Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Encyclopedia
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, often referred to as Captain Scarlet, is a 1960s British science-fiction television series produced by the Century 21 Productions company of Gerry
and Sylvia Anderson
, John Read
and Reg Hill
. First broadcast on ATV Midlands between September 1967 and May 1968, it has since been transmitted in more than 40 other countries, including the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Combined with scale model
special effects, characters are presented as marionette
puppets in a filming technique that the Andersons dubbed "Supermarionation
", a technology that incorporated internal solenoid
motors as a means of producing mouth movements synchronised
with pre-recorded dialogue.
Set in 2068, the series charts the hostilities between Earth
and a race of Martian
s known as the Mysteron
s. After a misunderstanding results in human astronauts destroying their base, the vengeful Mysterons declare war on Earth, initiating a succession of reprisal attacks that are countered by Spectrum, an international security organisation. Spectrum boasts the remarkable abilities of its top agent, Captain Scarlet
, who comes to possess the Mysteron healing power
of "retro-metabolism". This ability to return to life, even after suffering fatal injuries, essentially makes Scarlet "indestructible".
Captain Scarlet, the eighth of ten puppet series that the Andersons produced during the 1950s and 60s, follows Thunderbirds
and precedes Joe 90
and the little-seen The Secret Service
. In terms of visual aesthetic, the series represents a departure from the style of Thunderbirds due to its use of non-caricature
d marionette puppets of realistic
bodily proportions. Re-run a number of times on British television and purchased by the BBC in 1993, the 32-episode series has been the foundation of merchandising
campaigns since its first appearance, leading to the release of items such as toy doll
s and other associated media, including novels and comic strip
s in the Anderson-related children's magazine, TV Century 21
.
Compared to its antecedents, Captain Scarlet continues to be recognised as much "darker" in tone and less orientated towards child audiences
due to increased levels of violence
and themes of extraterrestrial malevolence and interplanetary conflict
. The transition in puppet design has polarised the opinions of commentators and former production personnel, although the series has been praised for its depiction of a multinational and multiethnic cast of characters against the backdrop of a utopia
n future Earth. Deciding to revive Captain Scarlet in the late 1990s, Gerry Anderson supervised the production of a computer-animated reboot series, Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet
, which commenced broadcast in the United Kingdom in 2005.
, a team of Zero-X
The Zero-X
and its lander craft, the Martian Exploration Vehicle (MEV), appear in the first Thunderbirds
film, Thunderbirds Are Go
. Production documentation from Captain Scarlet confirms that the MEV that appears in "The Mysterons
" is the same vehicle, which places this series in the same fictional universe
as Thunderbirds (Bentley, 59), set in 2065. Spectrum personnel biographies in Bentley's The Complete Book of Captain Scarlet also place the events of Stingray
(set in 2064) and Fireball XL5
(set in 2063) in this universe (Bentley, 46–7, 50). astronauts investigate the surface of Mars
in 2068 after unidentified radio signals emanating from the planet are detected on Earth
. Episode 1. The source is discovered to be an extraterrestrial base, which is attacked and destroyed when the explorers mistake a harmless sensor device for a weapon. The inhabitants of the settlement, the Mysteron
s, are sentient computers that form a collective consciousness
. They are the remnants of the original Mysteron race, extraterrestrial life forms that originated in a galaxy other than the Milky Way
and maintained their colony on Mars for 3,500 years before abandoning the planet at the turn of the 20th century. Possessing partial control over matter
, the Mysteron computers draw on their power of "reversing matter" to rebuild the complex before vowing revenge for the unwarranted aggression.
Reversing matter, also described as "retro-metabolism", Episode 2. allows the Mysterons to re-create the likeness of a person or object in the form of a facsimile that is under their control. This ability is used to conduct a "war of nerves" against Earth, in which the Mysterons issue threats against specific targets (from world leaders and military installations to whole cities and continents) and then destroy and reconstruct whatever instruments are required (whether human or machine) to execute their plans. The presence of the Mysterons is indicated by two circles of green light (the "Mysteron rings") that trail across scenes of destruction and reconstruction. Although the Mysterons are able to manipulate events from Mars, their actions on Earth are usually performed by their replicated intermediaries.
The primary agent of the Mysterons, Zero-X mission leader Captain Black
, is killed and reconstructed during the encounter on Mars.The transformation of Captain Black
from human to Mysteron is indicated by a paling of the character's face and a deepening of his voice to match that of the Mysterons. Before the events of the pilot episode, Black held a senior officer rank in Spectrum, an international security organisation inaugurated in 2067 Episode 30. that mobilises all its personnel, vehiclesSpectrum Pursuit Vehicle
s (SPV) and Angel Interceptor fighter aircraft are two of a number of vehicles that Spectrum has at its disposal. The Spectrum Patrol Car (or Saloon Car, acronym either SPC of SSC) is used for unarmed land travel, while the Maximum Security Vehicle (MSV) and Yellow Fox, an unmarked security transport disguised as a fuel tanker, are used to protect Mysteron
targets. Additional aircraft include the Spectrum Passenger Jet, the two-seater Spectrum Helicopter and the Magnacopter for transporting larger numbers of passengers. and other resources in response to the threat posed by the Mysterons. Spectrum is directed from Cloudbase
, an airborne headquarters stationed at a height of 40,000 feet above the Earth's surface, Episode 19. and has a presence in all major cities. The organisation employs operatives of many nationalities, of whom the most senior hold military rank
s and colour-based codenames, are posted to Cloudbase, and answer directly to the commander-in-chief
of Spectrum, Colonel White
.In communications, Spectrum personnel use the call signal "SIG" ("Spectrum Is Green") as their affirmative code
. The negative, "SIR" ("Spectrum Is Red"), is used less often. Cloudbase is defended by the Angels, a squadron of five female pilots named Destiny (squadron leader), Harmony, Melody, Rhapsody and Symphony, who fly the Angel Interceptor fighter aircraft. In addition, the organisation incorporates a fleet of Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle
s (SPV) hidden in secret locations around the world.
