....or so he thinks....

Does anyone besides me find the ending of this episode dippy? (Just asking.)

Denise, I also dislike the ending. I've always been contemptuous of 'it was only a dream' endings.

It's kind of ironic that one of the most powerful and disturbing images I have from watching TV as a child (the helmet filling with liquid) is in fact an image of something that never actually happened.

Thats the same for me, except its the Mysterons attack on Cloudbase in Captain Scarlet.

Actually, Sophie, I didn't mind the "only a dream" scenario. It was Paul singing "Beautiful Dreamer" that I thought stunk as a way to end the episode. Seriously lame! I kept thinking, "That's it?"

As a preteen I found UFO full of disturbing images and concepts. As an adult, I have realized that I was a very perceptive kid. UFO IS disturbing. That's what makes it so cool!

I had a dream about that liquid scene. I dreamt that I was abducted by the aliens, and they put the helmet on me. I then said or thought, "here comes the liquid" and up it came.

It did seem weird to me that we could breathe liquid, but the movie "The Abyss" kind of made it believable the way it was explained. And in a Star Trek novel, "Federation", it is indicated that some ships can accelerate at a higher G-factor only with the crew in a liquid-filled cockpit. The UFOs probably do have to accelerate considerably, and the liquid is one solution, although it would make more sense if the entire UFO cockpit was filled with the liquid.

I'm wondering what the aliens are doing at the end as they move past Foster - headed for the hatch to parachute out?!

Foster's dream was far too detailed with things that he wouldn't have dreamt about - Jackson's comments to Straker, Straker angry that the Sky captain missed trying to destroy the UFO, etc. And what was the UFO doing still in Earth's atmosphere long enough for SHADO to discover the spa had been attacked by the aliens?

I assume that if the episode had been of a real incident, that the aliens would have tried interrogating Foster for useful information to undermine SHADO, and then when he had given all possible useful information, terminated him in such a way to facilitate harvesting of his aliens (hey, these aliens and the Vidiians would have got along nicely!).

On the DVD set (at least the one that Netflix has), this episode comes immediately after "A Question of Priorities".

It's clear as the helmet fills, that the liquid isn't going all the way against his face.

I wonder if the scene in the movie The Abyss where Ed Harris takes off the liquid breathing helmet is a tribute to this episode?

The exercise equipment is verrry vintage 1969, not to mention the egg timer in the sauna.

Where was Carlin? Though it was nice to see Lt. Ellis in charge of Moonbase.

Foster launches from Sky 1, and passes by a second Sky fighter...which he refers to as 'replacement Sky 1'. Wouldn't that be confusing to Skydiver?
Captain Waterman: "Skydiver to Sky 1, come in."
Foster; "Sky 1 here."
Second Sky pilot; "Uh, Sky 1 here, too."
Waterman; "Sky One-Two? Which one are you?"
Foster; "I'm Sky 1."
Second Sky Pilot; "Me? I'm Sky 1, too."
Waterman; "We don't HAVE a Sky One-Two. Are you an alien?"
Foster; "Me?"
"Waterman; "No, One-Two!"
Second Sky Pilot; "Nononono! I'm Sky 1!"
Foster,; "No, I'M Sky 1"
Waterman; "Foster; shoot 'em down!"
Foster; "Acknowledged!"
Second Sky Pilot; "AAAAAA!"

That party must have been a retro-1969 costume party, because there's no way any party in 1980/81 would have looked so...groovy. They were even playing the Beatles' "Get Back", which would have been new to viewers, but an 11-year old song for the party goers.

Paul and his girlfriend say good-bye to their last guests at 4:30 am (bet SHE'S real popular with her neighbors!), and Paul looks disappointed that he never had a chance to fool around with the lady.

The dream sequence and reality merge at the coincidental point of a real UFO approach. Paul couldn't know a UFO was heading for Earth, at the exact time that it was. And we never do find out what happened to the real UFO, since Paul was never abducted and never crashed on the Moon.

Was it possible Michael Billington was trying out for a singing career? He sings a chunk of that song at the end, when he could have just hummed it. Or the writer could have just never written that scene!

Definitely my least favorite of the series. That party would embarrass Austin Powers, and the "just a dream" ending was really a cheat.

I had a notion. The only problem is Freeman coming and finding everyone dead. I would note that the aliens seemed to be particularly brutal in this episode.

Foster _was_ kidnapped, and it was such a traumatic event to him that he was given the amnesia drug, so were several other personnel who were involved, Foster was taken to the spa, and when he woke up, he's told he merely had a dream. A very intense dream.

But, as I said, the problem with this is that we saw Freeman investigate the spa and discover the bodies of the others.

Just for fun, I wrote my own fan-fic about Foster arriving at the alien planet, and in desperation, he tries to reason with them, ask them why they're using Earth to save their world, if there's options, if there's anything Earth can do to help.

Re Steve's 28 Jul 2007 post. Why should they play the latest music of 198x? Grown-ups don't play the music of the teen generation. They play the music THEY grew up with. My parents grew up with Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey. When they went roller skating, most of the music was of the older generation.

Naturally, if Foster and friends grew up with 1960s music, and they're now in their late 20s and 30s, in the mid 1980s, of course they'd have music like what they grew up with. The Beatles would be nostalgic. They wouldn't want the noise garbage of the 1980s!

Noise garbage? O.o

I guess it takes time for the liquid to turn the skin of a humanoid green, since once Paul's helmet is removed, his skin is still human-flesh coloured. Even taking into account that it's a dream, Foster knows about the skin discolouration.
And why does he fight everyone when the helmet is pulled off? He's amongst his own people.

The director was sloppy in two places. Ken Turner didn't catch Lt. Ellis pronouncing the word 'sighting' as 'siking'. I played it three times, and there's a definite 'K' pronounced instead of a 'T'.
The second is when Captain Waterman leaps down the tube to get to Sky One. The actor slides down out of sight, but you can clearly see his full helmet reflect against the wall and just stop.

This is my least favourite episode. Ripoff of "Thunderball," done much more poorly.

Further to my message of June 28, 2011, I did write a story. It is what happened after Paul Foster was recovered but before he's back at the spa at the end of the episode. Straker, Dr. Jackson, Gen. Henderson have a meeting about a "major problem": this affair was a traumatic experience for everyone. They agree that everyone on duty will be administered the amnesia drug, but before that, they will quickly do exhaustive debriefs and record all the information on what happened, then seal it in the archives with strong advisory against reading it. To deal with the dead spa personnel, one operative makes a brief appearance with a "Mission Impossible" quality face mask, saying he has to leave that day due to his own serious health issue. And the other fellow with Foster that week was also recalled and then dies in an improbable but possible accident some weeks later (even though he's already just killed).

This would cover the incredibly-detailed "dream" which would not, after all, be a dream but spare people the trauma of knowing this actually happened.