Conflict

To be honest, I've seen similar posts on a number of forums over the years, which basically suggest that the people on the forum are taking their passion too far. I've seen a "weddings" forum where some one came in and suggested "your weddings are over, why not stop dwelling on it and get on with your life." I've seen Doctor Who forums where people have come and said "it's only a TV show, why keep going over it so much, isn't there more to life than this show?" I suppose football fans or baseball fans get similar comments from time to time about their passion. Patrick McGoohan suggested that people read too much into The Prisoner and over-analyse it. Bill Shatner famously (and presumably jokingly) told Trek fans they all needed to "go home and get a life".

The short answer, with no direspect meant to the person who posted the message, is "no". I assume we're here when we feel like being and because we have something we want to say about "UFO" or some aspect of the show. (cast, FX etc) And that includes our thoughts about plots, aliens, charatcers, etc.

If we wanted to drop it and do something else, we presumably would. But would it be any more or less valid a way to spend our free time?
Z.

pointy100 <[hidden email]> wrote:
--- In [hidden email], Jeffrey Nelson <1shado1@...> wrote:
>
> Personally, I find all the speculation makes for very interesting
reading.
> Certainly FAR better than NO traffic in the group. I'm sure that
after so many years, any question about the series with a DEFINITIVE
answer has been gone over at least a dozen times.
>
> Perhaps people ARE looking for things that may not be there, but
it IS very thought provoking.
>
> If you feel you have something more significant to contribute,
feel free. Short of that, I think you'd be better off not trying to
rain on the parade of others in the group.
>
> Jeff
>
Jeff,

I don't think that Susan is trying to rain on anyone's parade. She's
merely expressing an opinion. And she expressed it in a respectful
manner. It's a different opinion to yours, but that doesn't mean it's
any less valid. Differing viewpoints are part of the 'traffic' of the
group, Jeff. :-)

David






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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Precisely. You people have put far more work into
analyzing this thing that the writers did in writing
it in the first place! This is neither "bad" or "good"
just a point of note.

I saw on TV where this group of Scottish people were
doing their own "new" Star Trek series. The owners of
the marque (Paramount?) are not enforcing the
trademarks and just letting them shoot it and
broadcast it locally.

Considering UFO was much less broadly accepted, if you
folks are geographically located near each other
perhaps you could do the same with UFO?

If you are doing this much analysis of only 26
episodes that shows a level of enthusiasm that may
warrant a few "new" episodes, produced by the group
members on their own and aired on your local cable
access channel. I'm not kidding about this. You may
enjoy it and I'd certainly be a viewer!

I even see that Bishop's daughters and son-in-law are
on here. Maybe that could truly make:

"UFO- The Next Generation"

for real!

Just a thought.

Sue







--- pointy100 <[hidden email]> wrote:


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> I even see that Bishop's daughters and son-in-law are
> on here.

Correction -- we have one real daughter, and one fake
son-in-law... :-/

Marc

Or the other way around!

The point is you have a lot of motivated people and
with all of the conjecture you have basically
pre-written a bunch of new story lines.

You just need to don the costumes and get a few
props..


--- Marc Martin <[hidden email]> wrote:


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In a message dated 10/19/2007 1:48:27 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[hidden email] writes:

Or the other way around!

The point is you have a lot of motivated people and
with all of the conjecture you have basically
pre-written a bunch of new story lines.

You just need to don the costumes and get a few
props..




I don't participate in the episode discussions, so I usually just ignore
them or skim over them. I'm sorry but I just cannot see what the problem is if
people want to have some harmless fun and say what they would have done
differently in an episode. Since Marc is the list "Dad" and allows people to post
their views, then that should be the end of it. If you don't want to read that
type of post, skip over it and let the other's enjoy it without feeling
demeaned.

Wendy



************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sorry to disagree, but although I rate UFO highly,
characterisation is not one of its strong suits.
Straker is the best characterised, but he is still
fairly cardboard and two-dimentional at best.

By comparrison; the new Battlestar Galactica contains
much more fully fleshed-out and complex characters.
That series really does ladle on the moral
ambiguities. UFO is very much a product of its time
and Anderson (to his credit) did try and work some
real drama into the proceedings, but it was too little
and Abe Mandel (ITC USA) slapped it down. We can
credit UFO as the first weekly sci-fi series to
attempt to add more mundane drama, but it has been
superceded in most respect- by the more recent
ensemble-orientated sci-fi series ala Star Trek (post
1987), X Files, Millenium, Babylon 5, Battlestar
Galactica and others.

