- Network
- ITV
- Original run
- September 1970 to March 1971
- Episodes
- 26 including the pilot
- Creators
- Gerry Anderson, Sylvia Anderson and Reg Hill
- Producer
- ITC Entertainment, Century 21
- Lead
- Ed Bishop as Commander Straker
- Agency
- SHADO, under the cover of a film studio
- Related
- A planned second series became Space: 1999
Watch Order
0 / 26 watchedAll 26 episodes in release order. One series of self contained stories, so there is no second list.
About UFO
UFO is a British science fiction series created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson with Reg Hill, produced by the Andersons and Lew Grade's Century 21 for Grade's ITC Entertainment. It ran for a single series of 26 episodes, the pilot included, and was first broadcast in the United Kingdom and Canada from 1970 and in the United States from 1972.
The premise is that in 1980 the Earth is being visited by aliens from a dying planet who abduct people and harvest their organs. The response is SHADO, a covert international agency operating under the cover of the Harlington-Straker Studios film studio in England, with Ed Bishop as Commander Edward Straker. The show mixes cold war spy fiction with genuine space fiction, which is why it still holds up.
Production was messy. It was filmed over more than a year, and a five month break came when the MGM-British Studios in Borehamwood closed, after which the show moved to Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire.
Good to know
One series, 26 episodes, one order. There is no season structure to work out and every episode is a self contained story, so release order is the only order and there is nothing to rearrange.
The pilot, Identified, is a feature length episode and the first in the list. It was made separately and the rest of the series was written to follow it, so watch it first and it will make sense why the show does what it does.
A second series was planned and announced as UFO 1999, but it became Space: 1999 instead, with a different cast. That series has its own guide on this site, and the two are related in name rather than in story.
The Andersons' live action film Doppelgänger, also known as Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, is often treated as a pilot for this series. Eleven of its cast members appear in UFO and the film shares sets, props and music with it.
