ITV 4 episodes The Square Triangle/ Destruction

Hi all,

Last nite's thrilling ep "The Square Triangle" – it was quite
difficult to work out where the edits were because the episode jumps
about so much! There were three in all; a section immediately
following Straker ordering Foster to join the mobiles (the view of
signpost indicating Cass and Liz are heading in the direction of the
UFO landing site), including exterior and interior views of their
car (no dialogue was lost). The second edit is from the UFO
exploding; including a shot of Foster in the mobile (again no
dialogue) and the alien moving through the forest, stopping to
splash water on his face and hearing the mobiles approaching. The
last edit – Cass in the shower and drying/ dressing himself before
returning to the kitchen (included a brief clip of the alien in the
forest).

I really enjoyed seeing this episode again as it has a lot going on,
without being overly-dramatic, the incidental music is just
brilliant :-) Straker commits the ultimate sin by actually
allowing the UFO past SHADO defences (surely a court marshal
offence) although his reasoning is logical. As in life though, it
all goes wonderfully pear-shaped and what remains is (what they
believe to be) an exercise in damage limitation.

I could never understand why the alien seemed to be allowing his
ship to self destruct – for what reason? However, from the original
script, it seems the alien damages it himself by accident when
shooting the security guard, although this isn't at all obvious.  

The involvement of "outsiders" with the alien is cleverly done; they
realise they'll forget their attempt at the murder, while SHADO
becomes aware of it too late to do anything about it, opting not to
intervene any further (might risk security?) so the husband dies.
BTW, the end credit sequence was not "squashed" this time :-)

Poor old Chin (Subsmash) has been resurrected as the alien in this
ep and isn't Foster's co-driver the alien from "Computer Affair"
(?) It's also strange to see Ford but not hear his voice.  

A good episode (imho) because it's all so wonderfully understated –
yet it has got a good level of tension and creepiness and that
double twist at the end. Also some amusing dialogue – "ask the
aliens round for drinks" – "you should be so lucky!" –
"unfortunately for them, an alien came through the door instead of
her husband" :-D


The previous episode was Destruction. I have to admit that this
episode annoys me. The only edit I saw was from the beginning of
Foster's attempt to play out of the bunker, right up until he takes
his first proper shot and the dialogue turns to the undetected UFO
sighting. There possibly were others………… but nothing containing
dialogue that I noticed.

I just can't go along with the idea of senior SHADO officers acting
like "spies/ private detectives" – too "James Bond" for UFO! Surely
SHADO has enough clout to get the information needed; in any case
they end up bringing Admiral Sherringham into SHADO to force it out
of him anyway!  

The whole premise of the aliens wanting to destroy all life on earth
is completely contrary to their normal attitude to humanity. SHADO
has got the ship being followed by Skydiver so they *know* exactly
where it is! The final scene infuriates – far too flippant – they
just can't leave Sarah Bosanquet alive; they should have had Foster
kill her off, would have made for a better ending, imho. No, UFO
almost "jumps the shark" with this one; I also hate the over-zealous
use of eyeliner… totally unnecessary *really* …………… ;-D


The prints of both episodes were truly awful; anyone reading this
forum who has only seen UFO via this transmission – do yourself a
real favour and get the DVDs, you won't regret it :-D

Sarah