Happy birthday (and a UFO picspam)

[thisbluespirit]

Happy birthday to the very lovely dimity_blue!

I hope you had a lovely day. ♥ Sorry, this ended up taking me longer to get around to posting than I planned! In the meantime, because you did think I should, here is my picspam of those two other UFO eps I watched (mostly Confetti Check A-O-K).


I realised when capping this, UFO is another ITC effort isn't it? I seem to dislike ITC things; I should probably not blame Gerry Anderson after all. (ITC shows seem to have been made with a US network and they have film, location, incidental music, all the stuff that makes them far more watchable now... but aargh. Aaargh. I'm worried I won't even like The Avengers, because that's ITC as well, isn't it? I liked The Strange Report, but that because Anthony Quayle had the same reaction to the first episode as me and set about changing things, and that helped a lot. Still, on the upside, it's all pretty and moves along. But... aargh. There's this formulaic, candy-coated... I don't even know what it is. Give me your barely-even moving BBC or Thames TV efforts or something, please. I know, there must be something terribly wrong with me. *sigh*)

Anyway, picspam! Please note, I've watched about three episodes of this. I am making everything up as I go.


Also in this episode, Freeman was still behaving suspiciously and didn't want Straker to investigate alien incidents. (He is evil. I know it.) Also, the aliens' plan involved taking over one person with ESP specifically to kill Straker.

So, basically, I don't trust these SHADO people. The alien threat is so evil that its invading forces waited ten years for Straker and co to set up SHADO. Their threats target only SHADO itself, as they're fed up with SHADO trying to kill them when they want peaceful existence and possibly to blow up a few psychics here and there. "Why are you trying to kill us?" they asked plaintively in the second ep here. The Doctor would have at least tried to negotiate with them; SHADO are ruthless. And what kind of organisation calls itself Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation, because what does that mean? Shouldn't then it really be ADO? And only villains have Supreme anythings; it's a dead giveaway.

Still, it is undeniably pretty, I have to give it that.

Comments

[justice_turtle]

*googles* ...so ATV (maker of Sapphire & Steel) is a different Not!BBC thing than ITC. That makes more sense. I was confused.

For your information, though, Supreme Headquarters may or may not have been... uh, borrowed, from Marvel Comics's superspy organization SHIELD. (Which is not villainous! Possibly the only time a Supreme anything-not-a-chocolate-sundae has been Not Villainous.) Since 1998 it's the Strategic something something Logistics Directorate, but it used to be the Supreme Headquarters something something Law-enforcement Division.

[thisbluespirit]

Aha, thanks! (It still doesn't make sense, though. The entire organisation can't be the Supreme headqaurters. They're just self-aggrandising and dodgy, SHADO. SHIELD I'm sure are okay. ;-D)

..so ATV (maker of Sapphire & Steel) is a different Not!BBC thing than ITC. That makes more sense. I was confused.

Yes. We have the BBC here, then there was ITV (independent TV), our commercial channel, but ITV is a collection of companies rather than one - mostly regional (ATV was I think - without checking - Anglia TV and was then taken over by Central, bringing about the ending of S&S and v nearly the failure to even bother showing A6, because it was made by ATV). Granada, Yorkshire, Thames TV, London Weekend TV, Southern were some of the main ones - others didn't really do much beyond local news etc.

ITC (not the Independent TV Commission, which is a different thing that monitors all our TV), I'm not sure about but I think was either a US TV company making a lot of shows over here in conjunction with ITV, or a UK-US company. They seem to have had money, enough to make the little ITV regions and BBC weep, basically and were clearly designed to be episode of the week, shown in any order and suitable for US networking. They made The Strange Report, UFO and Gideon's Way that I've seen, but lots of the big cult things - The Avengers, Dangerman, The Prisoner etc.)

As time went on we got two more independent terrestrial channels - channel 4 (which was probably connected to the Arts Council in some way and used to fund films quite a lot) and Channel 5, which is just Channel 5. Now there are lots of digital channels of all kinds, but BBC and ITV are still the dominant TV channels.

I hope that made some sort of sense and wasn't too dull. :-)

[pedanther]

In consolation, you can have an entire office that is a lift. (Yes, this is what the alien defence budget is going on.)

