Hi,

am I the only one who would have loved to pick up Mary Straker by the front of her amply filled blouse(s) and shaken her until some sense plops back into her little empty head?

Sorry, Mary Straker is the one single totally poorly conceived character in the series. I hated her one-dimensionality, she's so cliché my back-teeth hurt every time I see her face or hear her speak.

Part of that may be the actress, who just didn't fit the part, nor complemented her husband.

But a huge part of that was how Mary was written. And it's a cliché which was old already then and has a miles long beard today still (whenever I get served another policeman's/Vet's/doctor's/etc wife giving her husband hell for not sitting down punctually for dinner or visiting parties/operas/theatres/kids' birthdays in a book or movie, I immediately cease reading and am known for having left the cinema...).

There truly was quite enough potential for conflict between Ed and Mary without resorting to that old bore. A huge chance squandered...

Like "Full Circle" one of my favorites!

I'll do a writeup on Mary later!

Not really, Matt.  I'm talking before they reached a split.  Not after.  Dragon's take on Mary afterward inspired me to write 'Full Circle', but it would have been better if the writers of the show kept them together and let her slowly amass more information than was good for her.  Very suspenseful then, don't you think?  Instead of whining and complaining in every scene!    (Such a screecher creature!)

Hi,

yep, the idea of having her find out about SHADO would have been a great one. Even the line of her believing him to cheat on her might have been done in a much better way and resulting in the split, or have been the last straw after her e.g. finding out about a couple of his more cavalier decisions regarding personnel or people under his decisionmaking.

As to that old bore: last year my old mare colicked on Christmas Eve, colicked badly. I called my vet out of a huge Christmas event at the next town's opera house. He arrived in dinner jacket, his wife alongside in expensive evening gown. She held his instruments for him and prepped meds, while he was shoulder deep, stripped down to bare chest,  groping inside a very messy horse anus at something like 9 in the evening and inside an ice-cold snowcovered outdoors shed. I asked her how she saw herself and him in that respect, and she just grinned and said "I married him open-eyed".

As to Mary - I find it very implausible that someone like Straker would root for a woman clearly not very intelligent and self-reliant.

Couple of stories?????
Hmmm????

I really liked the one where Alec arrives in his Hummer.... how is that going to end?

oh yes, and the one where Ed is poisoned/........... and that ending???


Oooppps;  not forgetting the one where Ed and Mary are in the UFO after he has arrived at her house and they have both been captured

I have a long memory Dragon..........

Alba wrote on Jul 29^th, 2010 at 12:00pm:



How much of her suspicious nature was due to her mother who  stirred things up - she sowed the seeds of distrust by suggesting that there was another woman, then employied a Private Investigator. I wonder if he was subsequently recruited into SHADO- he was VERY good to be able to track Straker

But that was one of the problems with UFO. Most of the characters were very one-dimensional. Apart from Straker. and he only developed after the first few episodes. It makes you wonder if they had actually given any thought to the series, or the
actors.
To have actually selected Delrosa was a big mistake and surely they would have known ( or should have known) that he was unreliable and inept. And the other cast members who were only available for a short time? not good planning.

I suppose Gerry was used to puppets... but he should have really done his research!
But despite all those niggles, all the dreadful storylines and the poor scriptwriting, its still a wonderful series!

I think one of the earmarks of a great series is when they can overcome enormous obstacles like that and still rivet the attention of the viewers.  Which UFO did week after week.

And let's face it -- year after year!