[15] Chris Drake and Graeme Bassett argue that the episode's dependence on flashbacks makes it an "unusual" series finale. All Captain Scarlet episodes, with the exception of the first, have two title sequences. These are countered by Spectrum, a worldwide security organisation. Captain Magenta, meanwhile, was voiced by Gary Files, a relative newcomer to Century 21 who had supplied guest voices for the second Thunderbirds film, Thunderbird 6. All of this is just so bizarre and out of the ordinary. Paul Metcalfe was born in Winchester, Virginia on December 17, 2036 to a family with a long military history, he graduated from Winchester University in 2057, at the age of 21, and then went to West Point Military University; he later transferred to the World Army/Air Force, where within 2 years, he became the youngest colonel the WAAF had known to date. "[123] Gerry Anderson stated that he pushed for a new design to satisfy the audience, viewing it not as "a case of moving to a new technique, but more a case of incorporating new ideas with existing methods. [2][10] The puppet that plays Colgan was a newly made copy of revamp puppet 19, which had appeared in various supporting roles in Captain Scarlet and was making its debut as Sam Loover in Joe 90 while "The Inquisition" was being filmed. [138][139] These featured the remastered picture and sound quality that had been introduced for the BBC Two repeats of 2001. [120] Sculptor Terry Curtis recalls: The changes of expression on those puppets had to be perfect and in no way exaggerated like the old ones were. [89] Running for 17 issues between September 1967 and January 1968, the strips were written by Angus P. Allan with artwork by Ron Embleton, and were titled We Will Destroy Unity City, We Will Destroy the Observatory Network and We Shall Make Earth a Planet of Silence. [128] His assistant, Richard O'Neill, wrote the other two plays, Captain Scarlet is Indestructible and Captain Scarlet versus Captain Black. [184][185][186][187] In 2004, Carlton merged into Granada International, the current rights holder, which in 2008 became ITV Global Entertainment, a division of ITV plc. I still wonder about the wisdom of our decision to change the puppets. It was Anderson's Gothic period. I remember I did a Blue "smiler" head and people could hardly tell the difference between that and the normal one. The series begins in 2068. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, often shortened to Captain Scarlet, is a British science-fiction television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed by their production company Century 21 Productions for distributor ITC Entertainment. [36] This, ironically, made the design less lifelike than Anderson had hoped: "Suddenly, all the movements had to be as realistic as the puppets and that made it difficult for the puppeteers to animate them. Captain Scarlet, In-des-tructible, Captain Scarlet. To this end, Alan Perry and Ken Turner were promoted from the camera operator and art departments. [10], The exterior of the Markham Arms was designed as a Tudor-style pub by Mike Trim and built as a cardboard and Perspex scale model by Alan Shubrook. Donald Gray, who had found himself typecast after performing the lead role in the detective series Saber of London, was having to resort to voice work to sustain his acting career. The Vault Hunters having been notified of a secret treasure travel to Oasis, a small ocean side town that suffered the same affects as the Parched Fathoms from the first game. [101] After the September 11 attacks, the episode order was re-arranged: the second episode, "Winged Assassin" (in which the Mysterons destroy an airliner and re-create it as a weapon), and the third, "Big Ben Strikes Again" (in which London is threatened by a hi-jacked nuclear device), were postponed due to perceived similarities between the storylines and real-world events. After dining with Captain Scarlet (voiced by Francis Matthews) at the Markham Arms pub, Captain Blue (voiced by Ed Bishop) is served drugged coffee by the maitre d', who unknown to Scarlet and Blue is a Mysteron agent. [16], Anderson's recollections of the Second World War provided inspiration for a number of design aspects. [9] Martin Cater of Network Distributing calls the episode "decidedly downbeat" but describes the episodes re-visited in flashback as "arguably the three best examples from the series after the pilot". [194][195] The working title was Captain Scarlet – The New Millennium. Scaling the body up to match the head was not possible, as this would have made the puppets difficult to operate[55] and required enlarging all the puppet sets. "[125], The ATV game show The Golden Shot, hosted by Bob Monkhouse, chose Captain Scarlet as the theme for its 1967 Christmas special. We know that