What's the Worst that Could Happen? (Genetic Engineering Edition)

In this edition of "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" our subject is genetic engineering or genetic modification. In other words, this post looks at what occurs when scientists begin to "design" people or other beings, opening a brand new Pandora's Box in the "improvement" process.

10. In the near-future, genetic engineering becomes common, and parents begin engineering their children. Children born the old-fashioned way, and without genetic modification, can no longer compete in the job market with these designer kids. "Natural" children end up forming a new underclass in an inherently unequal future society. (Gattaca [1997]).

09. Two scientists decide on a whim -- they literally use the phrase "what's the worst that could happen?" -- to genetically engineer a child to use in medical experiments. They try raising a designed child, Dren, as their own offspring, but then get bored and tired of parenting, and all-but abandon her. Their resentful "child" goes on a rampage after being sexually abused by her "father," and kills him. After Dren is killed, her mother tries again, plotting to give life to a second genetically engineered child. (Splice [2010]).

08. Khaaaan! Scientists create a race of genetically-engineered super-men and women, ambitious individuals who promptly start World War III in an attempt to take over the planet. After a devastating conflict, 75 or 80 of these genetically-engineered war criminals leave planet Earth in suspended animation. They are awakened two hundred years in the future, and the leader of the genetically-engineered supermen gets his hands on a doomsday weapon that can rewrite the surface of planets. (Star Trek [1966-1969]).

07. Scientists hoping to eradicate a deadly disease in New York City, create an insect called a Judas Bug to eliminate roaches carrying the virus. The bugs are successful wiping out the disease, but evolve into humanoid insects living in the sewers, and breeding at a prodigious rate. (Mimic [1998]).

06. Hoping to win the Vietnam War, scientists genetically-engineer a strain of super-aggressive, super-murderous piranhas. Some of these jagged toothed-horrors escape from the lab and begin killing unlucky swimmers. (Piranha [1978]).

05. Hoping to cure Alzheimer's, scientists experiment on sharks, making them super-intelligent. Unfortunately, the super-smart great-white-sharks don't like being held captive, and go on a killing spree. (Deep Blue Sea [1999]).

04. A wealthy man hoping to entertain the masses develops the technology to genetically engineer dinosaurs at an amusement park. The dinosaurs break free again and again. A T-Rex even attacks San Francisco. Twenty years later, the technology is perfected and the amusement park opens in earnest. The dinosaurs again break free. After being transported to the mainland, some genetically-engineered dinosaurs break loose in modern American cities. "Welcome to Jurassic World." (Jurassic Park [1993], Jurassic World [2015, 2018])

03. A greedy corporation called Umbrella develops a genetically-engineered "T virus." But the virus escapes the lab, infects the local populace, and precipitates a global zombie apocalypse. (Resident Evil [2002]).

02. A manipulative, secretive and dark force, hidden somewhere in a galaxy far, far away, puts in an order on Kamino for genetically engineered soldiers, or clones, and then plunges the galaxy into a war between clones and droids. (Star Wars: Attack of the Clones [2002]). After doing so, that dark force becomes Emperor.

01. One word: Daleks! On distant Skaro, a scientist named Davros breeds all human and positive emotions out of his beleaguered, war-torn people, creating a race of hateful, malevolent monsters in the first place. Over the centuries, these genetically-engineered monsters envelope the universe in war and widespread violence, exterminating all life that is different. (Doctor Who [1963 - 1989] [2005 - ]).

Further reading:

Gattaca as a lens on contemporary genetics.

A serious threat to human society.

Jurassic Park's Unlikely Symbiosis with Real World Science.

The Jackson 5 (Book)

Pop Art: Jackson Five

Board Game of the Week: Jackson Five

Theme Song of the Week Jackson Five

UFO: "A Question of Priorities"

"A Question of Priorities" -- an early episode of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's UFO [1970] -- is very much a case of the series' potential fully realized. This episode offers a haunting, devastating portrait of Ed Straker, and it remains an unforgettable picture. Today, viewers are accustomed to seeing such tragic heroes. But nearly fifty years ago, a character like Ed Straker was the exception to the rule.

In this narrative, Straker (Ed Bishop) takes his son, Johnny (Barnaby Shaw), home after a day of fun at the movie studio. Straker catches the vibe that he is not welcome at the home of his ex-wife, Mary (Suzanne Neve), and her new husband, Rutland (Phil Madoc), and leaves. But Johnny wants to show him a model boat he recently finished building. As Straker drives away, unaware that Johnny is still looking for him, the boy is struck down in the road by an oncoming car.

