SURVIVAL

Hi All!

Late am I, but in the nick of time :-)

SURVIVAL is one of my beloved eps. In Germany it is called DIE
BEGEGNUNG (The Encounter). I like the atmosphere on the Moon very
much (nice pun :-). There is so much said about this episode yet,
some of them I noticed too.

* The Aliens are not very practical: flying all the long way for one
small shot at the Moonbase. If I were the Alien sniper, I'd have
shot lots of holes into Moonbase }}:->

* As some of our ladies mentioned, Foster has the wind blowing into
his face and the dead Bill is gulping and breathing!

* The burial scene is always missing in the german version :-(

* Here an interesting announcement: Foster says at the burial that
the astronaut was killed at April 12th 1981.

* Hey! Foster is driving Ed's car, too! Straker obviously
hasn't learned much of the Roper accident. (Or nobody told Foster
how Roper was treated by Straker in FLIGHT PATH after he has damaged
the car :-)) Or Foster was told but has the guts to borrow it though.)

* Aah! Tina Duvall plays "My life ain't easy" performed by the
Equals.

* Straker to Foster: "As Moonbase Commander your place is on the
Controlsphere!" That's right. But Straker is sometimes also in
combat instead of sitting in SHADO HQ or on Moonbase. See REFLECTIONS
IN THE WATER for an example.

* The Alien has a long way to go. The Moonmobiles need a large amount
of time to reach the UFO. Even the Interceptors need more then four
minutes to arrive into the area where the UFO has landed!

* Now, let us take a closer looook: there are these four guys in
their spacesuits - Foster, Bradley, Brad and Don. Two of them wearing
helmets with a pattern (like Bradley) and the other two without a
pattern (one of them is Foster). In one scene you can see Foster
talking to Bradley and Brad which are wearing both the helmet with
pattern, than a cut to another angle were you can see Foster, Bradley
and Don - but suddenly Don is wearing a patterned helmet too!

* Wow! What effetive weapons the saucers have! What a bang! 8-) That
gave really big explosions! Luckily for the astronauts the Aliens
shoot into the wrong direction... And in on scene the UFO is shooting
two times, into two different directions, but there is only one
explosion.

* This time when Straker gave the yellow alert, the pilots are not
ready in their Interceptors on the Moon surface (compare it with
MINDBENDER).

* Straker orders the pilots to hold their fire until he'll give
the word. Of what use is that order? After all Straker is not able to
see what's happen far away on the Moon.

* After the fall Foster is calling for Mark, which fails. I always
wondered why he didn't try to adjust his receiver (therefore he
would recognise the damage).

* This time the Interceptors don't need any missile co-ordinates
for the attack, they shoot on sight (and not bad :-)

* When Bradley & Co headed back to the remaining Mobile,
shouldn't they pass Foster on their way? I can't imagine that
he has used another path to the Mobiles than Bradley.

* The Moon gravity is 1/6 of the Earth gravity. So Foster should have
less troubles to walk...

* Now Freeman is driving Straker's car! Oh... I give up.... :-)

* Racism is burned out five years ago, stated Straker. This must be
since 1976. Some hope!

* Gito Santana is great as the sinister/friendly Alien! :-D

* How was the Alien able to fix the rope on both sides of the abyss?
And yes, when the rope is pulled out from the rock and Foster
releases it, the rope swings again like it was stretched.

* The pilot of the Moonmobile can NOT see Foster from his point of
view, that's impossible! (BTW, the interior of the Moonmobile
looks indeed like the interior of the Mobiles on the Earth.)

* I like the tragical ending of this ep, although I know that was
done this way because of the "Bible" - no surviving Aliens at the
end. And no closer contacts.

I am off next week, so I will propably not able to read the
letters. Therefore have all a good chat about episodes and UFO :-D

CU Christian

[hidden email] wrote:
> Hi All!

>
> * The Aliens are not very practical: flying all the long way
> for one small shot at the Moonbase. If I were the Alien sniper,
> I'd have shot lots of holes into Moonbase }}:->
>
>

I've made essentially the same point too, but after thinking
about it - perhaps the alien is stranded on the Moon for
some reason. Perhaps he ran out of fuel and he's short
of ammunition. Or perhaps he just lost his bottle after
firing the first round and decided to leg it.


