Bending The Mind With UFO

Clip 00:04 I was saying I think you can make a ferry. My god, what's happening? You're nothing but a bunch of spineless, gutless sheep, the lot of you! You're crazy. You're crazy You're crazy, crazy. You're crazy. You're crazy crazy. You're crazy. You're crazy crazy. You're crazy. Crazy. Great. Dave 00:56 This is the Extra Extra Hot Great Podcast, episode 417, our second installment of Three Of These for 2026. I am computer screen cycling through random trios of numbers, David T. Cole, and I'm here with impractical space footwear, Sarah D. Bunting. Sarah 01:21 Moon does this murder on patent leather. Dave 01:24 And Space Italian Tara Ariano Tara 01:27 When you're here in space, your space family Clip 01:42 Pens and Dave 01:48 Welcome in club members. Thank you for your support. Today is the second of our three of these for 2026 to remind you our theme this year is. Is seventies British Sci-Fi TV series I haven't really heard about that much until now And it is a show called UFO. It debuted in 1970, ran for two seasons. It is set in the exciting year of 1980. And here's the premise. Earth is being attacked by aliens, their planet is dying, and they're here to steal our organs, our organs, Earth organs, in order to heal themselves. Tara 02:31 I need those Dave 02:32 I guess where I keep all my stuff. Enter Shadow, that is the Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization, no W. a secret organization, it's right Tara 02:41 Mm-hmm. Dave 02:43 in their name, to defend Earth while keeping this whole thing hush-hush. They want it to reach the public. There are two major shadow bases. We've got Moon Base, which is on the moon, and we've got Shadow HQ, which is in the UK. The episode starts at Moonbase, where we've got ladies in silver uniforms and purple bob cut wigs. They're tracking a UFO, and this UFO is on a attack trajectory to Moonbase. They scramble Shadow Interceptors, which look like Battlestar Galactica vipers with like a giant skin tag on the front of it instead of a nice Sarah 03:19 Okay. Dave 03:19 Little nose. Tara 03:20 Mm-hmm. Dave 03:20 They scramble, they're flying towards this UFO, but the UFO seemingly self-destructs before they can get to it. SHADO Commander Straker and his eyeliner at Shadow HQ Sarah 03:32 Yeah. Dave 03:33 on Earth is very concerned. Clip 03:37 Convey my congratulations to the interceptor pilots. They didn't get near it. What? It disintegrated. No apparent reason. Thank you, Lieutenant. Contact Paul Foster and check on the next available lunar flight. You're going up to Moonbase? Yes. I want to know why a UFO gets within four miles of Moonbase then destroys itself. Dave 04:07 All right, that is the title reveal. Sarah 04:08 Ufo Dave 04:10 So at this point, given the setup, I want to throw it back to Tara and Sarah with the Chen check-in to ask: should people watch UFO Season 1, Episode 14, Mindbender? Tara. Tara 04:23 Uh, I don't know. I mean The costumes are really insane. It's it's almost worth recommending for that, but I would say this could have benefited from trims of 15 to 22 minutes So if you have the time to like settle in, yes, if your time is short, I cannot recommend Sarah. Sarah 04:47 I loved this. What a ride. Yes, watch it. Tara 04:50 Okay. Dave 04:51 That's the correct answer. Tara 04:52 Fair enough. Dave 04:52 We'll get to it, but speaking of Things you can trim. I clocked it. There's an 18-minute scene that could just be trimmed into 30 seconds, but we'll get to it. Sarah 05:01 Mm-hmm Dave 05:02 So you heard in that clip This show is actually called UFO, not UFO, as the star of UFO apparently says all the time. He is incapable of saying UFO.uFO. I really love everything about that title sequence, though, because you have to imagine it is Eurostyle Bold Extended Font. And if you don't know what that is, just think about the font they use everywhere. in 7D science fiction 2001 et alz it's that font Sarah 05:29 Mm-hmm Dave 05:30 and it draws in so it's just not like Bam UFO, it actually sort of like draws in in pieces and then it zooms out at you. And the actually effect for 1970, I thought was really great. And you get that music? I don't know, it kind of hooked me from the start. Sarah 05:42 Mm-hmm. Yeah, same Dave 05:45 This episode I'm gonna chop up into three bits based on the main character of each bit. We're gonna have part one, Conroy, part two, beaver. That's exciting. And then part three about Straker, the Shadow HQ commander. But let's get into part one. I think the absolute best part of this episode. We have Conroy and Dale. These are two guys that after the UFO explodes are sent out on their little space Buggy to investigate the site. The wreckage of the UFO.all this happens off camera. They don't have the budget to show them on the moon. Conroy finds a crystal he seems to think as a moon rock and he takes it back with him to moon base In their s very spacious quarters, Dale is grabbing a meal from what appears to be like a next generation style replicator meets like an automat from 1930s New York City. Tara 06:38 Mm-hmm. Dave 06:38 Except that it's got like it's separated into big cuisine sections. Sarah 06:38 Ugh gross. Dave 06:43 Did you guys track this? It's only on screen for a second. But there's six different quadrants of this replicator automat, and of the labels I could see, I could see that it had Italian food. American food. Tara 06:56 Sure Dave 06:56 And the one I believe Dale gets his stuff from, English food, because the tray of food Dale has is completely beige. There is not one thing