On 8 Feb, 21:39, wdst...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(William December Starr) wrote:
> In article
<502dd38c-1022-47fe-a49d-4e161421d...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> said:
> > Oh, and the _U.F.O._ series is set in a film studio with a secret
> > base rather pointlessly underneath it. =A0The secret commander poses
> > as, / is/, the studio head, and presumably is involved with
> > scripts as well as everything else.
>
> It wasn't pointless -- it was a "hide in plain sight" operation in
> which they could move uniformed/spacesuited/whatever personnel,
> bizarre equipment, weaponry and vehicles, and even pieces of alien
> spacecraft around in the open without anyone noticing.
Hmm, is this actually explained? The ITV4 channel has just wound its
twice-weekly re-runs back to the start, so in three months' time I
should know. Although I couldn't sit through "Confetti Check A.-
O.K.", in which Commander Straker's studio is constructed over years
while his marriage disintegrates.
I think a studio that launched actual submarines and moon rockets
would be conspicuous even in far-future 1980, and it's not as though
there aren't real military sites around with a secret status. Maybe
it just seemed like a good idea to some rather overenthusiastic
security staff - apparently when they say "I could tell you but then
I'd have to kill you" it is not a joke - and of course to Gerry and
Sylvia Anderson, along with short skirts, wigs for everyone, and
driving on the right. Secret defence organisations are more fun, and
they got Avengers-style novelty locations out of it as well, very
cheaply too since, of course, they could simply use the actual studio
where they were filming the programme, as the fictional studio where
it was supposedly set.
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