User Reviews

The quote from this episode and Commander Straker says this after Foster has been kidnapped! More about that a bit later.

Colonel Paul Foster has some time off coming, so the first thing he does is go to a swing 1970s style party (though the show is supposedly set in 1980). As the hipsters all dance to Beatles tunes, you see Foster in a gold shirt, magenta pants, a large medallion around his neck and his hair combed in a way to hide his receding hairline. Foster also is clearly drunk. Wow, that Foster--he's the ultimate party animal! The next day, Foster goes to a spa run by SHADO for some more relaxation as well as to work off his hangover. Well, maybe not for relaxation, as this spa is a lot like the one James Bond went to in "Thunderball"--a place where they work you half to death, make you steam for hours, eat 'healthy' foods (that would even make bunnies starve) and do things that are all described as 'vigorous'! You might assume things can't get any worse for poor Colonel Foster...and you'd be assuming wrong! He is kidnapped by aliens--which makes you wonder how guys in red jumpsuits and with green space helmets could just walk in and get him! Eventually, however, SHADO realizes what has happened and scrambles to try to intercept the UFO with Foster aboard. Can they save him or will Foster become the BFF of a group of nasty aliens? Overall, the idea's pretty interesting. While it was difficult to believe the aliens could so easily snatch Foster, it made for a good episode--interesting and different. Plus, as an added bonus, you get to see Foster spew weird green liquid! Though, I must admit that the ending was NOT good--sort of a "Wizard of Oz" magical ending that undid much of what you see. Perhaps the party was wilder than we thought and Foster ingested a few 'shrooms. For nostalgia's sake, I also loved watching the 'wild party'--with everyone dressed like a combination of "Star Trek" characters and guest on "The Sonny & Cher Show". It was pretty funny.

By the way, the doctor in this episode was played by Vladek Sheybal. He was in a few episodes of "UFO" but is best remembered as one of Blofeld's minions in "From Russia With Love" (he was the poor guy killed by Klebb when she kicked him with a poison-spiked shoe). He also, sadly, played 'Mr. Boogalow' in the amazingly bad German production "The Apple"--one of the funniest bad films of all time.

Following a posting aboard Skydiver, Colonel Paul Foster ( Michael Billington ) is looking forward to time off. After a wild party at 'Sylvia Graham's' ( Quinn O'Hara ) apartment, he sets off for a health farm used to keep S.H.A.D.O. operatives in trim. It is while taking a sauna that fatigue gets the better of him and he experiences a horrific nightmare about alien abduction...

Tony Barwick's 'Ordeal' is memorable chiefly for two reasons; firstly, giving us a brief glimpse at the inside of a U.F.O. - it mainly consists of multi-coloured panels similar to those to be found in Straker's office - and the harrowing scene where Foster's helmet is removed by Moonbase staff, causing him to spew green liquid! The script originally had Peter Gordeno's 'Captain Peter Carlin' as the main character.

It is good on the whole, though the party looks more like it is taking place in 1969 and not 1980. The sight of a bare-chested Billington in the sauna must have set female hearts fluttering back in 1970. David Healy, who plays 'Franklin', was the voice of W.I.N. boss 'Shane Weston' in Gerry Anderson's 'Joe 90'.

A comic-strip in 'Countdown' entitled 'The Snatch' - drawn by Gerry Haylock and Jon Davis - also had Foster kidnapped by Aliens, but this time it was for real and he was taken to the Aliens' home planet for interrogation.

1. This could have been a very good episode if only they had made the story true instead of only a hallucination. Just imagine! Colonel Foster, the only human to survive a trip in a UFO. What was it like Colonel Foster? Were there any aliens on board with you? Did they try to communicate with you? What happened during the trip? What was it like wearing their alien space suit and breathing a liquid? 2. Unfortunately Gerry Anderson apparently had no interest in ever getting this TV series off the ground, so he made all the interesting parts of this episode as though it was a dream. Well, I did enjoy the party scene which was very cool and groovy! 3. Other reviewers have commented about how these episodes are not presented in the order in which they were filmed. With that in mind I just want to say it was so great to see Colonel Freeman and Lieutenant Ellis again!

"Ordeal" is a decent enough episode of "UFO" that gives us a glimpse of the very different way that Commander Straker and Colonel Freeman deal with the loss of a friend and colleague (Colonel Paul Foster)..and because Straker let's slip of just how he can compartmentalise work and friendship, we see him get a stab of guilt, possibly Ed Bishop's best acting in the series. Likewise, Freeman's snappy response to Straker's "If I thought he (Skydiver Captain Lew Waterman) missed deliberately....." "For feeling emotion for a man he's been serving with for the past two months!!??"....the look on Sewell's face suggested Freeman was thinking "Ed, I don't think I know you at all..."

Foster is partying late, drinking and dancing to The Beatles even though he has to be up early for a 2 week stint at SHADO's "glorified health farm". Having had a workout in the gym, and still suffering a hangover, he is ordered to take a sauna. Whilst being turned into a cooked lobster, he finds the door to the sauna is jammed shut and the temperature rising. He is just about passed out when a couple of aliens kidnap him.

Meanwhile, Straker and Freeman question why a UFO would land in the middle of nowhere until they realise that SHADO's "glorified health farm" becomes a serious target because Foster has just started his two weeks there. Freeman flies there and finds Foster has gone and everyone else has been killed. Straker orders that the UFO, which suffered damage from an Interceptor strike on its way to Earth, be shot down by Sky One. He tells Freeman that it'll be doing Foster a favour, rather than let the aliens torture him.

The damaged UFO ends up barely making escape velocity having escaped destruction by the gun-shy Captain Waterman and so it ends up crash landing on the Moon. Foster survives and is rushed to Moon Base where the medics and Lieutenant Ellis hope to get Foster back to breathing air rather than the alien's washing up liquid. Foster goes into a panic when they remove his alien helmet.

It's then revealed that he's still in the sauna, being revived by staff and his kidnap by the aliens nothing but a heat induced nightmare.

Very much shades of "Attack On Cloudbase" where Symphony Angel ejects in the desert and dreams that The Mysterons have attacked Cloudbase and even Captain Scarlet was killed. The thing that elevates this episode is the way Straker and Freeman behaved. Straker is very often a real martinet as a leader whereas Freeman leads as "the friend" as per "The Responsibility Seat". Maybe as the divorcee and father who loses his only son, Straker dare not let himself become too close to anyone else, for fear of losing them? A second season might've explored this, but of course, one season was all that "UFO" got.

This goes right up there with the original 50s version of "Invaders From Mars" - the dreamer dreams of impossible details of people - what they're doing when he's not there to see them doing it or saying it.

Properly written - perhaps with the spa staff knocked out or such - this could have actually happened to Foster, and when they recover him, everyone gets the amnesia drug because it is traumatic not only for Foster, but for everyone else involved, including Carlin and Straker. Some written records are made and kept for exposure if certain conditions recur in the future, and some security upgrades are ordered as well.

When the drug wears off, Foster finds himself in the spa with an apparently unharmed spa staff, and he is convinced it's only a dream. They even shaved him at the right time, juiced his blood with a bit of alcohol so he thinks he is getting over the hangover.

As to comments about the dance being "wrong" for 1980 - hey, these are adults, and they're having a nostalgia party about the groovy 60s.