that has any color on this food tray. Sarah 07:09 Nothing is distinguishable from anything else. It's like, that could be turkey. That could be macadamia nut slurry. Dave 07:18 Yeah. Sarah 07:19 I don't even know what was on that tray. Dave 07:20 It's it was actually impressive how gray it was. Yeah. So Conroy pulls out the moon rock that he took. He remarks, it'll make a nice paperweight, and starts to well, I'll play the clip first. Clip 07:36 Yeah, well it'd make a nice paperweight. See, Francoise, Denis Sylvia, Sylvia baby Dave 07:48 Well I'm not sure if he's planning to name his paperweight or he thinks this will make a good gift to one of the birds on Moonbase. Tara 07:55 That's that was my interpretation. Sarah 07:56 I assumed it was that. Dave 07:58 I assume it was that, but Tara 07:58 That was his Sarah 07:58 Yeah. Tara 07:59 That's his roster. Dave 08:00 thank you for the rock from outside of our base? Tara 08:03 Mm-hmm. Dave 08:04 I mean, I don't know, this guy doesn't seem like he's much of a player. Sarah 08:07 What do you and this moon rock have in common? You're both out of this world! Slap ow Dave 08:13 Yeah. There is a little cute scene where Conroy is faking that he sees something. He's very scared about something in the quarters. Dale looks away as he's eating it, and then Conroy tries to steal one of his beige space nuggets. I don't know what it is. Sarah 08:28 Space Dave 08:28 And Sarah 08:29 nuggets. Dave 08:30 so Conroy takes off. He is walking the halls of Moonbase and he enters the control sphere only to see And I'm gonna use the credited character names here. Three Mexican bandits waiting for him. Now thank goodness for the Mexican guitar riff we're now hearing. And their giant sombreros, or else I would be very confused about what they were going for here in this scene. Very weird. What's going on here? The three bandits stop their poker game, dropping their playing cards, which fall to the floor as computer punch cards, and then they have a fight where Conroy punches one of them. And then we see a purple wigged officer, one of our ladies in control sphere, with her harsh purple bob cut wig, fall to the ground instead. Punches a Mexican bandit, Purple Lady falls on the ground. She pulls out her communicator, but Conroy sees a bandit pull out his gun, and so he takes off. Now, the actors in this scene are Larry Taylor as Mexican Bandit No. 1, Bill Morgan Tara 09:33 Great Dave 09:35 as Mexican Bandit No. 2. Now, Larry Taylor, he played a number of Mexicans in his career in the UK.outside of his um cough Cough makeup. He actually has a very World War I lieutenant look, giant eyebrows, big mustache, hello, hello, what's all this then? Tara 09:51 Mm-hmm. Dave 09:53 But Gruffer, he's got that energy to him. Tara 09:54 Yeah Dave 09:55 Bill Morgan was a stunt man, he was on a couple James Bond films, not many credits to his name. So far, our Mexicans are Larry Taylor. Bill Morgan. And then we have, oh, Ricardo Montez. Thank goodness. Born Levi Isaac Adelis to Jewish parents who change his name so he can get parts like this in the UK. Sarah 10:18 Oh my God. Dave 10:19 Three very big English three very English guys, one with a Latin name, but guess what guys? Sarah 10:21 Wow Dave 10:25 He's as English as the rest of them. Sarah 10:26 Holy shit! Dave 10:27 So here we go. Conroy, he just attacks everyone he sees, including his partner Dale, who at the moment is enjoying cutting into his space cheese with an acrylic space knife. But Conroy sees it as one of the bandits about to throw a big bowie knife. Is that how you say it? Tara 10:44 I think it's Dave 10:44 Giant knife. Tara 10:45 Bowie knife. Dave 10:45 Bowie Tara 10:46 Oh, Bowie, sorry. Dave 10:46 knife. Yeah, see, nobody knows. It's unknowable. Tara 10:48 Hmm Dave 10:49 Bowie Bowie Bowie knife, and he just shoots Dale and kills him. The blood that comes out of Dale's mouth is that Bright red blood that productions used to use before human science knew what blood looked like for real. Sarah 11:02 Mm-hmm. Dave 11:03 Before that it was all guesswork. Sarah 11:04 Yeah. Smuckers 's strawberry sauce for ice cream. Tara 11:06 Well, I mean it's redder than that. Sarah 11:07 Yeah. Tara 11:08 It looks like paint to me. Dave 11:09 It looks like acrylic paint used to paint in grade school, yeah. Tara 11:12 Yeah. Dave 11:13 After that, Conroy is in turn killed. During his travels though, before he is killed He's having a gunfight in an old West Town with Straker and Foster, his friend, and you can hear a bullet whizzing by, which immediately I thought You used to hear this sound effect of this bullet everywhere in the 70s and 80s, but you do not hear it anymore. Let's have a listen. You don't get that anymore. Tara 11:41 You're right. Yep, you're right. Sarah 11:42 Yeah, the cartoon one. Dave 11:44 Yeah. Sarah 11:44 I thought that scene was pretty like not exciting, but like they used a f fisheye lens for it and they're on the set of some ghost town. I don't know. I was like interested. They're all hiding behind a wagon wheel and looking annoyed. Dave 11:59 Yeah. Sarah 12:00 Yeah, it was great. Dave 12:01 In the moment when you first see our bandits, it is a very puzzling what the Fuck little segment and it only gets weirder from there as we discover more about what Conroy is going through. So I was enraptured by this whole segment, frankly, and the part where he's he's imagining up until the old West scene himself suddenly being abandoned. There's this great scene where he's walking down a hall and he's in his astronaut suit and it just