Commander Straker (Ed Bishop) utilizes a dangerous tactic in the latest battle against the unseen aliens. He permits a UFO through SHADO's defenses so that, possibly, the vehicle and its pilot can be captured. Alas, the plan is not successful.
The UFO lands in England, and SHADO mobiles, commanded by Col. Foster (Michael Billington), are dispatched to locate it. The alien vessel self-destructs before it can be captured, but the pilot escapes, and wanders into the nearby woods.
While this alien drama plays out, a parallel human one also occurs. A pair of illicit lovers, Cass Fowler (Patrick Mower) and Liz Newton (Adrienne Corri), plan to murder Liz's husband, Jack (Allan Cuthbertson). Everything has been planned out to the last detail. The lovers steal away to the Newton's remote cottage early, and await Jack's arrival late in the night. The plan is for Liz, suspecting an intruder, apparently, to shoot her husband dead as he enters the home.
Instead, the plan goes awry when an alien, not a cuckolded husband, walks through the door and is murdered instead. Foster shows up at the scene of the crime, and must administer the lovers, and the would-be-victim, Mr. Newton, SHADO's amnesia drug to wipe their memories of the entire experience.
This triangle creates a moral dilemma for Foster and Straker. They fully realize that the lovers will attempt the murder again, and succeed. But because of the secret nature of the alien war, there is no way for Straker or Foster to report the crime, or prevent it from happening.
As I've written before in these episode retrospectives and reviews, the key idea underlining UFO is that there is going to be, in any war, sacrifices. And more often than not, it is the innocent who will be sacrificed. They are collateral damage. They are the pawns on the chessboard.
The idea is played out in "A Question of Priorities" when Straker must divert precious and needed resources to hunt the aliens, rather than save the life of his sick son. The idea recurs in "Confetti Check A-OK," when we see Straker sacrifice his marriage, and family life, for SHADO, and for the war effort.
"The Square Triangle," one of the most brilliant and successful episodes of UFO, adds another chapter to this history of sacrifice, this visceral demonstration of the true cost of war. Here, an innocent man must be allowed to die for the secrecy of the cause.
It is worse that Foster and Straker know Mr. Newston's fate, and must willingly let his murder occur. The final shot in the episode, which depicts Liz standing over Jack's grave, is positively haunting. The episode ends with his tombstone in the foreground, and Liz gazing at it. The camera pulls back to reveal the full church yard graveyard as she turns to leave, to continue her life with her murderous lover. As the episode finishes, the pull-back suggests a kind of withdrawal, in shame and horror, at what has occurred.
Jack was a man who could have lived, had his life not become intertwined with the war effort. Some might note that he would have died anyway, had the alien not appeared at his house. That is true, but fate intervened to give Jack a second chance. All Paul and Straker had to do was call the authorities on the murderous couple. Instead, they choose to remain silent, to let the murder of the alien be but a dress rehearsal for the real murder to come.
Now they must live with the knowledge that Liz and Cass got away with murder (a moral and legal wrong), and that an innocent man is dead (a second moral wrong). And because they know about all this, Paul, Straker, and SHADO are complicit in the crimes. They are accomplices, in a sense, because they know the truth, do not report it, and worse, allow the murder to occur. Liz and Cass are the criminals, but Straker and Paul will bear the weight of their actions on they psyches; on their consciences. It's true that the final shot suggests, through Corri's facial expressions, that Liz boasts some regret, but as she leaves the church-yard, the shot suggests she turns her back on that regret. Paul and Straker will not have that luxury.
If you dig to the heart of it, the core idea of "The Square Triangle" is fascinating, and exposes a deep hypocrisy of any war. Typically, such conflicts are fought so innocent people will be free, and safe. So to say that some innocent people must die to preserve the war effort is a corruption, essentially, of that belief, or philosophy. Is it all just a numbers game? A few must day so the many may live? "The Square Triangle" understands and exposes that hypocrisy in SHADO's war. What's the point of stopping the evil aliens if SHADO is not going to prevent humans from murdering one another? I suppose the only reasonable answer is that the murder orchestrated by Cass and Liz is of a human quality (involving passion and lust), as opposed to the inhuman nature of the alien attacks.
Unfortunately -- and this is a sign of the pre-Watergate era -- the episode seems to not understand the hypocrisy of forcibly giving free individuals an amnesia drug to wipe their memory. This is just another routine task in the war, and Straker and Foster undertake it without any moral qualms. Imagine what Mulder on The X-Files would think of Straker's pogrom of memory wiping, and hiding the truth. The matter is handled as as matter of course, just another task to complete before the end of the day.