There's a Doctor Who tie-in novel that's set in a Gerry-Anderson-inspired future, with serial-number-deprived versions of SHADO, Captain Scarlet, the Thunderbirds, etc. all fighting against an alien menace that's a combined version of the various antagonists from those series. I haven't read it, but apparently the author took the view that it would be a pretty unpleasant future to live in, and one of the reasons is that the sheer amount of money being covertly funnelled into colour-coded rockets, secret elevators, moonbases, and purple wigs has completely screwed up the world economy...

[thisbluespirit]

Which one was it? I don't recognise it from the description, but then I wouldn't have picked up on it at the time.

[pedanther]

The Indestructible Man by Simon Messingham. (Complete with cover illustration showing Zoe in a purple wig.)

[thisbluespirit]

Ha. That is rather amusingly blatant, isn't it?

:-)

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

That's not the French minister, that's Mr Perkins from "Rentaghost".

Are the Moonbase women wearing purple wigs, or are they aliens? I have always assumed the latter, admittedly with absolutely no evidence, on the assumption that purple wigs is a bloody silly uniform. On the other hand, if they're an organisation dedicated to murdering all aliens, employing some to handle communications and planetary security probably isn't very sensible. And given that their male operatives have to wear string vests, purple wigs maybe aren't that silly after all.

Oh, "UFO". I did so want to like you. SHADO's kind of a cool name, though, I'll give you that.

[thisbluespirit]

From what I've seen, SHADO seems to be totally an organisation that would make its employees wear purple wigs. And eyeliner. And bright pink Nehru jacket type things. And, as you say, string vests. It is 1980, after all! Why not? :lol:

It does picspam wonderfully, though. I shall have to brave some more eps, and ,lj user=dimity_blue> has told me where to find some actual Wanda Ventham in it...

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

I admit I don't remember 1980 very well (I was five. I remember music, some isolated TV shows, and the lime cream from Quality Streets). But I'm sure I would remember a profusion of official types in purple wigs and string vests. Dare I suggest that they might have got things a little wrong?! ;) But then "Lost In Space" seemed to think that come 1999 we'd all be dressed in orange and green; and that's not even approaching the fashion predictions of "Galloping Galaxies!". Poor Captain Pettifer. He must have rued the day he got that promotion.

Hooray for Wanda Ventham! You sound like me watching "The Protectors", and hoping for Tony Anholt. Gerry Anderson likes to ration the good bits, apparently...

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Clearly SHADO are the evil counterpart organisation to UNIT, set up by the Torchwood Institute and like-minded blackguards in other countries. And George Sewell was in Remembrance of the Daleks, playing a wrong'un. Pretty conclusive evidence, I think you'll agree!

And the French Minister, in addition to being Mr Perkins in Rentaghost...I can't help thinking he was in Doctor Who at some point? Or in something else I've seen anyway. I can't quite think what right now, though.

[thisbluespirit]

And George Sewell was in Remembrance of the Daleks, playing a wrong'un. Pretty conclusive evidence, I think you'll agree!


I do! I think it's the only place I've seen him being sinister, either.

hasn't everyone from Rentaghost been in DW at some point... or was that just Dobbin? ;-p

[pitry.livejournal.com]

I was going to complain that there aren't enough UFOs in your UFO picspam, but then I made it to the lilac car and alllllll was forgiven!

... I want one of those :D

[thisbluespirit]

I'm sure I had a UFO last time I did one! But, to be fair to me, there was only one on screen briefly before they blew it up.

SHADO people are just mean like that. ;-P

The lilac car is amazing, isn't it? While this is, er, not a show I'm enjoying watching, the treasures unearthed while screencapping do make up for that quite a bit.

[dimity-blue.livejournal.com]

You have no idea how much I laughed my way through this. Your picspams are usually awesome and this one beats them all. It's like the supreme headquarters of awesome. ::hugs Lost Spook tightly::

Confetti Check, as far as I can see it, is the tragic tale of how Alec Freeman (George Sewell) evilly sabotaged Ed Straker (Ed Bishop)'s marriage, the villain! (I suspect it wasn't meant to be, but it is.)