you can hear us, Earthmen. "[29] By contrast, Jeff Evans, author of The Penguin TV Companion, describes the characters as "more detailed" than before, noting that they "were given private lives and real identities, and were furnished with other biographical data. In 1999, Anderson supervised the production of a computer-animated test film, Captain Scarlet and the Return of the Mysterons, to explore the possibility of updating some of his 1960s Supermarionation series for a 21st-century audience. We were very conscious of introducing different ethnic backgrounds. [113], The series has drawn criticism for its camerawork, which some commentators regard as being too static due to the crew's inability to move the puppets convincingly. [36], Commentators have drawn parallels between Captain Scarlet and the Cold War. Captain Blue disappears from a restaurant. [23][140][142] In 2004, Imavision released a French-language box set for the Canadian market. [95] In the United States, it aired in first-run syndication. The voice of Lieutenant Cobalt crackled over the comm unit. [132] TV Century 21 script editor Angus P. Allan wrote Introducing Captain Scarlet (which is set during the denouement to "The Mysterons"), Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Captain Scarlet of Spectrum. (Spoiler Alert if you haven't completed it) You defeat her pet and then she runs off to go beat you to the treasure, presumably... then you kill the leviathan and find the treasure room. Sangster and Condon view "The Inquisition" as one of the series' "disappointing amount of flashback compilations". It is one of seve… [24][31] At an average cost of £46,000 per episode, or £2,000 per minute, it was the most expensive Anderson production to date. [N 7][E 5] A three-episode story arc focuses on the discovery of a Mysteron base on the Moon, its destruction by Spectrum, and Spectrum's efforts to negotiate with the Mysterons after converting the base's salvaged power source into an interplanetary communication device. [108] Media historian Nicholas J. Cull interprets the "war of nerves" between Earth and Mars as a reflection of strained international relations during the 1960s and likens the "enemy within" scenario of Martians taking over humans to the plots of films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). [33], Stirling Road on the Slough Trading Estate[L 1] had served as the Andersons' production base since the making of Stingray in 1964. I simply went to Lew and asked, 'What's the next thing you want us to do? The presence of the Mysterons is indicated by two circles of green light that trail scenes of destruction and reconstruction. With Ed Bishop, Donald Gray, Francis Matthews, Sylvia Anderson. [14] Morgan Jeffery of Digital Spy describes it as a "glorified clip show" that "[provides] no resolution to the series", comparing it negatively to the "thrilling" previous instalment, "Attack on Cloudbase". [E 3][E 6][E 7] A failed attempt to survey Mars, aborted military conferences and the sabotaged construction of a new Earth space fleet hinder Spectrum's progress in taking the fight to the Mysterons, and the organisation twice fails to capture Captain Black. Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet (more commonly New Captain Scarlet or NCS) is a United Kingdom-produced computer generated action-adventure reboot of the 1967 Supermarionation series, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.Both series were produced by Gerry Anderson.As a nod to Supermarionation, the new series' computer animation was promoted as "Hypermarionation". Healy voiced Shane Weston in Joe 90 and Files voiced Matthew Harding in The Secret Service. [7] The framing scenes were shot on Century 21 Studios' Stage 3 between 22 and 25 November 1967 alongside filming on "The Most Special Agent", the first episode of Joe 90, on Stage 4. My hope is that the CGI remake of Captain Scarlet does have an official ending, I'll have to wait & see. On Sylvia Anderson's costume design, Bould writes positively of Century 21's "commitment to fashion" and directs particular praise at the design of the Angel uniforms. Spectrum also incorporates a fleet of armoured Spectrum Pursuit Vehicles (SPV), which are hidden in secret locations around the world, as well as patrol cars, hovercraft and machine-gun equipped helicopters. "[123] Evans praises the new puppets, describing them as "perfect in proportion" and commending the re-location of the electronic circuitry from the heads to the bodies. [101] The box set includes an extra tape featuring Captain Scarlet: The Indestructible, a behind-the-scenes feature. Blue comes round in what appears to be the Cloudbase control room facing a man who introduces himself as Colgan, a Spectrum Intelligence agent. [57], After being sculpted in