New to Group

Yes, I concur... This episode 'Destruction' is fundamentally flawed... and I
count it as one of the 'wacky' episodes. However, it could have been great,
and with a little more judicial editing and steering from the series editor,
it could have been a great episode. I can think of many story scenarios that
could have worked really well.

However, there are some great bits in it, and some amusing dialogue. I love
Stephanie Beacham in this episode... cworrr!!! Mmmm... sorry about that
(bucket of water on standby)

I was amused and not a little confused to see that Straker's ex's boyfriend
was the captain of the ship in question... Mary must sure like uniforms ;)

Anyway, back to the salt mines ;)

best to all :)

Griff

-----Original Message-----
From: Pamela McCaughey [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 2:51 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [SHADO] UFO Episode Discussion -- DESTRUCTION


I'm with James on this eps - I think the writer must have been someone who
wasn't well enough versed in UFO lore to write it. The question is: why did
GA and Reg Hill go ahead and produce it for broadcast if it deviated so
vitally from the show's original premise? Sloppy, I'd say! Pam





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Still think if I was an alien I'd see the stuff the Navy was dumping as a
good idea. Since the gas works by blocking the normal neurotransmitters in
the central and peripheral nervous system, I still say there would be enough
left of the bodies to harvest afterwards. If you were an alien, fed up of
SHADO kicking up a fuss because you wanted a few organs, wouldn't it seem a
good solution?

Besides which, one of the things I love about UFO is that it did try out new
ideas, some of which don't quite seem to fit in with the general, overall
premise of the show. I certainly wouldn't call Destruction 'wacky' though,
not compared to things like CWTL. There were technical hiccups, as was
discussed at length, with things like SkyDiver's max depth etc, but in
general it was an enjoyable story and I have no difficulty relating the plot
to the rest of the series.

Jess

I think the writer of this episode did a good job.
He was not bound by the first premise of the series, which expanded
and was metamorphosed as the shows went by.

In the first episode, Straker interpreted the purpose of the Aliens
which was quite simplified, survival.
But in the episode "Survival", the Alien's intention was rather
incomprehensible.
And in "Question of Priorities", another Alien seemed to seek refuge
in SHADO and killed by his compatriots...

That is, the Aliens does not neccessarily have boast of monolithic
solidarity, I suppose.

It was a fact that the Aliens abords the Ufo appeared in
"Destruction" attacked the Royal Navy's Country class missile cruiser
to try to annihilate all the humans on Earth.
The reason, however, has been still mysterious.

Perhaps the Aliens have abducted enough numbers of humans whom they
have kept alive like Stephanie Beacham's father to be reproduced by
themselves?
Perhaps the Aliens found another planet on which the appropriate
humanoids were living without annoying SHADO?
Perhaps the Alien abosrd that Ufo was a homicidal maniac?
Perhaps that Alien could not bear watching a kidnapped human being
dissected and tried to do mercy killing?
Perhaps...???

Questions without answers is another theme of "UFO", I think.


Kaoru

DESTRUCTION is one of favorite eps, actually. I like
the fact that a UFO was seen out in the open and
actually shot down by the military...and then SHADO
has to get through the Navy's security to get more
information.

Stephanie Beacham is definitely a highlight. She looks
great in everything. Just saw her in DRACULA AD 1972,
looking even better!

As for the objective of the Aliens....Who knows what
they had in mind in terms of an overall plan? Maybe
different factions of the enemy wanted to destroy all
life instead of harvesting body parts? During all
these episode discussions, I marvel at the level of
analysis list members do, trying to figure what the
aliens were up to. When I saw the show as a kid---and
even today---I understand that the premise is pretty
clear: the aliens and everything related to them is
BAD and has to be wiped out. Whether is trying to take
out Straker personally, using other people (MAN WHO
CAME BACK), animals (CWTL), causes interference
(DALOTEK), disrupt SHADO operations (CONFLICT)---it's
all bad, bad, bad!!!