Captain Scarlet
becomes Spectrum's foremost weapon in its fight against the Mysterons after the events of the pilot episode, in which the Mysterons threaten to assassinate the World President
In the fictional universe of Captain Scarlet, power from many individual nations has been vested in a World Government
, which is headed by an elected World President and operates its own military and security forces. Spectrum is a unified operation established to provide a more efficient service than these separate bodies, since it is not hindered by interdepartmental red-tape (Bentley, 43). as their first act of retaliation. The original Scarlet is killed in a car accident engineered by the MysteronsFor the pilot episode exclusively, different techniques are used to indicate the Mysteron influence: in place of the Mysteron rings, the destroyed complex on Mars
is reconstructed by a beam of blue light, while the deaths of the original Captain Scarlet
and Captain Brown
are preceded by a transition from a full-colour picture to a blue monochrome
. The rings make their first appearance in the second episode, "Winged Assassin
". and replaced with a Mysteron reconstruction. However, when the Scarlet duplicate is shot by Spectrum officer Captain Blue
and falls to his death from a tall structure, it returns to life with the consciousness of its human template restored, and is thereafter free from Mysteron control.When killed, Mysteron reconstructions are normally permanently destroyed. The one exception to this is Scarlet, who can die and subsequently revive. The character's biography in The Complete Book of Captain Scarlet states that the Mysterons intended their duplicate of Scarlet to be "indestructible", in contrast with their other reconstructions of deceased humans (Bentley, 44). Scarlet's ex-Mysteron body possesses two remarkable abilities: he is able to sense the presence of other Mysteron duplicates in his vicinity,Scarlet demonstrates this ability in the episodes "Winged Assassin" (production number: 2), "Point 783
" (production number: 5) and "Seek and Destroy" (production number: 9), but no others. From the episode "Spectrum Strikes Back
" (production number: 10), Captain Scarlet is apparently unaware of the presence of Mysteron agents when near to them. He demonstrates an ability to sense the presence of Mysteron agents in the five EP
records, and in the novel Captain Scarlet and the Silent Saboteur. and if he is injured or killed, retro-metabolism restores him
to a state of top health. Now able to deploy suicidally reckless tactics to thwart Mysteron threats, Scarlet repeatedly braves the pain of death in the knowledge that he will recover to face the Mysterons once more.During the course of the series, two other Spectrum officers are killed and reconstructed by the Mysterons in addition to Scarlet and Black, but their likenesses do not possess the power of retro-metabolism: Captain Brown in "The Mysterons" (who explodes in proximity to, and almost assassinates, the World President in that episode) and Captain Indigo
in "Spectrum Strikes Back" (who is permanently destroyed by the Mysteron Gun).
While Scarlet and Spectrum defend Earth against the threat from Mars, it is found that Mysteron reconstructions are particularly vulnerable to electricity Episode 8. and that they are detectable on X-ray
s, to which their biology is impervious. Consequently, two anti-Mysteron devices, the "Mysteron Gun"In "Spectrum Strikes Back," a line of dialogue from Captain Scarlet states that the Mysteron Gun "is the only gun that can kill a Mysteron." The gun fires lethal beams of electrons and is not shown in other episodes. Episodes both preceding and following "Spectrum Strikes Back" portray Mysteron agents as being vulnerable to conventional means of destruction, such as explosions (an example of which is in the 11th produced episode, "Avalanche") or bullets (of which there are many examples, including the 12th produced episode, "Shadow of Fear
"). and the "Mysteron Detector," are developed to aid Spectrum. Episode 9. A three-episode story arc
charts the uncovering of a second Mysteron complex under construction on the Moon
, Episode 12. its destruction by Spectrum, Episode 17. and efforts to negotiate with the Mysterons on Mars via a crystal power source, salvaged from the complex, which is converted into an interplanetary communication device. A failed attempt at satellite surveillance
of the Martian surface, Episode 18. aborted military conferences Episode 7. Episode 22. and the sabotaged construction of a new space fleet
Episode 24. hinder Spectrum's plans to return to Mars, and the organisation is unsuccessful on two occasions in apprehending Captain Black. Episode 21. Episode 4. The penultimate episode of the series depicts a Mysteron assault on Cloudbase with the use of armed spacecraft, which is ultimately revealed to be a nightmare
dreamt by one of the Angel pilots. Episode 31. The finale is a flashback episode
that ends inconclusively with regards to the war between Earth and Mars and the fate of Spectrum and the Mysterons. Episode 32.
fell through in July 1966, production for the series' second season ended with the completion of just six episodes at the behest of ITC
financier Lew Grade
. Having overseen Gerry Anderson
's work since the creation of Supercar
in 1960 - and going on to buy his production company, AP Films
, during the making of Fireball XL5
- Grade was anxious for Anderson's programmes to be transmitted abroad, in the lucrative American market, and decided that a new concept would do more to attract potential bidders than a second season of Thunderbirds.