Johnny is rushed to the hospital, but may not survive the accident because of severe internal bleeding. The boy is allergic to standard antibiotics, but there is a suitable one, untested and limited, available in America. Desperate to save his son, Straker arranges for a transport plane to pick up the drugs and fly them to Europe as soon as possible.

At the same time, however, a UFO has crashed near the west coast of Ireland, and its pilot has set up a portable transmitter, suggesting he wants to be located by the humans.

Alec Freeman (George Sewell), in charge of SHADO and unaware of Johnny's situation, re-routes the transporter carrying Johnny's medicine, to help in the efforts to triangulate the signal. He believes the alien may be a defector, especially because another UFO is en route to England.

The alien is killed by the second UFO only moments before SHADO can reach him, and the medicine arrives too late to save Johnny's life.

Mary tells Straker she never wants to see him again...

As the above-synopsis no doubt reveals, this is one dark episode of UFO. A later episode, "Confetti-Check A-OK" goes intro further detail about Straker and Mary's failed marriage, but that subplot is introduced here, in "A Question of Priorities."

In this episode, Straker feels as though he is being squeezed out of his family. Mary has re-married. He only sees his son on weekends. And he is not welcome at Johnny's home. Straker is left, vainly, attempting to assert his parental rights. "He's still my son."

When Johnny is injured, and Straker has the opportunity to more fully insert himself into Johnny's life, in the most meaningful way imaginable -- to save it -- he fails egregiously. All the while, Mary doesn't trust him, reminding him that "you always had to leave," when they are married. She also tells him not to "let Johnny down this time." Straker's failures as a family man are constantly thrown in his face.

Of course, Straker is left with a "question of priorities" to weigh. Saving Johnny's life is important, but if a defecting alien is captured, how many more human lives might be saved? The tragedy here is not only that Straker loses his son, by getting him the medicine too late, but that it was all for nothing. The defector is obliterated, and so SHADO gains no advantage against the aliens in this war. It's not like Johnny dies so that humanity lives. Johnny dies, and the status quo remains. Straker has gained nothing, and lost everything.

Given all this, "A Question of Priorities" is not merely dark, it is brutal, in its treatment of  the series protagonist. Straker is a broken man, one with no comfort and no family. He has sacrificed the love of his wife, and lie of his child, for the war against the aliens. The one episode of UFO the audience never sees, but which would have been amazing to witness, involves Straker after the war ends.

We know, if counting UFO and Space:1999 as existing in one universe, that the aliens did not continue their war into the 1990's. Either they were defeated, or stopped coming to Earth, and died out. That would have let a sixty year old Straker, alone, with nothing left. No family. No life. No cause.  What would he have been like? The series establishes that Straker smokes, but doesn't drink. One wonders how he would have coped with the aftermath of the war, and the realization that he no longer had a reason, essentially, to live. He didn't even have any vices to succumb to!

The big question about "A Question of Priorities" is, for many of us, why Straker lets Alec use the transport, instead of rerouting it back to save his son.  If it were me, I would have stood up and said "this war is not going to be won today. A little sick boy needs the medicine on that transport." No one: not Alec, nor anyone else, would have questioned Straker, or expected him to sacrifice my son. The boy could have been saved.

Of course, once Straker made that he choice, he would have had to immediately resign from  SHADO. He would have lost the faith, loyalty and support of those under his command. They would have known that their superior, their leader, was willing to put Earth second, and his own family first.  If Straker set that example, how could he ever expect his people again to be selfless in the war?

It is a close race for the best episode of UFO, but "A Question of Priorities" must rank near the top of the list. Near episode's end, the audience see Straker alone, in the hospital, from a high angle. His isolation is now complete, this camera angle reveals. In his dreams, in his nightmares, he will always hear Mary's ringing question: "what can be more important than your son's life?"

Straker's curse is not that something else was more important than Johnny's life. It is that he can never tell Mary what that "thing" was; that he carries the responsibility for the whole human race on his shoulders.