jumps to him being dressed up in his old West duds as he goes completely mad. I thought was a really great touch. Tara 12:33 I have to call out, since it was my intro, that even though he's playing a character named Conroy, speaking people r acting outside of their background, he's played by Al Mancini. He is the space Italian, so Dave 12:44 Ah, Mancini, the space mascot's best friend. Tara 12:48 He could have crossed the line and been one of the banditos with that mustache of his, I'll just say. Dave 12:51 Yeah, absolutely. Tara 12:53 Mm-hmm Dave 12:53 So as I mentioned, he is shot by security. He falls on a clear air mattress. I didn't think existed back then. I didn't think we had the technology. This seems like something you would buy at Urban Outfitters in nineteen ninety-one Tara 13:08 Yeah. Dave 13:09 But bright red blood also drips out of his mouth, which I kinda guess at this point is the goriest that standards and practices would allow. Tara 13:17 Yeah. Dave 13:17 You get mouth dribble. That's it. You can't actually show like blood on the walls or anything like that because two in a row in about the space of forty-five seconds. Sarah 13:26 I was pretty impressed by their willingness to just fucking kill people on the show. You know, it's just a it's but a flesh wound. Like, no, they're they're dead. So, well, alright, UFO. Dave 13:38 There is a very large body count in this episode Sarah 13:41 Mm-hmm Dave 13:41 considering what a contained story it is. Tara 13:43 Yeah. Dave 13:44 So he's dead. He's got a trail of bodies behind him. The Shadow Big Way Straker and his Army companion, Colonel Foster, investigate Conroy's actions, they go over his recent fitness reports. He is absolutely fine. He was cleared for duty. There's been no issues in his history. The only thing they find is that a notebook in his personal effects points to an interest by Conroy in writing Old West Tales. So they just pack up all the shit and they send it back to Earth to Shadow HQ.sorry, buddy. That's a wrap on Conroy. By the way. If you want to paint a picture of Straker, he looks like a Star Trek and Dorian, but he put flesh colored over his blue skin. Tara 14:27 Yeah, he does. Sarah 14:28 Mm-hmm. Tara 14:29 I would also say he looks like a tidied Sarah 14:29 Yeah Tara 14:31 up Daniel Craig who like has gotten in fewer bar fights. He's like a Dave 14:35 Uh-huh. Tara 14:36 he's like prettier. Dave 14:37 Yeah, I can see that. Sarah 14:37 I was gonna say David Soul, but Tara 14:39 Yes. Dave 14:40 Oh Sarah 14:40 yep. Dave 14:40 yeah. Tara 14:40 See that too for sure. Mm-hmm. Sarah 14:42 Uh huh. Dave 14:43 All right, part two, Beaver. So back on Earth, Straker finds General Henderson in his office. Now, Henderson is sort of like Shadow's overseer. He seems to be the government liaison. And this guy is steaming mad at efficiency dirt. Just listen how mad he is. How much he taunts standards and practices. Clip 15:06 General Henderson Straker, I ought to kick your ass. You know, uh Colonel Lake Dave 15:10 Oh ah, they got one-third of way through the word ass Tara 15:14 Mm-hmm Dave 15:15 here in 1970. So congratulations to them. I was a little shocked that they even put that much on the air. Tara 15:20 I was too, but it was uh I like that they established that um Straker has his lady c colleague, Colonel Lake come with him so that General Henderson will keep a PG Dave 15:31 Mm-hmm. Tara 15:31 in his language because he won't curse in front of a lady Dave 15:33 That's right. So he needs some report for the committee. Report. You know, he's got to balance the budget. The numbers aren't making sense, Draker. Enter Beaver James, who looks like a reject from the VAT that grows extra William Shatners because a couple Winston Churchill clones got mixed in by mistake. Sarah 15:53 Yeah, hundred percent. Dave 15:55 Beaver James is a logistics officer, I believe. He's in the middle of talking to some guy in the hallway where he just decides to sucker punch him in the gut and take his gun. Just before he goes crazy in this moment, Beaver is looking over his inventory sheet on his clipboard. And I don't think he was supposed to move the clipboard so you can see what was on the clipboard because The paper is moved towards the camera. It is completely blank, except for one word, and I am very sad to report. I couldn't make up what that word is, but it circled a few times. Tara 16:27 Excellent. Dave 16:28 Like, it doesn't look anything like a logistics officer. Like, just give him a call sheet for the day and stick it on there for this ten Tara 16:35 Yeah. Sarah 16:35 Yeah. Dave 16:36 second scene. Poor guy. He meets another guy in the hall, he shoots him in the gut, then Straker and Foster try to catch up with Beaver, and one of the best scenes in the episode for me, they pull out a paper map And they point to where they are and where they think Beaver was. Now, this map, I could tell there was something wrong with it right away. First of all the map is too small, it's the size of a diner placemat. What do we de even doing here? And then on the map there's color-coded areas They are colored with either magic markers or pencil crayons. Sarah 17:12 Mm-hmm. Dave 17:13 I can't tell. You probably could have noticed this back in 1970 in your tiny little specather ray tube TV, but it is really obvious now. Sarah 17:21 I could almost smell the magic marker. It looked like a mall map as like like Dave said, issued to diner patrons and colored in by a child of a producer. Dave 17:34 Yeah. And then there's the actual map itself. At first I assumed