Alec Freeman???????

Hi guys,

I checked the complete guide to UFO and it was Harry Baird who
explained about weekly contracts for the series regulars. To
paraphrase, he said he never knew until the Friday whether he would
be needed for the next week's filming. No retainer was offered to
prevent him finding other work, which he thought wasn't acceptable
treatment.

As a protest, he refused to attend a costume fitting for the next
episode, presumably in a week he wasn't being employed, which upset
Sylvia, he then left entirely to get more reliable work.

I've read that people considered his acting "wooden" and the
implication that he was let go was really because of this. IMHO,
in every situation involving people, there are as many points of view
as there are people involved and they usually change over time as
well :-)

I realised I'd made an error in my last message. George Sewell
appeared in every episode in the first production block. Apart from
those eps where he wasn't part of the cast (Identified; Computer
Affair: Flightpath), Mike B. appeared in all but AQOP and CCA-
OK.    


It seems that the announcement of the closure of the MGM studios
occurred after the start of production there. If Gerry had known
before production started at MGM that the studios were to be closing,
surely he would have gone to Pinewood from the outset. The fact that
he was forced to stop production might be the reason for the
insurance claim he had to make. Kind of stands to reason, it must
have cost a lot of money and it obviously wasn't his choice.

Perhaps Ed and George were originally contracted for the entire
series of 26 episodes, but if Gerry wasn't prepared to pay them
retainers, he might have had to give them the option of breaking the
contract if they found other work in the meantime, accepting they
might not be available to return for the Pinewood episodes. George
obviously did and couldn't (or wouldn't) come back, but I've never
read anything about Ed working elsewhere, nor Mike B. Perhaps the
differences in the way their respective characters were being
developed made the difference, or maybe their rates of pay, or
possibly ITC NY's opinion of the purely *visual* attractiveness of
the actors :-)

Personally, I really liked Alec Freemans character, I tend to favour
the earlier episodes because of this. The interplay between Freeman
and Straker said volumes about them and the situations they were in
and this was lost completely in the second block. I tend to think of
the latter as a second series because it was *so* different in so
many respects, it's the only way I can reconcile myself to these
enormous differences

It's hard to pin down what it is that's got under my skin about
UFO; there's some indefinable quality to it. Maybe it appeals on
multiple levels making it difficult to give *a* reason(?) I enjoy
watching many sci-fi series, but none of the others have ever piqued
my curiosity to the same extent. I'll suggest Albert Einstein's
reasoning as an excuse, that being - we don't choose what interests
us, it just *happens*, which when you think about it, is so true.

BTW, I fast-forwarded through the ITV 4 screening of Identified
from last night, there didn't appear to be any edits. The picture
quality deteriorated badly in the second half though, went very dark,
they are obviously showing very poor prints, ho hum. Mind you, it
looked miles better than an episode of The Protectors that I caught
one night last week :-)

Bye for now

Sarah (UK)