Henderson vs. Straker

>[hidden email]
wrote:
>Makes me wonder what happened along the way to destroy Straker's
>relationship
>with Henderson.

David,
That's one of the big continuity errors in the show. They never do tell you
why the sudden change from good boss to jerk boss. And it doesn't ring true
because of that lapse. Too much of a turn-around to be believable. It's
sad, because that would have made a good storyline for an episode. Don't
you think?
Denise

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I really don't think you can call the fact that around ten years earlier
Henderson seem to be happy with Straker being in charge of SHADO and in the
future he is shown trying to cause problems a continuity error.
In films and TV a continuity error is where something is out of place.
Say for example in one scene you have Straker pick up the famed paperweight
and put it on the right corner of his desk. In the next scene it is on the
left. One of the most famous I can think of from a film is one called Viking
Queen where a Roman soldier is seen wearing a wristwatch. Those are
continuity errors.
Henderson changing his mind about Straker running SHADO is as simple as
a father handing over the family business and not being happy when the son
does good. That may seem funny but it happens. It the feeling of he
suceeded without me. It sort of like your old toys. When you out grow them
or you think you do and give them away and then you see someone else with
them an for some reason you are jelous and want them back. That's Henderson.

James K.

>[hidden email]
wrote:
> I really don't think you can call the fact that around ten years
>earlier
>Henderson seem to be happy with Straker being in charge of SHADO and in the
>future he is shown trying to cause problems a continuity error.

Excuse me, but I believe that anytime a character suddenly acts differently
with no basis for the change it IS a continuity error.

> Henderson changing his mind about Straker running SHADO is as simple
>as
>a father handing over the family business and not being happy when the son
>does good. That may seem funny but it happens. It the feeling of he
>suceeded without me. It sort of like your old toys. When you out grow
>them
>or you think you do and give them away and then you see someone else with
>them an for some reason you are jelous and want them back. That's
>Henderson.

And where you come up with this scenario is beyond me, and beyond the
scripts as well. Sorry, Charlie, but it's just not there. You can read all
you want into the storyline, but the simple fact is that they never explain
it!
Denise

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CONTENTS DELETED

>[hidden email]
> I am sort of surprised that you as a non-canon fan fic writer (as I am)
>would say this.

Yeah, right. Whatever. Don't judge me by your standards, hon.
Denise

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"Denise Felt" wrote:


I must say I fully agree with Denise on this point - while it may
be interesting to invent and retrofit a plausible explanation
for the change in relationship between Henderson and Straker,
the plain fact is that the reason for this is never explored in
the series - and in that sense - like the unexplained change
in attitude toward Dr Jackson in 'Court Martial' or Foster's
hairline travelling in a different direction from everyone else,
it certainly _is_ a continuity issue. I imagine that the
writers simply thought it would be more interesting to have a
bit of tension between Straker & his boss, so they just made it
happen.

James

> sad, because that would have made a good storyline for an episode. Don't
> you think?
Perhaps we would have got one if there had been a season two. We will never
know.
Also I think it stems from the fact there were so many different writers
working on the series.

Sheila

Still UFO Crazy crazy crazy crrraaazzzzy!

I have to agree with Denise about wondering how Straker and Henderson ended
up at odds - any takers out there? Who's gonna write this up? Pam

CONTENTS DELETED

In AQOP, it was Mary's father (not the milkman and not Rutland) who was at
the house to take her away and at the hospital when she woke up.

Deborah

-----Original Message-----
From: Hemmings, R.K. [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2001 8:42 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: RE: [SHADO] Re: Henderson vs. Straker


Pam wrote:

> I have to agree with Denise about wondering how Straker and
> Henderson ended up at odds - any takers out there? Who's
> gonna write this up?

[cat amongst the pigeons mode : on]
Perhaps General Henderson was also Mary's father?..
Father-in-laws always take their daughter's side
when a marriage crumbles, after all. ;-)

PS I've not checked the chronology to see whether
this (fun?) idea is tenable as far as UFO canon goes.
--
Rob



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

"Hemmings, R.K." <rkh@l...> wrote:

> Perhaps General Henderson was also Mary's father?..

Nah, we saw Mary's father in "Confetti Check A-OK", and he doesn't
look anything like Henderson.

- Lisa

Hi All,

I think despite Henderson's original and seeming happiness that Straker gets the
job as Commander-in-Chief of SHADO, he nonetheless finds it hard to take after
all the effort that he (and Straker) had put into to getting full and
unequivocal international support for the need to start up SHADO.

