Encounters (TV series)

Lore & Background

Encounters was hosted by John Marshall, who was joined by a team of reporters including Russell Rhodes, Sandra Pinckney, Sandra Gin, Linda Deleray, and Mark Thompson. Each episode unfolded through eyewitness interviews and reenactments of purported UFO events, with the host and reporters discussing their reactions to some of the claims. The show was used mainly as a summer replacement series and fill-in for other canceled series on Fox.

Reader's Guide

Encounters: The Hidden Truth first aired Fridays at 8:00 p.m. during the summer of 1994, then aired sporadically on different nights and times. In the final three editions, Steven Williams (who played Mr. X on The X-Files) replaced John Marshall as host. Two of those episodes aired in November 1995, and the final episode aired on January 23, 1996. The series has never been released on DVD or Blu-ray through Fox. Its significance lies in its format as a paranormal documentary series that capitalized on the mid-1990s interest in unexplained phenomena, similar to other shows like Sightings and Unexplained Mysteries. The show's legacy is as a representative of the era's fascination with the supernatural, though it remains largely unavailable for modern viewing.

Did You Know?

• The show was hosted by John Marshall, later replaced by Steven Williams for the final three episodes of the only season.
• Encounters aired on Fox as a summer replacement series and fill-in for canceled shows.

Production Challenges and the Live-Action Debut

UFO marked a significant turning point for Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, representing their first entirely live-action television series after years of pioneering the Supermarionation technique with marionette shows. The production was no small undertaking: a single series of 26 episodes, including the pilot, was filmed over more than a year. The show was produced by the Andersons alongside Lew Grade's Century 21 for his ITC Entertainment company, with Reg Hill also credited as a creator. A major disruption came when MGM-British Studios in Borehamwood, the original filming location, closed its doors, forcing a five-month production break. The team then relocated to Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire to complete the series. This disruption had tangible effects on the cast, with actors like George Sewell and Gabrielle Drake departing midway through the run. The scheduling complications meant some episodes featuring departed cast members were not broadcast until late in the series, creating a somewhat disjointed viewing experience for audiences.

SHADO's Layered Defence and the 1980 Premise

The series is set in 1980 and centres on SHADO, the Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation, a secret multinational military agency jointly established by the governments of the United Kingdom, the United States, the Soviet Union, France, and Germany. Its mandate is twofold: defend Earth against an alien threat and keep the public entirely unaware of the danger. SHADO operates from beneath the premises of Harlington-Straker Studios, a film studio in England, providing a plausible cover for its activities. Commander Edward Straker, a former US Air Force colonel and astronaut played by Ed Bishop, leads the organisation while publicly serving as the studio's chief executive. The defence architecture is impressively layered: SID, an unmanned tracking satellite, provides early warning of incursions. Moonbase launches three Interceptor spacecraft as the forward line. Skydiver, a submarine paired with the undersea-launched Sky One interceptor, forms the second line. Ground-based SHADO Mobiles on caterpillar tracks serve as the final defence. Additional assets include SHADAIR supersonic jets, a transatlantic Lunar Carrier, and Moon Hoppers for reconnaissance.

The Unnamed Aliens and Their Design

The alien race in UFO is deliberately never given a proper name by the creatures themselves or the human characters; they are simply 'the aliens.' They are humanoid in appearance, and the series reveals through a post-mortem of the first captured specimen that they abduct humans to harvest their organs for transplant, prolonging their own lives. A later episode, 'The Cat with Ten Lives,' introduces the unsettling idea that some of these humanoids may actually be Homo sapiens under alien mind control, a concept echoing the Andersons' earlier Supermarionation series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. Their physiology is adapted for interstellar travel: their faces are stained green by an oxygenated liquid that cushions their lungs against extreme acceleration, contained within their helmets. To protect their eyes, they wear opaque sclera contact lenses with tiny pinholes for vision—the show's opening titles even begin with one such lens being removed. Their spacecraft travel at multiples of the speed of light, measured in SOL, yet are too small for more than a few crew and can survive only a couple of days in Earth's atmosphere before deteriorating and exploding.

Legacy and the Road to Space: 1999

UFO's connection to the Andersons' earlier work is deeply embedded in its fabric. Their live-action science fiction film Doppelgänger, also known as Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, is widely considered a foreshadowing of the series. The show reused actors, costumes, props, locations, and music from that film, and eleven of its cast members appeared in at least one episode of UFO. This continuity underscored the Andersons' ambition to build a cohesive science fiction universe across different media. After UFO's initial UK and Canadian broadcast in 1970 and its US debut in 1972, syndication in the United States generated favourable ratings, prompting plans for a second series. Originally conceived under the title UFO 1999, this follow-up eventually evolved into Space: 1999, though it featured an entirely different cast from UFO. The transition from one project to the next illustrates how the Andersons' creative momentum, even when interrupted by production setbacks, continued to shape the landscape of British science fiction television.