THE COMPUTER AFFAIR (1)

Hi Marc!
Hi All!

As promised I watched the episode last night and here is my opinion.
(To make the mail not too big I split it into two parts - sorry, but
I mentioned so many things {{:-)

"Computer Affair" - well, it seems to have all for me what I like
(Straker, Freeman, Ellis, Moonbase and Interceptors, UFO battling
Mobiles) but sadly it's too illogical to have a ball with it. And
it's like a second introduction episode, IMO. So, what did I
notice:

* I like the great shots of the Lunar Module (especially when landing
on Moonbase)!

* Hey, Mark Bradley plays 3-D chess (like Spock and Kirk in "Star
Trek"). Does anyone know whether this game really excist?

* Instead of moving immediatly to the main hull (after the announcing
of the alert) Lt. Ellis hands over the helmet to Bradley wishing him
"Good luck, Mark!". That's more the behaviour of a schoolgirl in
love rather then a Moonbase Commander, isn't it? ;-)

* Hey! Lew Waterman is flying one of the Interceptors who became
later the Captain of Skydiver (Waterman, not the Interceptor :) Maybe
because of this accident...? ;-)

* When the Interceptors launch you can watch the second Interceptor
lift off but not moving forward (like the first one did). Instead he
seems to wobble a little bit in the air... er ... sorry: in space :-)

* SID: "Predict Interceptors in range: 51 seconds."
Why fiftyONE seconds? Why not 50 seconds? After all it is only a
predict. And when you say 51 seconds one second is allready over
anyway... Am I too much nit-picking? 8-

* No wonder why the Interceptor missiles miss the UFO: after the
above mentioned statement from SID, the pilots launches the missiles
about 8 seconds later - so they are more then 40 seconds out of range!

* Same explosions shot as in "Identified" (fade in, fade out, fade
in, etc.)

* The UFO changes it's sound after the missile attack - maybe to
make the situation more dangerous - or the UFO more sinister }}:->
(shudder...)

* SID announces that the UFO will collide with the Interceptors after
14 seconds (sic!). But after 14 seconds the pilot of Interceptor 3
just receives the instructions for altering course and the UFO hit
the remaining Interceptor after 31 seconds! Perhaps SID wasn't
adjusted right yet? ;-)

* Oh, no! That's hard to believe! The UFO crashes into the
Interceptor with a big bang and the Interceptor is totally destroyed
but the UFO NOT? Naaahhh.... can't buy that, guys. And don't
tell me about some kind of Force shields (where is that when the UFOs
were hit by the various missiles?) - this is not "Star Trek" :-)
BTW that's the main reason why this episode doesn't work for
me.

* Cool! There are a lot of shots of flying aircrafts. And best of all
- it's like switching to some UFO episodes:

The Sky 1 launch from "Identified";
The spaceship from "Conflict";
The Tracker Station from "Close-Up" (which will be later destroyed in
"Psychobombs");
SHADAIR from "Identified" (complete with Shane Rimmer as Bill, the co-
pilot of Freeman in this ep);
The aircraft from "Exposed" (perhaps Dr. Jackson is in it? :-)
and finally the Mobile transporter from "A Question of Priorities".

* Bradley wants the complete responsibility for what happened. Sorry
Mark (Bradley, not you, Mr Martin :-) but you were sitting in an
Interceptor and not able to give commands - this time you GOT the
orders, not GIVE them. That part was given to Lt. Ellis. (Straker
knows that fact too. Therefore his "Very gallant!" and "Very brave
gesture!")

* Did I say that I love the net-shirts 8-) They look really cool!

(to be continued...)

CU Christian

[hidden email] wrote:

> * SID: "Predict Interceptors in range: 51 seconds."
> Why fiftyONE seconds? Why not 50 seconds? After all it is only a
> predict. And when you say 51 seconds one second is allready over
> anyway... Am I too much nit-picking? 8-
>

SID is a computer .. he's not going to say "in range in a minute
or so. Maybe a bit less, not sure". If 51 seconds is more
likely than 50 seconds then it's surely better not to round it
up for its own sake!

James

[hidden email] wrote:

> * Hey, Mark Bradley plays 3-D chess (like Spock and Kirk in "Star
> Trek"). Does anyone know whether this game really excist?

I've seen it in stores. That was years ago, before I had ever seen UFO
and knew the significance, or I would have bought it. Haven't seen it
lately.

> * Hey! Lew Waterman is flying one of the Interceptors who became
> later the Captain of Skydiver (Waterman, not the Interceptor :) Maybe
> because of this accident...? ;-)

I think they all rotated jobs regularly ...

