UFO was Gerry Anderson’s first live action television series (he typically worked with puppets, creating shows like Stingray, Terrahawks, Thunderbirds, and others).

The series revealed around S.H.A.D.O (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organisation) and its mission to protect the Earth from alien invaders.

It’s a show I enjoyed growing up, particular due to the remarkable theme and incidental music by Barry Gray and the model work by Derek Meddings (who went on to work on the James Bond franchise) though the greatest problem with Anderson’s live-action productions typically wasn’t the music or special effects, but the actors, who tended to feel particularly wooden.

UFO was no exception though Reflections in the Water doesn’t work not because of the acting (which one gets used to) but because the story doesn’t quite sync.

It opens up with a freighter on the ocean, when one of the crew notices an object under the water following the ship.

He assumes that that is a new type of submarine, but we know better.

It’s a UFO, which eventually submerges, vanishing from sight though not to escape notice, but to attack.

It launches a vaguely torpedo-shaped craft, which bursts from the water and fires a laser.

This happens twice, the second shot totally destroying the freighter.

This mode of attack by the aliens makes no sense (though it bares a curious similarity to an attack from Stingray) since there’s no reason I’m aware of that the UFO couldn’t have just fired its laser minus the flying craft.

Though there’s a method to the aliens’ madness.

They had a hidden underwater base, and I assume that they destroyed the freighter because it ventured too close.

Though that doesn’t explain how SkyDiver was able to venture relatively close to the dome, never mind infiltrating it, and speaking of SkyDiver, it’s interesting that Barry Stokes, credited as ‘SkyDiver Engineer’ later went on to co-star in an episode of Space: 1999 – Voyager’s Return).

We come to learn that the aliens have a mockup of S.H.A.D.O Control – HOW they managed to do so is never quite explained though Straker does say later in the episode that the alien base mimicked S.H.A.D.O Control just in case they needed to be seen on screen but that doesn’t explain why it is that apparently S.H.A.D.O – a top secret organization, the existence of which is unknown to most of humanity – is known to the aliens.

And if the aliens were able get so much information on S.H.A.D.O that they could literally mimic not only it’s interior layout – strongly implying that they know where it is – but it’s personnel, then why not attempt to replace S.H.A.D.O operatives entirely?

As I said, it doesn’t quite make sense.

And how does the real S.H.A.D.O Control not know that their communications with Moonbase are essentially being hacked?

And when the real S.H.A.D.O Control communicated with Moonbase – there’s no reason to assume that they didn’t, especially since they’re aware of the amassing UFO fleet – how is it that Moonbase doesn’t notice the contradictory orders (the aliens were massing, the purpose of which I assume was to overwhelm S.H.A.D.O’s defenses)

By the way, encryption did exist during the time that UFO was produced, so why weren’t communications between Moonbase and S.H.A.D.O. Control encrypted?

And that’s not to say that the aliens couldn’t have perhaps broken it, but my problem isn’t breaking it, but that it apparently never existed in the first place.

While I still enjoy UFO, Reflections in the Water isn’t one of my favorite episodes.