it was like a map of the entire shadow complex. Right, you know, they're a big organization, they're trying to keep aliens away from the public eye. They gotta have a lot of shit going on. There's gotta be a giant complex But as soon as Straker points out where they are versus where he thinks Beaver was, you get the sense of the scale of it. And it was apparent that the map just covers the control center. So just like the few buildings that support HQ, you know, the actual center of it all. So I pause the frame And I brought it into Photoshop and I played with the level so I can read things a little bit better. The legend has dining area and studio office on it. So this map is basically the map of say a mid-size office floor. I think that's basically the equivalent. Tara 18:22 Mm-hmm. Dave 18:22 So based on the door openings which you can see in the map, the number of rooms, we're talking about six rooms by six rooms. So the whole thing is like 180 feet by 180 feet roughly. So why do they need a map They work here and this place is tiny. They don't need a map. It drove me insane. I just love that that was the way they wanted to fill time by checking out it's like Tara, if we're in the kitchen and I'm like, I gotta go to my office, and then you pull out a map of our house and you explain to me where we are and where my office is. Sarah 18:57 Oh, and don't forget Dave 18:57 I know. Sarah 18:58 calling ahead to Sandy McTire Tara 19:01 Mm-hmm. Dave 19:01 That's right. Sarah 19:01 to be like, he's coming your way, lockdown Tara 19:04 Yep. Dave 19:04 That's right. Tara 19:05 Mm-hmm. Dave 19:05 Anyways, I just enjoyed that little segment. Tara 19:08 Yep Dave 19:09 So Beaver, way away from the team with the map, he tries to rush the control room. He's tripping out. Everyone looks like an alien astronaut to him. Silverhelm has orange jumpsuits. And did anyone else clock what they were wearing over their jumpsuits? Tara 19:26 No, no, no. Dave 19:27 It is the silver bikini parts that are also shared by the Moonbase ladies in the control Sarah 19:33 Oh, over Dave 19:33 room on Moonbase. Tara 19:33 Oh my God. Sarah 19:34 their like mesh sweater is gotcha. Tara 19:36 Waste Sarah 19:37 Yep. Tara 19:37 not what not Dave 19:38 I haven't mentioned it yet, but any anybody want to take a quick side trip into the ladies' fashions that we're talking about here? Tara 19:45 They're wild. Dave 19:47 First of all, from top to bottom, purple bob wigs with sort of like a little Sarah 19:47 Yeah Dave 19:52 Bela Logosi bit in the middle. Sarah 19:53 Widow's Tara 19:54 Yes, yes. Sarah 19:54 Peak, uh Dave 19:55 Now apparently the reason why they're not aliens or anything. Sarah 19:55 huh Dave 19:58 They're just humans. There's nothing special about these ladies. Tara 20:00 Mm-hmm. But they all have matching wigs. Dave 20:02 That they all have matching wigs because then they didn't have to style their hair and it saved on makeup costs. Tara 20:08 Well, that was probably a good call for the woman who gets beaten up by Conroy. Since she is black and they have put like the chalkiest white makeup on her, it's like they clearly didn't have anything to match her skin color and it's very noticeable. Sarah 20:19 Oh my God Dave 20:23 Yeah Sarah 20:23 Yeah. Yeah, it's like a sweat a long sleeve sort of not mesh exactly, but like light sweater material, I would Dave 20:32 It but it looked like steel wool. Tara 20:33 Like crochet, yes. Sarah 20:34 Yeah, silver Tara 20:36 It's sparkly Sarah 20:36 or like chain mail Dave 20:37 Yeah. Sarah 20:38 but Dave 20:38 Yeah. Sarah 20:38 knitted. Dave 20:39 Yeah. Tara 20:39 Yes. Sarah 20:39 And then over that is I would say a pleather sort of like bikini harness situation that looked kind of I mean not super comfortable. It looked kind of diaper bunchy in the back because that's what happens. Tara 20:53 Mm-hmm. Dave 20:53 Yeah Tara 20:54 I thought it was probably just like leme lycra. Dave 20:56 Yeah, brother. Tara 20:57 Mm-hmm. Sarah 20:58 Fairly practical footwear. I didn't remember anything that crazy. Like actually Straker and his whole cohort are all wearing the like white patent leather. Tara 21:07 Go go Sarah 21:08 Cuban Tara 21:08 boots. Sarah 21:08 heel mod boots, which like they're cool, and you can hear them clopping, which makes for compelling audio. Tara 21:14 You sure can. Yes Sarah 21:17 on this here podcast, but yeah, yeah, choices be like um Moonraker choices being made, but it it actually isn't like Like it looks cheap and it's weird and it looks a little uncomfortable. Like, give a girl a pocket. She's at CentCom. What are you doing? Tara 21:37 Yes. Sarah 21:37 But not bad. Co compelling. Tara 21:40 Yeah. I mean I would love to know the story reason why all of the Moonbase ladies have to have matching wigs. Uh not the backs. Sarah 21:48 Mm. Tara 21:49 stage reason. Dave 21:49 For wig morale Tara 21:51 The in universe. Sarah 21:51 Yeah Tara 21:52 Well, I just mean like, you know, you could have given them hats, for example, if you just didn't want to style their hair. Sarah 21:57 Uh-huh. Dave 21:58 Yeah. Yeah, they could have been the hats. Tara 21:59 But uh Dave 22:00 What what are the Russian hats for the uh Uns and unshuka, whatever it's called, you know, with the flaps and everything. Tara 22:04 Yeah, uh Sarah 22:05 Yeah. Tara 22:05 huh, yeah, sure, mm-hmm Dave 22:05 Just that would hide all their hair. Just make 'em silver. Sarah 22:08 Mm-hmm. Dave 22:08 Sure. So just to rewind, Beaver, he's in in the here, he's not seeing s Purple wigged silver ladies, he is seeing alien astronauts, and