Plasticine, the puppet heads were moulded on a silicone rubber base and finished in fibreglass. [36] The Cloudbase model, which was six feet (1.8 m) long, proved too heavy to be held up with strings and was instead supported by a metal pole. [97], UK repeat runs varied among regions. [6] It was specifically written to exclude scenes from "The Mysterons", to which there are flashbacks in "Winged Assassin", "Dangerous Rendezvous" and "Traitor". In the end, however, the episode was filmed entirely at Century 21's studios on the Slough Trading Estate. [135] Further annuals were published by Grandreams in 1993 and 1994 to coincide with the BBC2 repeats. [5] Exactly five months prior, this episode had been shown in the London area as a late-night test transmission. The character's biography in, In the original script for "The Mysterons", Scarlet is resurrected with the aid of an advanced computer (Bentley, p. 15). [The characters] all balanced one against the other. [184][185] Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer holds the theatrical release rights. [15] Bould praises the "beautiful, multi-ethnic, female Angel fighter pilots" and "secondary roles played by capable women. A design innovation for Captain Scarlet meant that the noses of the scale-model vehicles would "dip" when stopped, to imitate the sudden application of brakes and subsequent deceleration on a real-life vehicle. [E 4] Consequently, Spectrum develops two anti-Mysteron devices: the "Mysteron Gun" and "Mysteron Detector". With Francis Matthews, Ed Bishop, Donald Gray, Cy Grant. [107] Simon Wickes of the website TV Century 21 argues that the series' sober writing is ultimately due to the realism of the new, accurately-proportioned puppets, and that this aesthetic change also accounts for the increased realism of the scale-model effects. [74] Departing at the same time was Paul Maxwell, the voice of Captain Grey (and previously Steve Zodiac in Fireball XL5 and Captain Paul Travers in Thunderbirds Are Go), who left the series to take up the role of Steve Tanner in Coronation Street. [110][111] According to Bould, it is one of several Anderson productions that depict "a utopian future benefiting from world government, high technology, ethnic diversity, and a generally positive sense of Americanisation. Chosen by fate. "Scarlet wing, you have launch clearance. I knew that Destiny was French and that Rhapsody had to be frightfully 'Sloaney,' but that was about it."[81]. [118][119] Despite concerns that it is not a true children's programme due to its "dark" tone and level of violence, it was ranked 51st in Channel 4's 2001 list show 100 Greatest Kids' TV Shows. [74] Because of stage commitments, Tingwell left the production after the first 12 episodes were completed. Initially, it was decided that the Mysteron duplicate of Captain Scarlet would be resurrected by means of an advanced computer instead of reviving naturally, and that thereafter he would no longer be truly human but a "mechanical man" akin to an android. [1] Captain Scarlet's motif, heard in the incidental music and both versions of the ending theme, is a melodic variation on the Mysteron theme, emphasising Scarlet's Mysteron past. Character dialogue was recorded once a fortnight, at up to four episodes a session, at the Anvil Films Recording Studio in Denham, Buckinghamshire. ", This served both to establish the background to the series and warn younger viewers not to endanger themselves by copying Scarlet's actions. [1][10] The copy would also appear in the later series. He was a senior officer of Spectrum and after his death and reconstruction by the Mysterons, he became the organisation's indestructible number one agent in the fight against them. [55][194][195] Set a few years after the Mysterons apparently cease hostilities against Earth, the film sees the reappearance of Captain Black, setting the stage for a revival of the war with Mars. [34] To speed up production on earlier Supermarionation series, episodes had been filmed simultaneously in pairs on separate sound stages, a practice that continued for Captain Scarlet. "[127], Guyanese actor Cy Grant, who voiced Green, believed that Captain Scarlet had both positive multicultural value and an allegorical nature. [61][62] Ed Bishop thought that Captain Blue was modelled on him, but sculptor Terry Curtis said that he used himself as the template and simply added a blond wig when he learnt that Bishop was to voice the character. A man who is different. and Sweet Chastity for Penthouse Magazine. He therefore worked from a basis of "life as we don't know it"[21] and made the Mysterons a collective of sentient computers rather than a race of organic beings, although this is not explicitly stated in the series itself. Caught up in Earth's unwanted conflict with