"A Question of Priorities" succeeds as well as it does because the episode, though contending with life and death, and family, is not histrionic. The episode offers a dispassionate, uncompromising view of a leader forced to make an impossible decision. Straker is stoic throughout the crisis and this approach lets the audience imagine his pain and suffering, and see the discipline he maintains to keep it buried. We don't need a tearful, emotional outbreak to know exactly what Straker is going through. His crisis is all the more powerful, and emotional because of the emotionless way he handles it.

Next week: "Reflections in the Water."

The Cult-TV Faces of: Graffiti

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Horror Lexicon 15: Cell Phone Reception

Horror movies have always adapted with changing times.  

That's how they stay scary to contemporary audiences, by adjusting to modern fears over the decades. 

But horror movies must also adapt to changing technology.  In the 1970's and 1980's, horror films had no need to worry about the ready availability of cell phones, or i-Phones. 

All that changed, however, with the turn of the century.

In the late nineties, and 2000's, crafty horror movie-makers had to contend with the new reality that basically, we always have phones on our person, no matter where we go, or what time of day or night it is.  

In the past, horror movie villains simply needed to cut power to a house, or cut the land-line to render a would-be-victim vulnerable and isolated. But by the year 2000, that trick simply wouldn't cut the mustard anymore  Some filmmakers dodged the problem by setting their films in previous decades, which dovetailed nicely with the remake movement of the 2000's.

Other filmmakers were forced to come up with new reason why imperiled people simply couldn't simply dial 911 on their cell phones when threatened. In efforts such as Jeepers Creepers (2001), and The Strangers (2008), unwitting would-be-victims had simply not charged their cell-phones, meaning they were good for nothing.

In other films of this new age, there was simply no coverage meaning that the phone, though powered, could not connect to the intended destination. Films such as The Ruins (2008), and Wrong Turn (2007) depended on this trope.  

At other times in modern horror films, a world-altering disaster interferes with cellphone reception. Skynet blocks cell-phoe connection in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), and the Martians and monsters ostensibly do likewise in War of the Worlds (2005) and Cloverfield (2008), respectively.

Sometimes, in a horror movie, a cell-phone works just fine, but is out of reach (Saw [2004]). And on some occasions, the cell phone is, itself, the portal of terror (Scream 3 [2000], Pulse [2006], One Missed Call [2008]).

Failing cell phones are seen in so many horror films of new century, including in What Lies Beneath (2000), Cabin Fever (2002), Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003), The Hitcher (2007), REC (2008), Day of the Dead (2008), and Friday the 13^th (2009) to name just a few titles.

What's the Worst that Could Happen? (First Contact Edition)

In this edition of "What's the Worst that Could Happen?" the subject is first contact; the first occasion an alien race meets the human race. The encounter can take place in space (on a ship), or on Earth.

For purposes of this list, however, encounters with one alien of a larger species will not be included. Movies such as Alien (1979), The Thing (1982) and Predator (1987) all contend with humans in out-of-the-way locations meeting a single representative of a dangerous species.

This list focuses, instead, on the disasters that invariable occur when two worlds, and two societies, collide.

10. In 1953, aliens from Mars land on Earth, and commence the annihilation of the human race. Humanity responds with force, even deploying atomic weapons, but the manta-ray-shaped alien ships continue their conquest of our world, until humanity's society is in ruins. Fortunately, the aliens are defeated by germs. "After all that men could do had failed, the Martians were destroyed and humanity was saved by the littlest things, which God, in His wisdom, had put upon this Earth." (War of the Worlds [1953]).

09. The alien Kanamit arrive on Earth and appear humble and friendly. Their primary textbook (the Kanamit version of our Bible, perhaps) even suggests the alien desire to work with man. That textbook is titled "To Serve Man."  Alas, it's a cookbook!  The humans boarding Kanamit spaceships to visit the alien home planet are bound, on arriving at their destination, to be served on a dinner platter. (The Twilight Zone (1959-1961): "To Serve Man.")

08. In 1985, Earth launches an exploratory space probe called Voyager One. This peaceful satellite is equipped with the Queller Drive, which spews fast neutrons, destroying all organic life within close range. Unfortunately, Voyager One passes within close range of the Worlds of Sidon, killing millions of people on two worlds.  Years later, after 1999, the people of Moonbase Alpha encounter the Sidons, who are seeking vengeance for the deaths of their people.  ]"Greetings from the people of Earth!" (Space:1999 [1975-1977]: "Voyager's Return.")

