Close Up (UFO)
"Close Up" is the eleventh episode aired of the first series of "UFO" - a 1970 British television science fiction series about an alien invasion of Earth. The screenplay was written Tony Barwick and the director was Alan Perry. The episode was filmed between 29 September to 9 October, 1969 and aired on the ATV Midlands on 16 December 1970. Though shown as the eleventh episode, it was actually the thirteenth to have been filmed.
UFO (TV series)
Two years after the 26 episodes were completed, the series was syndicated on American television and the ratings were initially promising enough to prompt ITC to commission a second season of "UFO". As the Moon-based episodes appeared to have proven more popular than the Earth-based stories, ITC insisted that in the new season, the action would take place entirely on the Moon. Gerry Anderson proposed a format in which SHADO Moonbase had been greatly enlarged to become the organisation's main headquarters, and pre-production on "UFO 2" began with extensive research and design for the new Moonbase. These developments were not without precedent in the earlier episodes: a subplot of "Kill Straker!" sees Straker negotiating with SHADO's financial supporters for funding to build more moonbases within 10 years. However, when ratings for the syndicated broadcasts in America dropped towards the end of the run, ITC cancelled the second season plans. Unwilling to let the "UFO 2" pre-production work go to waste, Anderson instead offered ITC a new series idea, unrelated to "UFO", in which the Moon would be blown out of Earth orbit taking the Moonbase survivors with it. This proposal developed into "".