peterr@utcsrgv.UUCP (Peter Rowley) (08/16/83)
The "odd-show-out" in the G&S Anderson stable was, to me, "UFO". It had interesting plots, reasonable characters, suspense, and believable technology. After that, the long nervous silences between Martin Landau and Barbara Bain in "Space 1999" were a great disappointment. "UFO" was very short-lived, but I tried hard not to miss any episodes; even the closing credits, with a cinematic "pull-back" through a solar system and very atmospheric music coordinated with the appearance of planets in the field of view, were worth watching. Only one plot comes to mind... a researcher wants money to study techniques for photographing and identifying objects in the "macroworld"-- that world revealed when ours is magnified photographically hundreds of times. The commander turns him down cold. Meanwhile, an earth drone is sent tagging along after a UFO returning home, makes it to the UFO's origin, takes lots of superb photos, and returns to earth. Only something went wrong: the magnification recorder on the camera didn't work, so, as the researcher points out with some pictures of mushroom molds which look like aerial views of metropolitan areas on earth, the pictures were very hard, if not impossible, to interpret. An introduction to fractals in a non-PBS TV show! (This aired over eight, possibly ten, years ago) p. rowley, U. Toronto