Actually Deb, it's a point I've pondered for years!  Back when I was working on the Conover Saga and trying to make Jo something other than what she seemed to be, that was the biggest flag that went up.  My solution to the writer's 'oops' was to make her something else entirely.   Hey, whatever works!

And maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't have gone through with it. The blackmail that is. In Straker's conversation with Ford, I suspect that Ed was contemplating that very possibility. :

I know, I'm being naive, but I've always felt that there is good in all of us. (The glass half full and all.)

And that's the part that sticks in my gullet every time.  Straker wasn't naive.  So why the hell did he go along with her at all?  I have to agree with Amelia and Ed.  That entire episode showed him OOC. 

It's just how the writers occasionally bent the characters to suit the scripts, isn't it? This is the episode where Freeman shows himself in need of guidance from Ford to enable him to do his job, iirc.

I do think it was OOC a) for Straker to chase after her himself other than for the benefit of the script - he had staff and an amnesia drug; b) the car chase was silly - all the high-speed meaningful looks; c) he surely wouldn't have taken her to his home - though the amnesia drug would have allowed him to do that except he didn't use it and just let her go. Oh yeah, and d) knowing that there was a tape recorder in her bag, he didn't notice that she'd left it behind in the first place.  : I don't think Straker is infallible but forgetting a tape recorder in his role is a bit hard to credit.

The whole thing was a bit daft, really. Though I do still think - despite proffered "evidence" to the contrary that Straker fancied Ms Fraser. Which does go some way to explaining some of the above.

Edited to add after reading Deborah's post above:
I thought that mentioning his divorce to a journalist was ooc too - unless he was connecting with JF on a personal level.

Normandie wrote on Apr 22^nd, 2011 at 5:21pm:


The episode was a mess! But I'm forced to agree that Ed felt something for Jo, and to me the biggest clue was in his conversation with Alec after the fact. I really couldn't tell by his interaction with her either at the bar or at his home later on. Straker was very good at hiding his feelings.

I would not want to sit across from him in a poker game!

Straker fancying her does explain some things. But overall, there are holes you could drive a Mack truck through, and somethings just don't work on any level - like the the girls in the Moonbase Control Sphere waiting to be squashed. I know it was meant to dramatically show the danger, but come on.

Neesierie wrote on Apr 22^nd, 2011 at 5:39pm:

I suspect he'd consider all those "out of bounds", too dangerous to get involved with. Which doesn't explain why a dodgy journalist is a good bet to get involved with but opportunities to meet unattached females outside of SHADO and the studio were probably few and far between. I mean, short of the Timelash drug, there were only 24 hour in the day.

Re the Moonbase women standing in front of the out of control truck, sometimes I think the Andersons still thought about their characters in terms of puppets. They hadn't totally made the mental transition to human. What would have passed unremarked in Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet looks odd when transposed to human characters. Maybe. 

Edited to add:
I do think that these discrepancies and oddities must make the series a dream for writers, though. If something is totally thought through and set in stone, it must be more difficult to extrapolate confidently and believably. In the case of just this episode it's possible to write around a competent or incompetent Alec, a Jo Fraser who is a victim of circumstance; or a total con artiste out to blackmail or scam money; or someone being used (as Deb has it) to find out something about the situation at the studio; or as Denise had it (iirc, sorry if I don't) a CIA agent also trying to figure out what's happening at Harlington-Straker. And many (all) of those ideas have been made to work convincingly.

If the series had firmly laid out that -

Jo Frazer was a con artiste
She'd researched Straker and decided he would be a good mark
She tried her hand at getting to him
He G6-ed her and threw her out never to be seen again
... that would do away with so many writing opportunites!

Good grief, my edit is longer than the original post.