JF

=====


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I am a bit unsure of the aliens trying to wipe out the whole of Earths
population in Destruction. If this biological agent is that deadly why so
much of it? What I mean to say is it so deadly that any of it released into the
atmosphere would cause the death of the whole population of this planet?
That sounds rather like The Satan Bug in Alistair MacLean's novel of the same
name. What made it so deadly in the novel and the film which was scripted by
James Calvell was that they had not yet developed an antidote for it. You don't
make a germwarfare agent and not make an antidote for it. So it they aliens
set this thing lose there would be an antidote for it. Also the area of effect
would be limited to the area where it was released and where the winds might
carry it but it would lose effectiveness the more it was spread out. However
the fact it was lose and the deaths it did cause would cause a world wide
panic. This would most likely be the aim of the aliens to cause a would wide
panic. Governments would react in fear and probably everyone would start
pointing their fingers at each other and and co-operation would be a thing of the
past and this would effect SHADO. If Straker has a hard time getting money out
of Henderson under normal conditions think what it would be like with the
countries funding SHADO at each others throats.
There is a old military saying "Divide and Conquer".

James K.


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

----- Original Message -----
From: "tchbnk" <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Sunday, July 13, 2003 10:58 PM
Subject: [SHADO] Re: UFO Episode Discussion -- DESTRUCTION

> "Destruction" attacked the Royal Navy's Country class missile cruiser
> to try to annihilate all the humans on Earth.
> The reason, however, has been still mysterious.
>
> Perhaps the Aliens have abducted enough numbers of humans whom they
> have kept alive like Stephanie Beacham's father to be reproduced by
> themselves?
>

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

I've often found UFO quite bewhildering on many of these points. Here the
aliens have kidnapped a major contributor to the technology and systems of
SHADO (Stephanie Beacham's father was the guy constructing moonbase
remember, and thus had a lot of sensitive information on the weaknesses and
vunerabilities of SHADO's moonbase defense systems) and thus was such a
great sourse of insider espionage information to use against SHADO....and do
they make effective use of him?????
Appearently not!
Their performance record against SHADO so far doesn't seem to exibit
much use of the information contained within Bosequette's (spell whatever)
head. Come On Aliens! Show some brains, you're star travelers for chissake!
They already have this prime source, and yet they are just using him to
blackmail Stephanie with.
Also same thing when they kidnap and brainwash Foster, and Craig
Collins, two very senior SHADO officials, with a lot of SHADO secrets and
insider information inside their heads, major coups in compromising the
security of SHADO.... Do they extract their knowledge (which I'm sure they
can do given the other things we've seen them do with the mind) and use it
descretely against SHADO?
No! They use them in cheap and very clumsy hit attempts against Straker.
Seems like Foster's and Collin's operational and techonological knowledge of
SHADO would be much more valuable to the aliens than just using their
zombified bodies as a rather clumsy assassination tool.

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

>And certainly if you
>read Chris Bentley's character sketches on the Carlton DVD he states that
>Mary married a Royal Navy Captain. On the collector postcards and episode
>guides he always lists Philip Madoc's character in Question of Priorities
as
>'Stephen Rutland', since Stephen is the name Sherringham uses when talking
>to the captain.

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

I'm sure that is not meant to be Mary's husband captaining the ship, as
he is in the same room with Straker at the admiralty at some point, isn't
he, and I'm sure Straker and he would recognize each other and set off alarm
bells in their respective organizations.

Dave H.

I tend to see this eps as indicative of a problem throughout the series.
lack of continuity due to sloppy writing, poor editing, and stupid choices
for which scripts they were going to buy. I've said it before and I'll say
it again - GA was NOT GR. he didn't really care if things on UFO were
scientifically possible, plausible or if they fit the overall premise of the
series. In the end, what REALLY killed the series was not so much the
American ratings. It was the poor production considerations on UFO that did
the job. Somewhere after UFO got the ax, GA clued into the fact you can't DO
a show in that sloppy a fashion and he "redeemed" himself by doing a
"better" job on Space: 1999. Remember, UFO was GA's first attempt at doing a
series with human actors instead of puppets. The stories didn't gell alot of
the time because he was still thinking puppet mentality, with the kid
audience those puppet shows drew. he forgot that an adult audience, already
primed by Star Trek, would demand a little more continuity and realism in
the science shown in the show. I'm not dissing GA here, I'm just saying a
producer he wasn't as fussy as Roddenberry and that's what led to UFO
lasting ONE single season, whereas trek alsted 30, became a mega-cult hit,
spawned a group of post-series and movies. And UFO is still stalled in the
passing lane.....Pam

> (Stephanie Beacham's father was the guy
> constructing moonbase remember, and thus
> had a lot of sensitive information on the
> weaknesses and vunerabilities of SHADO's
> moonbase defense systems) and thus was such
> a great sourse of insider espionage
> information to use against SHADO....and do
> they make effective use of him?????
> Appearently not!

As a matter of fact, they wouldn't need that kind of information
because they could attack Moonbase with lots of UFOs and destroy it
with their ray-guns because Moonbase is very vulnerable, you know.