the Mysterons. When a misunderstanding causes human astronauts to attack their city on Mars, the Mysterons vow revenge and launch a series of reprisals against Earth. Compared to Thunderbirds and earlier Anderson series, Captain Scarlet is generally considered "darker" in tone and less suited to child audiences due to its violent content and themes of alien aggression and interplanetary war. [5][94] By the start of the 1968, the series was being broadcast in all parts of the UK. [1] After finishing the coffee, Blue falls unconscious and disappears. Transmitting to Earth, the Mysterons warn Spectrum that a member of the organisation will betray them all. Captain Scarlet, the Andersons' eighth of ten puppet series, was preceded by Thunderbirds and followed by Joe 90 and The Secret Service. (See episode 1, “The Mysterons” .) This version is included in the special features of the Captain Scarlet DVD box set. [55][58] Called "revamp puppets", or simply "revamps", these puppets appeared on an episode-by-episode basis, altered for each new role by changing their hairstyles and hair colours. At heights ranging from 20 to 24 inches (510 to 610 mm) (approximately one-third life size) the next-generation puppets were no shorter than their predecessors. [193] In November 1988, Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars was broadcast as episode two of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Minnesota TV station KTMA. "[20] Sculptor John Brown remembers putting the prototype next to the Lady Penelope puppet from Thunderbirds and gauging his colleagues' response: "When they saw it, some people were horrified by the difference. [35], A third unit, headed by Derek Meddings and his assistant Mike Trim, handled special effects and miniatures and was tasked with creating all the permanent sets and models, such as the Cloudbase interiors and scaled-down Spectrum Pursuit Vehicles. First Broadcast – 13th October 1967. I just finished the Captain Scarlett DLC and... well, the ending is a bit odd. There is one very limiting aspect of the Captain Scarlet format which must have had the writers banging their heads on the typewriter morning, noon, and night. Captain Scarlet, Captain Ochre and Captain Magenta Strapped themselves into the well-padded seats of a Spectrum passenger jet and Scarlet began his pre-flight checks. [14] The new puppet design has been praised by Vincent Terrace and criticised by others. [39][45] Musical accompaniment for the remaining 14 episodes was achieved by re-using these tracks as well as music from earlier Anderson series such as Thunderbirds. [27][64] Lieutenant Green was modelled on voice actor Cy Grant, Rhapsody Angel on Jean Shrimpton, Melody Angel on Eartha Kitt and Harmony Angel on Tsai Chin. [135], In Japan, a manga adaptation by Sachihiko Kitagawa and Jōji Enami was serialised in the Shogakukan magazine Weekly Shōnen Sunday between 1967 and 1968. [1][9] "The Inquisition" is the only episode of Captain Scarlet in which Colonel White and Cloudbase (excluding the Mysterons' simulation) do not appear. Supporting character voices were performed by Anderson, Files, Hill, Maxwell, Morgan, Tingwell and Wilkin. These were aired on American cable TV under the promotional banner "Super Space Theater" in the hope of reviving transatlantic syndication sales. [5], The series debuted in the London and Scotland regions on 1 October, with Granada, Anglia, Southern, Westward and Channel Television all following later that month. [39] In composing the incidental music, Gray made extensive use of two contrasting, yet similar, themes to illustrate Spectrum and the Mysterons. "[24][123] He suggested that the transition from caricature to realism was at the expense of the marionettes' "character and personality", arguing that "if the puppet appears completely natural, the audience no longer has to use its imagination. [86][88] It was used either in isolation or after the alternative "One man ..." voice-over from Bishop. It is one of several Anderson series that were filmed using a form of electronic marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation" combined with scale model special effects sequences. Directed by Brian Burgess. Reluctant to divulge classified information, Blue tries to satisfy Colgan by describing some of Spectrum's operations against the Mysterons. [75] Grant's casting influenced that of Ed Bishop as Captain Blue, as Bishop remembered in a 1995 interview: "It was just that a girl in my agent's office happened to be on the ball. [58] As episodes of Captain Scarlet were to be filmed in pairs on separate stages, the "expressionless" heads were made in duplicate.