<<
* At the end we learn that "had normally procedures had followed we
would have lost all three Interceptors". Considering how long it has
taken to save two of them with THIS decision, how much time must
"normal procedure" cost! (And I always thought normal procedure is to
order "Break up the formation!" or something like that...)
>>

Well, I had a problem with the "procedures" too .... Why could the
damned pilot not just move out of the way without needing specific
orders to do so? That made no sense ......

Thanks, Christian!

-- Y


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[hidden email] wrote:-
> * No wonder why the Interceptor missiles miss the UFO: after the
> above mentioned statement from SID, the pilots launches the missiles
> about 8 seconds later - so they are more then 40 seconds out of range!

> * SID announces that the UFO will collide with the Interceptors after
> 14 seconds (sic!). But after 14 seconds the pilot of Interceptor 3
> just receives the instructions for altering course and the UFO hit
> the remaining Interceptor after 31 seconds! Perhaps SID wasn't
> adjusted right yet? ;-)

Time in the story does not necessarily follow exactly y=x+b the real time as
the viewer sees it.

> * Oh, no! That's hard to believe! The UFO crashes into the
> Interceptor with a big bang and the Interceptor is totally destroyed
> but the UFO NOT? Naaahhh.... can't buy that, guys. And don't
> tell me about some kind of Force shields (where is that when the UFOs
> were hit by the various missiles?) - this is not "Star Trek" :-)

Perhaps the UFO's do have a shield somewhat as in Star Trek, and they need it
for protection against space junk, and one thing that it took SHADO ten years
to do was how to make their missiles get through that shielding.

> * Bradley wants the complete responsibility for what happened. Sorry
> Mark (Bradley, not you, Mr Martin :-) but you were sitting in an
> Interceptor and not able to give commands - this time you GOT the
> orders, not GIVE them.

Bradley wasn't a robot. Often the man on site has to decide things for himself
in that sort of urgency and emergency.

Christian wrote:

>* Instead of moving immediatly to the main hull (after the announcing
>of the alert) Lt. Ellis hands over the helmet to Bradley wishing him
>"Good luck, Mark!". That's more the behaviour of a schoolgirl in
>love rather then a Moonbase Commander, isn't it? ;-)

Yeah, watching the ep again that really stood out to me too. No wonder
Freeman was concerned about human factors.

>* SID: "Predict Interceptors in range: 51 seconds."
>Why fiftyONE seconds? Why not 50 seconds? After all it is only a
>predict. And when you say 51 seconds one second is allready over
>anyway... Am I too much nit-picking? 8-

I've been wondering about that too. In lots of eps. SID or Gay say "in 8.3
seconds" etc but the time to say it is seconds long, so the precision seems
silly.

Also recently in another ep (can't remember which one) Gay makes a comment
denegrating computers, maybe a flow-on effect from this ep!

>Second episode, and Freeman wants to leave SHADO because of a
different opinion about computer decisions.... no, don't works
for me either.

I thought that alluded to lots of earlier working together- eg all the
years of building shado. maybe Alec was getting fed up. i thot it was a
good strong piece.

John D'Alton catching up on 3 months of only lurking.

Christian -- another set of great comments!

>* SID: "Predict Interceptors in range: 51 seconds."
>Why fiftyONE seconds? Why not 50 seconds? After all it is only a
>predict. And when you say 51 seconds one second is allready over
>anyway...

It's even worse than that -- in some episode, you hear the
Interceptor pilots saying something like "in range in 10 decimal 3
seconds". Certainly in the time it takes to say "decimal 3", another
2 seconds have gone by! That has always annoyed me...

>* Oh, no! That's hard to believe! The UFO crashes into the
>Interceptor with a big bang and the Interceptor is totally destroyed
>but the UFO NOT? Naaahhh.... can't buy that, guys

That's a good point, although for some reason this has never bothered
me... that clear "bubble" around the UFO always seemed like a force
field, although I guess that doesn't explain why Sky One is able to
shoot them down...

>* What's the size of a UFO? When it lands it looks very small
>measured on the trees, rather like a one man craft - and this man has
>to sit too! (Or are the trees in Canada so big?)

We previously had a very long discussion about the size of the UFO.

