Posted by Pam McCaughey on Apr 22, 2002; 5:07pm
URL: https://www.shado-forum.com/RE-crappy-UFO-eps-tp1495775.html

As a further to my last post - I submit that poor creative integrity in
producing eps like "Reflections", "Cat with 10 Lives", "Timelash" et al is
what led to UFO's demise. The problem was, that unlike TOS, there was not a
large enough pool of GOOD eps to choose from to keep the show in syndication
and therefore provide an opportunity for a groundswell of support - like TOS
got. If you have 26 eps and half of them stink, that doesn't leave you with
much leverage to convince distributors to buy the show for what is called in
the industry "stripping" - which means an eps of the show is run either
every day at the same time, or every week at the same time on Saturdays or
Sundays. TOS had 79 eps to offer, even tho some were mindbendingly awful.
But, it could be stripped, and its later incarnations once they were in
syndication, are even better for that process because they are over 100 eps
each.

UFO was hard done by alot of its writers with poor consistency, bad science
and just plain poor ideas. When UFO was done well, as in "Sub-Smash" for
instance, the characters gelled, the miniatures and sets were convincing,
and the story rose well above the situation and gave us good entertainment
value. I think UFO's potential, not its reality, is what keeps us interested
in the show 32 yrs later!

Pam




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