As a result of the cancellation, Anderson was required to come up with an idea for another Supermarionation
series. He had once been inspired by the thought of creating a live-action police drama in which the hero would have unexpectedly been murdered halfway through the series and replaced by a new lead character. Now giving fresh consideration to this idea, Anderson resolved that a selling point for his new series could be a character that can be killed at the end of each episode and resurrected by the beginning of the next. This, coupled with contemporary theories about the possibility of life on Mars
, led to the idea of an interplanetary war raging between Earth and its neighbour and a worldwide security organisation being called on to defend human civilisation. After further thought, Anderson decided that "Scarlet
" would make an unusual codename for this organisation's "indestructible" agent who can come back to life, while "Blue
" could be his partner's designation. From this, Anderson reasoned that all the personnel should have colours for names so as to form the whole "Spectrum" of colours, and decided that someone called "White
" should be the leader of the Spectrum Organisation, much in the same way that white light
is composed of, and can be broken down into
, the colours of the spectrum
.
Intrigued by the often-heard phrase "life as we know it", Anderson wanted to set the aliens of his new series apart from the conventional extraterrestrials of 1960s television and cinema. He therefore worked from a basis of "life as we don't know it", and made the Mysteron
s that were to feature in the series a race of sentient computers as opposed to organic lifeforms, although this is not explicitly stated in the television episodes. The initial intention was that the original Mysteron civilisation came from another galaxy. Having established a settlement on Mars
in the distant past, they fled the planet centuries later, abandoning their computer complex.
Contemporary recollections of the Second World War proved to be an inspiration for a number of design aspects. For instance, Anderson recalled that RAF pilots had found it difficult to counter German attacks during the Battle of Britain
, since taking off from the ground meant that it took considerable time to intercept the enemy. He therefore made Spectrum's headquarters an airborne aircraft carrier
called "Cloudbase
". The Mysteron rings were inspired by an advertisement for the Oxo
line of food products, which included an image of the brand name sliding over a frying pan and the outline of a woman's body.
With a provisional series title of The Mysterons, Anderson and his wife, Sylvia
, wrote a pilot script in August 1966. This differed significantly from the final draft of the pilot episode
. Initially, it was decided that the Mysteron
duplicate of Captain Scarlet
would be artificially resurrected by an advanced Spectrum computer rather than reviving naturally, and that thereafter he would no longer be truly human but a "mechanical man" akin to an android. Another early ambition was for each episode to feature a guest star voiced by a well-known actor of the day. To this end, the role of the World President
in the pilot episode was originally intended to be voiced by the American-born actor Patrick McGoohan
.
With Anderson serving chiefly as executive producer
, the majority of the writing input for Captain Scarlet was provided by Tony Barwick
, who had previously written for the short-lived second season of Thunderbirds
. Originally given the role of script editor
, Barwick went on to pen 18 of the 32 episodes himself, and was also often required to make substantial changes to other writers' work. While discussing his approach to writing episodes in a 1986 interview, he drew parallels between the premise and characters of Captain Scarlet and those of Thunderbirds, suggesting, for example, that the Spectrum Organisation was similar to International Rescue and that the character of Captain Black
was like the earlier recurring villain from Thunderbirds, The Hood
.
period lasting from November to December 1966, filming for the pilot episode, "The Mysterons
", began on 2 January 1967, with a budget of £1.5 million for the 32-episode series. At an average cost of £46,000 per episode, or £2,000 per minute, it was the most expensive Anderson production to date. A month before, Anderson and his team had dropped the name "AP Films," since Arthur Provis was no longer working alongside Anderson on a full-time basis, and renamed their company "Century 21 Productions". Many of the directors for earlier Anderson series, such as Alan Pattillo, David Elliott
and David Lane
, had either left AP Films or were involved in the production of Thunderbird 6
, the second Thunderbirds
feature film, at the time that Captain Scarlet was being produced. Although Desmond Saunders
and Lane were available to direct the first and second episodes, while veteran AP Films director Brian Burgess also contributed, the Andersons needed to transfer some of the more junior production personnel to replace the outgoing staff. To this effect, Alan Perry and Ken Turner
were promoted from the camera operator and art department
s. Directors drafted in from outside AP Films were Peter Anderson, Leo Eaton and finally Robert Lynn, who had worked as an assistant director
on the 1958 Hammer
films Dracula
and The Revenge of Frankenstein
.
The Slough Trading Estate
Slough Trading Estate
: 51.5244°N 0.6250°W (principal photography and editing) in Buckinghamshire
had served as Anderson's production base since the filming of Stingray
in 1964. To accelerate production on earlier Supermarionation
series, pairs of episodes had been filmed simultaneously on separate sound stage
s, a practice that continued for Captain Scarlet. Some filming coincided with the production of Thunderbird 6, which was recorded on a separate puppet stage and released in July 1968. Editing rooms, post-production
offices and a preview theatre were housed in a separate building on the Slough Trading Estate; the crew collaborated with the Standard Telecommunication Laboratories
at Harlow
in Essex
Standard Telecommunication Laboratories
: 51.779°N 0.128°W (electronic collaboration) on the technical and electronic side of the production.
A third unit, headed by Derek Meddings
and his assistant Mike Trim
, handled special effect
s and miniatures
and was tasked with creating all the permanent sets and models to be used from the pilot episode, such as the Cloudbase
interiors and scaled-down Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle
s. A design innovation for this series meant that the noses of the miniature vehicles would "dip" when stopped, to imitate the sudden application of brakes and deceleration on a real-life vehicle. The miniature of the Cloudbase exterior, which ran to six feet (1.8 m) in length, proved to be too heavy to be held up with strings and was instead supported by a metal pole. To transfer the Mysteron
rings from script to screen, the production team acted on the advice of producer Reg Hill
, who suggested that a transparency be made that could be panned across the puppet sets using a slide projector.
By the time the series started broadcasting on ATV
in September 1967, principal photography
had been completed for the first 20 episodes. In general, turnaround for completing all the puppet shots for each episode was two weeks or 11 working days. It was initially predicted that all shooting would be wrapped within eight months, but filming overran up until late October because of the demands of the Thunderbird 6 shoot. While production on Anderson's next Supermarionation series, , began in November it was not until early 1968 that the last episodes of Captain Scarlet were edited and prepared for broadcast.
