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UFO - Flight Path
episode 15
UK 1971
produced by Reg Hill, Gerry Anderson (executive) for Century 21 Television, ITC
directed by Ken Turner
starring Ed Bishop, George Sewell, Peter Gordeno, Gabrielle Drake, George Cole, Sonia Fox, Keith Grenville, Maxwell Shaw, Keith Alexander, Antonia Ellis, Dolores Mantez, Georgina Moon, Jeremy Wilkin, Ayshea Brough, David Daker, Jon Kelley
screenplay by Ian Scott Stewart, created by Gerry Anderson, Sylvia Anderson, Reg Hill, visual effects by Derek Meddings, costumes by Sylvia Anderson/Century 21
TV-series UFO
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Paul Roper (George Cole), employee of the alien defense organisation
SHADO, is forced by someone (probably the aliens) to hand over certain
SHADO-data, otherwise the life of his wife Carol (Sonia Fox) is in danger.
SHADO-boss Ed Straker (Ed Bishop) and his second-in-command Alec Freeman
(George Sewell) find about this pretty soon, but unfortunately only after
the data is handed over, and they take Roper into custody. They even find
out which data it was that Roper delivered to the enemy - they just can't
make heads or tails of it. Straker is quick to figure their must be a
mole in his organisation who has set Roper up to steal the data, so they
release Roper to wait for a reaction ... and indeed, soon a UFO attacks
and almost kills Roper, while his wife is actually killed by the
SHADO-mole (Keith Grenville), but not before she takes a lethal shot at
him as well. Finally, Straker has the answer to what Roper's data meant
- it's the perfect flight path to SHADO's moonbase, during sunspot
activities that make all sorts of radar useless,a nd during lunar sunrise
so the UFO cannot be seen as such, either. The only defense to this would
be a lone gunman with a missile launcher to pick the UFO out of the skies
- but that would be a suicide mission ... and it's of course exactly the
mission Roper has waited for to redeem himself. In the end, he dies saving
the moonbase ...
It's the same with this episode as it is with a lot of UFO-episodes:
You will want to see this one for its great special and miniature effects
that look so much better than most done in its time (or even nowadays),
and there's a solid cast to outbalance the purely technical advantages of
the show ... but then there's the story that's less than great, features
quite a few plotholes and doesn't make perfect sense. But you know, with UFO
the individual stories were always a bit besides the point, besides the
effects and the cast, it was the overall atmosphere of mystery and menace
that carried the show - and beautifully so.
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