he takes somebody hostage and he is shot and killed by Straker. And that's a wrap on Beaver. Tara 22:26 That Dave 22:26 We're gonna miss him Tara 22:27 that's literally what I have in my notes. And that's a wrap on beaver Sarah 22:30 Yeah. Dave 22:31 Yeah. So part three, and we're only halfway through the episode. Part three is the longest one. It is the tale of Straker. Straker is huffing that he needs some air after all this. He walks out of HQ and into, we discover, the active movie studio lot being used as cover for Shadow HQ in the UK back on Earth. Tara 22:52 Yep. Mm-hmm. Dave 22:54 He walks by a monk and a maiden and like an amazing Zoltar type of guy in a turban. Tara 23:00 Mm-hmm. Dave 23:01 A couple crew members are rolling a giant hand prop on a cart. Sarah 23:04 Yeah. Tara 23:05 I fucking want that hand Sarah 23:07 Yeah, me too. And my notes said hand oz Dave 23:10 You know those chairs that you can get that are a hand? Tara 23:12 Yeah, it's that size. Sarah 23:12 Yes. Dave 23:13 It's ten times the size of that. Tara 23:15 Okay, but if we saw that hand, if it was like Sarah 23:16 Mm-hmm Dave 23:18 Yeah. Tara 23:19 if it was made out of something, it would be weather safe. Dave 23:21 Yeah, uh Tara 23:21 If we saw it in an antique mall, what's the most Dave 23:24 huh. Tara 23:25 you would be willing to spend for that thing to like put it in our backyard? Dave 23:29 Yeah. 500? Tara 23:30 Yeah, same. Dave 23:31 Yeah. I bet Tara 23:32 If you Dave 23:32 I think you can get that for 500. Tara 23:34 listener, if you have a huge hand to send, get Dave 23:36 Yeah. Tara 23:37 at us, if it's for sale, let us know. Sarah 23:38 Yeah, yeah. Dave 23:38 Uh-huh. So he got some air, he met all these people. We're gonna meet all these people again in the future, but he goes back to his office, and there's a problem actor waiting at his office. I'm calling him Phantony PFerkins And he's whining about the movies that he's in. Tara 23:54 Yep Dave 23:56 The scene goes on for fucking ever, considering how little payback there is for this character in the future on this episode. Don't really know what they were thinking besides we gotta eat some time. Tara 24:07 Yes, I do like that when he's complaining, he rubs his eye with his middle finger in a way that I noticed. That seemed like s Sarah 24:14 Yeah. Tara 24:14 sneaky, even though they are in the UK and that's not how they give the finger. I did note it. Sarah 24:18 Yeah. I also noticed that uh Allan Quartermain from General Hospital is in this sequence, and I was like, oh, okay. Tara 24:25 Oh Sarah 24:27 Never understood why he was like one of the sort of sexual protagonists of that show and then watched this and was like, oh I see. I came in too late. Dave 24:36 During this talk, Straker's secret tiny television under his desk starts beeping. He presses a button. and it warns him there's a possible UFO sighting on the moon. Then they scramble one of their future jets, and it takes six seconds of future jet footage before the pilot's like, nah Nothing here. That's it. That's it for that storyline. There's no payoff here. Kids, you want to see this toy you need to buy? Here we go. Here's your six seconds. Go bug your parents. That apparently was the only purpose of that scene. Tara 25:05 Amazing. Dave 25:05 Th there's no follow-up. So Foster, that is Colonel Foster, enters Straker's office with Conroy's Personal Effects a glue cooler. which was the last thing the logistics officer Beaver James did before he went crazy. Stryker pulls the moon rock out of the cooler just before he gets into an argument with the mean old crusty army dean, General Henderson. Here is a wild moment from that scene. Clip 25:33 They're highly trained, dedicated, often under tremendous stress. Oh, stop it, stop it! You're making me cry. My God. I'm really seeing you for the first time. You don't care, do you? You really don't care. Stress, we're all under stress. Father Street from his bleating flack Don't push me, Henderson. Look, somebody ought to take me. You haven't got the guts. Let's get back to realities You're nothing but a bunch of spineless, gutless sheep, the lot of you. Meh, meh, meh. I'm print that. That was very very nice. Dr. Bill. How was it for you? Okay, I guess. Mm-hmm. Fellow right anyway. Dave 26:18 This was a pretty great scene. So, what is happening is apparently we're having a shadow HQ Straker's office argument between him and the general about the future of Shadow Things, and then suddenly we're not there. We're actually just Filming a scene about that happening in our universe here. This is no longer reality. Sarah 26:40 Mm-hmm. Dave 26:41 This is a production of everything we have just seen. So what were you guys thinking when you saw this? Sarah 26:49 I was like, okay, I think I did not sort of Put two and two together as far as this already being the cover for Shadow Nanigans on Earth So I put that together and then I was like, all right, but then where, like, where is the line that we're supposed to know what he's hallucinating and what he's not and why? And then I just sort of gave myself up to it. Like once you realize what they're doing and that all of this is an homage either to Truffaut or a direct lift from some Kubrick project, name one It's just like, okay, let's see what they do with it. And then some of it was effectively creepy, but it was just like, okay, I I also did look at the runtime and I was like, but we all know it was that like moon rock paperweight, right? Dave 27:40 Yeah. Tara 27:40 Yeah. Dave 27:41 Uh Sarah 27:41 So how how