Although Henderson was (booted upstairs) as General, and was put in charge of
the SHADO purse-strings in the guise of Chairman of the Astro-Space Commission,
I believe he really wanted the SHADO Commander's role. Henderson does in
"Confetti Check A-OK" admit that he was not physically up to the role at that
time; "What kind of shape am I in? What kind of shape will I be in ten years
time?" (just after the accident in which he - Henderson - was injured, and the
British Cabinet Minister was killed, Straker escapes unhurt), and does concede
that he would be too old once SHADO was truly up and running in another ten
years.

To be fair to Henderson, in all cases during the 26 UFO episodes, he is firm
(sometimes extremely), but fair with Straker. In "Conflict" at the end of the
episode he even concedes to Straker, and then Straker in turn shows non-grudging
respect in return.

The real nasty personality conflict appears in "Close Up", "Court Martial" and
"Mindbender", and in all three cases, Henderson is shown to be in error and
backs down to Straker. Maybe Straker's superior ability, and to be proved
"right" also drives Henderson's animosity.

Well, that's my input. I hope it helps.

Later,

Griff

I've been away but glad to b back. Read the posts with interest,
especially the Straker vs. Henderson discussions. Great stuff!! I
thought there was a lot of positive writing on the speculation from
members that really intrigued me to which I've replied. I have to
say I have to agree with Denise - only because I'm scared she might
dis me off ;-) - and James Gibbon about continuity error as an
explanation to the sudden change in relations between the two hard
men of SHADO.

(To 'dis' is how a young would-be-rapper would say to you if they
want to criticise you rather sharply).

Denise Felt wrote:

You can read all you want into the storyline,
> > but the simple fact is that they never explain it!


and

James Gibbon wrote:

...like the unexplained change in attitude toward Dr Jackson
in 'Court Martial' or Foster's hairline travelling in a different
direction from everyone else, it certainly _is_ a continuity
issue...

And what about the alien spacesuits losing their chain mail and
getting what looked like the silver shoulder and chest pieces similar
to the female Moonbase crew! Didn't the female Moonbase crew
have a changed look too? It's these things that really struck me
when I first started to watch UFO again... the continuity errors.

Anyway... I would imagine that as a writer you would have to have a
comprehensive profile and personalities of all the main characters
before writing a storyline. It's difficult to imagine a major
shift in relations between the main protagonists - unless of course
as,

Sheila wrote:

... the fact there were so many different writers working on the
series...

However, we witness the continued quarrelling between `H' and
Straker in later episodes, which is at least consistent, if not
explanatory.


James Gibbon wrote:

...I imagine that the writers simply thought it would be more
interesting to have a bit of tension between Straker & his boss, so
they just made it happen...

Well, it wouldn't surprise me! It would be interesting to see
the original scripts and each of the character profiles.

A TV series such as UFO would have been tightly budgeted and like
most things in life there seems never enough time to complete things.

There is a visible pooling of resources on the set of UFO.
Didn't Foster have his own car? It was a blue wedge shape one
wasn't it? It just doesn't look right that he drives around in
Straker's car. Unless of course, we are expected to believe that
Straker has given permission of some kind to senior SHADO personnel
that they have access to all company(Film Studio)cars.

The things that spoil a good episode are missing hubcaps from the
organisation's cars. Which disappear in one scene only to
reappear in the next.

Maybe the producers were expecting us to accept the changes in
continuity as a natural progression over time. Who knows! Certainly
they were presumptuous in expecting us to turn a blind eye when
personnel assumed different roles, changed attitudes or even
disappeared during the course of the series!


Rob wrote:

...Perhaps General Henderson was also Mary's father?.. Father-in-laws
always take their daughter's side when a marriage crumbles, after
all. ;-)...

This sounds remotely familiar... Is this true? It would explain a
lot of things;-)

Karl

Griff wrote:

"Henderson does in "Confetti Check A-OK" admit that he was not
physically up to the role at that time; "What kind of shape am I in?
What kind of shape will I be in ten years time?" (just after the
accident in which he - Henderson - was injured, and the British
Cabinet Minister was killed, Straker escapes unhurt), and does
concede that he would be too old once SHADO was truly up and running
in another ten years".