07. Fifty alien mother-ships take up positions over major cities around the world. The aliens aboard, the Visitors, promise friendship and peace. Instead, they begin turning the world against scientists, who might discover the truth about them. And what is that truth?  The Visitors are reptilian creatures here to steal our water, eat our people, and abduct humans to use as cannon fodder in their Great Leader's war against an unknown alien enemy.  "Friendship is universal!" (V [1983]).

06. An alien ship in crashes in Roswell in 1947, but its pilot is murdered by dark forces within the U.S. government. The aliens behind the crashed ship forge an alliance with an International Syndicate on Earth to enslave the human race (turning it into a breeding ground, for the Earth's original life form: the black oil). This global consortium sells out its own species to the aliens, permitting (while simultaneously discrediting) widespread alien abduction. (The X-Files[1993 - 2002]).  The members of the syndicate will be allowed to survive, naturally, after the new regime takes over during a national emergency. "Fight the future!"

05. Gigantic alien saucers arrive on Earth and, after a coordinated countdown, use their powerful weapons to obliterate cities around the world. They destroy the White House and other monuments (including the Statue of Liberty), nearly wiping humanity off the face of the planet. Fortunately, these ultra-advanced aliens use computers compatible with our own, and a virus is uploaded to their mainframe which makes the aliens susceptible to human counter-attack. (Independence Day [1996]).

04. The Taelons come to Earth promising peace and new technologies for the human race. Unfortunately, the Taelons are a dying race, and are secretly using humans or dark purposes, including strange breeding experiments, and the recruitment of our young to fight in a war against the Taelon enemy. A human resistance movement springs up on Earth, and over the years another secret is revealed: The Taelons are fighting an even more hostile enemy, which also wants to take over the Earth. (Earth: Final Conflict [1997 - 2002]).

03. Aliens from Mars come to Earth, and basically troll everyone on the planet. They enjoy wiping out humanity by shrink rays, disintegration rays, and other bizarre means. They also perform strange experiments on our people, creating animal-human hybrids. Fortunately, yodeling kills them.  "Ack ack! (Mars Attacks [1996]). 

02. In the 24th century, in the Delta Quadrant, the U.S.S. Voyager encounters a race of berserk aliens in fluidic space, called Species 8472. These aliens, who go by the mantra "the weak shall perish," are so terrifying that the Borg are actually scared of them.  Captain Janeway makes an alliance with the Borg, to send the psychic, savage aliens back to fluidic space. (Star Trek: Voyager  [1995 - 2001]).

01. In the Mirror Universe, the peaceful and logical Vulcans land on Earth, following the successful test flight of Zefram Cochrane's warp ship, the Phoenix. Th kindly Vulcans are greeted, in this universe, not with a handshake and open arms, but with fire-arms. All hail the Terran Empire. (Star Trek: Enterprise [2001 - 2005]).

Further reading:

What Will First Contact Look Like?

First Contact with an alien species could be loud.

Walking in Another Person's Shoes: The Cult-TV Body Swap

After a fashion, all of science fiction television concerns the concept of identity, and a human individual's desire to protect, preserve, and nourish that identity. 

When you break down that assertion to specifics, it isn't difficult to discern how the genre is dominated by threats to the inner "self."  From evil twins, impostors and doppelgangers to alternate dimension counterparts, heroes in cult television almost constantly face challenges to identity Superheroes, for example, often suffer from amnesia: the total loss of memory and awareness of "who they are" or who they are destined to become. 

The Borg -- arguably Star Trek's greatest villain -- rob humans and other races of personal identity, assimilating individuality into a colorless collective.

Similarly, vampires in Buffy the Vampire Slayer are demons who inhabit your (dead) body, but lack your human soul.

From one end of the genre to the other, villains in the pantheon might accurately be described as body thieves or identity robbers/identity corrupters.

Perhaps the most common genre convention in cult television is the idea of the "body swap."

In body swap tales, two individuals change bodies, and in the process overturn the order of the status quo.   In sci-fi TV history, villains have swapped bodies with heroes, men have swapped bodies with women, and sane men have swapped bodies with mad-men.

And in each example of this template, the great struggle in the drama is to re-assert personal identity and reclaim a life that might have been lost.  We cling to our identities. Without it, we are nothing.

The Joe Stefano, Leslie Stevens anthology The Outer Limits (1963-1965) featured an early "body swap" story during its first remarkable season. 