, an innovator in electronic music
, who had scored all the Supermarionation
series preceding it. The opening title sequence
theme, "The Mysterons", was rendered electronically and accompanied by a staccato
drum beat to introduce the lead character of Captain Scarlet
. This seven-note beat was also used to link scenes within episodes, and to cut to advertisement breaks
, for which it was accompanied by a zooming image of the Spectrum logo as designed by Tony Dunsterville of the art department
. On the subject of the beat, Anderson recalls, "When I went to the recording session, I heard the drum beat he had come up with and I thought, 'Christ, is this all he could produce?' Looking back on it, however, I can see that what he came up with worked very well."
The closing credits
theme, "Captain Scarlet", underwent significant change after the completion of the first 14 episodes. The first version had been mainly instrumental, with vocoded interruptions of the words "Captain Scarlet!" provided by Gray himself. This was then revised as a song performed by a London-based pop group The Spectrum, assembled by RCA Victor as an imitation of the American band The Monkees
, who happened to share their name with the organisation that appears in Captain Scarlet.
In addition to the main theme, Gray scored incidental music
for 18 episodes of Captain Scarlet between March and December 1967. Musical accompaniment for the remaining 14 episodes was achieved by re-using these completed tracks as well as music from previous Anderson productions such as Thunderbirds
. In composing his incidental music, Gray made extensive use of two contrasting, yet similar, themes to illustrate Spectrum and the Mysteron
s. In their notes to the soundtrack release, Ralph Titterton and Tim Mallett suggest that the music is dominated by a "military
feel", with an emphasis placed on percussion, brass
and wind instruments, by contrast to the full orchestra
l sound of the Thunderbirds score. With the exception of the four-note Mysteron motif
, Gray generally restricted his use of electronic synthesisers, including an Ondes Martenot
, to space sequences, preferring traditional instruments for Earth
-bound action. Captain Scarlet's motif, heard in both versions of the end credits theme and the incidental music, is a melodic variation
on the Mysteron theme, emphasising Scarlet's history as an ex-Mysteron.
Awarding the soundtrack CD release a rating of four stars out of five, Bruce Eder of the Allmusic website describes the collection of theme and incidental music as "a strange mix of otherworldly 'music of the spheres', late-50s/early-60s 'space-age pop
', 'British Invasion
' beat, Scottish folk
-inspired tunes, kids-style 'Mickey Mouse
' scoring, marital music, light jazz
, and light classical
", and singles out both "Cocktail Music", from "Model Spy
", and the piano track, performed by Gray, from "The Inquisition", for particular praise. In his BBC Online review, Peter Marsh opines that the darker tone of the music is reflective of Captain Scarlet as a programme featuring realistic puppets and death, frightening alien villains and "no laughs", stating that "dissonant vibraphone
chords shimmer under hovering, tremulous strings contrasted with urgent, militaristic drums and pulsing brass—driving the action ever onto its climax (and, no doubt, a big explosion)."
puppet's mouth is electronically synchronised
with character dialogue, had been formulated by Gerry Anderson
for Four Feather Falls
in 1960. Until production for Captain Scarlet, the head of the puppet had been disproportionately large in comparison to its body, as the head contained a solenoid
that formed the key component of the lip-synch mechanism. The production team was not able to scale up the body to match the head, as this would have made the puppets hard to operate and have necessitated a proportionate scaling-up in the size of the puppet sets. Since Gerry Anderson had expressed frustration with this caricature
d design during production of earlier Supermarionation series, and wished that the puppets would more accurately reflect human biology, before production commenced on Captain Scarlet the producer, Reg Hill
, and his associate, John Read
, designed a new type of puppet in which the solenoid was instead placed inside the chest, to permit a head of realistic proportion. The costume designer
for Captain Scarlet was Sylvia Anderson
, who was influenced by the work of French fashion designer Pierre Cardin
, in particular his 1966 "Cosmonaut" collection, in designing the Spectrum uniforms.
After test-sculpting in Plasticine
, the puppet heads were moulded on a silicone rubber
base and made using fibreglass. At heights ranging from 20 to 24 inches (approximately one-third life-size) the next-generation puppets were no shorter than their predecessors. For previous series, puppet eyes had been sized out of proportion to the heads, but as part of the realistic look introduced in Captain Scarlet, the eyes of production personnel were photographed and the images scaled down for attachment to the eye sockets. As had been the case for earlier series, a number of alternative heads displaying a range of expressions were created for main character puppets, including "smilers", "frowners" and "blinkers". Since episodes of Captain Scarlet were filmed in pairs, one on each of the puppet stages available at the Century 21 Studios, duplicates were made of the "expressionless" template of each main character. For the pilot episode
, an "agony" head was specially sculpted for the Captain Scarlet
puppet for a brief reaction shot
of Scarlet's Mysteron
double being shot by Captain Blue
.
