Counterstrike (1969 TV series)

Counterstrike is a British science fiction television series produced by the BBC in 1969.

The series starred Jon Finch as an alien living on Earth as a human named Simon King. He was assigned to live there to prevent an alien invasion of the planet.

The programme lasted for one series of ten episodes, but only nine episodes were actually transmitted. The screening of the sixth episode, "Out of Mind", was canceled on the day it was due to be shown (13 October 1969) due to a late schedule change, being replaced by a documentary on the Kray brothers who had been refused leave to appeal against their prison sentences on that same day. For reasons that will probably never be known, "Out of Mind" was never rescheduled; it was subsequently wiped from the BBC Archives and has never been screened – thus making it possibly one of the rarest pieces of British science fiction television.

The first four episodes – "King's Gambit", "Joker's One", "On Ice" and "Nocturne" – still exist in the BBC Archives as 16mm Black & White Film telerecordings, while the remaining five transmitted instalments – "Monolith", "The Lemming Syndrome", "Backlash", "All That Glisters" and "The Mutant" – are listed as missing by the Lost Shows website.

The series was originally proposed to the BBC in 1966 and a theme tune and effects were produced, but the project was "shelved due to The Invaders on ITV".^[1]

Episode list

Episode descriptions are from the Radio Times^[2]

1. King's Gambit – 8 September 1969
   Two apparently respectable businessmen, running an electronics factory, are investigated by a journalist called Simon King. The businessmen turn out to be far from respectable and the journalist, they discover, is not a journalist. Who is Simon King - or rather, what is he?
2. Joker's One – 15 September 1969
   Every war has a flash-point, a fuse, a detonator - something, however small, that triggers it off. In 1914 it was an assassin's bullet at Sarajevo. What could trigger off an atomic war today? The Centaurans think they have the answer. And Simon, of all people, appears to be helping them...
3. On Ice – 22 September 1969
   Three scientists are mysteriously lost on a sledging party that set out from a polar research station.
4. Nocturne – 29 September 1969
   The madman lives in a No-Man's-Land a borderline between fantasy and reality ... where the real becomes unreal, the unreal real -and life itself a waking nightmare. Simon finds himself living in such a nightmare. Has he gone mad or is he merely suffering from temporary delusions? Above all, why should he want to kill a perfect stranger?
5. Monolith – 6 October 1969
   Sir Charles Munday is the richest man in the world. Might there be a Centauran plan to murder him?
6. Out of Mind – not transmitted (originally scheduled for 13 October 1969)
   Mary, visiting a village where she stayed as a child, finds that the woman who used to look after her, Hannah Webley, is now regarded as a witch by the superstitious villagers and Mary herself is soon caught up in the ensuing witch hunt
7. The Lemming Syndrome – 20 October 1969
   A hundred and forty-three people in one small seaside town commit suicide by drowning. Or were they under some strange and alien influence? Simon decides they probably were ...
8. Backlash – 27 October 1969
   In a period of student riots, strong calls for a return to ' law and order' are made by General Falcon, a blood-and-guts commander of the Korean war. Suddenly he starts to emerge as an important political figure capable of swaying public and government opinion during an international crisis. Such a man, Simon King decides, is dangerous.
9. All That Glisters – 3 November 1969
   When adults start acting childishly it is no surprise to Simon. By his standards most people are childish. But when they start acting childishly even by their own standards-when a grown man plays hopscotch and another falls off a rocking horse-then something is wrong. But can there be any connection between childish behaviour and the Centauran plan to take over the earth? It seems unlikely - but Centauran plans frequently do. Until they start to work ...
10. The Mutant – 10 November 1969
    A deadly new germ gets loose at a biological warfare laboratory. Can an antidote be found before the germ spreads into a killer plague?

External links

• Counterstrike at the Internet Movie Database

References

1. ↑ Counterstrike on the WikiDelia.
2. ↑ BBC Radio Times online archive search, accessed 25th August 2015