In "The Human Factor," by David Duncan, a scientist named Dr. Hamilton (Gary Merrill) has invented a device for treating the mentally-ill that can join the therapist's mind to that of the patient. This machine can not only share thoughts, but emotions as well...even the emotions "down deep...below the intellect."   

Hamilton has cause to test his mind-joining machine on an engineer named Major Brothers (Harry Guardino) at a military base in Greenland.  Brothers has gone mad with guilt over the death of a fellow officer, and believes that some kind of icy monster has infiltrated the facility.  His goal now is to destroy the facility, and everyone in it. 

But during a therapy session using Hamilton's mind-device, an earthquake occurs and Brothers and Hamilton switch minds and bodies.  Naturally, no other officer believes Hamilton's crazy story that he is actually the good doctor, now trapped in the body of a lunatic; and that a lunatic is now acting as the calm, steady psychologist. 

Disaster is ultimately averted but only because Hamilton's assistant, Ingrid (Sally Kellerman) is able to detect Hamilton's true, good self, inside Brother's body.  The idea of greatest importance in this body swap story is that man is more than a simple machine; that he exists as more than a physical presence, and boasts a soul or spirit (independent of physicality) that can be recognized as distinct and special. 

We would all like to believe that others would recognize our "essence," even if we seem different, or inhabit a different physical form. The Control Voice's ending narration dwells on the machine that made this particular body swap possible, and notes that it is neither good nor evil; that it is man who will always control his machines, and make such choices.

The final episode of the original Star Trek (1966-1969) "Turnabout Intruder," also concerns a body swap. 

This time, another mentally ill individual, a female scientist named Dr. Janet Lester (Sandra Smith), discovers mind-transference technology at on archaeological dig on the distant world of Camus II. 

A former lover of Captain Kirk's (William Shatner), Lester didn't make the cut at Starfleet Academy, and has since developed a deep  and abiding self-hatred.  She has blamed her failure not on her own instability, but on an exclusive world of Starfleet captains that refuses to "admit women."

In the course of the episode, Dr. Lester forces a body switch on Captain Kirk, and then assumes command of the Enterprise.  However, Dr. Lester's capricious, cruel nature soon becomes evident to the Enterprise crew, including Mr. Spock, Scotty and Dr. McCoy. 

When these officers attempt to relieve Kirk of command, Lester tries Mr. Spock for mutiny, and attempts to have Kirk (in her own body) executed. In this version of the body swap tale, the restoration of order again depends on a person -- a friend -- who can recognize a person's true essence outside of physical appearances.

In this case, the Spock-Kirk friendship proves paramount, and Spock makes use of a Vulcan mind-meld to prove that Captain Kirk's true self is trapped in the body of Dr. Lester.  Again, the idea of the soul is raised, if not named directly.  In "Turnabout Intruder," Captain Kirk speaks of the things that make him "special," "only to himself."

In "Turnabout Intruder's" coda, Captain Kirk also notes that Dr. Lester's life could have been as productive and happy as "any woman's," which today is largely and rightly interpreted as a sexist remark.  But the point of his reflection is that if Dr. Lester had not hated her own identity and self, she could have accomplished wonderful things. 

The body swap story is often about a person who wants to change, to be different, and a person upon whom change is forced.  If you are happy in your own skin, you have no need to envy anybody else, or covet their identity.  But Janet Lester considered her identity not a gift (something special to herself, in the words of Kirk) but as a prison. And she sought to escape that prison at her first opportunity.

Chris Carter's The X-Files (1993-2002) took the idea of the "body swap" in a different direction entirely during the sixth season two-part episode, "Dreamland." 

In this tale, an experimental U.S. aircraft reverse engineered from UFO technology emits an energy wave that exchanges the bodies of Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and government bureaucrat, Morris Fletcher (Michael McKean).   

This body swap tale is played largely for comedy, and a highlight of the show is an extended sequence during which Mulder sees himself as Morris in a bedroom mirror.  McKean and Duchovny literally mirror each others moves and expressions -- with perfect timing. 

Although this episode is a bit more fanciful and less serious than your typical X-Files segment, there's again a point to the drama: the idea of what it means to walk a mile in someone else's shoes.

Here, Mulder is cut off from not just his body, his job, and his best friend, Scully, but from his obsessive, lifelong pursuits.  He finds himself with teenage children, a nagging wife, and no real friends.