The increased realism
of the puppets meant that their mobility was significantly reduced, ironically leaving the new design less life-like than Anderson had hoped, as he recalls: "Suddenly, all the movements had to be as realistic as the puppets and that made it difficult for the puppeteers to animate them." To minimise the amount of movement required, the puppets were made to stand on moving walkways or sit at moving desks: for example, Colonel White
's desk on Cloudbase
is seen to rotate, while Lieutenant Green
is seen to operate the Cloudbase main computer from a sliding chair. Puppeteer Jan King recalls:
The "under control" puppets described by King were stringless and controlled from the waist. One resulting advantage was that a puppet could be moved through a doorway without necessitating a break in the shot. For shots displaying characters such as the Angels seated in aircraft cockpits, variations of the "under control" design, comprising just a head and torso, were manipulated by levers and wires located beneath the set. This development of Supermarionation would be named "Supermacromation" when Anderson returned to puppetry in the 1980s with his later production, Terrahawks
.
as and when episodes required them. The guest parts in Captain Scarlet, however, were filled by a permanent "repertory company" of over 50 puppets made to the same standards of workmanship as the main characters. Known as "revamp puppets" or "revamps", these puppets appeared on an episode-by-episode basis, cosmetically altered for each role in aspects such as hairstyle and hair colour. An initial intention was for each episode to include a "guest star" puppet, to be sculpted on, and voiced by, a known public figure, but this idea was abandoned due to budgetary constraints. Both main character and revamp puppets from Captain Scarlet appeared in Anderson's final two Supermarionation
series, Joe 90
and The Secret Service
.
The likeness of the Captain Scarlet
character has, since his first appearance, been attributed to Francis Matthews
, who voiced Scarlet in the series, Cary Grant
and Roger Moore
. Ed Bishop
later claimed that Captain Blue
had been modelled on his likeness, but sculptor Terry Curtis states that he made the puppet to resemble himself and simply added a blond wig when he learnt that Bishop was to voice Blue. Curtis, a James Bond
fan, based the appearance of Captain Grey
on Sean Connery
and Destiny Angel on Ursula Andress
, Connery's co-star in the 1962 Bond film Dr No
. Meanwhile, the character of Lieutenant Green
was sculpted on its voice actor, Cy Grant
; Rhapsody Angel on model and actress Jean Shrimpton
; Melody Angel on singer and actress Eartha Kitt
; and Harmony Angel on actress Tsai Chin
.
The regular puppet cast of Captain Scarlet was the largest of all the Anderson Supermarionation
series. While earlier productions had emphasised the benefits of futuristic technology, for Captain Scarlet it was decided to develop and deepen the cast of characters. Further to the enhanced realism
of the puppet design, voice roles for Captain Scarlet were, as opposed to Thunderbirds
and other predecessors, also intended to be less caricature
d. Anderson biographers Simon Archer and Marcus Hearn note that, between Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet, a proliferation of English-accented voices altered the sound of the Supermarionation production and its impression on the viewer.
Francis Matthews
, voicing Captain Scarlet
, had previously turned down offers for voice-acting on Thunderbirds. Matthews claims that Gerry Anderson
went to great lengths to get him to sign on to Captain Scarlet because of the skilled Cary Grant
impression that he had once used for a radio programme, and indeed the English actor based the tones of Scarlet on Grant's Mid-Atlantic
accent. In contrast, Anderson claims in his biography that the impression was Matthews' choice at audition, and that while it was not what had been intended for Scarlet the production team nevertheless elected to use it. Matthews' filmography prior to Captain Scarlet included the Hammer
films The Revenge of Frankenstein
(1958), Rasputin, the Mad Monk
(1966) and Dracula: Prince of Darkness
(1966).
Matthew's co-star in Dracula: Prince of Darkness had been Charles Tingwell
, chosen to voice Dr Fawn, the Cloudbase
chief medical officer. Tingwell, who had provided voices for the second season of Thunderbirds and its first feature film, Thunderbirds Are Go
, had initially been recommended to the Andersons by Ray Barrett
, a fellow Australian actor who had worked on Stingray
and Thunderbirds. However, due to theatre commitments, Tingwell could only contribute to the first 12 produced episodes of Captain Scarlet. Also departing after the completion of "Shadow of Fear
" was the voice of Captain Grey
, Paul Maxwell
, a Canadian actor who had voiced the character of Steve Zodiac three years earlier in Fireball XL5
.
Cy Grant
, a Guyanese actor selected for the role of Lieutenant Green
"Lieutenant" is generally pronounced in the British manner, lɛfˈtɛnənt ("left-tenant"), by all but the American characters in the series. (Colonel White's assistant and Cloudbase's main computer operator
and public announcer
), had been known to the Andersons for singing topical calypsos
on the current affairs programme Tonight
. His casting influenced the decision to accept Ed Bishop
as Captain Blue
(Captain Scarlet's friend and mission partner), as Bishop recalled in an interview recorded in 1995: "It was just that a girl in my agent's office happened to be on the ball. She represented this black actor by the name of Cy Grant and Gerry and Sylvia
wanted to use him ... And the girl said, 'Oh, by the way, Mr Anderson, we've just taken on a new, young American actor'—shows you how long ago it was—'a new American actor, name of Edward Bishop. And we know how much you like American voices. Would you like to meet him as well?' He said, 'Okay, send him out.' So I went out and auditioned and got the job."
Donald Gray
, who had found himself typecast
after appearing in the lead role in Saber of London
, a detective series
, was having to resort to voice work to support his acting career. The South African actor was selected for three regular roles: Colonel White
, Captain Black
and the Mysteron
s. After his mind is hijacked in the pilot episode
, Black speaks with the same voice that the Mysterons are heard to use when transmitting threats to Earth
. For his portrayals of Black and his Mysteron masters, Gray's voice was electronically deepened, by running the tape at high speed whilst he was recording his lines and playing it back at normal speed, to produce a haunting effect.
The voice of Captain Ochre was provided by English-born Canadian, Jeremy Wilkin
. Having served in the role of Virgil Tracy
during the second series of Thunderbirds, Wilkin remained to voice Ochre for the subsequent production. The character of Captain Magenta
, meanwhile, was voiced by Gary Files
. Another Australian actor, Files was a fresh addition to Century 21 Productions, and was cast for a number of roles in the second Thunderbirds film, Thunderbird 6
, before progressing to the role of Magenta for Captain Scarlet. Like Files, Welsh actress Liz Morgan
was new to the Anderson productions and voiced the regular characters of Destiny Angel, the lead pilot of the Spectrum Angel fighter squadron, and one of her subordinates, Rhapsody Angel.
