Disappointed

> Regarding the self-contained episode nature of UFO, this was the common format for such series in the USA, where Lew Grade was selling his series.
>
> Most such series had, at most, an introductory episode but from then on the idea was that the episodes could be shown in pretty much any order and a viewer wouldn't stop watching if they missed an episode or two in pre-VCR days.
> The Saint, Thunderbirds and Danger Man worked perfectly well in this format as the basic situation of the protagonists didn't change much.
>
> Some of the other series had slight problems - in Randall and Hopkirk and The Champions, even after the introductory episodes, you would expect that Hopkirk and The Champions would discover new aspects to their powers.
> But the big problems come with UFO and The Prisoner where the actions and knowledge of the characters should, logically, radically change as they understand more about their predicaments and there are plenty of episodes which imply that they should come before or after others.
> These series fall halfway between a serial, with an overarching plot, and a series - which mainly doesn't.
>
> The problems with their falling between two stools is accentuated by the way the scripts were commissioned.
> With a serial or soap opera, a central group of writers plan the overall story and the writer of the individual episode is handed a detailed synopsis. This has the benefit of consistency but at the expense of individual inspiration and variety.
> With a series like Man in a Suitcase or Department S, the creators of the show would write a "Bible" which gave an idea of the tone and format of the show and it's characters. They would then ask writers to pitch ideas. If the ideas were liked then the script would be commissioned. While writing one script the writer may well be introducing details which conflicted with details in another script being written by an equally oblivious writer working on another episode. True there were script editors but, apart from missing small inconsistencies in the rush, it might be impossible to reconcile conflicts without ruining an episode.
> In the days before home recording and before anyone expected a viewer to see an episode more than twice a couple of years apart, then episodes contradicting each other in a minor way probably wasn't considered important.
>
> For these reasons I also tend to think that detailed fretting over the order of episodes in UFO, while it might be fun, isn't likely to come to any definitive answer - as none was intended in the first place.
>
> Regards
> John