Morris, meanwhile -- at least in a certain sense -- does a better job with Mulder's life than Mulder did.  As Mulder, Morris attempts to get frisky with Scully, and enjoys his new, more youthful and athletic body.  Mulder gets moved into a suburban Hell, but Morris makes his time in Mulder's body enjoyable. 

The Farscape canon (1999-2003) also features a variation on the familiar  body swap story.  In "Out of Their Minds" by Ian Watson, a Halosian energy blast strikes Moya and all the refugees and fugitives aboad her (save for Zhaan) are shunted out of their bodies...repeatedly.  

There isn't just one switch among two characters featured in this dizzying, frenetic adventure, but several switches, spread out amongst Chiana, Rygel, John Crichton, Aeryn Sun and D'Argo. 

Like The X-Files installment, "Out of Their Minds" boasts a playful tenor, and doesn't shy away from issues of sexuality (a perpetual strength of Farscape, in general). 

Crichton spends some personal time in Aeryn's body, and Aeryn takes a peek down John's trousers while in his body.  In this sense, "Out of Their Minds" is about curiosity.  In real life, we never have the opportunity to become anyone else, let alone someone of the opposite sex...or a different species.

When the displaced crew members of Moya pull together and defeat the Halosians, the point seems to be that although these characters are all different, they are all alike under the skin. When  they remember that and work together, they succeed.

Walking in someone else's shoes and seeing something through someone else's eyes builds empathy for that person.

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer's fourth season two-parter "This Year's Girl," the renegade slayer Faith (Eliza Dushku) uses a mystical device to swap bodies with the very woman who put her in a hospital (and coma) for the better part of a year: Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar). 

So the visiting Watchers Council actually apprehends Buffy in Faith's body, and Faith -- in Buffy's form -- is left to wreak havoc on the Slayer's personal life, including her romantic relationship with Riley (Marc Blucas).

This episode is another exploration of what it means to walk a mile in another person's shoes.  As Buffy, Faith has sex with Riley out of revenge, out of petty jealousy.  But Faith is upset and deeply-affected after the intercourse because she felt real love...something she had not experienced herself, and was not prepared for.

Suddenly -- and literally -- she's got skin in the game. She was affected by what she did; and now can't treat her new body so cavalierly.

Smallville's (2001 -2011) fourth season offered yet another variation on the commonly-seen body swap story, entitled "Transference." 

In this episode -- one of Smallville's finest hours -- Lionel Luthor John Glover) plots to steal Lex's body using a Kryptonian crystal or artifact.  But Clark (Tom Welling) jumps in at the last second to save his friend Lex, and he ends up being the person switched with Lionel. 

In this case, Lionel not only gets a new and younger body...he unexpectedly finds himself in an invincible one.

At this point, Lionel is the undisputed villain of the series, and he returns to Clark's life in Smallville with super powers to go along with his criminal mind.  The kicker in this case is that after order is restored and Lionel is returned to his own body, he feels the after-effects of Clark's presence.  In an instant, Lionel is "born again," a reformed man.  The switch has changed him, but not because of himself, but because his body housed a being of rare, superhuman virtue.

"Transference" points to another aspect of "body swap" stories that proves irresistible. Actors featured in a regular series are suddenly gifted with an opportunity to play a different role; to emulate their co-stars, in many cases.

Smallville proves truly spectacular in this regard, with Welling deftly taking on the gestures, stance and mannerisms of Glover's character, and Glover doing the same for Welling's character.  That's the thing that makes this episode so funny, and it's really a credit to Welling (who gets most of the screen-time) for pulling off a brilliant, funny, and carefully-observed version of Lionel Luthor.

Like many other genre conventions, the body swap isn't going to disappear from cult television anytime soon.  It's too useful a trope, really.  The body swap mixes things up for the performers involved, allowing them to play insane, the opposite sex, or another series regular. But it also reminds us how precious and fragile personal identity truly is. 

It would be terrible, after all, to lose your body to another person.  Especially a person who might be you...better than you ever were.

UFO: "Exposed"

In "Exposed," a speeding UFO skirts past interceptor missiles in near space, and is seen in orbit by a hot-shot test pilot, Paul Foster (Michael Billington). 

After recovering from a six day coma, Foster learns that his experimental plane, the XV-104, was destroyed and his co-pilot killed. Foster also learns that his employers at Ventura Aircrafts blames him and "pilot error" for the disaster. 