Sylvia Anderson
, the voice of Lady Penelope from Thunderbirds, voiced Melody Angel, while Canadian actress Janna Hill was given the part of Symphony. The character of Harmony Angel was voiced by Morgan for five episodes before being replaced by Chinese actress Lian-Shin about one-third of the way through the recording sessions. Although Lian only provided the voice of Harmony for one episode, "The Launching
," she received billing for 20 episodes.
Supporting character voices were performed by Anderson, Files, Hill, Maxwell, Morgan, Tingwell and Wilkin. Completing the supporting cast were American actor David Healy
and British actor Martin King
. Canadian Shane Rimmer
, who had performed the voice of Scott Tracy
in Thunderbirds and its films, made a number of uncredited contributions in addition to writing for the series. Fellow Canadian Neil McCallum
, who had provided the voice of the character of Dr Ray Pierce in Thunderbirds Are Go, can be heard in four episodes uncredited. Six members of the voice cast would continue their association with the Andersons after Captain Scarlet. Healy would voice the character of Shane Weston in the penultimate Supermarionation series, Joe 90
, while Files would voice Matthew Harding on The Secret Service
. Wilkin, Morgan and King were all given small roles for these final two Supermarionation series, while Bishop appeared as SHADO Commander Ed Straker in Anderson's live-action series, UFO
, which was transmitted in the United Kingdom from 1970.
Anvil Films Recording Studio
: 51.5632°N 0.4987°W (voice recording) at Denham
in Buckinghamshire
. Each actor, regardless of the size of their contribution, was paid 15 guineas (£15 15 shillings) per episode with repeat fees. The cast were not given the opportunity to tour the Century 21 studios in Slough
until all their work was finished and therefore had no visualisation of their characters during the recording itself. This was to the regret of Liz Morgan
: "we all said that we wished we had seen the puppets before doing the dialogue, as it would have been helpful to have something physical to base the voices on. I knew that Destiny was French and that Rhapsody had to be frightfully 'Sloaney
,' but that was about it."
, incorporate two sets of opening titles. The first of these sequences presents the title card and major production team credits. The camera moves forward through the model set of a run-down, night-time alleyway, forming the point-of-view shot
of an unseen assassin, who turns a corner only to meet his death at the gun barrel of Captain Scarlet
. The two seven-letter words of "Captain Scarlet" then appear on-screen in time with the seven strikes of the Captain Scarlet staccato
drum beat composed by Barry Gray
. This opening sequence is accompanied by a voice-over
from Ed Bishop
, which states, "The Mysteron
s. Sworn enemies of Earth
. Possessing the ability to recreate an exact likeness of an object or person. But first, they must destroy ... Leading the fight, one man fate has made indestructible. His name: Captain Scarlet." The sequence is intended to demonstrate Scarlet's indestructibility; the assassin fires on the agent with a machine gun
, but the bullets have no effect.
A number of variations on this voice-over exist. Firstly, Ed Bishop's introduction in the pilot, which is unique to that episode, and runs: "The finger is on the trigger. About to unleash a force with terrible powers, beyond the comprehension of Man. This force we shall know as 'the Mysterons'... This man will be our hero, for fate will make him indestructible. His name: Captain Scarlet." A rare alternative version runs: "One man. A man who is different. Chosen by fate. Caught up in Earth's unwanted conflict with the Mysterons. Determined. Courageous. Indestructible. His name: Captain Scarlet."
Later prints of the episodes feature an additional voice-over, a warning from Donald Gray
, which states: "Captain Scarlet is indestructible. You are not. Remember this. Do not try to imitate him." This served both to establish the background to the series and to warn younger fans not to take risks by copying Scarlet's exploits. The warning was placed after the alternative "One man ..." voiceover or else was used in isolation, with Gray's warning providing the sole narration in the opening sequence.
From the second episode
, a continuation of the opening sequence, presenting the main puppet cast, runs after the teaser
that establishes the plot to each episode. While the Mysterons are announcing their latest threat against Earth, the "Mysteron rings" pass over the characters in a number of environments to demonstrate the omnipresence of the extraterrestrials, while the Spectrum codenames are being credited on-screen. The Mysterons invariably begin their threat with the words, "This is the voice of the Mysterons. We know that you can hear us, Earthmen
." For Japanese broadcasts, the opening credits were replaced with a montage of action scenes from various episodes, with children singing an accompanying theme tune. This version can be found in the special features of the Captain Scarlet DVD box set.
The end credits
were originally to be accompanied by images of printed circuit board
s and other electronic components, to fit in with the Andersons' original conception of the resurrected Captain Scarlet being a "mechanical man". In the finished series, the credits are superimposed on ten paintings of Scarlet, who is depicted in moments of mortal peril. In the earlier episodes, he instrumental version of Gray's Captain Scarlet end theme accompanies these images; this is replaced by the Spectrum pop group's lyrical version in the later episodes. The paintings were produced by comic artist Ron Embleton
, who would later illustrate the adult comic strip "Oh, Wicked Wanda!
