My Own Private Reset . . . .

 And . . . I’m back!

Sometimes—as we all know—things don’t go as planned, this blog, for example. Until serious health issues happened, I had a lot of big plans . . . I still do but there’s a lot of catching up to do. Like my series of articles about the TV series produced in the 1970s; with Hallowe’en over 80-plus days away, expect some paranormal-themed articles and a look at the first cinematic universe, the Universal horror films. I’ll also write about paranormal podcasts I’ve been following on YouTube—there a lot of problematic even outright offensive and bad podcasts and a few good ones.

There are a lot of major genre news too. The first four episodes of Stranger Things’ fifth and final season drops on Wednesday, 26 November; the second set of episodes will hit Netflix on Xmas Eve and the last feature-length episode debuts on New Year's Eve.

December will also see Fallout’s second series dropping on Amazon Prime—now date hasn’t been released yet. This season, we’ll find Lucy, the Ghoul (aka Cooper Howard), Dogmeat and Brotherhood of Steel Knight Maximus in the quasi-civilized New Vegas. According to production photos, the New Vegas sets look great and we’ve seen NCR troopers and Rangers, salvaged NCR powered armor, Securitron robots, Deathclaws and Caesar’s Legion. In interviews, the cast have said “a lot of wild shit” happens and I’m looking to see how both character arcs and their dynamics will change.

I’m hoping all the episodes will drop at once—it worked well last season and I think they will repeat the same strategy.

So.

Will we see Felicia Day as BoS scribe, Veronica and Danny Trejo as Ghoul gunslinger, Raul Tejada? In the game, Wayne Newton voiced the AI called Mr. New Vegas and will he do it again? Actor Michael Hogan played Doc Mitchell but Hogan’s had debilitating health problems and, sadly, Matthew Perry passed a few years back—no Benny, not even flashbacks unless the character is recast. MAGAt bootlicker and actor Zacharay Levi’s Arcade Gannon might be re-casted . . . by Macaulay Culkin. I’m fine with it.

Well, that’s it for now.

I hope you all will be checking out the website and I’m looking forward to your comments.

Be seeing you!

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The SF/F TV Series Renaissance of the 1970s: UFO

This week in 1970, the cult classic TV series, UFO, debuted. It became popular in both the UK and the United States and a second series (season, here in the States) was planned but it later became Space: 1999.

UFO was the first live-action series created and produced by Gerry Anderson (Fireball-XL5, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlett). It was dark at times, downbeat; innocent, unaware civilians got caught in the crossfire and paid a terrible price—it was, after all, about a secret organization fighting an invasion of organ-harvesting aliens.

Instead of The X-Files saying “Trust no one,” UFO said “Trust us.”

From Wikipedia:

The series’ premise is that in 1980, Earth is being visited by aliens from a dying planet, who are abducting humans and harvesting their organs for their own bodies. The alien incursions may also be a prelude to a possible full-scale invasion. The series' main cast of characters are the staff of a secret, high-technology international military agency called SHADO (an acronym for Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization) established by the governments of the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, France and Germany (believed to be West Germany as the city of Bonn is mentioned along with Washington, Paris and Moscow) to defend Earth and humanity against the mysterious aliens and learn more about them, while at the same time keeping the threat of an alien invasion hidden from the public.

Operating under the cover—as well as literally beneath the premises—of the Harlington-Straker Studios movie studio in England, SHADO is headed by Commander Edward Straker (Ed Bishop), a former United States Air Force colonel and astronaut, whose "cover" is his role as the studio's chief executive.

SHADO has a variety of high-tech hardware and vehicles at its disposal to implement a layered defense of Earth. Early warnings of alien attack came from SID, the Space Intruder Detector, an unmanned computerized tracking satellite that constantly scans for UFO incursions. The forward line of defense is Moonbase from which the three lunar Interceptor spacecraft, that fire a single explosive warhead, are launched. The second line of defense includes Skydiver, a submarine mated with the submersible, undersea-launched Sky One interceptor aircraft, which attacks UFOs in Earth's atmosphere. The last line of defense is ground units including the armed, IFV-like SHADO Mobiles, fitted with caterpillar tracks.

On Earth, SHADO also uses two SHADAIR aircraft, a Seagull X-ray supersonic jet; a transatlantic Lunar Carrier with a separating Lunar Module; a helicopter (actually, a small VTOL airplane with large rotating propellers; and a radio-controlled Space Dumper. The Moonbase has hovercraft-like Moon Hoppers/Moon mobiles that can be deployed for transportation or reconnaissance.

The alien race is never given a proper name, either by themselves or by human beings; they are simply referred to as "the aliens". They are humanoid in appearance, and the post-mortem examination of the first alien captured reveals that they are harvesting organs from the bodies of abducted humans to prolong their lifespans. However, the later episode “The Cat with Ten Lives” suggests that these "humanoids" are actually beings subject to alien mind control, and one “alien” body recovered was suspected of being completely Homo sapiens, "possessed" by one of the alien minds.

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In UFO, characters bickered and, at times, it was apparent they didn’t like each other. There was rarely any lighthearted fare or snappy, witty banter like the relationship between Kirk, Spock and McCoy; the storylines were also played straight and serious. Despite not being Star Trek or Lost in Space, UFO was a dark, moody and somber alternative to contemporary SF series—and I think that’s what people loved, and still love, about it. Again, the series is set in 1980 but the fashions including the Nehru jackets—that could be cringy but the rest of the series is still engaging. The opening theme by longtime Anderson associate, Barry Gray, is still amazing after these years. The special effects. The cast of British, American and Canadian actors were great—one of them, Wanda Ventham, who was Col. Virgina Lake, is more famously known as Benedict Cumberbatch’s mother.

It was different. Fresh. New. It’s easy to see why UFO has had a major impact on the genre and fandom for the last fifty-plus years; you can watch online and DVDs are available—yes, I have the complete series set. You can find the series here: 

The series is, yes, dated. I’m certain some will be upset by some of the sexism but, hey, it was 1970. No reason to get one’s knickers in a bunch. Cheesy yes but, as I’ve mentioned begore, it’s dark, paranoid and not a plucky comedic sidekick in sight.

UFO, in my opinion, was the first of the 1970s’ renaissance of SF series. It had a big impact on me as I a kid and I still love revisiting it over the years.

Watch and enjoy.

Be seeing you.

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