Furthermore, photos recovered from the plane show no signs of an alien craft in Earth orbit. Paul's record also speaks against his veracity. He has reported seeing UFOs three times during an eight year span.

Desperate to clear his name and standing, Paul begins a personal investigation of the disaster, an investigation that leads him to a man named Ed Straker, and the secrets of SHADO. 

But Commander Straker is expecting Paul. Straker arranges for a rendezvous with the pilot at the movie studio. And there, all is revealed...

Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's UFO gets a second (or is it third?) male lead in "Exposed," an episode that introduces the character of test pilot Paul Foster. If Straker functions as the brains and determination of SHADO, Foster surely represents the youth, vigor, physicality, and sexuality. That may be an over-statement in some sense, however, because Foster proves in this episode that he is every bit as stubborn and resourceful as SHADO's commanding officer. 

"Exposed" is fascinating in terms of UFO episode content because at the same time that it keeps tabs on the wily, in-the-know Straker, it reveals an outsider's experience of SHADO.Basically, the organization organizes a vast, complex conspiracy to prevent anyone from knowing the truth about what happened to Foster's co-pilot, and plane. 

Evidence is tampered with, a cover-up is engineered, and a spy (Jean Marsh) is even put in close contact with Paul, to prevent the truth from being discovered. In fact, SHADO also arranges for Paul to experience "temporary blindness" for a spell as Straker and others decide how to handle him and his knowledge.  From an outside perspective, none of this is very nice, or even legal.

Today, "Exposed" plays like a twisted version of a mytharc X-Files story. In The X-Files, Mulder and Scully often try to uncover pilot or bystander stories regarding UFOs, but are stymied at every turn by the shadowy conspiracy and the Cigarette Smoking Man. In UFO, the people of the shadowy conspiracy are basically the protagonists, and the truth must remain buried, except for a chosen few.  The two series, in some way, thus represent looking-glass reflections of one another.

While Mulder is a champion of freedom, both or people and of information, Straker makes it plain during "Exposed" that allowing the world's population to know the truth about the aliens is not an option because it would cause "a breakdown of authority," not to mention "mass hysteria" and "panic." Unspoken in the series is a faith in the government and its many organs, a faith that, post-Watergate, would simply have not existed.

Intriguingly, Paul absolutely buys into the SHADO (paranoid?) view-point once he is told that everything has merely been a test to judge if he is worthy of joining the organization. In other words, Foster is not okay with the truth being hidden from him, but once he's on the inside, he's okay with the truth being hidden from others. This hypocrisy doesn't reveal him in the best light.

"Exposed" is fascinating, because it operates on the series' standard "double" thematic track. In many UFO episodes, Straker makes it plain that the aliens must be defeated at any cost, and the alien weekly schemes are, indeed, usually stopped in their tracks. These instances are clearly victories for SHADO. 

And yet, there is always, at the same time, a "human cost" for these victories. Consider "Identified:" SHADO captures an alien pilot and learns much about his physiology and nature. At the same time, however, the human cost hits Carlin's family hard: the discovery that his sister's organs have been harvested by the aliens.  

An upcoming episode, "A Question of Priorities," goes even further down this road, revealing the human cost to Straker when there is an attempt to capture an alien defector. In "Exposed," the human cost is Foster's career, reputation, and credibility. Straker is willing to see Foster destroyed if he doesn't pass SHADO's test. He has no compunctions about ruining a man's life if it keeps the secret of SHADO.

As these instances reveal, UFO is a hard-edged series, even by today's standards, with no real happy endings.  Sure, Paul gets a new career in "Exposed," but a pilot has died, an aircraft is destroyed, and the world's people remain in the dark about "the truth."

The last question raised by "Exposed" involves the necessity of a character like Paul Foster in the series' mix. He's a charismatic, conventionally-handsome, romantic lead. Foster takes center stage in a way that Carlin, or Alec, can't.  Alec comes across as a bit of a lech in "Identified," and Carlin is a bit charisma-deficient.So perhaps Straker needs a second in command who captures this demographic. Yet as I wrote last week, Straker remains the series' most compelling individual. He possesses a depth that many of the secondary characters simply lack This episode may ostensibly involve Foster's dogged hunt to solve an impenetrable mystery, but when the resolution is offered, the audience realizes that Straker has been pulling the strings all along. He is a master manipulator.

Next week: "A Question of Priorities."