This Friday on 'UFO' ep 9 'A Question of Priorities'

A Question of Priorities

“This movie hates us, doesn't it?” - Crow T. Robot, on 'The Giant Spider Invasion'

For a series dedicated to cynicism and the unhappy ending, A Question of Priorities sets the gold standard. No one gets away unpunished, least of all the audience. How to rate it – a 6, a 9? It's a frustrating hour, but then it's designed to be such and excels at it. It's one of the finest episodes in the series yet one I always dread having to watch again. I don't like downers.

Ed Straker's son lies in hospital after being struck by a car. The boy is in critical condition and needs medicine available only in America. Straker puts SHADO resources into play to make that happen, but time is running out.

Meanwhile, an alien on the run from his own kind has made a mad dash for Earth, crashing off the coast of Ireland. Taking shelter in the home of an elderly blind woman, he has built a radio transmitter in an attempt to reach SHADO, but that same signal is picked up by the UFO sent to kill him.

Both these men, Straker and the alien, will be thwarted – by luck, by fate, by the opposing agendas and even the best intentions of others, perhaps by some god or other. Without invoking religious faith (hardly needing to), this is an existentialist story.

We'll never know what drove these men to make crucial decisions. If there's one detail that ties them together it's that Straker and the alien are close-mouthed about what they are thinking. Good friend Alec Freeman cannot miss that Ed is upset, and gives him multiple opportunities to confide. We can guess why Straker spurns them, but we'll never know the truth. It costs him at a crucial moment. Likewise the alien does not speak when perhaps he might have found an ally in the woman who sits terrified, a prisoner in her home. I continue to wonder at the silence of these aliens – an inability to speak, or even to understand spoken language? He has a transmitter but does not speak to his listeners. All we know is that he wants to be taken by SHADO and that his people will kill him to prevent it.

Both are faced with impossible choices. A SHADAIR transport might reach Ireland in time to take the alien before its fellows can. Or it might reach London in time to save the boy. There's no guarantee the medicine will be enough, nor that the alien will prove a turning point in the war with the extraterrestrials. When Freeman, not knowing of Ed's plight, redirects the transport, Straker freezes and allows the diversion to stand. His son's life, or the safety of the human race? Likewise the alien, when he realizes the hunter UFO has locked on to him, can remain where he is or take the beacon away from the house, sacrificing his own already-doomed life but saving the woman.

There's nothing much else I can say. It's all on the surface, every painful minute of it, except for what remains unspoken.. We're thoroughly invested in this most riveting of episodes. No deus flies in from the machina. No one is saved. Every effort to do the right thing is brutally smacked down. I gave away a spoiler of sorts in one of my first two episode reviews: I said that Ed Straker is a man who's had his humanity damaged. This is the one I knew was coming. It has an inevitability to it. There's still something tender to him, but he'll never show it even to his closest friend. It's buried too deep.

10 model boats gifted to a loved one.

Next week I want some catharsis!!

What can you say about this?
It's genius , among UFO fandom this episode is locked in mortal combat with 2 or 3 other episodes for the Best Episode accolade.
Everything is superb; the alien vs alien conflict, the whole thread with the blind lady is creepy and unnerving, even the alien homing signal device is suitably alienesque.
The crux though is of course Straker's dilemma. Was he right
to allow the Transporter to divert to Ireland?
I'm saying NO. At the time he found out of Freeman's actions all that was definite was that a UFO had crashed off of Ireland and someone might have survived, he could have let that situation go for a few hours and got the Transporter airborne again.
Also what an earth did he say to Mary on the phone?
"What could be more important than your own sons life?"
What did he say to get that response?
"Sorry its been delayed.Had to do it , something really important came up"
I obviously have a bias not only to this show but British tv in general ,and I think an American production would have had Johnny saved , perhaps I'm being unfair.
For those wondering about Foster, I placed this episode here after Survival because surely even a hard ass like Straker would give Foster time off after his traumatic recent experience.
Foster is in all eps from now on.
10/10.

Mary Rutland yep forgot about her. Is it too much to blame her for Johnny's death?
All Straker wanted was to hang around to see his son's boat ,but No! She was too embarrassed to have him there with her new husband. Pity.
Philip Madoc played her husband, a top British actor of countless roles including the mesmerizing Solon in Dr Who's take on Frankenstein. Madoc will be back but in a different role later on.

