The Dalotek Affair

"The Dalotek Affair" is the seventeenth 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 by Ruric Powell and the director was Alan Perry. The episode was filmed between 15 July to 25 July 1969 and aired on the ATV Midlands on 10 February 1971. Though shown as the sixteenth episode, it was actually the seventh to have been filmed.

The series was created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson with Reg Hill, and produced by the Andersons and Lew Grade's Century 21 Productions for Grade's ITC Entertainment company.

Plot
The episode is almost entirely a flashback that Colonel Foster has as he sees a woman while dining with Colonel Alec Freeman:

Unexplained communication blackouts are affecting the SHADO Moonbase. Foster believes that the nearby Dalotek Corporation lunar base may be causing the issues through use of their geological scanner. During another blackout a Lunar module crashes when trying to land, killing the crew on board.

Foster investigates Dalotek and disables a piece of their equipment thought to be the cause. However, this does not stop the blackouts. The Dalotek team discovers an alien jamming device, placed by the aliens in a lunar crater using a meteor that crashed on the Moon (a fact that Commander Straker realises while watching a TV interview with Dr. Frank Stranges). Foster sends out a team to destroy the jamming device before an incoming alien UFO attacks Moonbase. With the device destroyed, the UFO can be targeted and also destroyed.

The epilogue reveals that the woman was Jane Carson, the Dalotek employee Foster was flirting with, who had her memory wiped due to SHADO security protocol.

Regular cast

 * Ed Bishop — Commander Ed Straker
 * Michael Billington — Colonel Paul Foster
 * George Sewell — Colonel Alec Freeman
 * Dolores Mantez — Lieutenant Nina Barry
 * Keith Alexander — Lieutenant Keith Ford
 * Ayshea — Lieutenant Ayshea Johnson

Reception
Review website AnorakZone.com ranks "The Dalotek Affair" the worst episode of UFO, writing that it shows the series "at its most tacky and inane" and the cast "at their least charming". The website is critical of Foster's actions, arguing that his use of SHADO's amnesia agent "as a kind of reverse rohypnol" to make advances on Carson is "an inexplicably amoral piece of characterisation". Commenting that the episode seems "woefully dated" by Foster's passes at Carson, John Kenneth Muir calls the episode "stylishly rendered" even if the plot about the alien's jammer is dull.