Close Up (UFO)
A tracking probe returns useless images from an alien world.
"Close Up" is the ninth episode of the 1970 British science fiction television series UFO, which depicts an alien invasion of Earth. The screenplay was written by Tony Barwick and the episode was directed by Alan Perry. It was the 13th episode filmed and first broadcast in Japan on 31 October 1970.
Quick Facts
- Series
- UFO
- Episode
- 9
- Writer
- Tony Barwick
- Director
- Alan Perry
- Editor
- Harry MacDonald
- Production
- 13
- Airdate
- 31 October 1970
Facts from the source article.
Plot
SHADO places a B142 tracking probe, launched with NASA Rocket 712 and equipped with a high resolution electron telescopic camera, in lunar orbit during a spacewalk by Paul Foster and camera developer Lt. John Masters. A UFO is turned back by SHADO Interceptors from Moonbase, and the probe follows it to its home world. The images returned months later lack information on range or magnification, rendering them of no intelligence value.
Reception
TV Zone magazine considered this episode the worst of the series, stating that the story lacks tension and the downbeat ending is "hardly worth a 50-minute wait". John Kenneth Muir called "Close Up" one of UFO's "most dated" episodes, partly due to its "sexist" portrayal of Lieutenant Gay Ellis, and criticised the ending where a microphotography expert lectures Straker on the importance of understanding distance and magnification in photographs, a basic fact treated as a revelation that makes other characters seem stupid. Review website anorakzone.com ranked it the fourth-worst UFO episode, describing the plot as "thin" for a 50-minute show and noting that the basic point is hammered home repeatedly. It also criticised the "oddly spiky" and "out-of-character" interactions between Straker and Ellis, as well as Dr Kelly's demonstration of the images' uselessness by showing Straker a magnified shot of Gay's "private area". Video Watchdog magazine noted "amusingly awkward flirting" between Straker and Ellis and praised the episode's "plentiful" scale model effects, writing that the plot "does not amount to much, but fans of the programme's miniature hardware will be in heaven".
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