Ed Straker

Ed Straker
UFO character
First appearance	"Identified"
Last appearance	"Reflections in the Water"
Created by	Gerry Anderson
Portrayed by	Ed Bishop
In-universe information
Title	Colonel
Occupation	SHADO member Military aircraft pilot Astronaut Film producer
Affiliation	United States Air Force SHADO
Family	Mary Rutland (ex-wife) John Straker (son)
Nationality	American
SHADO role	Commander-in-Chief
Reports to	General James Henderson

Colonel Edward Straker, United States Air Force, Commander-in-Chief of SHADO, is the main character of British TV series UFO. He is one of the original promoters of Project Angel, an international organisation to found the Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organisation (SHADO), in order to fight incoming flying saucers carrying hostile extraterrestrials. He is portrayed by actor Ed Bishop.

Fictional biography

Information has been taken from the UFO episodes which establish a timeline of Straker's life, cited in parentheses.

Nothing is known of Ed Straker's youth, but it is known that he became a United States Air Force pilot and a Colonel and became friends with Royal Air Force pilot Alec Freeman. He later met General James L. Henderson, who, as the episodes "Identified" and "Confetti Check A-O.K." suggest, introduced him, in the early 1970s, in Project Angel (a project to fight incoming hostile UFOs), in which the United States, the Soviet Union, France and an unidentified side of Germany cooperated. As the United States were the major contributor to the project, the leader of the defence organisation was to be an American, and Straker suggested ("Confetti Check A-OK!") he to be his friend General Henderson, but he could not cover this role as he was severely injured in a UFO attack to the Rolls-Royce Phantom V in which he, Straker and "the Cabinet Minister" were travelling to meet the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom ("Identified").

In the same period, he married ("Confetti Check A-OK!") a woman named "Mary". Due to work to put in action Project Angel, Straker stayed much time out of home, and Mary's mother started thinking ("Confetti Check A-OK!") that he was cheating her daughter, then she hired a detective and, Straker, knowing that he was being followed, started to organise Project Angel meetings at the house of female employee Ayshea Johnson to protect military secrets by making his absence appear as a love story with her. After knowing of this, a pregnant Mary divorced from Straker, but had ("Confetti Check A-OK!") a premature birth due to shock. Their son was named "John", and Mary married a man named "Rutland" (as seen in "A Question of Priorities").

Approximately ten years later, SHADO (the Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation) became fully operational, with Straker as Commander-in-chief and Col. Freeman as Second-in-command, and its headquarters thirty meters under the Harlington-Straker Studios in Harlington (with many SHADO members also working inside it). It is known that shortly after this, a special radar device designed by Colonel Virginia Lake was transported ("Identified") on a supersonic Seagull X-ray aircraft, under Freeman's supervision, but the aircraft was attacked by a UFO. Luckily, the saucer was destroyed by SHADO's Sky One aircraft, piloted by Captain Peter Carlin.

Some time later, SHADO went in contact ("Exposed") with three incoming UFOs, which flew by the Moon and were detected by SHADO Moonbase, but one of them was not intercepted by its fighter craft. Sky One was launched to destroy it, but, in the same area, Paul Foster was testing a high-speed aircraft, Ventura Aircraft Corporation's XV-104. The UFO approached it and he and his co-pilot, Jim, took some photographs and a video, but the aircraft was badly damaged when Sky One fired a missile at the saucer. Jim died and Foster suffered minor injuries, before being fired by Ventura's leader, Mr Kofax. After some investigation, Foster became aware of SHADO's existence, and became SHADO recruit 804 and a director at Harlington-Straker. Foster soon became close friends with Freeman, but Straker kept a strictly formal relationship with him, and later transferred him to the Moonbase.

In that period, John was hit ("A Question of Priorities") by a Ferrari 275 GTB while walking on a road, and was transported to an hospital, but, due to an allergy to antibiotics, he required a special product from the United States. Straker ordered a SHADAIR plane to transport it from New York City to Harlington, but acting Commander-in-chief Freeman, unaware of the fact, ordered the plane to stop in Ireland before doing this, trying to intercept an alien defector. The plane, however, arrived too late, and John died, then Mary decided to not meet Straker anymore.

Background

Bishop described the character as "a guy whose world was composed of black and white. There were very few greys in his life, and this is why he was very good at his job, because you had to make instant decisions." He based his portrayal of Straker's commitment to SHADO on the discipline of an American missile combat crew he had seen in a TV documentary.

In the early stages of production, Straker's whitish-blond hair was created by dying Bishop's naturally darker hair. After the actor became uncomfortable with the repeated re-dyeings, a number of blond wigs were made for him to wear instead.

Reception

According to Den of Geek, Bishop's casting gave UFO "a credible and commanding lead". It also comments that the role "seemed to constantly require Bishop to be in a rage" and that for this reason, the actor particularly enjoyed working on the series' lighter-hearted episodes. For Paul Mount of Starburst magazine, Straker is the series' only regular character who undergoes significant development. Mount describes him as a "cold, distant and hard-edged loner who seems more machine than man". According to Fred McNamara, Bishop's "smouldering" performance as the "relentless yet weary" Straker is an "indisputable high point" of the series.

Calling Straker a "flawed" hero, John Kenneth Muir notes that "unlike past and future Star Trek captains, Straker is not a philosophy-spouting idealist. Nor is he an audacious strategist or rugged womaniser. Instead, he is a beaten, lonely man, obsessed with preserving the planet from the exploitative aliens." He also states that Straker's characterisation was one of the elements of the series "that [make it] so memorable". Describing Straker as "one of the most unusual lead characters in television history", John A. Barnes of National Review writes that he "was no Captain James T. Kirk, a heroic figure who managed to answer all the audience's questions and tie up all the loose ends with a witty quip before the final credits [...] To Straker, individuals mean nothing. All that matters is stopping the aliens."

According to Gizmodo's Alasdair Wilkins, although Straker's "cold, calculating character made him an unlikely hero, [...] it also provided the show with much of its dramatic heft, as his single-minded pursuit of the enemy left him ever more isolated from his friends and family." Writing for SciFiNow Chris Chantler comments that Straker "makes UFO feel like a serious, mature and even profound show. His blend of ruthlessness and vulnerability is the prime reason that it remains so compelling."

Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, an artist and character designer for both the manga and anime of Neon Genesis Evangelion, based the appearance and demeanor of the character Gendo Ikari on Straker.