>
> * Hey! Foster is driving Ed's car, too! Straker obviously
> hasn't learned much of the Roper accident. (Or nobody told
> Foster how Roper was treated by Straker in FLIGHT PATH after
> he has damaged the car :-)) Or Foster was told but has the
> guts to borrow it though.)
>

You know - maybe Roper *isn't* driving Ed's car in Flight Path.
Maybe in UFOworld 1980, Ford Escorts look like that, and gold
is the most popular colour :)


> * I like the tragical ending of this ep, although I know that
> was done this way because of the "Bible" - no surviving Aliens
> at the end. And no closer contacts.
>

Although it may conform to the guidelines represented in
the 'Bible', nonetheless it is a very powerful ending and I
suspect it was intended that way in any case - when I think
of Survival, I always remember talking about it the day
after seeing it, at the age of 10, back in 1971, at school.
A few of my friends were also UFO fans, and we were all
quite disturbed by the cold-blooded killing of the alien at
the end. In fact even now, at the age of 40 I still feel
very uncomfortable watching that scene. I still find it
really sad and disturbing.

James

> ... we were all
> quite disturbed by the cold-blooded killing of the alien at
> the end. In fact even now, at the age of 40 I still feel
> very uncomfortable watching that scene. I still find it
> really sad and disturbing.

That is where I tend to resort to imagining a different ending, where Foster guesses
in time what will happen, and stands in front of the alien shielding him; or continues
to let the alien walk with him supporting him, stopping the SHADO men from getting
a clean shot.

Hi all,

Okay, our 2 weeks for discussing the UFO episode SURVIVAL has come &
gone, so it's now time to move onto our next episode -- THE DALOTEK AFFAIR!
So anyone who's got the time to watch and/or comment on this episode,
please do!

--
Marc Martin, [hidden email]

Hi Marc and all - the Dalotek Affair stood out in my adolescent mind due to
the mushy romance between Foster and Jane, but it was an interesting eps. I
do remember some of the lines about going to an Italian restaurant where all
the cooking was done by a fat Italian mama, and how the hell were they going
to spoon fetuccinie through quarter inch space visors!

Pam (who hasn't seen the ep in 30 yrs)

--- In SHADO@y..., "Pam McCaughey" <editor@a...> wrote:
> Hi Marc and all - the Dalotek Affair stood out in my adolescent
> mind due to the mushy romance between Foster and Jane, but it
> was an interesting eps. I do remember some of the lines about
> going to an Italian restaurant where all the cooking was done by
> a fat Italian mama, and how the hell were they going to spoon
> fetuccinie through quarter inch space visors!

Ah yes, the stuff of pre-pubescent fantasies.

Not the best episode but still one of my favorites for just that
reason. <kerplop!>

Where was I? Oh yes. Foster with those sideburns (he don't neeeeed no
steenking wig!!). That look he gives to Jane Carson as she drifts off
to la la land (to the tune of Stingray's 'Pacifica' theme).

Tracy Reed, forever entrenched in my mind as 'Miss Scott' from Dr.
Strangelove. How in the world could he stand to kiss her? (like
licking and ashtray) Yes I know, Everybody smoked back then. I don't
think I could kiss anybody if I were there.

Straker: A private corporation has no business on the moon!!
(hee hee!)

Foster: How does that old song go? Love's more beautiful the second
time around, just as wonderful with both feet on the ground.....

OK down to the nitpicks:

The UFOs spin in opposite directions when they cross the screen in the
opposite direction (An obvious reversal of the same piece of film).
The UFO's drop the same meteorite in each pass also.

Why didn't the lunar module pilot switch back to manual the moment he
lost contact? His status screen went to garbage the moment contact was
lost. That would be good enough reason for me to switch to manual if I
were the pilot.

The whole bit with Dr Stranges seemed completely superfluous. (After
all it was Dalotek's Tanner who discovered the alien jamming device)
Did they need to fill up time or something?

WHen SHADO destroys the jamming device, they advise Dalotek to brace
for explosive decompression (from debris). Seems like they would have
had time to depressurize the base first.

Not too many other nitpicks. Less than most. Still a favorite.

ttfn
Teresa

Pam McCaughey" wrote:

> Pam (who hasn't seen the ep in 30 yrs)

Pam,
I have a copy of Dalotek Affair on NTSC VHS. If you are interested I
could make a copy for you at cost. Better yet, I would be interested
in trading for any episodes you may have that I don't.

So far I have about half the series:

Flight Path
Exposed
Conflict
Survival
The Dalotek Affair
Confetti Check A-OK
Sub Smash
The Responsibility Seat
Mindbender
Timelash
The Long Sleep
Ordeal (on order)
The Square Triangle (on order)

I am particularly interested in finding the following:
Identified
Computer Affair
Reflections in the Water
Kill Straker!
The Man who Came Back

Anyone else interested in trading?

ttfn
Teresa