Naval History Forums

In the 1969 British producer Gerry Anderson of Century 21st Films launched what became a cult TV series call UFO. The 26 chapters of the series are available in DVD and, when I bought it, I thought that was it as good as it gets.

But no. A movie has been schedulded for 2011 using the UFO premise: an alien race almost extinguised comes to Earth in order to steal human organs to replace their aging ones. They came in a very funny noisy UFO. The United Nations (which otherwise is worthless) had a secret organization called SHADO (Supreme Headquaters Alien Defense Organization) that fights this invasion.

Weapons:

1. SID: Space Intruder Detector which is a satellite that detects incomming UFO traveling at speed higher than light.
2. Moonbase: first line of defense where the Interceptors are launched to destroy the UFO in space.
3. SkyDiver: A sub that launches a fighter that attempts to destroy the UFO on Earth`s atmosphere
4. Mobiles: if the UFO can land then it is look upon and attacked by the mobiles.

In the 70ies it was my favorite TV series with an incredible openning credit scene with Barry Gray`s UFO theme.

Well, if it comes to a happy end a lot of Sci Fi fans from the seventies will welcome it.

Regards,

Karl

oh man, I remember that show...

I was trying to forget it. One step above the old Battlestar Galactica though.

Lee:

I was trying to forget it. One step above the old Battlestar Galactica though.

In the seventies the sci fi series were pretty much constrained because of the highly expensive SFX of that time, so they have to divert some chapters to basic drama in order to save some money. But UFO was pretty serious for it´s time, some kind of dark for some viewers.

Now, I concur that Star Trek is THE series, but UFO (and the first season of 1999) were pretty cool.

Regards,

I liked the series very much, but really it was science fantasy not science fiction. They never explained how the SHADO radar can detect UFO's travelling faster than the speed of light, or how the probe in the episode ''Close Up'' was able to pursue a UFO going faster than the speed of light back to its home planet, or how the ''Psychobombs'' could cause such huge explosions from electrical shortcurcuits. Neither did we ever see any maintenance crews for the interceptors or any explanation as to where the interceptor missiles came from. Skydiver never had any engine room crew and Sky One never got fired on by any of the UFO's in intercepted.

And biggest error of all - full sound on the lunar surface and Earth gravity.......

And the alien tactics? They were evidently good shots who became utterly useless shots at awkward moments, and always made a pigsear of rolling over SHADO when in fact the task should be very simple......

Karl Heidenreich wrote: ... Now, I concur that Star Trek is THE series, ...

Actually I consider Star Trek to be the second best SF series of the late 60's early 70's. The best IMO was "Wild Wild West". SF in the guise of a western but sf none the less.

I remember dearly Wild Wild West, specially the openning credits. The movie with Will Smith was, basically, a sin, not to put it in more harsh words.

How about Wild Wild West with Ronald Raegan instead of Will Smith......

RF:

How about Wild Wild West with Ronald Raegan instead of Will Smith......

RF, it´s a TV series, not a movie in which the heroe wins outright at the first attempt.

I'm sure a virtual Ronnie could handle that.

An early fav of mine was Space 1999.

I'm showing my age, but the best UFO series ever was called "The Invaders", it was a Quinn Martin Production and starred Roy Thinnes as David Vincent:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invaders
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Thinnes

It ran in the US and Canada in 1967 and 1968. I really loved it when I was a kid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOLGrXOtuwQ

TCM is currently showing the episodes of The Invaders.

Ho hum, I first saw the invaders yonks ago and thought then that it was a load of tosh. The plots were just not credible, and as for those flying saucers...... give me Derek Meddings any day.

I generally didn't care for any of the UFO sereies. I prefered "real" sf. For some reason I link UFO's and conspiracy theories. Although come to think if it I did rather like the X-files.