But on the other hand, they *did* attack Moonbase in CAT WITH TEN
LIVES (and another time in REFLECTIONS IN THE WATER) but sadly for
them they are very lousy shooters! And that's remarkable, thinking of
the single Alien which was shot from high above the sky in A
QUESTIONS OF PRIORITIES. Hm, maybe the Aliens get stage-fright when
they have to hit such a large object like Moonbase is? ;-)

Christian

Maybe the Aliens are good shots, but it's only when they're stationary (the
crack-shot single alien firing at Moonbase, or the crashed UFO firing at the
Mobile in Computer Affair), so maybe their firing attack computer can't
handle the spinning and gyrating flight characteristics of the UFO in
flight... it gets dizzy... ;-)

-----Original Message-----
From: Christian J. [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 11:36 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [SHADO] Re: UFO Episode Discussion -- DESTRUCTION


> (Stephanie Beacham's father was the guy
> constructing moonbase remember, and thus
> had a lot of sensitive information on the
> weaknesses and vunerabilities of SHADO's
> moonbase defense systems) and thus was such
> a great sourse of insider espionage
> information to use against SHADO....and do
> they make effective use of him?????
> Appearently not!

As a matter of fact, they wouldn't need that kind of information
because they could attack Moonbase with lots of UFOs and destroy it
with their ray-guns because Moonbase is very vulnerable, you know.

But on the other hand, they *did* attack Moonbase in CAT WITH TEN
LIVES (and another time in REFLECTIONS IN THE WATER) but sadly for
them they are very lousy shooters! And that's remarkable, thinking of
the single Alien which was shot from high above the sky in A
QUESTIONS OF PRIORITIES. Hm, maybe the Aliens get stage-fright when
they have to hit such a large object like Moonbase is? ;-)

Christian

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

> Maybe the Aliens are good shots, but it's
> only when they're stationary (the crack-shot
> single alien firing at Moonbase, or the
> crashed UFO firing at the Mobile in Computer
> Affair), so maybe their firing attack computer
> can't handle the spinning and gyrating flight
> characteristics of the UFO in flight...
> it gets dizzy... ;-)

"Dizzy! You making me dizzy!"
(Attack computer, singing during the attack ;-)

One point: in AQOP the UFO was hovering in the sky and was spinning,
but maybe they've got only problems during the flight.

Christian

Hey, maybe their ship-board firing computer is like the one from 'The
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy' ...Eddy, the singing computer... (Attack
computer, singing during the attack ;-) ...maybe its so busy singing and
working out lyrics, it fouls up the firing routine... and the aliens don't
know what on 'earth' is going on, 'cos they can't hear because of all the
green goo... :)

Mmm... I think I'm going to go lie down in a darkened room... been working
too hard, and drunk too much coffee ;)

Best to all,

Griff

-----Original Message-----
From: Christian J. [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 12:07 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [SHADO] Re: UFO Episode Discussion -- DESTRUCTION


> Maybe the Aliens are good shots, but it's
> only when they're stationary (the crack-shot
> single alien firing at Moonbase, or the
> crashed UFO firing at the Mobile in Computer
> Affair), so maybe their firing attack computer
> can't handle the spinning and gyrating flight
> characteristics of the UFO in flight...
> it gets dizzy... ;-)

"Dizzy! You making me dizzy!"
(Attack computer, singing during the attack ;-)

One point: in AQOP the UFO was hovering in the sky and was spinning,
but maybe they've got only problems during the flight.

Christian




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

I like the different factions of aliens idea. That would explain
away a lot of inconsistancies. First off, why would one UFO know
where SHADOHQ is but not any others? In Destruction they want to
wipe out humanity. In The Long Sleep there are bombs set up to
destroy large areas. It would make sense that an off shoot faction
of aliens has broken away from the primary attack and are acting on
their own. Perhaps communication is non-existant and therfore any
data collected from one alien mission (if that UFO is destroyed)
cannot be sent to the other UFOs - hence they don't know where
SHADOHQ is.

Perhaps these two waring Alien factions are trying to go as far a
sabotage each others goals on Earth. Imagine two alien factions
battling each other for years. One side is losing the battle and
they are dying off. They need to survive by harvesting parts from
Earth. The opposing side finds out about this and attempts to
destroy their 'crops'(Earth people) in the episode Destruction and
The Long Sleep.

I know its a stretch but could have made for a fascinating twist in
future seasons of the show.

