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).
British television science fiction
Their success led his backers ITC to finance the live-action shows he most wanted to develop. The first of these was "UFO" (1970–71), which featured American actor Ed Bishop as the head of an undercover military organisation with responsibility for combating aliens who came to Earth in the eponymous space craft. A planned second season was delayed and eventually reformatted as a new show, entitled """" (1975–77), which ran for two seasons and was a moderate success.