[60]. As Chris Drake suggests in the 1993 reference book "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons" – that would explain why Destiny is called on to identify the body of Scarlet at the end of episode one. (", In the series, Mysteron reconstructions that are killed are usually permanently destroyed. War erupts between Earth and Mars after a manned mission to Mars results in an attack on the city of the Mysterons. The opening theme, titled "The Mysterons", was rendered electronically and accompanied by a staccato drum beat to introduce the lead character of Captain Scarlet. [68] Whereas earlier series had focused on futuristic technology, in Captain Scarlet the emphasis shifted to the characters. [29] Editing rooms, post-production offices and a preview theatre were housed in a separate building on the estate. [E 8][E 9][E 10][E 11][E 12][E 13] In the penultimate episode, the Mysterons destroy Cloudbase with a fleet of spacecraft, but this is revealed to be a nightmare dreamt by a shot-down Symphony Angel. Some filming coincided with the production of Thunderbird 6, which was recorded on a different stage. Created by Gerry Anderson, Sylvia Anderson. "[48], In October 2015, Fanderson released a 3-disc soundtrack set exclusively for club members. Anderson, who likened the episode to a black comedy, praised Barwick for his "humanised" writing of the puppet characters. [9] Gerry Anderson was frustrated with this caricatured look and wanted the design of the puppets to more accurately reflect human physiology. The Mysterons invariably begin their threat with the words, "This is the voice of the Mysterons. In this clip show episode, Captain Blue disappears during a night out after … The first of these, incorporating the title card and main production credits, is set in a run-down alleyway and presented from the point of view of an unseen assassin, who turns a corner only to meet his death at the gun barrel of Captain Scarlet. [101][188][195] It was released on home media in 2017. [4], Bentley adds that the flashback to "Crater 101" alters the established continuity of that episode: while inside the Mysteron base, Scarlet casts his mind back to a conversation that he had with Controller Linda Nolan at Lunarville 6, prompting the conversation to be replayed as a "flashback within a flashback". The heads were reduced in size to make them in proportion with the rest of their bodies, but the problem was that exact and precise movements became more vital than ever and that caused us terrible difficulties. Although the Mysterons are able to influence events from Mars, their actions on Earth are usually performed by their replicated intermediaries. [12], Regarded as a cult series by some, Captain Scarlet came 33rd in a 2007 Radio Times poll to find the greatest science-fiction series of all time. [24][36][59] As before, the main characters were given interchangeable heads showing a range of expressions; these included "smiler", "frowner" and "blinker" heads. In 1980, Robert Mandell and ITC New York combined several episodes of Captain Scarlet to make two compilation films: Captain Scarlet vs. the Mysterons and Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars. [12][114] Concerns have also been raised about the series' approach to character development: in a 1986 interview, script editor Tony Barwick described Captain Scarlet as "hard-nosed stuff" that lacked humour, adding: "It was all for the American market and to that extent there was no deep characterisation. "[112] On the depiction of technology, Peter Wright notes the "qualified technophilia" that Captain Scarlet shares with Thunderbirds. [6], Chris Bentley notes that two guest puppets make more than one appearance in the episode. Years later in 2067, he was approached by Spectrum and became one of the first of their senior officers Captain Scarlet. Neil McCallum voiced guest characters in four episodes but was also uncredited. Running to thirty-two 25-minute episodes, it was first broadcast on ITVregional franchises between 1967 and 1968 and has since been transmitted in more than 40 other countries, including the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. [1] This seven-note beat was also used to link scenes within episodes as well as cut to advertisement breaks, where it was accompanied by a zooming image of the Spectrum logo. [100], BBC Two repeated the series in digitally-remastered form in the autumn of 2001. Over the course of the series, it is discovered that Mysteron reconstructions are particularly vulnerable to electricity and can be detected by X-rays, to which they are resistant. Captain Scarlet - End Credits (Instrumental) - 1967 - YouTube He compares this to the relative failure of the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom following the success of its precursor, Raiders of the Lost Ark: "Anderson made the same mistake that George Lucas made, assuming that if the effects were