Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's
Century 21 Productions were responsible for producing a whole host of marionette science fiction adventures through the 1960s; Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90 and The Secret Service. Whilst Thunderbirds is arguably the best remembered of these it is Captain Scarlet which holds the place in my heart.
The Captain works for an organisation called Spectrum that is based out of a hovering headquarters called Cloudbase crewed mostly by people holding the rank of captain and who are conveniently named after the colours of their clothes - Captains Scarlet, Blue, Black, Ochre, Magenta and Grey. They have one superior - Colonel White and one subordinate - Lieutenant Green. Working alongside them are the five pilots of the Angel Interceptors called Harmony Angel, Melody Angel, Rhapsody Angel, Symphony Angel and, strangely, Destiny Angel whose odd one out name makes her sound like the last one standing from another Interceptor squadron that something really bad happened to.
The villains of the piece are the Mysterons (voiced by
Donald Gray), a sentient computer society who Captain Black (also Donald Gray) mistakenly blows up thinking they are hostile. Vowing eternal revenge the Mysterons transmute Captain Black into their agent, giving him a five o' clock shadow and a vaguely sweaty complexion in the process - seriously who could resist a sweaty puppet with stubble - and use him to exact their revenge.
One of the first victims is Cary Grant soundalike Captain Scarlet (
Francis Matthews) who has been assigned by Colonel White (Donald Gray again) to protect the World President. As a result of the Mysteron's shenanigans the good Captain is murdered, resurrected as a Mysteron agent, killed again and then resurrects as his old self but with the added bonus of now being indestructible and all in the course of a 30 minute first episode.
As far as a show made with puppets who aren't heavy enough to walk properly and can't go through doors because of the strings this is the most filmic of the Gerry Anderson series. I always found Thunderbirds to be more than a little smug with their private island and their massive rockets hoarding their advanced technology in order to 'help' people instead of making the technology more widely available so that folks will have rescue equipment to hand and not have to wait for some rich kid in a big green frog rocket to turn up. You get none of that sort of nonsense with Captain Scarlet. This is all about the action and explosions and cool chicks with code names flying rockets and shiny rubber caps with drop down microphones and the shooty shooty and the booming VOICE OF THE MYSTERONS!
Buy it here -
Captain Scarlet The Complete Collection [DVD]
- or watch it below
Spectrum is green!
And please remember it's not just marionation, it's supermarionation.
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