many like weird dream sequency scenes are we gonna have? Answer a bunch, but I didn't really mind Dave 27:47 Yep. I mean the first clue something is definitely wrong is that everyone refers to Straker now as Howard Byrne. He's no longer the person we knew. Sarah 27:57 Mm-hmm Dave 27:59 But Tara, what was your reaction to this? Tara 28:01 No, I put I figured it out uh pretty quickly that this was this was the fantasy, this was uh sp the Straker version of what I have in my notes as space madness. Sarah 28:12 Mm-hmm, yep. Tara 28:13 So I I I was surprised it went on as long as it did and that it was the rest of the episode, but yeah, I I figured it out. Dave 28:19 Yeah. So this is where we get into Jesus Ace Christ, the 18 minute scene I was talking about earlier. Sarah 28:26 Mm Dave 28:26 So what happens is Sarah 28:27 -hmm Dave 28:28 Straker slash Howard Byrne, obviously discompopulated, has no idea what's happening. His world went from I'm arguing with my superior to I am now an actor and Sarah 28:40 Mm-hmm. Dave 28:40 my workplace is actually really a set, not a real workplace. Sarah 28:45 Mm-hmm Dave 28:46 So he takes off out of the set, out of the sound stage, and he starts going around. And there's like just 18 minutes of him re-meeting everything he's seen before. We get. The monk, the maiden walking around. We see the giant hand again, and he is slowly going Sarah 29:02 Mm-hmm Dave 29:05 mad. He sees Shadow Tanks, that's not with a W, driving around a lot. He spots himself walking at a distance around hedges in a very Sarah 29:16 Mm Dave 29:16 Prisoner-esque sequence that ends with him discovering that it is Sarah 29:20 Yes, I thought that too. Dave 29:22 Phantom Pferkins, who is now his stand-in Tara 29:26 Right. Dave 29:26 in this reality. Tara 29:27 Yes, this is the this is the whiny actor from before. Dave 29:30 Yep. Sarah 29:30 Mm-hmm. Tara 29:30 Alan Quartermane from General Hospital, Stuart Damon. Dave 29:34 He tries to go into his office that we've seen before, but it's not his office anymore. It's Straker's office, and he's not Straker. The secretary tells him you are scheduled to go see your rushes at now, so why don't you run off and do that? And he does that. He goes into this screening room. And it's like this weird ass collection of moments of his life that are presented as clips from this movie or movies that he's been shooting. There seems to be a political thriller where he's in a motorcade that is attacked by a UFO, which is footage from a previous episode I've since discovered. Sarah 30:04 Oh my god, that went on forever, God. Dave 30:10 There's the last one which seems to be his memories of the events his child died after getting struck by a car. Again, I assume probably from the pilot or something like that. And he's just like, ah , and he starts running through the studio a lot. And that's where you hear the thing that I played up top in the intro clip. You're crazy! He storms back into the studio to the soundstage. He's walking down a long hall to get there while dozens of people are like entering and exiting doors in front of them like a Looney Tunes cartoon. Tara 30:43 Mm-hmm Sarah 30:43 Yeah. Dave 30:44 And then, which I thought was really great, he actually gets into the soundstage and we're seeing all the sets of the show UFO as the reality that he is an actor in some sort of UFOshow. Sarah 30:57 Mm-hmm. Dave 30:58 And you really get a sense of the deliberate the deliberate confined spaces that these sets are supposed to be because there are some scenes in like the control sphere where they have a really low ceiling and it seems like a really artificial constraint. But then you see the sound stage where oh that was by design. Their heads are almost hitting. It's like living in an attic, you know, like you're a kid, you want your bedroom in the attic because it's cool. Sarah 31:21 Yeah Dave 31:23 But you keep on banging your head against the roof. Tara 31:24 Mm-hmm. Dave 31:25 It was like that, but a high-tech office. Weird choices, but I appreciated being able to see it from the bird's eye, right? Everything that's going on. Tara 31:34 Yeah Sarah 31:34 Yeah. And it made it more effectively nightmarish, I thought. Like I felt like that Tara 31:40 , Sarah 31:40 claustrophobic sense of like I know something is wrong and I know this isn't real but I don't know how to leave. Tara 31:45 Yes. Sarah 31:46 I thought they conveyed that pretty well given that the budget was forty Dave 31:49 Yeah. Sarah 31:50 pence. Dave 31:51 Well yeah, and Tara 31:51 Yeah Dave 31:52 as you know, that 18 minute scene had a probably a six minute scene of him trying to catch up to Fanfinity Pferkins' stand-in in this reality. Sarah 32:01 Good Dave 32:01 But at least that part of it seemed like, oh, this is like that Sarah 32:01 day. Dave 32:05 this is some weird liminal thing going on here. I don't like. It was like had this sort of like Sarah 32:08 Mm-hmm. Dave 32:09 caveman sees alien, caveman creates religion energy to it. Tara 32:14 Yeah. Watching this the same weekend that I saw the movie Backrooms, uh all of it sort of like merged in my mind and is was fucking me up. I actually started thinking about both of them before I fell asleep and it kept me awake for like 35 minutes probably. Dave 32:30 So he is back in the same soundstage that he started his reality trip in, and he is disrupting production, everybody's mad at him, he's testing all the things. he thought were real and now are just part of a production. And then suddenly he finds himself rerunning the scene with General Henderson