/index.html
And yes Phil, get the DVD set. It’s well worth it.
And now that they released a “30th Anniversary” set of Space:1999 for under $75, I’m going to get that as well.
October 25th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
Great, just great, Started playing the YouTube video and it all started coming back. Can’t remember individual episodes, but certainly do remember the look and feel of the show. And then I had to friggin’ surf and find out what I could about the series, who were playing the roles, and what images were available, and… there went two hours.
Thanks, buddy. Sheesh.
(But… Wanda Ventham. Gabrielle Drake. Swoon.)
October 25th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Hairy Doctor Professor says: “‘I never saw UFO when I was a kid. I DID see another of Gerry Anderson’s sci-fi offerings: Space 1999.’
Fireball XL-5, anyone?”
I’ll do you one better. I just got the full set of “Supercar” from amazon for about $60 (with shipping).
I guess I’m too old for this crowd, re: Gerry Anderson shows, but Supercar was my very favorite show as an 8-year-old. Funny, I never saw it in syndication (probably because it was B&W) so I’ve not seen it in over 45 years. I was filled with trepidation sliding that first disc in that I’d now find the show embarrassingly juvenile. Just the opposite! I was amazed at how sophisticated it was for a kiddy show. The plots unfold slowly with lots of exposition, and the jargon, especially the ground control to aircraft conversations is unapologetically complex.
It really shows Anderson’s love of aircraft and the people who build and fly them (as is the case in all his shows).
I have a major chapter on him in Spaceship Handbook. While the subject is “Thunderbirds”, the front part covers all of his shows from “Torchy the Battery Boy” through some of his non-SciFi shows in the ’80s.
- Jack
October 25th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
John W Kennedy says: “Ah yes — “Journey to the Far Side of the Sunâ€, the movie whose catastrophe is based on the idea that a civilization capable of space flight hasn’t yet figured out whether electrons have a plus charge or a minus.”
Or that after 400 years of analytical astronomy on this Earth, we still wouldn’t have detected another Earth-sized planet through gravitational perturbations.
- Jack
October 25th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
I, like a couple of commenters, am too young to remember this, but I love this kind of sci-fi camp as well. It seems to echo into my lifetime, though.
In the 90′s there was a PC game called X-COM: UFO Defense, that had a very similar premise. The player was tasked with defending the globe from alien terrorist attacks. It used two modes: the strategic mode had the player build up bases to scan from and launch interceptors, then a tactical mode where the player directed a squad of soldiers around a UFO crash (that you shot down) or an alien terrorism site. It eventually led up to an invasion of Cydonia.
Also, the intro to Neon Genesis Evangelion, a very popular anime in the 90′s, seems to pull a lot from UFO’s intro, stylistically. About a minute in, it kicks into this quick-cut sequence of people and gear striking action poses, with bits of exciting text spliced in. (Couldn’t find a version with subtitles, unfortunately.)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=EgATlhZFAfs
October 25th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Wow, one of my favorite shows. Why the purple wigs? It was the seventies! Do I need to say anything more?
October 25th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
This was a favorite show of mine, I have the DVD box set, actually I have all of Gerry Anderson’s shows on DVD. Loved that purple hair.
October 25th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
“Or that after 400 years of analytical astronomy on this Earth, we still wouldn’t have detected another Earth-sized planet through gravitational perturbations.”
I was willing to spot them that as a donnée. I was even willing to spot them the basic evil-twinness of the plot. (After all, I’m willing to spot J. K. Rowling the use of magic, and nearly everybody the use of FTL.) But I was not willing to spot them an /ending/ based on the supposed unresolvability of a physics problem any well educated twelve-year old can work out in under a minute.
“UFO” had good points and bad. For “bad”, there’s the basic premise, and the Andersons’ usual passion for ultra-toyetic transport devices and sooper-secret headquarters. For “good”, it was far more adult on the human side than virtually all US screen SF not created by Joe Straczynski, though not particularly remarkable for a British effort (cf. “Moonbase 3″ and “Star Cops”).
October 25th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Yes, I vaguely remember “UFO” and “Journey to the Far Side of the Sun”.
The only specific part of “UFO” that I recall is one of the humans being helped by an alien while on the Moon, only to have the alien killed by another human because he was unable to tell him “stop”.
Now, what was the SciFi series with marionettes? “Thunderbirds”? I had some of the (metal?) models of the spaceships.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
You’ve got to love the purple anti-static wigs for the moonbase operators (umm, why didn’t the make piltos wear pruple wigs too? hmm?)
That was a fun series.
earlier series by the Anderson’s were puppet based – Fireball XL-5, Stingray, Thunderbirds etc.
These were also the people responsible for Moonbase 1999 (sigh)
cheers,
Robert.
October 25th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Supercar was my very favorite show as an 8-year-old.
Oh, geeze, I remember getting the Supercar toy. Used a ‘replaceable cam’ to change the pattern it would go (on the ground, of course).
Plus XL-5 lunchbox
Didn’t watch the Thunderbirds first run, only saw them a couple? years ago when they ran on -geeze, was it TechTV? -
Didn’t see STINGRAY, either…. did watch SPACE:1999, and recently got MST3K’s riff from their ‘zero’ season Space Princess.
UFO was probably my favorite, adjusting for my age at the times of the original
J/P=?