This one starts out with a clever surprise – we apparently see a stocking-masked killer preparing to attack a woman while a young boy looks passively on. Is he the woman’s son – why is he not warning her? Is he the progeny of the killer, numb to this sort of thing? No, it’s Straker’s son and this is a movie being filmed as he and Dad watch. Clever start. We then see Straker having a day of fun with this son; a rare look at the tough commander being happy and carefree and full of love.

Then the story takes a tragic turn and the remainder of the show leaves you swimming in second guessing. Whenever something horrible happens, we can’t help but say if only I hadn’t done this or that - even if it’s totally unrelated to the actual cause, but just something that put you in the wrong place at the wrong time. Straker will condemn himself for taking the extra half hour with his son that caused his wife Mary to ask him to rush off instead of staying to see his son’s model boat. Mary will persecute herself for rushing Straker off as she did, or not reacting faster to her son’s rushing off to catch his Dad. The driver will never forgive himself for hitting the child. [I once wrote a script which involved a man hitting and killing a child with his car. Another character talking about how he never forgave himself tearfully says, “He wasn’t drunk. He wasn’t even speeding. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And it destroyed him.”]

But the story goes beyond young John Straker getting hit with a car. He initially survives, but needs antibiotics to fight the devastating injuries. Unfortunately, he is allergic to the standard drugs they use – having almost died from it at an earlier age. An experimental drug is available from the U.S. but there is no way to get them there in time. Straker is in a unique position to get them there at supersonic speed via one of his transports. He arranges for the drugs to be shipped to the hospital immediately. As the title hints, though, it’s not going to be that cut and dried.

A pair of UFOs come hurtling Earthward and one of them crashes – but not before it ejects a small pod. It contains an alien who doesn’t need to breathe liquid (not explained, by the way.) He goes to the house of an old blind woman and sets up a radio signal. The woman is frightened and not allowed to leave or phone for help, but is otherwise unharmed. Since she can’t see and he can’t speak it leads to an odd situation where the lady is terrified but has no idea by whom or why. When SHADO picks up the transmissions from the house of the lady asking the alien who he is and why he is there, they realize this is likely an alien who wants to alert SHADO that he is there and ready to cooperate. Freeman, unaware that Straker ordered the transport to help his son, diverts it to Ireland where the signal is coming from. By the time Straker finds out, he reasons he must let the mobiles be unloaded to find the alien, but orders them to get to England the second the mobiles are unloaded. But it all goes horribly wrong. Another UFO gets past the interceptors and shoots down the alien before he can give any information to SHADO. And the drugs arrive too late to save poor John Straker. The last scene has Straker arriving at the hospital only to see his ex-wife get the devastating news. We don’t even have to hear what the doctor says; Mary’s expression tells it all. As she is led out by her husband, she sees Straker and cries out, “I never want to see you again.” The final shot shows Straker from behind as he watches them walk away.

The final shot is effective in its simplicity. Indeed a lot of the most powerful scenes are done the same way. A minimum of histrionics or over the top dialogue. Another excellent example is when Straker gets called away by SHADO while at the hospital.

“I have to leave,” he tells Mary quietly.

“You always had to leave,” she replies, in a bitter tone.

Later on, Alec asks Ed “Why don’t you go home?” and Straker replies, “What home?” His work is his real world and by the end of the show he has no “home” left anymore. (Something similar to the end of the previous week’s episode regarding Foster which slipped by me, but was caught by Simian_Jack.)

Another effective element was when Straker tried to explain to Mary about the drug shipment being delayed. We do not hear his end of the conversation; only hers. Since she presumably still doesn’t know what he really does for a living, exactly what could he have said to her to justify the delay? I can’t even imagine, and maybe neither could the writer. By seeing only her reaction, the question doesn’t need to be answered but the scene stays just as dramatic.

Despite the title “A Question of Priorities”, which Straker even uses in dialogue, I don’t see it as Straker prioritizing his job over his son. By the time he learns that the transport was diverted it was probably closer to Ireland than England. He knew that he was using Government resources for his personal use (although only someone with a heart of stone would fault him for it) and thought it was the right thing to do to let them finish and then rush back to England. For all we know, even if he had diverted it back at that stage it might have still been too late. We don’t even know for sure the drugs would have worked. He was placed in an impossible situation and tried to do the right thing for both objectives – but sadly neither one was successful. We know this will nevertheless haunt him until the day he dies.