" for Penthouse
magazine in the 1970s. In 2005, the Animation Art Gallery in London released licensed limited editions of the Captain Scarlet paintings featuring the signature of Francis Matthews
, the voice of Scarlet.
for the pilot episode, "The Mysterons
", were promising at 0.45 million. Five months earlier, on 29 April, the series opener had been given a late-night test transmission in the London area. After the start of the Midlands
broadcasts, London and Scotland followed on 1 October, with the Granada
, Anglia
, Southern
, Westward
and Channel
areas all televising the series by the end of the month. However, it was not until the start of 1968 that the series was being broadcast all across the nation. In the Midlands region, the ratings averaged 1.1 million. In 1968, Captain Scarlet was also screened in more than 40 other countries, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. In the United States, the series was transmitted on first-run syndication. Meanwhile, only six episodes of the series were transmitted in the Netherlands.
Repeat runs
have varied greatly according to region. While Granada, HTV
and Tyne Tees continued to broadcast the series into 1972, the Midlands received four colour
re-runs from 1969 to 1974, while in other areas, such as Yorkshire
, it was not repeated at all. All 32 episodes were purchased by the ITV network for broadcast on Saturday mornings between 1985 and 1986, with broadcasting in segmented form on the ITV Night Network
in 1987. A BBC commission led to the series' first simultaneous network
broadcast on BBC2 starting on 1 October 1993. On this occasion, the pilot episode attracted an audience of four million, high enough to award it third position in the BBC2 ratings chart for the week of transmission.
Digitally remastered
, the series resurfaced on BBC Two in the autumn of 2001. On this occasion, the episode schedule needed to be re-arranged at short notice to avoid offence in the immediate aftermath of the 11 September attacks. The second episode, "Winged Assassin
", in which the Mysteron
s destroy and reconstruct a plane to assassinate a world leader, and the third, "Big Ben Strikes Again
", in which London comes under threat from an atomic device, were held back and replaced with the fourth episode, "Manhunt", due to parallels between the plotlines and events in the real world. In the week after the attacks, the Captain Scarlet section on the Carlton
website was also temporarily removed.
had run to a second series, Gerry Anderson
states that Lew Grade
's unexpected cancellation of the production led him to assume that there was no possibility of Captain Scarlet lasting for more than one series. He comments that, "As far as I can recall, I didn't expect it to continue. I simply went to Lew and asked, 'What's the next thing you want us to do?
Captain Scarlet has generally been regarded as much "darker" in tone compared to Gerry Anderson's earlier sci-fi series, as Andrew Billen noted in the New Statesman
when the programme was remade for 2005: "Whereas Thunderbirds was about rescuing people, Scarlet was about damnation, the soul of a resurrected man being fought for between Captain Scarlet
and the equally indestructible Captain Black
. It was Anderson's Gothic
period." The horror factor of the Mysteron
s has been recognised, with the depiction of the aliens leading to the series appearing at number 82 in Channel 4
's list programme 100 Greatest Scary Moments in 2003. Simon Wickes of the TV Century 21 website suggests that seriousness of the scripts is ultimately due to the realism
of the new, accurately proportioned puppets, and that this aesthetic change also answers for the enhanced realism in the use of miniature models.
Parallels have been drawn between the series and the Cold War
. Historian Nicholas J. Cull
, for example, interprets the "war of nerves" between Earth
and Mars
as a reflection of the strained international relations of the 1960s and compares the "enemy within" scenario of aliens taking control of human beings to such sci-fi films as 1956's Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Mark Bould has written that the series "seemed in tune with a decade of civil disobedience
and anti-imperialist guerrilla wars," a view supported by Rebecca Feasey of the University of Edinburgh
, who has written that it is one of a number of series that "exploited the fears of 1960s America by presenting civil disobedience and the potentially negative impact of new technologies." Since 2001, similarities have also been interpreted between the series and the 11 September attacks, as well as the ensuing War on Terror
.
However, to other reviewers, Captain Scarlet is a "camp
classic" which, according to Bould, relates well to other Anderson productions due to a shared depiction of "a utopia
n future benefitting from world government
, high technology, ethnic diversity, and a generally positive sense of Americanisation. They articulate the commonly made connection between technological developments and economic prosperity." He has also discussed the "Euro-cool consumerism
" of Captain Scarlet. The concept of world government is common to Anderson's work and was inspired by his thoughts on the matter at the time: "I had all sorts of fancy ideas about the future ... we had the United Nations and I imagined that the world would come together and there would be a world government." Peter Wright has similar ideas to Bould on the technological side of the series, noting the "qualified technophilia
" that it shares with Thunderbirds.
Since its first appearance, complaints levelled against the series have targeted the camera work, which has been viewed as too static due to the problem of moving the puppets convincingly. The return to a 25-minute episode format as had been the scenario with Stingray
and earlier Supermarionation
series, as opposed to the 50-minute Thunderbirds episodes, has been blamed for a perceived drop in the quality of the storytelling and lack of subplot
s. Concerns have also been expressed about the characters being underdeveloped: in a 1986 interview, script editor Tony Barwick
described the series as "hard-nosed stuff" that lacked humour, and also said, "It was all for the American market and to that extent there was no deep characterisation
. [The characters] all balanced one against the other."
Science-fiction author John Peel
perceives a drop in quality between Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet in terms of the use of special effects in relation to richness of the scripting. In this respect, he compares the divide to the commercial disappointment of Steven Spielberg
's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
(1984) after the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark
(1981): "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." Peel also turns attention to the nature of Captain Scarlet himself, suggesting that Anderson's conception of an indestructible hero who can unfailingly return to life after death made the conclusions to plotlines too predictable. He also notes his concern that Scarlet, who is often seen to risk his life to foil Mysteron plots, provided a poor role model for an impressionable target audience of children.