What UFO has is a steely hard edge to it that has not
been superceeded. It is very much of its era, ie.
each episode more or less stands by itself and the
characters deal with the problem of the week. At the
end the reset button is pressed. This was felt to be
the way to go because TV stations would show the
series in any order (the only stipulation was that the
pilot got shown first).

Rick

--- zerg harry <[hidden email]> wrote:



___________________________________________________________
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The UK (mostly the BBC) was ahead of the USA back in
the 1970s in that it produced series that had to be
viewed in a certain order:

The Survivors (1975-7)
Blake's 7 (1978-81)
Secret Army (1977-9)

Let us not forget serials such as:

Doctor Who (1963-89) The reset button was usually
pressed at the end of a storyline on this classic
show, although not always, ie. The Key to Time, The
E-Space trilogy etc.
Children of the Stones (1976)
The Tomorrow People (1973-9)

Rick

--- richard curzon <[hidden email]>
wrote:

>
> Sorry to disagree, but although I rate UFO highly,
> characterisation is not one of its strong suits.
> Straker is the best characterised, but he is still
> fairly cardboard and two-dimentional at best.

Hi, I must admit that I tend to agree with Susan though I think its admirable the degree of devotion there is out there for all of Gerry Andersons works.

UFO was a great series, one of the many outstanding works of Gerry Anderson, though based on huge flaws, it was great entertainment. People will always delve deeply into what interests them and discussions are always entertaining too!

If you look at the art world it is similar especially with modern art. Some people will see a work and be able to discuss to the nth degree their interpretations of the work whils some people will see only an unmade bed..and think the artist is having a laugh.

Its the differences that make people what they are and long live them.

UFO should not be forgotten, neither should Dads Army, the Two Ronnies, Laurel and Hardy, The Maltese Falcon, Mr Blandings Builds his dream house, Ferris Buellers Day off, etc.

Quality will always prevail and have a place in time and in peoples hearts..

Salut to you all.

Susan Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
Or the other way around!

The point is you have a lot of motivated people and
with all of the conjecture you have basically
pre-written a bunch of new story lines.

You just need to don the costumes and get a few
props..

--- Marc Martin <[hidden email]> wrote:

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

> You're absolutely right, Susan, and although it's fun to
> analyse the scripts for clues about personalities and
> relationships, it does require suspension of disbelief,
> and it's well worth remembering that almost none of the
> conclusions we reach were actually intended by the writers,

Actually, with the Henderson/Straker relationship, I think
for CONFETTI CHECK A-OK, the writer definitely intended
to show how enthused Henderson and Straker were initially
as a contrast to how their relationship ended up.

Marc

Hi all,

I hear that Sylvia Anderson will NOT be appearing as
a guest (as originally announced) at this weekend's
"Cult TV Weekender", due to illness. However, Alan
Shubrook is supposed to be there, and he will have
copies of his new behind-the-scenes Gerry Anderson
book (as they finally cleared UK customs!). More
details about this convention are here:

http://www.cult.tv/

Marc

>> I even see that Bishop's daughters and son-in-law
>> are on here.
>
> Or the other way around!

Heh, heh, yes, it may not be clear to readers of
this group who was really telling the truth and
who was not, however I exchanged quite a few
private emails on this subject, enough to
convince me that the Ed Bishop "son-in-law"
was fake.

Marc

--- James Gibbon <[hidden email]> wrote:

That's why it's called interpretation. In literary
and art circles they applaud your ingenuity. In
forums, you may be considered obsessed. And, I admit,
there are those who are truly obsessed. But as long
as one is not ignoring important relationships,
letting your passion interfere with doing those parts
of living which must be done, or doesn't take what one
interprets as REAL, it's harmless.

A famous geologist named Harry Hess said that
geologists make great intelligence operatives because
we are accustomed to interpreting incomplete and
sometimes faulty data. And that's just what I'm
doing, interpreting incomplete and sometimes faulty
data that I see on my TV screen. I'm taking the
visual clues and drawing what I consider reasonable
inferences from them. Mind you, I tended to do poorly
in English literature when I did my own
interpretations because I don't tend to see what the
literature folks do. (I was, however, very good at
reguritating what the teacher/professor said!)
However, the interpretation part of a work must be
fun. I know of an instance several years ago where
what was apparently Bono of U2 was participating in a
U2 forum incognito, arguing the meaning of U2 songs.