KP



--- In [hidden email], SumitonJD@a... wrote:
> I am a bit unsure of the aliens trying to wipe out the whole
of Earths
> population in Destruction. If this biological agent is that deadly
why so
> much of it? What I mean to say is it so deadly that any of it
released into the
> atmosphere would cause the death of the whole population of this
planet?
> That sounds rather like The Satan Bug in Alistair MacLean's novel
of the same
> name. What made it so deadly in the novel and the film which was
scripted by
> James Calvell was that they had not yet developed an antidote for
it. You don't
> make a germwarfare agent and not make an antidote for it. So it
they aliens
> set this thing lose there would be an antidote for it. Also the
area of effect
> would be limited to the area where it was released and where the
winds might
> carry it but it would lose effectiveness the more it was spread
out. However
> the fact it was lose and the deaths it did cause would cause a
world wide
> panic. This would most likely be the aim of the aliens to cause a
would wide
> panic. Governments would react in fear and probably everyone would
start
> pointing their fingers at each other and and co-operation would be
a thing of the
> past and this would effect SHADO. If Straker has a hard time
getting money out
> of Henderson under normal conditions think what it would be like
with the
> countries funding SHADO at each others throats.
> There is a old military saying "Divide and Conquer".
>
> James K.

--- In [hidden email], "Christian J." <memorymetropolis@w...>
wrote:
> But on the other hand, they *did* attack Moonbase in CAT WITH TEN
> LIVES (and another time in REFLECTIONS IN THE WATER) but sadly for
> them they are very lousy shooters! And that's remarkable, thinking
of
> the single Alien which was shot from high above the sky in A
> QUESTIONS OF PRIORITIES. Hm, maybe the Aliens get stage-fright
when
> they have to hit such a large object like Moonbase is? ;-)
>
> Christian

Well, maybe the alien in AQOP had some sort of homing device, that's
why it was so easy to kill. Or... didn't he leave the house with the
transmitter in his hand?

On the other hand, in this series (as well as with many others), I
have always wondered why the bad guys don't learn from their
mistakes and try again something that failed but was close to being
successful. For example, in the Psychobombs, it is obvious that
aliens can control some people's mind long distance. So why not try
it again and again, until they can get someone close to Straker and
kill him? Long term, this would had been impossible to protect
against. Maybe they could have even controlled Straker??

Also, interesting, how do you guys think the aliens were able to
collect intelligence? I mean, probably the most reliable method is
to actually have "people on the ground" talking to other people,
collecting intelligence. The aliens could not survive long enough
without their space suits, and besides they would had been easy to
recognize. So do they collect their intelligence using only ESP??

David Levine

>Hm, maybe the aliens get stagefright when they have to hit a large object
like Moonbase ;-)

Christian, it maybe that it is a lot harder to shoot something that is
shooting back!

James K.


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

You ever notice the aliens attack with only one or two
ships at a time? If they were to send, like, eight,
and hide all but three, they could hang out and wait
for the three (stock footage) SHADO attack fighters to
fire their one missle apiece. Then the other five can
come out of hiding and blow the crap out of moonbase.

Of course, that would end the show early which is no
good. Maybe they only have about 26 ships (one for
each episode).

Scott

--- [hidden email] wrote:

=====
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Hey, all!!

What's up with the comic?? It's a wee bit past late May, and I ordered it
from (and paid) my local comics shop back in February!! Has anyone heard
anything??

Cheers,
Kevin Palm

>You ever notice the aliens attack with only one or two
ships at a time?

Weren't there about 25 or something UFOs in 'Reflections in the Water'? I'm
losing my touch, I used to be able to recite these details off the top of my
head.

Jess

There's a UFO comic? Official, Gerry Anderson UFO?
What up with that?

Scott


--- Kevin Palm <[hidden email]> wrote:

=====
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>What's up with the comic?? It's a wee bit past late May, and I ordered it
from (and paid) my local comics shop back in February!! Has anyone heard
anything??


It's supposed to be coming out for the San Diego Comic convention, whenever
that is.

Jess

That's this week or weekend.

Anthony
----- Original Message -----
From: "J Ramage" <[hidden email]>
To: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 3:53 PM
Subject: Re: [SHADO] UFO #0


> >What's up with the comic?? It's a wee bit past late May, and I ordered it
> from (and paid) my local comics shop back in February!! Has anyone heard
> anything??
>
>
> It's supposed to be coming out for the San Diego Comic convention, whenever
> that is.
>
> Jess