Posted by Denise Felt on
URL: https://www.shado-forum.com/RE-crappy-UFO-eps-tp1495775p1495781.html

>Pam McCaughey" <[hidden email]>
wrote:
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" UFO was hard done by alot of its writers with poor
>consistency, bad science
>and just plain poor ideas.

Pam, You're absolutely correct. I'm a diehard UFO fan and so I have all the
episodes on VHS and plan to get them on DVD. But I'll only watch 13 out of
the 26 and even among those few, I have my favorites. The storytelling was
way too uneven and it's obvious to me (being a ST fan as well) that there
was no continuity bible to keep even little things like Straker drinking/not
drinking clear to the audience. And you really can't have mistakes like
that happening if you're trying to reach an intelligent audience. I've
heard it said that the cast replacements for the final eps also turned
people off, which it was bound to do when more than one of the show's fav
characters suddenly disappear! Just poor planning on Anderson's part. That
approach might (and I say that guardedly) work with the kiddies, but adults
want even the most far out sci-fi to make some sense. And I won't even
comment on what they did to the original format for the aliens! It simply
begs the question: where's the continuity?

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!

I agree again. UFO had tremendous potential. And what a premise! One of
the guys mentioned that he thought the premise too narrow. Are you kidding?
Aliens using humans for spare parts? One lone secret organization to
fight them off? I can immediately think of a million ideas for such a
premise. And the characters they came up with for the series added even
more opportunities. Anderson gave us *real* people waging a grim war
against impossible odds. What couldn't they have done with that show?!?!?

The main fault lay in no continuity. No continuous director, no continuous
script writer, no continuous anything! Shows that last for season after
season don't just happen. They take careful planning and organization to
appear polished before the critical public.

I think a second season of UFO would have killed the show for good and done
a lot more damage to its credibility with the fans. (Shall we compare it to
1999's second season? Enough said.) And I'm rather concerned that a second
UFO series (or even movie) might do the same thing. Face it, guys. 30
years have passed. Sci-fi isn't what it used to be. In some ways that's
good. We now have cool special effects and no ceiling on the subject matter
of the storyline. But those very things would probably be the downfall of a
series that was always so firmly based on its character development as UFO
was. A strong producer/director team might pull it off with all the finesse
of the best UFO episodes. But the odds aren't good for that happening.
(For examples of what I mean, refer to any and/or all of the recent TV show
remakes into movies.) So in the end, UFO remains strong in our memories
because its intiguing premise and its compassionate characterizations kept
our imaginations hopping. Which is also why fanfic for UFO is so prevalent
and varied!
Yours,
Denise

_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com