A
British science fiction TV series created in
1970 by
Gerry
Anderson, about a secret organization, called
SHADO, which defends the
Earth from
Alien invaders. Only the first
season was produced, with
a total of 26
episodes.
Ten years into (their) future (1980), the military discovered
that aliens were coming to Earth and kidnapping people. SHADO
(Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence
Organisation) is created to put a stop to it. SHADO's main
headquarters are hidden beneath a film studio in London. SHADO also
has a Moon Base (called just "Moonbase"), a fleet of submarines
called "Skydiver", orbiting satellites to detect the UFOs (called
SID, or Space Intruder Detector), fighter like space
interceptors, and a fighter plane ("Sky One") that is launched from
Skydiver.
Some curious things about the show:
- All women on MoonBase had to wear purple wigs. It was part of
their uniform. Sylvia Anderson, the show's co-creator, decided that some
day wigs would become part of the uniform. Remember that this was in the
early 70's! Wigs used to be very popular.
- Ed Bishop had dark hair, but his character, Col. Straker had
blond hair. The actor bleached his hair on the first episodes, but then
decided that it would end up damaging his hair. He also wore a wig.
- Several other actors had to wear wigs. This could well be called
"UFO, the series of wigs!". :)
- The private life of Col. Straker had a important role in the series.
This is very common now (X-files), but it wasn't at that time.
- In UFO's version of 1980, English cars have the steering wheel
on the left side. They believed, back in 1970, that in ten years or so
England would reverse their current "inverted" driving system.