ITV 4 episode “Mindbender”

Hi all,

As mentioned in an earlier post, I failed to record the entire
episode; it stopped after Beaver James is shot to death :-( There
was one edit in the first half – the entire "cowboy" shootout! :-O  
What a shame! I love the whole "Mexican/ Cowboy" bit! Whether
there were any other edits, perhaps someone else knows.. ? It was
the usual "washed out" picture and the sound was awful, but before
the DVDs, this soundtrack always was particularly bad and seemed to
me to get worse as the episode went on.  

This episode's one from the second production block and dear old
Straker is finally given some action, going to the Moon himself to
look for wreckage. It also makes very inventive use of the
conflicting demands on him as SHADO CIC and head of the studio, all
of which would surely be too much for anybody to put up with :-)

Henderson's on Straker's back too – being a real pain in the *ss, I
think Grant Taylor is great in this ep; it's tragic to think he was
terminally ill, apart from the weight loss, you'd not guess anything
was wrong from his performance, which is perfect.

I've always wondered what Straker's comment meant – "He's right-
right; sometimes being wrong-right is harder" – doesn't make much
sense to me, can anyone explain, is this an expression? I've never
heard it anywhere else ;-/

Then the scene between Straker and Henderson having a real
humdinger – the latter's insults progressing from thinly veiled to
blatantly OTT and Straker's act of displaced aggression and struggle
not to react to Henderson's vicious jibes - then it appears he's
completely lost it – oh blimey, he actually has! Well, I'm not
surprised, really…… ;-)

This is my second favourite scene of the series - that "CUT" – so
completely changes what you're expecting! The next bit is
hilarious - Henderson's instant switch of demeanour and great big
grin …… the Director wandering around the office munching a sandwich
….. so disorientating for the viewers taking Straker's view like
that - absolutely brilliant and always makes me laugh :-D

It just goes from bad to worse – seeing a mobile - chasing
the "stand-in" – Miss Ealand not recognising him - all the
flashbacks from when Straker's been scared out of wits previously in
the series, as he must be feeling now. Okay – it was a cost saving
exercise; lots of series do it, but none before or since have ever
been as ingenious about it, imho.

Then Paul is "Mike" – reality's disappeared compeletely now .. his
supercilious smiles and comments, acting increasingly contemptuously
as Straker begs him to help, a horrible scene to watch. The views
of sets *are* fascinating and in the background, the incessant
rehearsals – an insight into what life's really like in "showbiz" –
not at all glamorous, just sheer hard work. Straker's "nightmare"  
finally ends during yet another rehearsal; did he figure it was the
rock, or was it pure chance that he "broke" it? It also must have
been pretty confusing for the actors too – acting like they were not
acting when rehearsing but *actually* filming ;-D

And still the tension goes on. Will they realise Straker's
recovered? Henderson doesn't say anything (why not!??) just
watches – thank goodness Foster stops the guards; I suppose they had
orders to shoot at the first opportunity ……

"Mindbender" has to be one of, if not *the* best UFO episode. When I
watch this ep, I can *still* feel the same way as I did first time
round – what the B****Y hell is going on? And it just gets more and
more confusing – it's a superbly clever and entertaining script,
although the central subject matter is truly disturbing - losing
your mind is perhaps the biggest fear of all (?) It's a common
enough theme, seen in television drama of all genres, but I
personally don't think it's been as well done in context, compared
to anything else I've seen :-)


Sorry about all the superlatives – I do like this one! Thanks for
reading :-)



Sarah

> I've always wondered what Straker's comment meant – "He's right-
> right; sometimes being wrong-right is harder" – doesn't make much
> sense to me, can anyone explain, is this an expression?
> I've never heard it anywhere else ;-/

I've never heard this expression either -- I assume "right-right"
means arriving at the obvious answer, which is not necessarily
the correct answer, but may be popular or uncontroversial.
Meanwhile "wrong-right" would be an answer that is more difficult
to arrive at, and may not win any popularity contests -- but at
least it is the correct answer.

Marc

A while ago, commenting on Mindbender, I had an idea for a twist in the tale that I felt would be a good idea for a fan fiction if someone should wishto pursue it:
   
What if Straker DIDN'T break free of the hallucination when he did? Whatif the aliens had engineered the Mindbender so that after, say, an hour, if you weren't dead (as the previous victims were) then a second illusion kicked in, in which the victim thinks he's back to normal, but isn't! An illusion inside a hallucination, so to speak! As such, while Straker thinks it's business as usual, in the real world (or the universe of the UFO series) he's doing all sorts of damage and everyone else thinks he's now insane.

moonbasegirl <[hidden email]> wrote:
Will they realise Straker's recovered? Henderson doesn't say anything (why not!??) just watches – thank goodness Foster stops the guards; I suppose they had orders to shoot at the first opportunity ……

"Mindbender" has to be one of, if not *the* best UFO episode. When I
watch this ep, I can *still* feel the same way as I did first time
round – what the B****Y hell is going on? And it just gets more and
more confusing – it's a superbly clever and entertaining script,
although the central subject matter is truly disturbing - losing
your mind is perhaps the biggest fear of all (?) It's a common
enough theme, seen in television drama of all genres, but I
personally don't think it's been as well done in context, compared
to anything else I've seen :-)


Sorry about all the superlatives – I do like this one! Thanks for
reading :-)



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

--- In [hidden email], Marc Martin <marc@...> wrote:
 
> I've never heard this expression either -- I assume "right-right"
> means arriving at the obvious answer, which is not necessarily
> the correct answer, but may be popular or uncontroversial.
> Meanwhile "wrong-right" would be an answer that is more difficult
> to arrive at, and may not win any popularity contests -- but at
> least it is the correct answer.


This reminds me of something I read somewhere - possibly a famous
quote, that goes something like -

There's a simple answer to every human problem - neat, plausible and
wrong

:-)


Sarah

--- In [hidden email], MICK DICKENS <docmed03@...> wrote:


Good idea! :-) I read a fanfic for "Timelash", that carries on
after the end of the episode; if I remember correctly, nobody
believes Straker's explanation and thought he'd gone insane :-O

When watching "Mindbender", I've often speculated on what Straker
was doing from the perspective of unaffected SHADO members. Just
going beserk (aka Timelash) as suggested in the final scene is a bit
of a cop-out, imho. It would be interesting for a fanfic writer to
speculate on this ;-)


Sarah