"Oh dear. Dear me. You played the wrong ball."
Original UK broadcast: October 26th, 1969 (ATV Midlands)
Written by: Shane Rimmer
Directed by: Brian Heard
Regular cast: Father Unwin, Matthew, The Bishop, Mrs. Appleby
Additional voice cast:
General Brompton Keith Alexander
Kromer Jeremy Wilkin
Forrester Gary Files
Dr. Hawthorn Jeremy Wilkin
Blake Keith Alexander
Operator Keith Alexander
When a crucial early warning satellite has made an intelligence leak, Bishop are called in to find out more. This leak has originated by discussions from General Brompton, on a golf course. The questions now is, how is that intelligence being leaked, and can Father Unwin put an end to this before it's too late?
The idea for Hole In One was obviously based on Tony Barwick's and Shane Rimmer's love of golf, both of whom were very good friends and spent a lot of time working together with Gerry Anderson associated productions. In Rimmer's only script for the series, he pointed out that "A lot of [the Unwinese] you had to leave to [Unwin]. You gave him a line of patter that's going to work with what he does. Because he was such a bizarre character, you felt you could really go all the way with him: you could practically do anything".
This episode could argue that the series wasn't directly aimed at younger audiences, with the effective use of live actors it would easily play to adult audiences. However, being only another Anderson puppet series it would only have been slated to children. The idea of a golf ball relaying secret information adds to the quirkiness and entire silliness of the series but is generally a fun and enjoyable episode. Another note is that the scene where the petrol tanker being blown up is arguably up to the standards on UFO, where instead of having a segment of the studio to film it had the entire studio to film just visual effects. The revamp puppet of a golf club patron was Captain Magenta once again, in his second to last returns as a guest puppet in the series.
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The Secret Service: The Vault
Non-FictionThe Secret Service was a 1960s British children's TV series created by Gerry Anderson and the team of Century 21 studios in Slough, from the makers of Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and Space: 1999. This was the final of his television series to feat...
