“The Responsibility Seat” is episode twenty-five of season one of UFO.
Straker tells Freeman that the new MoonBase leave roster has to be changed. Freeman expected that and expected he’d be the one who has to tell them. Miss Ealand contacts Straker and tells him a reporter is waiting for Straker.
The reporter is Jo Fraser, and Starker was expecting a man. Josephine Fraser says it’s a man’s world and she sometimes goes by Jo as a result. Straker walks Fraser to her car afterwards. When he’s gone, she leaves and heads back to the office where she’d left her handbag. And Straker had noticed a mic on the bag earlier. And Ford had tried to contact Straker whilst he was out of the office.
Straker returns to his office and is told about the handbag. In SHADO, he questions Freeman and Ford, and Ford says he tried to contact Straker, using his rank. Straker is concerned this may just be enough and, when Miss Ealand contacts Fraser’s supposed news agency, they haven’t heard of her.
Straker leaves to find Fraser and recover the tape, leaving Freeman in charge. When UFOs are detected, Interceptors are launched. Two UFOs are destroyed but the third is lost. SID reports something stationary in Earth’s atmosphere. Straker checks in and is told everything is fine. Freeman orders Sky 1 launched, but all that’s there is a weather balloon.
Straker manages to find Fraser, who says she’s an independent, and gets the tape, but she hits him and flees. Straker manages to catch her though.
Straker, who’s normally rather monk-like in his disposition, is feeling a combination of attraction and paranoia about Fraser. Freeman isn’t having much fun being in charge. Especially as there’s an unknown vehicle on a collision course with MoonBase, and it needs stopping one way or another.