From a dramatic standpoint, the episode is outstanding and well acted. Something more could have been done with the alien portion of the episode. We don’t understand why the alien wanted to help Earth, but the mystery was apparently intentional so that we’re left as mystified as SHADO is. But I dislike episodes that kill off someone from a regular character’s family. In fact one of my pet peeves is where a character’s sibling (usually a brother) is introduced in one episode just long enough to get killed. They spend the rest of the episode getting revenge and saying at the end, “That was for my brother.” And then the brother is never mentioned again. I want to nickname that “One and done,” but that’s a commonly used phrase with lots of other meanings. This episode does not really fall under that tent because John Straker was established already in “Confetti Check A.O.K.” Still, I hate to see him killed off for no real reason. It was established in “Confetti” that Straker was married to his job more than his wife. His son’s death doesn’t even serve an alternate purpose. It’s not like Straker had to divert the transport to take out an alien ship that was going to crash into a city and take out hundreds of people. Instead it’s to try to find an alien who could potentially give them valuable information in their war, but he ends up dead and they end up with nothing. John Straker died for nothing; that was beyond cruel.

I will still give the episode an 8. I can’t be light-hearted enough to pick an object to go with the rating this week.

Random observations: At the Moonbase, one of the women was not wearing a purple wig. So purple wigs are not required uniforms. What are they for then? I don’t normally read the other messages on the message board until we’ve finished the show, but I did read the commentary about “Gerry Anderson’s obsession with wigs” and they seemed to indicate that the reasoning for the use of the purple wigs on the Moonbase was never explained.

The use of the escape pod from the UFO was something new and well done. Some of the other footage was more bland and ordinary. The interceptors missing the UFO had been done a couple of times already. Re-use of previous footage will probably plague the show more and more as time goes on.

Ok, this one starts off with Johnny Straker getting hit by a car because his mom wouldn't let him say goodbye to his dad and show him his model boat.

Johnny Straker is in serious condition and the doctors tell Ed Straker that they need a special antibiotic because his son is allergic to the ones normally used. They find out that this rare antibiotic is available in the U.S. but they're limited on time because of his son's injuries. Ed Straker uses his special connections to get the supersonic jet to fly from America with the antibiotics.

Meanwhile, 2 UFO's are heading for the Earth and one crashes outside of Ireland. An alien ejects and ends up in an old blind lady's house. Shado attempt to locate the crashed UFO while the Alien attempts to contact them. Meanwhile the old blind woman doesn't realize that this is really an Alien because she can't see and he doesn't speak.

Freeman diverts the supersonic to Ireland unaware that the supersonic jet was carrying antibiotics for Straker's kid. It ends up that the Alien is trying to contact Shado, I'm assuming for the purposes of surrendering. Ed Straker agrees to having the supersonic diverted even though it may mean his son will die. The mobile units arrive but are unable to get to the alien before the other UFO kills him from the sky.

Straker gets to the hospital with the antibiotics but too late and his son dies.

Random Thoughts:

*I guess I was blissfully ignorant about how dark this show was when I was a little kid in the 1970's. I guess I was just paying attention to the models.

*I don't really understand what was the big deal about letting the boy show his father the boat? And to make matters worse she wouldn't even let him say goodbye to his dad. Certainly that will cause more harm to the boy.

*Did people not know how to handle divorce back in the 1960's-70's? I had about 4-5 friends from college back in the 1980's who were all from divorced families growing up in the 70's and these guys were all messed up as adults.

*I didn't know what that escape pod was at first.

*How did the alien breathe without liquid?

*Why did the alien break into the old lady's house? Couldn't he have just contacted Shado from outside? The whole thing about the blind lady was kind of odd.

*I didn't realize at first that he was trying to contact Shado, that part was a bit confusing. I had to go back and re-watch it. I thought he was just trying to contact the other UFO.

*Was the alien trying to surrender? I just assumed that he was. They don't really get into much depth because he doesn't talk.

Pretty good episode but very downbeat. The middle part gets a bit muddled with the alien's story. I give it a 7/10.

