Straker first refers to the futuristic-looking automobile driven by
him (and others working for SHADO) as a SHADOcar in this episode.
The opening scene of a landed UFO in the woods is a reuse of
the scene at the beginning of
"Identified".
When the lunar module blasts off from Moonbase near the
beginning of the episode, the smoke all blows to the left of
screen. But being that there's no atmosphere on the Moon
and, thus, no wind, the smoke should dissipate evenly in a
radius around the launch pad.
At 4:25 on the DVD, we see that Roper's watch is a
Timex.
Notice that Paul Roper and his wife seem to have separate
beds. When the series was shot in 1969, network standards
and practices was starting to loosen up about showing
married couples sleeping in the same bed, but the prudish
practice of depicting separate beds had not
been entirely eliminated.
The clock seen on the Ropers' dresser is made by Secticon.
Secticon was a company in the 1950s and '60s that made
clocks and watches designed by Angelo Mangiarotti
(1921-2012), an Italian architect and industrial designer.
The same clock model later appears in
"Survival". Another Secticon clock is seen as an
installed piece in Skydiver 1 in
"Reflections in the Water".
The phone Roper answers in his house at 8:08 on the DVD
appears to be the same model seen a few minutes earlier
installed in his car! The same type of phone unit is also
later seen on Moonbase. I guess SHADO got a deal on the model!
The scene of Roper pulling into the grounds of
Harlington-Straker Studios at 10:23 on the DVD is the same
as that of Straker driving in in "Exposed". Conveniently,
Roper and Straker drive the same bronze color SHADOcar. In
fact, the two cars have the same license plate number
(A21-384)!
After a night out, Roper's wife tells him not to drive so
fast, joking she's not Cinderella and doesn't have to be
home by midnight. In many versions of the classic folk tale
of Cinderella, the young woman by that name must be
home by midnight when the magically created ballroom gown
she wears for the evening will turn back into her native
rags. Ironically, Paul Roper is speeding home because he
must deliver sensitive SHADO information to an alien contact
at midnight that night to prevent any harm from coming to
his wife.
At 18:01 on the DVD, notice that the button to open the door
of the
SHADOcar
is way down at the bottom of the door!
Not very convenient!
At 18:31 on the DVD, notice that, oddly, there is a clock
mounted above the garage door of Roper's home! Of course, it
reads midnight.
At 21:21, the video monitor screen in the SHADO
interrogation room is a Prowest brand. Other Prowest
monitors are seen throughout the series. Prowest was an
actual manufacturer of color and black-and-white monitors in
the UK at the time the TV series was in production (thanks
to Rick C. for finding a reference to the
existence of Prowest).
At 25:52 on the DVD, we see that Straker is using a
slide-rule for his calculations on the meaning of the
mysterious coordinates given by Roper to his alien contact.
At 26:25 on the DVD, the first SHADO Mobile is labeled as
SHADO Control and the second as SHADO 1.
Straker tells Captain Carlin in Sky 1 that Roper is heading
east on Route 4. Since SHADO headquarters is near London,
"Route 4" may refer to the M4 motorway which heads east from
London to South Wales. However, the road Roper is seen on in
various scenes looks more like a country highway than the
larger motorway type of road.
Chased by a UFO, Roper crashes his car into a gas station
with signs that say "Albion Autos Service-Repairs" and
"Vibrant". "Albion Autos" may refer to Albion Automotive, a
Scottish vehicle manufacturer from 1899-1980. "Vibrant" is a
fictional gas station name, as far as I can tell.
At 29:50 on the DVD, one of the gas pumps at the station
starts to tip over before Roper's car has hit anything!
At 32:00 on the DVD, we see a lavender-colored SHADOcar
driving along the rode, but the close-up of the passengers
in the next shot shows the vehicle as bronze! A later shot
of the lavender car at 33:18 shows it to have the same
license plate number as Foster's car (A4-215)!
At 32:07 on the DVD, Roper's wife picks up a couple of
magazines from the bed. The top one may be an issue of
Life, judging by the white-on-red logo in the top left
corner, but it's not seen fully.
I'm unable to make out the title of the second
magazine; it looks like it might say "Jane"
and something else.
At 32:28 on the DVD, the two SHADO security personnel report
they've just passed the Rapperton(?) flyover. "Flyover" is a
term used by most of the British Commonwealth for a road
overpass. I've been unable to locate a Rapperton (or
Repperton?) flyover in the real world.
At 32:35 on the DVD, a high-pitched squeaking noise disturbs
Mrs. Roper as she attempts to read her magazine. But what
was the origin of the sound? It doesn't seem to have been
caused by the intruder attempting to open the door to the
house. Was it an animal outside just coincidentally making
noise as the intruder (the alien-collaborator Dawson) was
about to enter her house? Listen:
strange sound. It is suspiciously similar to the sound
heard by Liz and Cass as an alien approaches in the later
episode "The Square Triangle". Besides collaborator Dawson,
was there an actual alien waiting for Roper outside the
house? Is this the sound of an alien voice?
At 35:11 on the DVD, we see that Straker has a
three-dimensional astrolabe of the Earth-Moon-Sun for
determining positions of these spheres at different times.
At 40:46 on the DVD, we can see that the plastic case of
bazooka charges Roper carries with him on the Moon's surface
says "Hudson". Is it a brand name? The name of the person
who normally uses it?
At 42:38 on the DVD, Roper is wearing a
Certina
DS-2 Super PH 500M watch on his spacesuit glove. This was a
diver's watch introduced in 1968. The "500M" notation means
it was certified down to 500 meters depth. We also see in
this shot that the date is the 24th.
After the UFO is shot down by Roper, it crashes and explodes
on the Moon's surface and we see the burning inferno of its
wreckage. But fire only burns in an oxygen environment, and
there is no oxygen on the Moon's surface.
It's not explained how Roper damaged his spacesuit.
Presumably it was hit by a piece of debris from the
exploding UFO or possibly he tore it on a rock after the recoil
of the bazooka blast.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
Why send only one man out on the Moon's surface to attempt
to destroy the UFO with a bazooka? If there had been several
men, each could have quickly got off a shot in succession at
the craft. As it is, Roper has to fumble around after the
first shot to reload the bazooka and then spot the craft
again.
MEMORABLE DIALOG
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Episode Studies