[3] Col. Foster gets drunk at a party the night before a scheduled fitness check at a SHADO-run health farm (featured in this sequence on the soundtrack is The Beatles' single "Get Back").
He then awakens properly back inside the sauna, realising that he was simply imagining the abduction while all along he was safely on Earth.
He questions why the SHADO scenes are played straight despite being part of Foster's nightmare, arguing that because of this the story "doesn't quite hold together".
However, he considers the overall episode to be "well filmed" and "visually dynamic", as well as a "nice showcase for Michael Billington".
[5] Review website anorakzone.com ranks "Ordeal" the second-worst episode of the series, describing it as "more just inessential than anything else" and "a time filler".