1970’s UFO offers plenty of 60s/70s cheesiness, but it mostly avoided the pitfalls of its formulaic premise and delivered some hard-hitting sci fi drama.
What Is It?
This 1970 British-produced television series from Gerry Anderson (best known for his Supermarionation shows like Thunderbirds as well as the cult sci fi series Space: 1999) brought us a covert war between a secret organization known as SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization) and an alien race from a dying planet. The show focuses on how this conflict impacts the lives of SHADO officers as well as others who become involved.
Aired: 1970-71, Syndicated, 1 Season Totaling 26 Episodes
Starring: Ed Bishop, Michael Billington, Gabrielle Drake, George Sewell
Created By: Gerry and Sylvia Anderson
Legacy:
While this show delivers plenty of 60s/70s cheesiness, it managed to transcend its potentially formulaic premise and deliver a hard-hitting, intelligent science fiction drama with mature themes and stands out as a genre gem from its era.
A Closer Look:
Many viewers today may consider UFO a relic of its time because the look and feel of the show has not dated very well, and there is some truth to that. Prepare yourself for cheesy (though good for their time) special effects, outlandish costumes, laughable 70s music, stilted dialog, and wooden acting. If you can get past all that, however, you will find that this series is a real sci fi sleeper. The premise could have resulted in alien-attack-of-the-week episodes (which it did deliver to some extent), but the scripts extended beyond that and made attempts to explore how this covert war affected the lives of the SHADO officers as well as those unwittingly caught up in its events. As outlandish as the series was, the writers often tried to focus on the realistic consequences of the stories, and often the episodes had unexpected, downbeat endings, something eschewed by Prime Time television at that time and even today. The series was much more adult in tone than Anderson’s prior kid-friendly Supermarionation shows and more down to earth than his later series Space: 1999 which all too often grasped at (and fell short of) profundity.
UFO has been dinged for its stiff acting and stilted dialog, but it really wasn’t much different than other genre entries for the time. Ed Bishop actually did a laudable job in the role of Colonel Edward Straker, trying to remain cool under pressure while dealing with the moral ambiguities he faced in this secret war. And the rest of the cast did well enough with their roles even if many of them only received limited screen time.
Present-day viewers watching UFO for the first time may find it a bit inaccessible to start with because it is very much a product of its era. But the show does deliver some good writing and if you stick with it, you will be rewarded with some decent science fiction tales throughout its episodes. It is definitely an acquired taste, but it has since gone on to become a cult classic among sci fi TV shows.
Cancelled Too Soon?
Yes. A second season of the show was originally commissioned, though it would have moved most of the action to the moonbase (because the moon-focused episodes tended to be more popular) and the title would have been changed to UFO: 1999. However, ratings declined during the second half of the show’s syndication run and execs at ITV (the producer of the series) changed their mind about the second season. Anderson tinkered with the concept, though, and it eventually morphed into a completely different series: Space: 1999.
The Story Continues:
Two novelizations were issued during the show’s run with the first (Flesh Hunters) adapting the pilot along with several other episodes and the second (Sporting Blood) also adapting episodes from the shows. Both are available at the Internet Archive. The show also had a comic strip run in the publications Countdown and TV Action in the 1970s. The first of two planned volumes was published in 2021 collecting the strips from Countdown. That has since gone out of print, and I have not seen the second volume released yet.
Should It Be Rebooted?
In the 1990s and 2000s, there were talks about a television revival of the show, but nothing substantial ever came of that. A May 2009 announcement from ITV claimed that a big screen version was in the works with Fringe‘s Joshua Jackson pegged to play Paul Foster and Heroes alum Ali Larter in talks to appear as Colonel Virginia Lake. A website for the movie was set up, but it is now defunct and little more has been heard about the project since 2012. The concept lends itself well to a reboot and is flexible enough that it could be reworked in several ways. It could be done as a continuation of the original, just several decades later. Or it could just reboot the premise and start over (it would be great if it remained in its original 80s setting, but that would make it a period show which would edge up production costs). Most importantly, any good reboot would have to follow the tone of the original and include the moral quandaries and consequences of war that made the ’70s series rather edgy for its time.
Interesting Facts:
This was the first live-action television series produced by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson after they spent the decade prior working on their “Supermarionation” shows like Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, and Fireball XL5.
The SHADO secret base was set beneath a movie studio and there was a specific reason for that. It was never addressed in the series, but in one of the novelizations, the reason given is that large pieces of unusual-looking equipment and/or vehicles could be explained away as movie props.
Retro Toys:
Back in the 1970s, Dinky Toys made die-cast versions of the SHADO Interceptor, the Mobile Unit, and Ed Straker’s Car. The Interceptor had the longest run on the shelves while the other two were not as easily found and fetch pretty high prices among collectors these days. But in the days before video games, the internet, and texting, these provided hours of entertainment to many kids who still knew how to play with toys!
Where Can You Watch It?
The entire series has been released on DVD, though it is out of print and the price from third-party sellers is sky-high. It has not received the Blu-ray treatment yet, but is available for streaming for free (with ads) on Tubi TV and The Roku Channel.