bah bah that one. And in his rage, he punches Henderson at the end of this one, but in reality was throwing the moon rock. And it finally breaks the spell when it shatters the conceit that this is all a production suddenly vanishes. They're back in what we hope is his reality. He is in fact in the real shadow HQ.wish to remind you. is inside of a fake productions you know complex and he's free and then there's like a little post mortem where everybody's like, man, you're really just out there, dude. And he's like, oh, I hope it didn't cause any trouble. Very British scene. They'll sort of assume it was a ploy from the aliens Clip 33:31 Nothing too serious. The link. The link was a rock. Conroy must have found it somewhere near that UFO wreckage. It had some kind of uh Sarah 33:44 Do you Clip 33:45 hallucinatory power. Bent the mind of whoever touched it. Obviously alien. Yes. Planted in some way by that UFO which crashed near Moonbase A booby trap. Yes. Aimed at the mind. Dave 34:25 That ominous music is where you see the moon rock on his putting green floor. All smashed into little bits, and that's where the episode ends with a mind bender, if you will. And we will Tara 34:39 I I don't see why m Sarah 34:40 I will Tara 34:42 making it Like turning it into smaller pieces breaks the spell, personally. That seems like it should be more a more dangerous Sarah 34:49 Now Tara 34:49 if it can be possibly atomized. Dave 34:51 I think what we're looking at here is a crossover with Doomwatch, where the rats, you know, because they are smaller and the moon rocks are now smaller, they individually Tara 34:55 Mm Dave 35:01 start hallucinating and have rat adventures in the same way as Conroy Beaver and Straker Tara 35:06 That's Dave 35:06 did. Tara 35:06 nice to think. Dave 35:07 It's nice to think. So that is Mindbender, the UFO episode. Now, we haven't got into sort of a lot about the look and feel about this, and that is a lot of the appeal for me as how fun and opinionated the look of this show is while at the same time Sarah 35:25 Mm-hmm Dave 35:25 I'm gonna say looking extremely cheap in the best kind of way. Tara 35:30 Yeah. Sarah 35:31 Yeah. Tara 35:31 Well the version that we're watching has been, I'm gonna say, lovingly restored by someone Dave 35:36 Yep. Tara 35:37 It it is of much better quality than Doomwatch, our version of Doomwatch was. And I think it was probably not meant to be seen with this level Of crystal clarity. Because like you said, it does seeing the detail more just m makes it obvious where corners are being cut Dave 35:55 Yeah. Tara 35:55 in a charming way. Dave 35:57 Yes, a lot of the scenes you see in the bases, both on the moon and earth You would on a tiny little TV in the era not really realize like they didn't bother to spackle over the seams between their drywall panels. There's lots of like gaps and stuff like that. Sarah 36:14 Right. Dave 36:15 You know, there's lots of rough spots. But there's also a lot of like really well-designed moments, like that scene I was talking about where Conroy is walking down the hall and he flips from Astronaut to Bandit. Sarah 36:26 Mm-hmm. Dave 36:28 The hallway is like very narrow, but it's just made out of jagged edges, right? It's like if you imagine like a serrated set of walls. Sarah 36:37 Could have cranated, yeah. Dave 36:38 Yeah, yeah. And then there's an orange stripe going down, but because of, you know, that crenelated quality to it, it sort of looks like an eight-bit graphic from an Atari game, and he's existing on top of that. So like there's these weird moments of like interior design beating pop art or something like that, that I really thought was great. I mean the whole look of the consoles, I guess it's like mid-century futurism, but it's got like this Tara 37:04 Mm-hmm. Dave 37:06 oversaturated palette you don't usually see such that like you know if you would see Cape Canaveral scenes from this time period you wouldn't have all these bright Frank Stella color choices Which I thought was great, but you still got those NASA CAPCOM chunky buttons and honeycomb grids and all that sort of stuff. Tara 37:23 Yeah. Dave 37:24 I thought that was pretty great. Sarah 37:27 I thought it had an energy to it, like yes, there were a number of scenes that could have, you know, been an email, whatever. But like takes itself seriously, but it isn't like self-serious. Like this is supposed to be a f like adventure show that's entertaining. So you have this like peppy music, like there's a lot of stuff that is like, you know, to say heavily inspired, like I said. Like someone watched all those Kubrick movies that had come out to that point in the theater multiple times. They'd watch the mod squad. But those aren't bad inspirations design-wise, and you can tell that by this point in the series they are experts Tara 38:06 Yeah. Sarah 38:11 at n like necessity being the mother of covering how cheap shit is. Tara 38:16 Mm-hmm. Sarah 38:16 And even though you you can still see how cheap shit is and you know that certain camera angles and cheats are being used to disguise it, I sort of appreciated the brio of it and uh I don't know. I liked it. Like I don't know how interesting another episode would be, but I would try one. I'm sort of interested. Like it just believes in itself, probably wrongly, in a way that I found quite compelling. Dave 38:44 Yeah Yeah, you're spot on. Yeah. It's it's it has a confidence that really really it does not deserve. Sarah 38:49 Yeah, yeah. Dave 38:51 Yeah, yeah. Sarah 38:55 What? But then it's on to the next rando