I believe you. I always suspected Alec was up to no good. He's also supposed to be Straker's Best Friend, which is often an ominous thing in these series.

So, after nearly 100 years, a bottle of hair dye, and a case of reincarnation, he finally got her. Stalking pays off - eventually.

Wow...that's one patient guy.

In consolation, you can have an entire office that is a lift. (Yes, this is what the alien defence budget is going on.)

That and Ed Straker's eyeliner. The guy wears more than anyone I've ever known.

(Or maybe he's just in love with Straker, too, who knows?)

In those pictures, Alec is obviously jealous of that stepladder. "Lean on me, Ed! I'm not as pretty as your soon-to-be-ex-wife, but I have a nice suit!"

Anyway, to return to the important point, now I know why Ed Bishop and David Collings don't get on - David Collings totally nicked his pyjamas!

I don't know whether to be embarrassed or proud that I remembered Straker's pyjames that well. Shame on David Collings for stealing them though! Really, couldn't he have gone to Ethel Austen's and picked up a nice tartan pair?

I'd completely forgotten about the lilac car. What does it say about me that I remember the yellow pyjamas but not the lilac car? Maybe I need therapy.

(I was quite excited to meet the other female regular, Gay Ellis, but she was on screen for five minutes and beyond the purple wig exhibited no particular character as yet.)

IIRC, in one ep, she gets involved with one of the pilots. Naturally, it goes wrong. Everyone in SHADO has to suffer from heartbreak; it's the rule.

And only villains have Supreme anythings; it's a dead giveaway.

::nods:: Servalan was a Supreme Commander...your theory obviously has merit.

Anyway, I loved this. Every eyelinered, smouldering jealousy minute of it. Is it wrong of me to hope you'll be driven to picspam more of it?

::hugs Lost Spook tightly until she squeaks:: Thank you. ♥

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, so glad you enjoyed it!

I am absolutely convinced Freeman is evil now. His stepladder envy is quite a joy to behold; it made me grin when I was watching it.

As for the case of the stolen pyjamas, I don't think you need worry yet. I mean, my thoughts on seeing The Psychobombs (or capping it maybe) did include me thinking "Aw, bless, wee!1960s David Collings - even his pyjamas are too big for him..." And, lo, they were, they were made for someone else.

I think if I watch any more of it, it has to be picspammed. As I said before, it is proving not to be my thing, but it does repay richly in terms of amazing screencaps. And it is pretty. :-)

:lol: at me being hugged till I squeaked. (Am slightly concerned about that, too. ;-D ♥)

Hope you had a nice b'day, anyway!

[liadt]

Stepladder jealousy! It's the new trope! To 500 prompts or not..

Funny how Ed Bishop's pj's camouflaged him from the aliens (matches the panelling) and failed for David Collings. Research needs to be done.

The only lilac sports car in existence? I think the purple wigs are part of the uniform. I also like the very un-1980 chair Ed Bishop in his dressing gown is next to. They were right about men wearing eyeliner in 1980, who knew.

The Avengers isn't ITC it's ABC or ATV (I can hum you the chiming ident), same guest actors, it's easy to get confused. Randall & Hopkirk is the best ITC series. I couldn't get in to UFO either:(

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

Randall & Hopkirk is the best ITC series.

Technically this is jumping into somebody else's conversation, I know, but there is wrongness. Wrongness on the internet! The best ITC series is clearly "The Champions", because... just because I said so, really. I'm sure I've just won the world over with that flawless argument.

I hate "The Avengers". It's a ridiculous point of view, I know. Everybody else thinks it's the pinnacle of 60s TV brilliance, but I think it's rubbish. I'm right about "The Champions", though. I had the best fun screencapping that a few years ago; and they blew up everything.

[liadt]

Gar, I'm sending Mrs Gale round with her death stare! I disagree with the consensus on what the best/worst Avengers episodes are though.

The Champions needs more ghosts.

[thisbluespirit]

Stepladder jealousy is definitely a thing now. ;-)

To be fair to the non-1980 chair, the honeymoon scenes were set ten years before - so in 1970.

\o/ I am glad to hear that; I'm sure I'll like it, then. :-)