UFO DVD Collector’s Edition Volume 2

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UFO DVD Collector’s Edition Volume 2
Carlton DVD: 37115 02523. 615 minutes. £44.95 (UK) - prices vary so shop around.

Following the release of the first volume, it you’re going to be a completest for this Gerry Anderson Production, then it stands to reason that you’ll, like me, pick up the second volume to complete the set.

I picked my copy up from the local Woolworths and spotted a sticker that indicated it would only be on the shelves for a limited period. Doesn’t mean you can’t buy the DVDs individually later, but as a collected volume of 13 episodes probably not. Don’t leave it too late!

As with the first volume, you get a booklet and five postcards - three with cast and two with modelwork. Outside of the Shadair plane, the rest aren’t any from what you might have in your UFO memorabilia collections.

I’m in two minds about that. It would have been interested to see some of the more recognisable craft like the Moon Interceptor or Skydiver but I suspect this package is being aimed strictly at the fan base rather than the novice.

This time I had more than a cursory look at the episodes. Apart from the fact that the second block of episodes were filmed after a delay in production when studios were switched, two of the episodes have never been released on video. Several years back, a few minutes each from ‘Reflections In The Water’ and ‘The Man Who Came Back’ were included in the video mess ‘Invasion: UFO’ when some bright spark decided to blend a couple episodes together into a bigger story.

These few minutes prevented the original episodes from being released on video. ‘Reflections’ isn’t the best episode in the series, but ‘The Man Who Came Back’ is certainly worth a look. Watching it again today, I couldn’t help wryly thinking that Darren Nesbitt would have made a good prototype for Steve Zodiac.

Story dynamics wise, it was still an enjoyable way to pass 45 minutes. It was also one of the ‘banned’ episodes put on late at night in the 70s because of its violence and because Gary Raymond playing Colonel Grey said the word ‘bloody’. We were a lot tamer in what we allowed junior audiences to watch in those days. No doubt when I’ve got time, I shall be sneaking my way through both volumes at my leisure.

One thing that I did do on the spot was to look at all the extras. It’s inevitable that there you have to draw comparisons between the two volumes and I’m sad to say this one tends to look the poorer. This is mainly because the majority are production stills, merchandise and an Ed Bishop commentary over the episode ‘Sub-Smash’.

Granted, actor Ed Bishop is pensionable age, but his voice sounded like he had a heavy cold when it was recorded. Apart from explaining that both he and actress Dolores Mantez - Lt. Nina Barry - were claustrophobic and the Skydiver scenes here exploited this fact in their performance, Bishop doesn’t really recall much.

He recognises various actors and how well he gets on with them but there’s little behind the scenes info. It might have made a lot more sense if he directed his attention over the entire production than merely with this episode though. Often, I got the impression that he was really watching the episode performance than giving us a verbal.

The merchandise extras will be of interest to all of you who have gaps in your collections. The sweet cigarette cards are shown in their entirety on screen but in batches rather than individually. Going through the books, I was ticking off what I had and only found three that I didn’t own. On the other hand, I’ve got a Japanese book and some Italian photo-comics featuring ‘UFO’ that they didn’t show, so that probably evened things out.

No doubt if you’re a ‘UFO’ fan, you’ve already bought this volume even if you don’t own a DVD player just yet. The diversity of actors in the second batch of episodes here shows that the series would have expanded well had it been allowed to have a second season.

If you have the nostalgia kick and want to see how the 70s perceived the look of the 80s, then you’ll love these stories as well. A sharp reminder that all the special effects crews moved over to films afterwards and how we lost our real creative front to American imports.

GF Willmetts

check out websites: www.ufo-dvd.com and www.carltonvisual.com

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