Still, "The Square Triangle" is a superb episode of this series, and its final shots make it one of the most unforgettable installments.
Next week: "Flight Path."
The UFO lands in England, and SHADO mobiles, commanded by Col. Foster (Michael Billington), are dispatched to locate it. The alien vessel self-destructs before it can be captured, but the pilot escapes, and wanders into the nearby woods.
While this alien drama plays out, a parallel human one also occurs. A pair of illicit lovers, Cass Fowler (Patrick Mower) and Liz Newton (Adrienne Corri), plan to murder Liz's husband, Jack (Allan Cuthbertson). Everything has been planned out to the last detail. The lovers steal away to the Newton's remote cottage early, and await Jack's arrival late in the night. The plan is for Liz, suspecting an intruder, apparently, to shoot her husband dead as he enters the home.
Instead, the plan goes awry when an alien, not a cuckolded husband, walks through the door and is murdered instead. Foster shows up at the scene of the crime, and must administer the lovers, and the would-be-victim, Mr. Newton, SHADO's amnesia drug to wipe their memories of the entire experience.
This triangle creates a moral dilemma for Foster and Straker. They fully realize that the lovers will attempt the murder again, and succeed. But because of the secret nature of the alien war, there is no way for Straker or Foster to report the crime, or prevent it from happening.
As I've written before in these episode retrospectives and reviews, the key idea underlining UFO is that there is going to be, in any war, sacrifices. And more often than not, it is the innocent who will be sacrificed. They are collateral damage. They are the pawns on the chessboard.
The idea is played out in "A Question of Priorities" when Straker must divert precious and needed resources to hunt the aliens, rather than save the life of his sick son. The idea recurs in "Confetti Check A-OK," when we see Straker sacrifice his marriage, and family life, for SHADO, and for the war effort.
"The Square Triangle," one of the most brilliant and successful episodes of UFO, adds another chapter to this history of sacrifice, this visceral demonstration of the true cost of war. Here, an innocent man must be allowed to die for the secrecy of the cause.
It is worse that Foster and Straker know Mr. Newston's fate, and must willingly let his murder occur. The final shot in the episode, which depicts Liz standing over Jack's grave, is positively haunting. The episode ends with his tombstone in the foreground, and Liz gazing at it. The camera pulls back to reveal the full church yard graveyard as she turns to leave, to continue her life with her murderous lover. As the episode finishes, the pull-back suggests a kind of withdrawal, in shame and horror, at what has occurred.
Jack was a man who could have lived, had his life not become intertwined with the war effort. Some might note that he would have died anyway, had the alien not appeared at his house. That is true, but fate intervened to give Jack a second chance. All Paul and Straker had to do was call the authorities on the murderous couple. Instead, they choose to remain silent, to let the murder of the alien be but a dress rehearsal for the real murder to come.
Now they must live with the knowledge that Liz and Cass got away with murder (a moral and legal wrong), and that an innocent man is dead (a second moral wrong). And because they know about all this, Paul, Straker, and SHADO are complicit in the crimes. They are accomplices, in a sense, because they know the truth, do not report it, and worse, allow the murder to occur. Liz and Cass are the criminals, but Straker and Paul will bear the weight of their actions on they psyches; on their consciences. It's true that the final shot suggests, through Corri's facial expressions, that Liz boasts some regret, but as she leaves the church-yard, the shot suggests she turns her back on that regret. Paul and Straker will not have that luxury.
If you dig to the heart of it, the core idea of "The Square Triangle" is fascinating, and exposes a deep hypocrisy of any war. Typically, such conflicts are fought so innocent people will be free, and safe. So to say that some innocent people must die to preserve the war effort is a corruption, essentially, of that belief, or philosophy. Is it all just a numbers game? A few must day so the many may live? "The Square Triangle" understands and exposes that hypocrisy in SHADO's war. What's the point of stopping the evil aliens if SHADO is not going to prevent humans from murdering one another? I suppose the only reasonable answer is that the murder orchestrated by Cass and Liz is of a human quality (involving passion and lust), as opposed to the inhuman nature of the alien attacks.
Unfortunately -- and this is a sign of the pre-Watergate era -- the episode seems to not understand the hypocrisy of forcibly giving free individuals an amnesia drug to wipe their memory. This is just another routine task in the war, and Straker and Foster undertake it without any moral qualms. Imagine what Mulder on The X-Files would think of Straker's pogrom of memory wiping, and hiding the truth. The matter is handled as as matter of course, just another task to complete before the end of the day.
Still, "The Square Triangle" is a superb episode of this series, and its final shots make it one of the most unforgettable installments.
Next week: "Flight Path."
UFO is like SPACE:1999 Season one, simply brilliant.
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