mcsd

Archive TV appreciation and research including blogs on Thriller and Shadows of Fear

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

@BaileyDugle88 @ScarredForLife2 It is available on DVD. Network's release has an interview with Gareth Thomas.

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

@archivetvmus71 Top right with Alfred Burke are guest stars from the 1969 Thames series of Public Eye - Tessa Wyatt on the right of the picture and - I think - Pauline Challoner on the left.

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

@rewindtvuk A rare role back in the USA for Ed Bishop who spent most of his career in the UK, most notably as the star of UFO.

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

Border TV was the joint first channel to start showing Gerry Anderson's UFO in September 1970. After a strong start though screenings became more sporadic with a few new episodes mixed with repeats. It didn't complete a first run until May 1975, almost 5 years after starting.

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

@JazWiseman This listing for Ulster TV for 20.12.73 also refers to the show as "The World of Jason King" so that title was hanging around in some places for quite some time!

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

Ulster TV did start with 17 episodes on Friday nights - missing only one week just before Xmas 1972 - and in a good broadcast slot (7.30-8.30pm). Later though it disappeared for long periods & mixed repeats with new episodes but evening time slots were better than most regions.

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

Ulster TV did not start showing UFO until Friday 29th September 1972. An overall broadcast order is impossible as most of the earlier screenings had no episode title but it it possible to identify when the "late night", "sensitive-content" episodes were first broadcast.

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

@ScarredForLife2 "Raven" is a very fine series. Jeremy Burnham and Trevor Ray also wrote "Children of the Stones" and this is just as good and deserves to be much better-known. Phil Daniels gives an excellent performance and the ending is very bold for a show in the after-school slot.

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

@RodneyMarshall1 @abnerpuddis Perhaps it's simplest to say that Adrienne Corri was actually from Blackpool - sort of... article from 1971:

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

@zoesfeatherboa @_Fanderson @GerryAndersonTV Maybe a bonus though for any young UFO fan off school! Not sure how many people would have seen the attached screening on Granada in March 1974! UFO in the 1970s it seems could appear in any time slot from morning to after midnight and on any day of the week.

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

The first broadcasts of Gerry Anderson's UFO on Grampian TV in the 1970s spanning 1971-1974. This was a difficult region to compile with the show disappearing for long periods and with repeats mixed with first broadcasts. Grampian did not start colour broadcasts until 30.9.71.

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

@_Fanderson I suspect hardly any viewer back in the 1970s saw all the episodes of UFO given the erratic scheduling and late screenings. Many will only have discovered the "sensitve content" episodes during the 1980s repeats or had to wait until the 90s or even DVD releases.

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

@ScarredForLife2 It sounds like Gary Watson on voiceover duties, often heard on PIFs and other voice work.

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

@_Fanderson For some reason I saw the "WD" postcode and thought Wakefield and then realised it must be Watford! Almost never in those days would an ITC / Gerry Anderson show have filmed far from London.

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

@GerryAndersonTV The death of the alien in "Computer Affair" after Straker insists he be injected with a drug to make him speak is very disturbing - a terrifying scream and a terrible miscalculation by Straker. The aliens are otherwise mute throughout the series.

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

@GerryAndersonTV The body of the dog in "The Sound of Silence". It's a horrifying sight and has always tainted that episode for me. It's gratuitously unpleasant and makes little narrative sense. It was a rare mis-step and otherwise the show excellently judged how to unsettle the viewer.

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

@colin_metc63751 In one episode the character of Billy refers to "being taken down the Wolves" as a child which suggests they are Wolves fans. This article by writer Nick McCarty from June 1975 mentions a few locations from his childhood but doesn't say exactly where the serial is set.

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

A small feature from June 1966 on actress Sonia Fox, then appearing in ATV's Emergency Ward 10. She later had guest roles including the UFO episode "Flight Path" before becoming best-known for her role as hairdresser Sheila Harvey in early / mid 1970s Crossroads,

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

@1919Ceepee @ScarredForLife2 The "clunk" is the sound of the car door being closed, the click of the seatbelt is the next sound (according to PIFs) the driver should hear.

[mcsd @mcsd87508259]

@GerryAndersonTV I think Henderson was a very underrated character. The biting exhanges he had with Straker in numerous episodes were always such a highlight - sometimes he seemed a more formidable foe than the aliens! Perhaps the familiar bitterness of someone who missed out on the top job.