Okay, I'm going back to the idea that the writers
didn't intend a lot of what we infer about UFO. That
doesn't mean that the inferences aren't valid, at
least to the interpreter. We take the different
incidents we see in an episode and we look at the sum
of incidents we've seen in the show and we interpret
them based on our experiences as a person. It is a
natural process that we do as humans. It is a skill
that was developed as a survival strategy, so it is a
very basic trait.

And like z. said, "Ed Straker, and SHADO and the
Aliens are highly ambiguous, often presented in
different aspects by different writers and directors,
and there is a lot of implication about what is not
said. I'd say a lot more can be read into UFO than
most series on TV." And if we take all of these bits
of evidence as equally valid until we have strong
evidence otherwise (which we don't have because there
were only 26 episodes), there is certainly a lot to
read between the lines.

There is one other point I want to make. Based on the
interviews I've read, apparently Ed Bishop found
Straker to be a rather boring character. I think
maybe one thing actors don't realize and can't see is
that it is what the actor brings to the character that
we find so appealing. I think that Ed Straker is one
of the most fascinating characters I've ever seen on
TV and I credit a lot of that to the actor that
portrayed him. He made it possible for me to believe
that the bits possibly due to bad or inconsistent
writing did belong to one complex character.

Diorite

David,

The more I think about it, I realize that you are absolutely correct, and I was wrong. I shouldn't have let my bad day at work spill over into the forum.

Susan,

My sincerest apologies. My post was WAY out of line. After digesting your post further, I found that many of your points were quite valid.

But I do still enjoy reading all the over-analyzing. : )

Jeff

pointy100 <[hidden email]> wrote:
--- In [hidden email], Jeffrey Nelson <1shado1@...> wrote:
>
> Personally, I find all the speculation makes for very interesting
reading.
> Certainly FAR better than NO traffic in the group. I'm sure that
after so many years, any question about the series with a DEFINITIVE
answer has been gone over at least a dozen times.
>
> Perhaps people ARE looking for things that may not be there, but
it IS very thought provoking.
>
> If you feel you have something more significant to contribute,
feel free. Short of that, I think you'd be better off not trying to
rain on the parade of others in the group.
>
> Jeff
>
Jeff,

I don't think that Susan is trying to rain on anyone's parade. She's
merely expressing an opinion. And she expressed it in a respectful
manner. It's a different opinion to yours, but that doesn't mean it's
any less valid. Differing viewpoints are part of the 'traffic' of the
group, Jeff. :-)

David






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

It takes a lot of specialised skill to put together a film or TV product. I'm not going to suggest that there aren't people in this forum who could do it, but it's a big oversimplification to suggest that simply by analysing an existing product the scripts are practically ready to shoot. I could draw a lot from watching UFO, that doesn't mean I can go make my own episode!
Z.

Susan Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:
Precisely. You people have put far more work into
analyzing this thing that the writers did in writing
it in the first place! This is neither "bad" or "good"
just a point of note.

I saw on TV where this group of Scottish people were
doing their own "new" Star Trek series. The owners of
the marque (Paramount?) are not enforcing the
trademarks and just letting them shoot it and
broadcast it locally.

Considering UFO was much less broadly accepted, if you
folks are geographically located near each other
perhaps you could do the same with UFO?

If you are doing this much analysis of only 26
episodes that shows a level of enthusiasm that may
warrant a few "new" episodes, produced by the group
members on their own and aired on your local cable
access channel. I'm not kidding about this. You may
enjoy it and I'd certainly be a viewer!

I even see that Bishop's daughters and son-in-law are
on here. Maybe that could truly make:

"UFO- The Next Generation"

for real!

Just a thought.

Sue

--- pointy100 <[hidden email]> wrote:

__________________________________________________
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Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com 





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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:38:36 +1000 (EST)
zerg harry <[hidden email]> wrote:
> I assume we're here when we feel like being and because we have
> something we want to say about "UFO" or some aspect of the show.
> (cast, FX etc) And that includes our thoughts about plots, aliens,
> charatcers, etc. If we wanted to drop it and do something else, we
> presumably would. But would it be any more or less valid a way to
> spend our free time?

Discussing it and over-analysing it are two different things.

James