--- Marc Martin wrote:
> Christian -- another set of great comments!
>

Thanks, Marc!
And I have to say it is really great that so much people on this list
join your episode-of-the-two-weeks-discussion (some of them are
coming out of the lurk mode - Hello to you! And a special Hello to
Ineke! :-D )

> >* Again, what are the UFOs firing with? Some sort of light weapon
> >(like a Laser)? In fact that couldn't be, could it? You can
> >clearly watch the beam coming out of the UFO and moving toward the
> >target.
>
> Well, that's the same as most any other sci-fi movie or series. It
> just looks "wrong" if the beam is instantaneous. Just like it
> sounds "wrong" if there's no sound in space... :-)
>

Absolutely right! It just looks better watching the beam coming
out of the UFO - this is one of my favourite scenes, although it's
actually wrong (but I think that's like with a partnership: your
partner has a lot of attributes you love him/her for and (a) few you
don't like so much, but the good ones predominate, so you are willing
to ignore the not-so-good-ones easily. Real love is stronger after
all. So *I* can live with *my* series :-)

> >* The wine Mark and Ellis are drinking is from 1984 (so says Mark).
>
> That one's just a blooper -- when UFO was in pre-production, it was
> thought that the series would be taking place in the mid 1980's,
> not 1980. Someone forgot to adjust the script there...
>

Oh, I didn't know this. (Or didn't I remember it anymore?) Thanks,
Marc!

CU Christian
(Just a moment - Marc praised my comments? Uuuuuuhhh... KERPLOP!!)

At 09:37 AM 1/31/01 -0700, you wrote:

>>* The wine Mark and Ellis are drinking is from 1984 (so says Mark).
>
>That one's just a blooper -- when UFO was in pre-production, it was
>thought that the series would be taking place in the mid 1980's, not
>1980. Someone forgot to adjust the script there...

Ohhhh, I always thought it was a bottle brought back by a UFO travelling in
time, that was shot down by Straker in one of his timelashes ;-)

John D'Alton

Christian wrote:


>Marc wrote
> > Well, that's the same as most any other sci-fi movie or series. It
> > just looks "wrong" if the beam is instantaneous. Just like it
> > sounds "wrong" if there's no sound in space... :-)
> >
>
> Absolutely right!

I agree, but I think it's because we've been conditioned by the various
filmmakers (and seriesmakers) over the years. One expects sounds because
one is used to hearing them in certain circumstances, sometimes this is
quite ridiculous. Like in fist fights, one gets those noises whenever a
character in the movie (or series) is hit - which I'm sure are not heard
when people are really fighting. (Never seen 2 people fight in real life,
so I can't really tell for sure...)
Also the visual gets tied to the audio, one sees an explosion and expects
to hear it, even when one really wouldn't, like in space. One wonders who
started making noises in space? The Star Trek makers? And strictly
speaking, one wouldn't see said explosion either, so without both the sound
and the visual one wouldn't know there was an explosion, which would make
sci-fi series and films which take place in space pretty bleak, right :-)

CU

Lieve



Col. Lieve Peten, Commander MarsBase - Mailto:[hidden email]

"That's what life is all about, I guess - The things we never say."
Cmdr. Ed Straker, UFO Series, Subsmash episode.

SHADO/UFO pages : http://shado.simplenet.com/aspects
MarsBase/UFO: http://shado.iwarp.com

One sound that stuck with me through the years was the noise made by one of
my school friends privates as another of my school friends delivered an
almighty boot there. Sounded like a crisp packet being stepped on <shudder>.
Had to laugh during Thunderbirds the other day as an chap get blown off into
space and it sounded like a UFO was going to get him!
Grant


-<snip>
quite ridiculous. Like in fist fights, one gets those noises whenever a
character in the movie (or series) is hit - which I'm sure are not heard
when people are really fighting. (Never seen 2 people fight in real life,
so I can't really tell for sure...)
Also the visual gets tied to the audio, one sees an explosion and expects
-<snip>


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

--- Lieve wrote:
> One wonders who started making noises in space? The Star Trek
> makers?

No, no. "Star Trek" was created in the sixties and you can watch a
lot of movies and series from the fifties (and sooner) in which in
space ANYONE can hear you scream (to quote the "Alien" advert the
other way round :-) And they all KNEW the fact that in space no one
can hear you scr.... y'knowhattamean ;-)

> And strictly speaking, one wouldn't see said explosion either, so
> without both the sound and the visual one wouldn't know there was
> an explosion, which would make sci-fi series and films which take
> place in space pretty bleak, right :-)

Right.

CU Christian

[hidden email] wrote:

Okay, I'm confused. So, sound doesn't travel in a vacuum, but light does
- why wouldn't you see an explosion? We see stars exploding, don't we?

-- Y, scratching her head.

[hidden email] wrote:

> > And strictly speaking, one wouldn't see said explosion either, so
> > without both the sound and the visual one wouldn't know there was
> > an explosion, which would make sci-fi series and films which take
> > place in space pretty bleak, right :-)
>
> Right.
>


I think 'wrong' actually on the latter point :)
- no reason an explosion wouldn't be visible in space, providing
the appropriate explosive materials are present.

James