| Cinematography |  4 | | Plot | 4 | | Acting | 4 | | Overall Satisfaction |  5 |
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5 of 5 A blast from the past! Totally fun. Friday, July 02, 2004
John W. airportcomputers from St. Louis, MO
I was in the 3rd grade when I first saw this series in reruns. I was instantly hooked, and everyday my friends and I would run out onto the playground and jump on the gliders (which looked like horses!) and pretend we were taking off in our UFO Interceptors on a mission to blast aliens to smithereens! Of course, we had to slide down the slide first to simulate the way the T.V. pilots "slid" down to their waiting craft. The show only ran for one season in syndication in our area, probably since only 1 full season of the original show was ever produced. And I have missed it ever since!
After watching these DVD sets, it's a little hard not to chuckle at the producers' vision of the future (1980). Why, it's as if the 60's completely skipped over the 70's and reappeared in 1980! The hair, fashion, behavior, lingo, music; it's all there. What they totally got backwards was space travel and computers; they still had the same antiquated computer hardware in 1980, but they had routine spaceflights and a permanent base on the moon! I guess from where they were at the time it must have seemed the way things were headed, but we know better now.
After watching the first episode or two after 30 years had elapsed, I was slightly disenchanted at what I remembered as such a visionary, futuristic and exciting show. But, by about the 3rd episode, I have completely fallen in love with UFO all over again! It has such a charm to it, and it's such a vivid slice of the time in which it was made. And for what it's worth, the SFX were pretty darn good for being 35 (as of 2004) years old. Also, the producers weren't afraid to really dig deep into the characters; where they came from, what they were about, histories, why they did things the particular way they did, etc. Some of the episodes barely featured any spaceflight, combat or SFX scenes at all. Although this was probably due to budget constraints at the time (I'm guessing), it did force the writers/producers to become very innovative with the stories.
To sum, this was a great series in its day, and it's amazing what they managed to produce with so little. If you've never seen an episode, rent a DVD, place tongue-in-cheek, and check out the "far future" world of UFO! Was this review helpful?  
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