Flight Path

Well, if you were tuning in to see your favorite SHADO
operatives, this isn’t the episode for you. The story
features Paul Roper, a man we see blackmailed into
committing treason against SHADO by a threat to his
wife. I really didn’t remember anything about this
episode from seeing it in the 70s, so seeing it when I
got the DVDs was kind of like seeing it for the first
time.

I never really felt much if any empathy for Roper. He
seems an geeky, inept, bumbling sort of fellow. How
does he rate as a friend of Alec’s? And was his wife
a royal twit or what? High strung seems like the
kindest thing I can say about her. I wasn’t in the
least bothered when they bumped her off. The poor,
brain-emplanted medical guy was barely a blip on the
screen.

I did wonder at first if they were actually going to
let Roper survive his ridiculous one-man mission at
the end. That would have actually surprised me. Then
he would have had to deal with his wife’s death. But,
no, he died for his sins at the end. But why doesn’t
Roper put his finger over the blinking hole until the
moon hopper gets there. Suicide? This is the kind of
ending I’d come to expect after all of the hours of
“Gunsmoke” my mother made me watch growing up.

Is there anything of interest in here? Well, there’s
the Ed Bishop wig saga. It’s more interesting than I
found most of the plot. In my best guess, he’s
wearing the wig when we first see Straker in the
episode. On the other hand, when Straker is
interviewing Roper from and in his office I think it’s
real hair. It goes on pretty much like that
throughout the episode.

And then there is the continuing conflict between
Freeman and Straker over Straker’s modus operandi.
Straker obviously “accidentally” leaves his transmit
key on to set up Roper in a sting and the first thing
Alec does is try to screw it up by letting Roper leave
too early. This seems really dumb to me, because
obviously Straker planned on having people there to
protect Roper and get the contact, while Alec lets him
go without any protection.

And, look, Ed Bishop fakes (I’m guessing) using a
slide rule! How many can identify the object? (Raise
your hand if you can.) I, fortunately, put off
learning slide rule just long enough that calculators
came out.

We see one of the rare signs of emotion in front of
his troops (other than bellowing dissatisfaction) from
Straker when he hears Ropers car had been hit by the
UFO. He puts his hand over his face and shakes his
head.

I saw the discussion about scenes possibly being out
of order, but I don’t think so. Yeah, the guys are
out in the purple car before they are sent to check on
Roper’s wife, but they are out looking for the Medic
Dawson, so they are “in the area”.

And I’m surprised Straker doesn’t lay into Alec more
for circumventing his plans. It’s pretty obvious Alec
did it intentionally. “It’s too complicated for
people like me. And too simple for people like you”.
Ouch. And then Alec accuses Straker of using Roper’s
dead wife to blackmail Roper into the mission to shoot
down the UFO. He’s not very nice to his commander
throughout this episode. I must admit, that Straker
in this part of the scene is in SOB mode.

As you can guess, not one of my favorite episodes.

--- In [hidden email], Diorite Gabbro <diorite@...> wrote: Hey Diorite,

hope i Spelled that Right. Gotta Agree with You about Flight Path.
However............There Are Scenes that Make me think that Roper was
between a Rock and a Hard Place Either way! the 1 Factor that Wasn't
Mentioned is Straker's Ex Boss,The General! Who else Would Force
Straker into a Commander's Worst Nightmare Scenario?

think about that for a bit.

Don't mean to Sound Like a Know it all,Used to watch the Show when I
was Younger! Found it a Bit Strange then.

Stay Cool.

Dan

I liked this episode a lot actually. A (fairly negative) review I saw a fewmonths ago about UFO as a whole (this was on the net, not sure where though...) pointed out that this episode shows Straker in his "Sherlock Holmes" mode. And I have to say that is the best thing about Flight Path. More thanalmost any other episode, once the focus gets on to Straker, he is the alien-detective. First he reads the results of the psycho-analytical tests andorders Freeman to record Roper's phone calls and spy on him. Then he had Roper brought in for questioning and I liked how he did this via video-link so he could be in a separate room from his "victim". The fact Straker triesevery angle until Freeman confirms one of them as a possibility is a good touch, too.
   
I liked the strategy of the faked "leak" about Roper being released. And yeah, Freeman does do something stupid, but his character wears his heart on his sleeve so I can imagine him wanting to give the guy a head start. Andagain, we see Straker trying to figure out the alien plan. First getting the basics from Moonbase that the flightpath is about the sun, moon and Earth, secondly trying to make sense of the figures and then finally looking athis model representation of the sun, moon and Earth and using his imagination to work out what they could be trying to do.
   
Sending Roper on a suicide mission seems logical enough to me, the man has the motivation (he wants to make up for what he's done wrong) and if he dies, then the problem of what to do with him is removed, too. It's ruthlessly pragmatic...though I wonder if a real-life Straker would have had someone else standing by to open-fire on the UFO with a second rocket launcher incase Roper let the side down.
   
Even when Straker hears about the probe removed from Dawson and says "I think the picture is almost complete", we get the sense of Ed Straker as a detective piecing the puzzle together. And for "investigative" Straker scenes, Flight Path is rarely bettered. Only "Destruction" and perhaps "Conflict" show the detective side of Straker in as much detail.
   