October 26th, 2007 at 5:16 am
I have been watching reruns recently, the last episode I watched they built a huge space telescope so they could watch the aliens going back to there home planet, cool!
October 26th, 2007 at 6:41 am
Never saw it, but wasn’t this show a major inspiration for X-COM: UFO Defense, the best computer game ever?
October 26th, 2007 at 6:58 am
“I still love that opening theme, and the last sting is so great! I’d love to see someone rescore it for orchestra, like the new Doctor Who music. That is fantastic stuff.”
It’s not orchestra but the Rocket Scientists covered the theme on their most recent double CD “Revolution Road”. If you like new prog rock with old prog instruments you’ll enjoy the rest. Saw them live at this year’s RoSFest.
http://www.thetank.com/rocketscientists.htm
October 26th, 2007 at 7:04 am
I’d much rather see a “re-imagining” of Space:1999 (Space:2099, anyone?).
The UFO idea comes around again every few years anyway in some new form, like X-Files, or the War of the Worlds show that came out in the 80s. Another UFO “type” show will come out soon enough, I’m sure of it.
October 26th, 2007 at 9:00 am
It was running in Germany in 1970/71. I was never allowed to watch it!!!
I was 7 years old, the show started to late in the evening! (I remeber something like it was running until 21:00) Moreover we only had one TV set (as was normal at that time) and my Dad would not have liked to watch a SF-Show.
I had some friends which were a little older and were allowed to watch. How I hated this!!!!!
It rerun some time ago, but unfortunately during my regular working hours. I was able to watch one or two episodes.
Andre
October 26th, 2007 at 9:43 am
For those readers who aren’t familiar with Gerry Anderson’s many series, each one of them had its own special style and charm. I will admit that I thought Terrahawks, his last(?) kinda stunk, but some folks swear even that one was great. Every one of them was at least worth checking out. All these years later, I still chuckle when I think of the main characters in Supercar. The marionettes were (unintentionally?) hilarious!
UFO was super-damn-funky. Chauvanistic? Yes, and not the only Anderson series that was. But if you can accept that flaw as a tragic sign of the times, UFO was stylistically an excellent show. I loved it. I can understand, however, why some parents wouldn’t have let their young kids watch it. Between the miniskirts and the sometimes-scary plots, it could have been a little much for the munchkins.
October 26th, 2007 at 10:49 am
>> Fireball XL-5, anyone?
You’re such a tootie, Steve.
Anyway, I particularly enjoy UFO because it consistently showed Straker as a cold-as-ice hardass who is in charge of SHADO primarily because he can make hard decisions. The UFOs couldn’t break lightspeed (much better than Space: 1999, at the very least), the aliens could theoretically be sympathetic, and it’s all in 1980! 1980! 1980!
I agree that a reimagining–from its traditional British standpoint–would be interesting, especially in modern times. How does SHADO keep itself a secret from amateur astronomers, the Internet, government transparency groups, et al? Just how heartless is the organization (whistleblowers are conveniently driven mad, threats quietly liquidated)? And why the hell would aliens travel bajillions of kilometers to steal organs? That’s probably the toughest nut to crack: why would SHADO exist? Realspace does tend towards the Stainless Steel Rat concept of interstellar invasions being completely implausible as the energy and wealth expended would probably never be reasonably recouped… that and the aliens never seem to come in full force, so it’s possible they don’t have the resources for a proper invasion.
One of the drivers of such a show could be wondering exactly why the aliens are doing what they’re doing, and throw in some intrigue. Conquering by force may be out of the question, but what about conquering from within, a la The Invaders? Throw in a little paranoia aspect, and a shadow war between the alien-sympathizers and SHADO. Nice and dark.
Nuclear-tipped Interceptors on the Moon are still cool, although they should probably be blocky unmanned drones. SkyDiver could be reverted into a surface-to-orbit missile-launching SSBN, but that would require SHADO to have a sub pen. Which does bring up the question of where exactly SkyDiver’s home port was…
October 27th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
I’m not quite old enough to remember “UFO” in its initial run but I was 5 when the Andersons put out “Space:1999,” which is still one of my favorite shows despite the bad science in most of the episodes.
However, after seeing some “UFO” reruns in recent years, I’ve felt inspired to make a new, original film or video portraying a similarly bright technological future, with everything we were always promised before, and also set it in the year 1980
October 28th, 2007 at 12:13 am
[...] Sunday, October 28th, 2007 @ 1:13 am | uncategorized Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy just linked to a Youtube clip featuring the opening sequence of the British television program UFO. Brilliant [...]
December 20th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Not only did I watch as a kid, I had the all metal lunch box. If I ever find it,it will be mines at any cost.
February 28th, 2009 at 9:56 am
I love UFO. Great stuff!
The purple wig get-up the gorgeous moonbase gals wore, was featured in the film “Free Enterprise”. (along with every other sci-fi reference)
Evidently in the future, we will all have extra bad taste in apparel, hair and make-up. But, we will get to live under the sea, on a space station, and on a moonbase, and people who seem to run movie studios, will actually be top level commanders of a super-dee-duper secret force to fight the alien invasion named: S.H.A.D.O.
OK. I can deal with that.
“Stop this! You and I are the only ones who even REMEMBER Logan’s Run!”
May 26th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
[...] not sure how to feel about this. I loved this show as a kid, and I think it could be reimagined (with very little change, in fact) to match today’s [...]