Griff,

Certainly Henderson shows some signs of bitterness for the reasons
above. Equally plausable is that both have large egos, both of the
same kind, and that similarity causes friction. Certainly both men
are under immense pressure from their jobs. However, in some
episodes we see that Henderson visibly enjoys giving Straker the
needle. Perhaps H has more time on his hands - although in Court
Martial he seemed too busy to even see Straker. Nevertheless, the
change of attitude to one another is still too sudden to have taken
place without some formal explanation.


Griff wrote:

"The real nasty personality conflict appears in "Close Up", "Court
Martial" and "Mindbender", and in all three cases, Henderson is shown
to be in error and backs down to Straker. Maybe Straker's superior
ability, and to be proved "right" also drives Henderson's animosity".

What's interesting about Mindbender is that it show us how Straker
sees Henderson. It's a nightmare! Straker's paranoia about Henderson
reaches an intensity. We saw in 'Computer Affair' that
Straker's "cold logic" approach reaches an all time low in popularity
amongst some of his personel: Ellis, Mark and even his best friend
Alec Freeman!

Karl

Amelia wrote:
> One of my interpretations for what art is, is that its something
that can
> be interpreted by the onlooker, or the listener. Art isn't always
explained,
> and very often we hear music, for example, and think, ah that is a
lovely
> song about bittersweet love. Then we find out the singer-songwriter
was
> talking about something else entirely.

A nice analogy Amelia. I agree. With more information on the series
we may change our intrepretation on certain episodes. That would be
an exciting prospect, to read the episodes in a totally differnt
light.

I had a look at the Italian ISOSHADO site and saw that Paulo (the guy
that runs it) was invited to Pinewood Studios and had dinner with
Slyvia Anderson. I bet he must have asked a few questions concerning
UFO's storylines. Or maybe it was one of those occasions where it was
too formal to ask such things.

Karl

CONTENTS DELETED

Amelia wrote:

> Anyone with enough imagination can fill in most of the stuff that
UFO never
> showed or explained.

Amelia, although I agree in the main about using ones imagination to
fill the gaps in the plot I do have concerns as well. The show's
producers may have left things out by accident or for other reasons.


Amelia wrote:

> ...and then you conjecture about this and you work with that, and
you
> think well if he did that, he may do this, he may feel this, he may
wish that
> but he wouldn't do this.


Within the conjecture we must include the probability that the series
makers may have just made decisions without reference to the plot.
Otherwise we would go down that speculative road which would be fun
leading us to create many different scenarios but no nearer to the
truth. I have to agree with Straker on this one and say we have to
look at the facts(?!).


Amelia wrote:
> Look at the whole X files thing, the fan fic writers that wanted
(thus saw)
> a relationship, the ones that didn't. And if you watch X files, the
fan fic
> writers that were shippers won

This is a good example of speculation at it's best. I never viewed
the later series of X files so I don't know if they ever got it
together. But from what I can remember from the first two series you
wondered if the two had things for each other. Nothing ever happened
though.

Karl

P.S. What is "canon" and "shippers"?

>[hidden email]
wrote:
I
>thought there was a lot of positive writing on the speculation from
>members that really intrigued me to which I've replied. I have to
>say I have to agree with Denise - only because I'm scared she might
>dis me off

Karl,
Cute. Very cute. BTW, what was your name again? *wicked grin*
Yours,
Denise

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Karl... Karl Barcia *dashingly wicked grin (Paul Foster style)*
truly,
Karl

Someone just e-mailed to tell me there was a big argument
about Straker vs. Henderson going on here, so I thought
I'd better start paying attention to what's going on
here! (sorry, been a bit preoccupied lately...)

In my opinion (not that anyone was asking!), the tension
between Straker & Henderson is established in early (production
schedule) episodes like CONFLICT, and only *later* during the
production do we have the flashback episode CONFETTI CHECK A-OK,
where Henderson & Straker are good buddies. So obviously
writer Tony Barwick purposely was showing that Henderson &
Straker were much friendlier 10 years ago, and leaving it
up to the viewer to wonder what happened between the 2
to sour the relationship.

On the other hand, UFO *is* loaded with inconsistencies
from episode-to-episode, and both Dr. Jackson & Henderson
*are* inconsistent in COURT MARTIAL with respect to the
other "present day" (1980's) episodes.

So, I agree that Henderson's behavior in COURT MARTIAL is a
"continuity" problem, while his behavior in
CONFETTI CHECK A-OK is not.

--
Marc Martin, [hidden email]

(back to being pre-occupied...)