Before books like Whitley Strieber's Communion (1985) and Budd Hopkins' Missing Time (1988) popularized the idea of aliens grabbing people from their beds to perform scientific experiments on, the tv series UFO (1970-71), part of the 1970s British invasion (The Prisoner, The Tomorrow People, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), had a similar premise: in the near future, the worlds' governments become aware that aliens are abducting people to harvest their organs. They set up the secret organization SHADO to combat them from a fake movie studio, a submarine, and a base on the Moon.
Oddly, everyone at SHADO headquarters, men and women both, wear see-through shirts, so there was a huge amount of beefcake for a science-fiction series.
In the second episode, lone wolf British test pilot Paul Foster (Michael Billington) witnesses a SHADO operation, and is given the choice of signing up or being killed. Foster decided to join, and Michael Billington soon became the standout star, and a favorite of teen magazines.
Only 26 episodes were aired, but there were two novels, comics, toys, action figures, a board game, and eventually a video game. And from 1975 to 1977, the same universe was used for Space: 1999, in which the Moonbase (and the moon with it) is swept away from the Earth's orbit for interstellar adventure.
Later Michael Billington played two-fisted heroes on many British tv series (The Onedin Line, Spearhead, The Collectors) and attended innumerable fan conventions. He never married. He died in 2005, five days before his UFO costar Ed Bishop.
It's a very sexy show- everyone looks hot in their see through uniforms and gotta love those purple hair moon base women. Straker and Foster did have a love hate bromance. Billington was a very handsome man.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of early SF art from the 20s. Just for the impossibly fanservicey attire.
ReplyDeleteProbably what ruined mesh for me was a picture of my great-grandfather in mesh. This had to be the 70s or early 80s. Definitely near the end of that run of mesh.
I only remember mesh shirts being popular for a brief time in the 1980s. You had to have a perfect physique to make them work.
Delete(the late actor) chris pettiet rocked a mesh shirt in a (small-ish) part as a gay weho bar-boi in a crime drama circa 1997 (outlaw-something?). he was 21 @ the time; had got tall & pretty nice physique (lean muscule, about average bodyfat). looked quite nice when he was thrown against the side of a truck by the cops ^__^! & xD (any weho gossip on him, btw?)
Deletewas ufo really set in the same fictional universe as space:1999? (in this case i do mean "was it wearing a sign?") was it hinted/referenced/etc.? or just simillar setting, production co., & such?
also btw: did you ever see the youtube "last message from moonbase alpha" video? kind of fun, though not what i pioctured it to be, but on the other hand it did capture the feel & style (& production values) of the original series. both good & bad xD
I don't think "UFO" was set in the same universe, since on "Sace: 1999," the moon is blasted off into space, and on "UFO," it was still in place. But I never watched either series, except for promos. I don't think "UFO" even aired in Rock Island.
DeleteBack in the day before body-shaming for being a man (i.e. having body hair) became all compulsory in society. Jesus, what a world we live in now. EVERY new generation that swells the ranks of entertainment and sport, music and acting, virtually ALL of them nauseatingly hairless, SO not natural, and it must be the first thing the losers learn at school as soon as they grow their first hair. Have it on your face, fine, but NEVER on the body, except maybe armpits, but what an irony is this: so the male body is apparently so ugly it 'needs' the hair removed, yet a million tattoos then replace it, so covering up the body again anyway, just with a lot less sex appeal. Life is hard enough without this crap, and the fact that so many men do this uncomplainingly, well, my despair for the human race keeps growing-unlike the hair they keep waxing and shaving off. Jesus, when Sean Penn accused men of being 'feminised' today, he weren't bleeding wrong! Just cos decades keep moving forward, doesn't mean that they don't shove a lot of things backward!
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