What? So the writers decided to kill the boy after all? Can they even do that on television? Seriously, bold move. I mean, the whole thing was moving towards the drug arriving just in the nick of time and saving the boy. And Straker would show how good a father he can be, that it was all worth it, and that it was good he had fostered all his connections. In other words, a more ordinary show would've made Straker the hero, and Mary would see how unfair she was being by blaming him whenever she had the chance to. (Truth be told, she was kind of annoying; give the man a break! I though. And would it kill you to let the boy show his father that stupid model boat?)

But then Straker screwed things up royally, at least as far as being a good fther concerned. I liked the detail that he didn't take the initiative to divert the transport himself; instead, he just went with the flow, as if Alec's order was a fait accompli and something that just showed Straker what was meant to be.

On the other hand, I understand Straker's decision. The other day I read that the President has made Air Force airplanes available to carry organs for transplant. Which is remarkable, except that this is not what Air Force airplanes are meant to do; they exist for a different purpose and might be needed elsewhere.

Same with SHADO transports. It was not just an aircraft. It had mobiles and several people ready to do their job and a SHADO transport is not Straker's private property meant to help his family members. Knowing Straker as we do, how could we expect him to have acted any other way?

The other day I was watching Containment (2016), which is about an epidemic that causes an area of a major city to be cordoned off. Here's a mild spoiler, by t he end of the miniseries, the hero's girlfriend is about to escape the cordon with a bunch of ragtag people, and they meet in the underground tunnels as they were abut to get their freedom. She pleads her boyfriend to let them pass, but he says, "If I let you pass, everything I've done so far..." (making sure the cordon remained intact) "...has no meaning."

Likewise, Straker knew that he had to stick to his principles otherwise his work, better yet, his life would be devoid of meaning if he used SHADO resources for his own gain, and some serious alien-related crisis happened in the meantime. But by doing so, he had the ultimate failure as a father.

A THING OR TWO ABOUT A THING OR TWO:

- Are aliens simply mute? Once he established a communication link, how did he intend SHADO to know he was defecting? Did he count on finding a convenient blind lady who was also a blabbermouth?

- Hey, are alien transmitters made of Lego bricks?

- This time we got to see some nice new shots of the UFO. Now I realize the top is transparent and it has sort of metallic beams inside.

- Nice to see the pod and the UFO had a similar design style. The model makers always pay close attention to detail.

I gave Survival a 10, so it's just fair I should keep the same standards with this one. "A Question of Priorities" gets 10 alien transmitters made of bright-colored Lego bricks.

Right off I am going to add a point to my score because they did not take the easy way out and followed through with the death of the son. I was so worried that they would have the story progress as it did, that due to Straker’s bad decisions the boy would have died, but the doctor says something like ‘no thanks to you Straker but we found some of the antibiotic in an obscure lab down the street’. Bravo to them.
However, it was not really Staker who made the decision to have the plane be detoured to Ireland but Alec. So to me it was not so much a ‘question of priorities’ but a question of a massive ego and no communication skills. Once the plane was in Ireland it really was out of his hands.
He did stay at the hospital after the 6 o’clock time he told Alec he would be back. He did make decisions based on what would help his son.
I think his biggest problem is communication.
Both the alien and Straker are mute. The alien does not have the ability to communicate with the old woman. Straker chooses not to communicate with anyone. Alec has shown that he is the humanitarian of the two. I am sure if Straker had included him in his decision to have the plane come to London Alec would have kept it as a secret to his grave. I am trying to remember in past episodes but if my memory serves me right it seems Straker often does not answer others’ questions and tells them to wait while he thinks and or acts on a situation. I wonder if we will see him lose more relationships due to his lack of communication skills.
It would not surprise me at all if five years down the road Alec would off hand ask Straker how his son is doing and that is when he learns he passed five years before.
He has a right hand man who so far seems to be the kind of person who would have done anything to save Straker’s son. Instead he consistently shut him out.

Was it just me or were they making a parallel to “Frankenstein” (yes I know it was in Frankenstein’s Bride and that it was not Frankenstein but his monster) and the scene of the old blind man by the fire. Both the blind man/woman are the only ones who do not judge the ‘monster’ by how he appears and form a tentative relationship with the ‘monster’. If not it still stands that by having the woman be blind she was able to convey (communicate) calmness and a gentleness toward the alien. If she had been able to see the alien how differently would that scene have played?

9 out of 10

I see that some have mentioned humanity and even Frankenstein. Just confirming I read the comments only after I have posted mine.