Umm ... How can Foster defend himself?

Oopsie! Sorry! Straker and Freeman!

Should Straker send Ford out of his office to wait in Miss Ealands office? What if some film person comes in and sees the uniform?

Maybe he could say Ford's an actor (in costume)?

This is one of the best episodes of UFO. You see the relationship between Straker and his top two men very clearly here. It's well done and understated. Excellent performances by the cast too, especially the doctor we all love to hate--- Jackson! And never forget: the pen incident!!!

But this ep and Jackson........ what on earth is going on? Everyone's OK with him in Exposed, but here he's the evil traitor, and yet after this....... everyone loves him! Unless this ep is the final one of the series?

Um... I dunno. Jackson isn't a traitor in this episode; he's just the tough counsel for the prosecution. And a bit slimy, according to Alec!

I find it pretty funny that a guy with such a heavy accent is called 'Jackson'. His mother could be Russian, and his father lived there with his wife and his son, which could explain the accent.

It wouldn't surprise me if the audience was supposed to think that Jackson was a Russian defector, or something along those lines, given a new name. Then again it was probably just a case of casting the actor they liked best for the role regardless of the character's name.

SHADO security in public isn't very good in this episode. They've got armed guards running around the countryside firing at anything that moves, and even more amazingly Lt Masters brings a gang of SHADO technicians over to Foster's apartment and no-one says 'Oh come in civvies for security', they all trapze over in uniform.

There is an aspect of this episode that I'm not sure of. Is there, or is there not, a sequence (where Straker and Freeman go to the electronics expert who supplied the bugging devices found in Foster's apartment) where one of them pours parafin or petrol over someone and then threaten to set him alight? It was in the novelisation, it's been mentioned in magazine articles, but when the series was released in its entirety on VHS a few years ago, that scene was absent. Said VHS releases were on a label called "Digital Entertainment" and were supposedly uncut. I seem to remember seeing the sequence on TV, but that was a very long time ago - maybe my memory's playing tricks on me. Can anybody out there help?

It was scripted but not filmed.

What got me confused was an article in SIG fanzine about the character of Straker that referred to him and Freeman being ruthless enough to do that. I reasoned that they must be referring to an actual filmed sequence that had formed a part of the final version of the episode and thusly seen by everybody at the time. Hence my asking. Thanks.

Vladek Sheybal, who was born in Poland, had such an interesting voice and facial features, that he makes me think that Gerry Anderson's crew could have made a puppet with his exact features for 'Thunderbirds'. His unusual features would have made an interesting character.
He also appeared in Sean Connery's second Bond film, 'From Russia With Love', 'The Saint', 'The New Avengers', and Gerry Anderson's 'Journey To The Far Side Of The Sun', and 'The Protectors'.

I forgot to follow up on why I was even talking about Sheybal/Jackson.
I've seen him as an interrogator, and prosecutor, and a psychologist, and a medical doctor throughout the series. What is he? He seems to cover alot of territory within SHADO.
Now, Foster has been everywhere, too; spent a couple weeks aboard Skydiver, commanded Moonbase, went on missions in Mobiles, whereas I've also seen Captain Waterman as Skydiver's commander and an Interceptor pilot, as well. One could say that you get extensive training in several sections of SHADO, but as a medical doctor why would he be needed, in this episode, as a court room prosecutor?
The lady industrial spy should have been more concerned with her future, other than the threat of Straker firing an acoustic pistol into her ear. She stumbled upon a (secret) military organization, so I think she could have, at least, gotten into alot of trouble with the British government, spilling (secret) military secrets and operation details. That sounds like the same kind of treason that Foster is accused of.

I think every SF show is required by law to have a
"Court Martial" episode.

It doesn't make much sense that, if Foster is guilty, he took NO measures to ensure those coded messages weren't traced back to him. A little obvious, methinks. The fact he sent the messages is not evidence he LEAKED the messages. Yet Straker is ready to hang him from the yardarm immediately.

Guess Samuel T. Cogley wasn't available to take this case

I think Foster could sure have used him....his current defense attorney is rather passive.