Ultrahot Furry Obsession

I first discovered the British sci-fi show UFO in the late 1980s in reruns on cable TV, where I managed to catch it only intermittently. So it took me a long time to figure out that the events of the show, produced in 1970, were actually taking place in 1980 – that is, already almost a decade in the past. This made the show even quirkier than I think its creators intended – it was like instant retro-future, automatic camp.

But the show was more than just a pile of kitschy clichés – as seemed to be the case with so much Brit TV from that time period, it combined great acting with mediocre writing and piss-poor set and costume design. So frequently the dramatic tone of an episode would be dramatically at odds with its packaging. In other words, it really helped if you got stoned to watch it.

So while the promise of weird sci-fi lured me to the show in the first place, what kept me watching it long after I tired of the premise was Michael Billington, who played a supporting character, Paul Foster. (It seems that Brits at the time liked their lead heroes to be brainy leaders, relegating muscle to middle management. Americans, of course, want it all in one package: the leader must be a good looking stud, and at the same time brainy or at least street smart - but never, of course, merely “book smart”.)

Billington was one of those hairy, well-muscled Brits, like Sean Connery and young Jason Statham, whose natural-seeming buffness is just so much hotter than the gym rat look that even teen idol American stars strive for today. Then again, the show was made in 1970, and HGH and fat blockers and personal trainers were non-existent, so natural buffness was pretty much the only kind available (oh allright, natural buffness possibly aided by some free weight reps). Billington’s presence, his handsome face and muscular body covered with beautiful dark brown fur, was the most humanizing element in the spacey series; his earthiness contrasting nicely with the silver uniforms and fembot-like worker drone gals and his boss’s Bowie-esque bleached platinum hair (the lead character, Ed Straker, played by Paul Bishop, often in a wig), like an antique mahogany desk in an IKEA showroom.

Some shots of Billington in roles prior to UFO:

The show didn’t last long, and I never saw Billington in any other role, but a nice warm spot is reserved in my psyche for the nearly naked Paul Foster sitting in a steambath, pouring water over his chest, and singing in a delicious baritone, “Beautiful Dreamer…”

UFO had some interesting uniforms.