thing that you're like, what even is happening? Oh wow that hand. Like There's just enough there to tie it all together. Dave 39:05 180 from that design, though, is Straker 's. You know, he's supposed to be a production executive at this production company, and his office is really speaking to the eighties n Sarah 39:20 Mm-hmm Dave 39:20 and the seventies, like it's the exact somehow in nineteen seventy, his office looks like it's from nineteen eighty two. He's got like these prints that are like pairs of lips that are on like a film strip and things that look very Tara 39:33 Yeah Dave 39:35 sort of um Sarah 39:35 Yes. Dave 39:36 uh Sarah 39:36 Duran Duran album cover. Dave 39:37 uh nagel, yeah, yeah, Nagel-esque, yeah. Sarah 39:38 I thought the same. Dave 39:39 Uh-huh. Tara 39:40 American Psycho. Sarah 39:40 Yep. Dave 39:41 Yeah, he's got acrylic shelves that are have no right angles to it. I thought it was great. He's got a phone on his desk that's like three phones. It just really loved everything about the production design in his office too. So yeah, wins Sarah 39:55 Mm-hmm. Tara 39:55 Mm-hmm. Sarah 39:56 Yeah. Dave 39:56 all around for how it looks. Also the alien UFOs being just classic UFOs.making their little putt-putt noises as they rove around the room was extremely adorable. Tara 40:05 It's cute, yeah Sarah 40:07 Yeah, it's like let's take a vent fan from someone's roof, turn it forty-five degrees. No, fifty-five degrees. Dave 40:15 Yeah. Sarah 40:16 paid it more silver and put a like dustpan on the front. Dave 40:20 I'm gonna try to remember to set up some sort of visual aids. Maybe I'll resurrect my Blue Sky account and stick them on there for a bit or something, but let's talk about the production company card before the actual episode starts. Tara 40:31 Oh boy Dave 40:32 Twenty-first century productions or something of the sort. Tara 40:35 Yeah, it's insane Dave 40:35 Absolute madness Sarah 40:38 Yeah, yeah. Dave 40:40 I mean it sets the scene as far as what's going on the perspective lines in this. It's driving me crazy because every piece of text is on its own its own plane Sarah 40:51 Mm-hmm. Dave 40:51 and it just and then there's like this rocket arrow that comes through and the music's really loud. There is something unreproducible about that. You know, like you know when people try to do something seventies or something sixties and they sort of get to the distilled flavor of it without experiencing what it was to live in that time and design with the limitations of that time. Tara 41:14 Mm-hmm. Dave 41:14 You know how like all the 70s stuff is like, oh I know light leaks. You know, it's like, well, okay, that was one part of one medium, but not everything had light leaks all the time. Sarah 41:23 Add some hairs to a film Dave 41:25 Yes. Sarah 41:26 stock? Tara 41:26 Oh, yes Sarah 41:26 Yeah. Dave 41:27 But there is something inherently homegrown 70s, late sixties about this that was incredibly charming. The royal blue background with red text on top. Sarah 41:38 Yes. Dave 41:38 Bad choice. The perspective changing with every little piece. I was just, I was smitten with it. I thought it was great. Sarah 41:45 Yeah. Very Monty Python, I felt, in terms of looking like it Dave 41:47 Yeah. Tara 41:48 Yeah. Sarah 41:49 was hand animated. Or I mean Tara 41:51 Yes Sarah 41:52 South Park is another comp, like the original. Dave 41:53 Mm Sarah 41:55 pilot of South Park with like this is fucking construction paper. Dave 41:58 -hmm. Sarah 41:59 It's, you know, austerity, England. What do you want from us? Get the safety scissors. Let's make some credits. Like, sure. Tara 42:06 I'm gonna say Monty Python by way of MC Escher in the like Dave 42:10 Yep. Tara 42:10 the way it's zigzagging. Sarah 42:10 Yes, we're um Dave 42:13 Yep Sarah 42:13 who was the Peter Max? Is that who I'm thinking of? Tara 42:16 Mm-hmm, yeah. Sarah 42:17 The sort of like Sergeant Pepper animation. Dave 42:19 Yep. Sarah 42:20 You know what I mean? Dave 42:21 Yep. Sarah 42:21 Yeah. Dave 42:21 Yep, absolutely. All right, last thought about this episode. I wonder if there were any Star Trek writers that watched this as a kid, because this is a very holo deck episode. Tara 42:34 Mm-hmm. Dave 42:34 Right? Sarah 42:34 Mm-hmm. Dave 42:34 Like we're not in a holodeck, but everything about the way that it plays out seems like one of those episodes of next generation. Tara 42:42 Yes. Dave 42:42 They didn't have the holodeck in Star Trek TOS. It was only next generation. And you know, if you've got impressionable kids in nineteen seventy, seventy-one, by the time Next Gen Sarah 42:52 Mm-hmm Dave 42:53 comes around, they could have been in the writer's room. I wouldn't be surprised Tara 42:57 Yeah, no, I I could see it Sarah 42:58 Well, for sure. Dave 42:59 Yeah. And that's UFO season one, episode fourteen, Mindbender And that is it for another episode of Extra Extra Hot Great. We continued our 70s UK sci-fi 3 of these features for 2026. with UFOuFO 's Mindbender episode. Or did we We did Mmm. Stay tuned for the conclusion of three of these in the months ahead as we discuss another weird moment in Austerity Britain science fiction. Remember. I am David T. Cole, and on behalf of Tara Ariano, Tara 43:45 I went to space school to learn how to style my space wig. Dave 43:48 and Sarah D. Bunting. Sarah 43:50 Your mom 's a booby trap Dave 43:52 Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time right here on Extra Extra Hot Great. Clip 44:21 Oh, John. John. Dan. No, look out, John, John. Tara 44:35 Yoikes Dave 44:37 Got dark.