UFO (TV series)
Following poor ratings for "Joe 90" (1968–69) and the cancellation of children's espionage television series "The Secret Service" (1969) after only one series, Lew Grade approached Gerry Anderson to look into creating his first live-action TV series. Anderson worked with his wife, Sylvia, and producer Reg Hill to create a sci-fi adventure series based around UFOs. Anderson said the core idea for the series was that UFO sightings were a common issue during the late 1960s and that idea of aliens harvesting human organs came from the work of Christian Barnard and his pioneering transplant operations. The creative team initially envisioned an organisation called UFoeDO (Unidentified Foe Defence Organisation), which was to become the secret SHADO (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation).
The Castle (Fargo)
The UFO's appearance provoked discussion and controversy among critics and fans alike, some of whom criticized the moment as a "deus ex machina" and considered the literal inclusion of a science fiction device to be inappropriate for the series. Hawley elaborated on the scene in interviews and explained some of its influences, which included the Coen brothers' 2002 film "The Man Who Wasn't There" as well as the real-life 1979 Val Johnson incident in which a Minnesota deputy sheriff claimed to have encountered a UFO. Hawley stated that the idea of "accept[ing] the mystery," which he called a "staple of the Coen Bros. philosophy in their films," guided his decision to include a UFO in "Fargo". Additionally, he said that the UFO represents the series' false claim of being "based on a true story", which to Hawley offers a commentary on the nature of how history is retold: "It’s not just that truth is stranger than fiction, it’s that what we call truth is a small part of the historic picture. There are so many elements that usually get weeded out of the story so you can have a simpler narrative." In a later interview, Hawley named the original 1996 film as an inspiration for the UFO; namely, the scene with Mike Yanagita, which serves no purpose in the film's plot yet exists both as a character moment and as a representation of its apparent "realism."