praised in Thunderbirds, the public wanted a show with more effects. A few small niggles are the harp sounds when the Angels go to action, it just felt out of place, & you never actually see the puppets walking, okay, negatives over, it was made in the 60s, the negatives don't outweigh the positives. However, his efforts are in vain: his overview of the Mysterons' attempt to destroy London ("Big Ben Strikes Again") is judged useless and his first-person account of the destruction of their base on the Moon ("Crater 101") is rejected due to the extensive press coverage of the event. Captain Scarlet is one of a number of Supermarionation productions to feature a clip-show series finale, the first of which was Stingray ' s "Aquanaut of the Year". Launch when ready." (After Black is taken over by the Mysterons in the first episode, he speaks with the aliens' voice). This DLC's size is 1.29 GB. Scarlet arrives in a Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle, orders Blue to get clear and destroys the warehouse with the SPV's rocket launcher. [31] Although production on the next Supermarionation series, Joe 90, began in November, the final episodes of Captain Scarlet were not completed until early 1968. [135], Captain Scarlet was also the basis of three comic strip adventures in TV Century 21. [12] Blue's escape from the control room was accomplished by throwing the puppet through a sheet of glass onto the backdrop of the control room set;[9] though filmed at high speed, a gloved hand can be seen launching the puppet. [89][90] In 2005, the Animation Art Gallery in London released limited-edition prints of the paintings signed by Francis Matthews. [1] This was later revised as a song performed by a London-based pop group The Spectrum, who had been assembled by RCA Victor as an imitation of The Monkees and happened to share their name with the organisation that appears in Captain Scarlet. ", A number of variations have been used. In the first episode, Spectrum agent Captain Scarlet acquires the Mysterons' self-healing power of retro-metabolism and is thus rendered "indestructible", being able to recover from otherwise fatal injuries. [37][38] To create the Mysteron rings, the crew used the advice of producer Reg Hill, who suggested that a transparency be made that could be panned across the sets using a slide projector. Back to lyrics [N 3][E 3] Cloudbase is defended by Angel Interceptor fighters flown by a squadron of five female pilots codenamed Destiny (squadron leader), Harmony, Melody, Rhapsody, and Symphony. [184], Gerry Anderson announced plans for a live-action film adaptation of Captain Scarlet in 2000 and again in 2002 but the film remains undeveloped.[188][189][190][191]. The engineerings of the C38 Mysteron detector and the Mysteron rifle follow not long afterwards. [20] Episode director David Lane recalls that when he first saw the prototype, "it was as if there was a little dead person in [the box] ... because it was perfect in all its proportions it just looked odd. Anthony Clark of sci-fi-online.com calls it a "cheap flashback episode". This, coupled with contemporary theories about the possibility of life on Mars, led to the idea of an interplanetary war between Earth and its neighbour and a worldwide security organisation being called upon to defend humanity. [1][2][10] A similar observation is made by Jim Sangster and Paul Condon, authors of Collins Telly Guide, who compare the appearance of the Shroeder puppet to that of actor Robert Mitchum. [68] As with the re-designed puppets, the voice parts became less caricatured and more realistic. [46] In their notes for the soundtrack release, Ralph Titterton and Tim Mallett suggest that the music has a "military feel" that favours percussion, brass and wind instruments, contrasting with the orchestral nature of the Thunderbirds score. [20] Now giving fresh consideration to this idea, Anderson realised that a major selling point for his new series could be a character who is killed at the end of each episode and resurrected by the start of the next. About to unleash a force with terrible powers, beyond the comprehension of man. [39][41], The music for Captain Scarlet was composed by Barry Gray, who had scored all prior Supermarionation series. Courageous. [8] Certain members of the production staff believed that the new marionettes lacked the charm of the previous generation due to the natural body proportions that were now being used. Captain Scarlet is the code name the Spectrum Organisation has assigned to Paul Metcalfe, a fourth-generation military officer and a former colonel in the World Army Air Force Special Forces. To see a failed landing on the deck of Cloudbase, and Scarlet out of action already, is really unsettling.
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