Flight Path

This episode begins in yet another forest somewhere in the UK! However, it's only seconds before we're on the moon where George Cole is studying with intent some computer readouts.

Cole plays Paul Roper, a mature astronaut who lives with his beautiful young wife (Sonia Fox). Roper is being blackmailed to provide data by a mysterious third party. Will he turn traitor or do the right thing? A dramatic and gripping story, "Flight Path" is splendid viewing and the finale is hard-hitting and uncompromising.

As always, the effects are fantastic, the visuals are futuristic and the score is groovy!

Haunting stuff. 9 out of 10.

Starring the great comic actor George Cole (of the "St. Trinian's" films) this offbeat segment deals with a dramatic blackmail plot, far removed from the futuristic science fiction "UFO" is remembered for.

It' a bit outlandish to have the aliens from Outer Space blackmailing humans to become collaborators in their attempt to conquer the Earth, but it's still suspenseful and an opportunity for Cole to have a straight, non comedic performance. In this regard it's closer to the paranoia theme of "The Invaders" than the tech-heavy "UFO".

A flying saucer chasing Cole's snazzy car of the future livens things up, cuing those patented miniature explosions that typify the Andersons' shows. The aliens aren't shown, but human henchmen under the aliens' thrall pop up as the bad guys, with Cole's wife the damsel in jeopardy, trying to protect herself with a shotgun.

Cole ends up as an unlikely hero, volunteering to save the Earth by a one-man mission on the Moon shooting down an invading alien spaceship that's using the flight plan he shared with the enemy under duress to evade Moonbase's surveillance defenses. Episode ends surprisingly on a downbeat note.

Funniest moment has commander Ed Bishop making a last-minute calculation with his trusty slide rule -I haven't used mine (leftover from engineering school) in over 50 years!

When you have an actor like George Cole guest starring, you might expect something a little special. What you get is a curiously flat performance and they gave Cole a stupid hairstyle.

Paul Roper is a SHADO technician who provides classified information to the aliens when his wife's safety is threatened. Not sure why he could not get protection from SHADO high command.

Roper's high stress levels are caught out in a routine medical check, he is also caught out giving information over to the aliens although Roper does not understand the nature of the information he is passing on. It is an approach to the Moonbase by the UFO which would evade detection.

To make amends, Roper volunteers to defend Moonbase himself by attempting to destroy the UFO with a rocket launcher. Straker meanwhile holds back information from Roper that his wife has been killed, after all there might be no need for him to hear the bad news as he himself in on a suicide mission on the lunar surface.

The episode has some very nice model work, there is a very effective car crash but somehow Roper comes out unscathed. Meanwhile his wife shoots an intruder with a shotgun and then freezes as the injured intruder reaches for his gun. Things like this lets the episode down. However the episode goes for a dark ending and from Straker, a cynical one.