Z.

Diorite Gabbro <[hidden email]> wrote:
Well, if you were tuning in to see your favorite SHADO
operatives, this isn’t the episode for you. The story
features Paul Roper, a man we see blackmailed into
committing treason against SHADO by a threat to his
wife. I really didn’t remember anything about this
episode from seeing it in the 70s, so seeing it when I
got the DVDs was kind of like seeing it for the first
time.

I never really felt much if any empathy for Roper. He
seems an geeky, inept, bumbling sort of fellow. How
does he rate as a friend of Alec’s? And was his wife
a royal twit or what? High strung seems like the
kindest thing I can say about her. I wasn’t in the
least bothered when they bumped her off. The poor,
brain-emplanted medical guy was barely a blip on the
screen.

I did wonder at first if they were actually going to
let Roper survive his ridiculous one-man mission at
the end. That would have actually surprised me. Then
he would have had to deal with his wife’s death. But,
no, he died for his sins at the end. But why doesn’t
Roper put his finger over the blinking hole until the
moon hopper gets there. Suicide? This is the kind of
ending I’d come to expect after all of the hours of
“Gunsmoke” my mother made me watch growing up.

Is there anything of interest in here? Well, there’s
the Ed Bishop wig saga. It’s more interesting than I
found most of the plot. In my best guess, he’s
wearing the wig when we first see Straker in the
episode. On the other hand, when Straker is
interviewing Roper from and in his office I think it’s
real hair. It goes on pretty much like that
throughout the episode.

And then there is the continuing conflict between
Freeman and Straker over Straker’s modus operandi.
Straker obviously “accidentally” leaves his transmit
key on to set up Roper in a sting and the first thing
Alec does is try to screw it up by letting Roper leave
too early. This seems really dumb to me, because
obviously Straker planned on having people there to
protect Roper and get the contact, while Alec lets him
go without any protection.

And, look, Ed Bishop fakes (I’m guessing) using a
slide rule! How many can identify the object? (Raise
your hand if you can.) I, fortunately, put off
learning slide rule just long enough that calculators
came out.

We see one of the rare signs of emotion in front of
his troops (other than bellowing dissatisfaction) from
Straker when he hears Ropers car had been hit by the
UFO. He puts his hand over his face and shakes his
head.

I saw the discussion about scenes possibly being out
of order, but I don’t think so. Yeah, the guys are
out in the purple car before they are sent to check on
Roper’s wife, but they are out looking for the Medic
Dawson, so they are “in the area”.

And I’m surprised Straker doesn’t lay into Alec more
for circumventing his plans. It’s pretty obvious Alec
did it intentionally. “It’s too complicated for
people like me. And too simple for people like you”.
Ouch. And then Alec accuses Straker of using Roper’s
dead wife to blackmail Roper into the mission to shoot
down the UFO. He’s not very nice to his commander
throughout this episode. I must admit, that Straker
in this part of the scene is in SOB mode.

As you can guess, not one of my favorite episodes.



                         

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

----- Original Message -----
From: Diorite Gabbro
To: [hidden email]
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2007 12:04 AM
Subject: [SHADO] Flight Path



<snip>....
he died for his sins at the end. But why doesn't
Roper put his finger over the blinking hole until the
moon hopper gets there. Suicide? This is the kind of
ending I'd come to expect after all of the hours of
"Gunsmoke" my mother made me watch growing up.
....<snip>


----------------------------------------------------


Try doing it yourself and you'll find out that the air is coming out with lot more force than you'd realize. Simply pressing on it with your finger just won't work.

Roper, along with his wife, were painted as rather sympathetic victims to their plight. It made what happened to them more real....regular people less capable of dealing with danger, as opposed to the heroic example of say, a Paul Foster.

This is one of my more favorite episodes, complex and involved. While Straker's interrogation seemed very lame (the only coersion he seemed able to drum up for Roper was "....you MUST co-operate!.... You simply MUST...."), it showed Alec's humanity and sense of fair play in spades.

The ending was one of the most memorable of the series, defining it (at least to me) as the classic hard luck, tragic plot line television series of the era. It's what attracted me to it over the other dippy and silly sci-fi shows airing around that time.

Dave H.




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

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

Thanks, this is an interesting perspective on the
episode. Next time I watch it, I'll keep this in
mind.

>
> I liked the strategy of the faked "leak" about
> Roper being released.

It's only marginally related to what you said, but it
made me think about it. One of the things I've found
interesting in watching UFO as an adult is watching Ed
Bishop work. Most of his dialog was delivered in a
wonderfully conversational way, even the technobabble,
some of which he did in this episode. He managed to
sound like he understood what he was saying even when
it was scientific nonsense, unlike some of the
"memorized the speech like a parrot" stuff we got from
a couple of other actors. And, yet, as in this
instance, when Straker was putting someone on (that
sounds so archaic! but I don't know how else to say
it), Ed Bishop made the lines sound different like he
did in the lines about when to release Roper. It
flags the difference in the intent of the dialog. I'm
impressed.

Diorite