UFO
The 1970 - 1971 television season was exciting for this then child: Gerry and Silvia Anderson's first live-action series, UFO, was the flagship.
The CTV (Canadian Television) network ran the series here in Canada, and the network's flagship station, CFTO, in Toronto, was where the dial turned to on our Zenith colour television set. My parents watched, too. It was what we would now refer to as "appointment television".
UFO was what now would be considered to be very adult material for that time. For some reason the Brits were ahead of us in some departments on this side of the pond. They would not be afraid to address matters such as a death in the family, or family dysfunction (like a marriage falling apart). Wait a minute... it's called "UFO". There was the space stuff, of course, and the show's premise of a hostile alien force attacking us could be exciting, but the best episodes were not space-based — believe it or not. "Sub-Smash", "A Question of Priorities", and "Confetti Check A-O.K." are standouts. A few years ago I watched those three episodes, along with a few others, for the first time in decades, and was convinced.
Unfortunately for the fans, UFO lasted just one season; totaling 26 stories.
Things went downhill after that for the Andersons as a husband and wife production team. Their later interstellar effort, Space: 1999 (1975 - 1977), was a big step down — mainly in the characterization, acting, and scripting departments — from what they had achieved with UFO. (With Space, somehow, any sense of fun had been left outside the airlock.)
The good news is the couple survived as separate producing entities: Gerry, after the 'stigma' of Space: 1999 and a few years of "barely getting by" financially — over the years he had pumped much British pound sterling into the family home but the real estate market crashed in England and he owed a lot of money in alimony — he eventually teamed up with German producer Christopher Burr, thereby relaunching a television production career; Sylvia enjoyed a long career, three decades worth, as a London-based talent scout for HBO.
Doctor Who (Jon Pertwee's first opening title version, 1970-73)
OECA (Ontario Educational Communications Authority), now referred to as TV Ontario, ran adverts in the summer of 1976 announcing their Fall scheduling of a British programme from my childhood, Doctor Who — which at that point had not yet stopped production, eventually wrapping in 1989; a twenty-six year BBC production run.
As a very young child living at RCAF Station Greenwood, Nova Scotia, I saw the first "Dalek" story; its affect on me was profound enough that I never forgot kneeling in front of the Admiral monochrome television set and being: scared!... by the BBC via the CBC. (Those panning eyestalk cameras lining the Dalek city's hallways gave me the creeps.)
Back to OECA.
Starting that September I was there in front of the tube every Saturday evening. That was my introduction to the third doctor, Jon Pertwee, and because of the network's two-year Who run featuring the time and space "dandy", he was, and remains, my favourite of all the actors to play and interpret "the Doctor". (In September of 1978, OECA switched to the Tom Baker Doctor Who stories, which had begun running four years earlier on the show's home network.)
Of special note is the classic theme tune composed by Ron Grainer; what must be noted is Dalia Derbyshire's "arrangement", an electronic transcription, really, from the composer's score paper. This theme burns into one's electronics.
While the original Doctor Who's production crews lacked today's wonderful technologies, they somehow managed to tell some terrifically entertaining stories. (So you know, dear reader, you are not imagining my cynicism.)
Every Saturday at 6pm, this then young geek, sat in front of the living room's 10-inch B&W Sony, glowing along in phase with the set's cathode ray tube. During the following week's run of high school I lost the glow but regained it again on the following Saturday. A friend told me a few years ago that he too felt somewhat despondent as a given week's Doctor Who episode's title cards came to a close. "I had to wait a whole week for the next one."
You really had to be there and then to understand.
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