I know I've gone over this before, but... MY GOD, is this episode's writing contrived!
First of all, we have no idea why or how Paul Roper was being blackmailed. Only when he refused to help does the enemy party threaten his wife. At which point, he agrees to help, he doesn't call the cops, and after a psychological "de-briefing" where's it very clear something's wrong with the guy, he runs into Alec who invites him out for a drink, and he puts him off.
I don't know about the earlier bit, but the moment he ran into Alec, he should have smiled, said, "SURE! How about RIGHT NOW?" And then, en route to a bar, when they were completely alone, he could have told Alec exactly what was going on, and suggested they tell Ed Straker to see what he thinks. And in the process, they could have put guards on his wife, immediately.
I mean, it's like every single thing in this episode goes wrong, only because the writer wants it to. As The Critical Drinker would say, "It happens because the script needs it to." Hey, I know bad writing when I see it!
The one bit of forward momentum we have here is when Carlin blows the UFO to bits on his first shot. The 2 previous episodes, the UFO was damaged and landed. Here, it's toast. Clearly, his aim's improving. (On the other hand, we never saw how this UFO made it to Earth, so Moonbase is still screwing up terribly.)
After his car is attacked, damaged and a gas station is blown to bits, it's miraculous that Roper is still alive, let alone in shape to then go back to the Moon and set out, on foot, to shoot down the UFO they believe is about to attack Moonbase. WHAT THE HELL was Straker doing, sending him out onto the surface, all by himself? Two or more men could have fired twice as many shots, and if one of them got injured (as he did) their chance of survival would have increased. Since they were shown to be such good friends, I'd say Alec should have volunteered to go with him. And once they took out the UFO, then they could have gone for that drink. That's how I'D have written it!
Instead, they don't send anyone to protect his wife until it's too late, and he goes on this seeming suicide mission not even knowing she's already dead. The only one seemingly upset about it is Gaye.
It also drives me crazy how his wife shot the intruder with a shotgun, killing him... but not until after she dropped the shotgun, and then just stood there in so much terror, that he had time to crawl across the floor, grab his gun, and kill HER. I mean, she not only had a shotgun, she had plenty of time to grab the gun off the floor, or at least kick it out of the intruder's reach. This is just pathetic.
It's episodes like this that probably killed the series before it ever got on the air. I mean, I can almost sort of understand why this was held back from 3rd to 15th... but running this so completely out of order just killed any later momentum there might have been. At least this early, you could see SHADO was barely getting their act together. It's miraculous they got better as they went, if they started out this incompetent.
Also bizarre... this 3rd episode has a character named Paul Roper who gets killed out on the Moon surface. The next episode filmed has a character named Paul Foster almost get killed out on the Moon's surface. Did UFO, like the Hammer Dracula films, have a shortage of character names, to have 2 guys in a row both named Paul? (I think there were 3 different Pauls in the Dracula films.)
First of all, we have no idea why or how Paul Roper was being blackmailed. Only when he refused to help does the enemy party threaten his wife. At which point, he agrees to help, he doesn't call the cops, and after a psychological "de-briefing" where's it very clear something's wrong with the guy, he runs into Alec who invites him out for a drink, and he puts him off.
I don't know about the earlier bit, but the moment he ran into Alec, he should have smiled, said, "SURE! How about RIGHT NOW?" And then, en route to a bar, when they were completely alone, he could have told Alec exactly what was going on, and suggested they tell Ed Straker to see what he thinks. And in the process, they could have put guards on his wife, immediately.
I mean, it's like every single thing in this episode goes wrong, only because the writer wants it to. As The Critical Drinker would say, "It happens because the script needs it to." Hey, I know bad writing when I see it!
The one bit of forward momentum we have here is when Carlin blows the UFO to bits on his first shot. The 2 previous episodes, the UFO was damaged and landed. Here, it's toast. Clearly, his aim's improving. (On the other hand, we never saw how this UFO made it to Earth, so Moonbase is still screwing up terribly.)
After his car is attacked, damaged and a gas station is blown to bits, it's miraculous that Roper is still alive, let alone in shape to then go back to the Moon and set out, on foot, to shoot down the UFO they believe is about to attack Moonbase. WHAT THE HELL was Straker doing, sending him out onto the surface, all by himself? Two or more men could have fired twice as many shots, and if one of them got injured (as he did) their chance of survival would have increased. Since they were shown to be such good friends, I'd say Alec should have volunteered to go with him. And once they took out the UFO, then they could have gone for that drink. That's how I'D have written it!
Instead, they don't send anyone to protect his wife until it's too late, and he goes on this seeming suicide mission not even knowing she's already dead. The only one seemingly upset about it is Gaye.
It also drives me crazy how his wife shot the intruder with a shotgun, killing him... but not until after she dropped the shotgun, and then just stood there in so much terror, that he had time to crawl across the floor, grab his gun, and kill HER. I mean, she not only had a shotgun, she had plenty of time to grab the gun off the floor, or at least kick it out of the intruder's reach. This is just pathetic.
It's episodes like this that probably killed the series before it ever got on the air. I mean, I can almost sort of understand why this was held back from 3rd to 15th... but running this so completely out of order just killed any later momentum there might have been. At least this early, you could see SHADO was barely getting their act together. It's miraculous they got better as they went, if they started out this incompetent.
Also bizarre... this 3rd episode has a character named Paul Roper who gets killed out on the Moon surface. The next episode filmed has a character named Paul Foster almost get killed out on the Moon's surface. Did UFO, like the Hammer Dracula films, have a shortage of character names, to have 2 guys in a row both named Paul? (I think there were 3 different Pauls in the Dracula films.)