Although seen as a cult
series by some critics, Captain Scarlet ranked 33rd in a 2007 Radio Times
poll to determine the greatest sci-fi series of all time. Despite concerns that it is not a true "children's
" television series because of its "dark" tone and level of violence, it achieved 51st position in Channel 4's 2001 list programme 100 Greatest Kids' TV Shows. Considering Captain Scarlet alongside its immediate predecessor, Thunderbirds, Gerry Anderson's personal verdict is unambiguous: "Nothing was as successful as Thunderbirds. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons was very successful, but once you've had a smash hit, everything tends to look less successful in comparison."
's costume design, critic Mark Bould praises the "commitment to fashion" evident throughout the Anderson series, but particularly lauds the design of the Spectrum Angel uniforms. Meanwhile, the realistic
design of the new puppets has been praised by commentators such as Vincent Terrace and criticised by others. Some members of the production team perceived a lack of charm in comparison to the earlier puppets due to the more natural proportions that were now being used. Director David Lane
's initial thoughts on a prototype, produced by head of puppets John Brown, were, "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." Brown remembers presenting the prototype alongside the Lady Penelope puppet from Thunderbirds
and gauging the response from production staff, stating, "when they saw it, some people were horrified by the difference. Some didn't like it, some did." Critics have highlighted the sacrifice of facial expression in favour of a realistic design, a consequence on which Terry Curtis elaborates:
Sculptor John Blundall has referred to the new puppet design as "ridiculous", denouncing Anderson's attempts to have the puppets appear more life-like for the reason that, in his view, "We always try to do with puppets what you can't do with humans." Stating a preference for the Thunderbirds-era design, Blundall agrees that the transition from caricature
to realism led to a reduction in "character and personality", asserting that "If the puppet appears completely natural, the audience no longer has to use its imagination." In response, Anderson himself states that he pushed for the decision to reshape the puppets to satisfy viewers, summarising the development as not "a case of moving to a new technique, but more a case of incorporating new ideas with existing methods."
Summing up Captain Scarlet, in comparison to Thunderbirds, as "better puppets, bigger action and a huge step backwards in stories", Peel
disputes the claim that the next generation of Supermarionation
puppets constitute a failure on the part of the series, arguing that the increased realism did not deter viewers who had been familiar with the earlier design. Although he believes that the characterisation
s became less endearing, Peel suggests that it is an over-emphasis on the visual elements, evident at the expense of characterisation, that truly accounts for the reduced credibility of the series.
debate for its use of the codenames "White" to designate the head of Spectrum, Colonel White
, and "Black" in reference to the villainous Captain Black
. Gerry Anderson
defended his series against the accusations of racism and political incorrectness by reminding critics that Lieutenant Green
, Melody Angel and Harmony Angel are heroic characters despite being of either African or Asian descent. Green is the only male black character to have a significant role in an Anderson production.
In academic works, the diversity of the Spectrum personnel in terms of both race and gender has been viewed highly. Bould, for example, mentions "Captain Scarlet' s beautiful, multiethnic, female Angel fighter pilots" and "secondary roles played by capable women." In an interview conducted in 2003, Anderson commented on how he and his production team made an effort to include ethnic minorities in the series: "... I think people who make television programmes have a responsibility, particularly when children are watching avidly and you know their minds can be affected almost irreversibly as they grow up. We were very conscious of introducing different ethnic backgrounds."
Guyanese actor Cy Grant
, who voiced Green and saw the series as having positive multicultural value, has also noted the allegorical nature of Captain Scarlet. Christian symbolism is heavily implied, with Colonel White as God
, Captain Black as the Devil, Captain Scarlet
as Christ
, Cloudbase
as Heaven, and characters codenamed "the Angels", but Grant also mentions the idea of Lieutenant Green as an African trickster hero. On dualism, he suggests that, "the 'darkness
' of the Mysteron
s is most easily seen as the psychological rift—the struggle of 'good' and 'evil' — of the Western world
as personified by Colonel White and his team. Dark and light
are but aspects of each other. Incidentally, green is the colour of nature that can heal that rift."
video game, released for the PlayStation 2
platform in 2006. The ATV game show The Golden Shot
, presented by Bob Monkhouse
, adopted Captain Scarlet as the theme for its 1967 Christmas special. Broadcast live on 23 December, the programme featured guest appearances from Francis Matthews
and "The Spectrum", who performed their latest single, "Headin' for a Heatwave".
s, each running to approximately 21 minutes, and starring the original voice cast, in 1967. TV Century 21
script editor Angus P. Allan wrote Introducing Captain Scarlet, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Captain Scarlet of Spectrum, while Captain Scarlet is Indestructible and Captain Scarlet versus Captain Black were scripted by his assistant, Richard O'Neill
.
The first of the audio adventure
s, Introducing Captain Scarlet, is set during the dénouement to the pilot episode, The Mysterons
. The plot mainly focuses on a military conference investigating the events of the episode, with the inclusion of audio flashbacks
to provide exposition
. At the conclusion to the adventure, it is revealed that the Mysteron
duplicate of Captain Scarlet
has returned to life and that Scarlet's loyalty to Spectrum can be restored with the aid of the advanced computer that featured in the Andersons' pilot script for "The Mysterons".
published four novelisations, targeted at children, based upon the original series episodes "The Mysterons", "Lunarville 7
", "Noose of Ice
" and "The Launching
".
Captain Scarlet also formed the basis of three comic strip
s drawn for the weekly children's comic, TV Century 21. Spanning 17 issues (numbers 141–157) from September 1967 to January 1968, the strip adventures 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. Following the end of the TV series, the comic continued the story of the Captain Scarlet universe, with later strips revealing that the Mysteron
s deactivate their Martian complex and relinquish their control over Captain Black
, while Scarlet himself leaves Spectrum to make use of his powers in the fight against Earth-bound criminals and threats. The Mysterons ultimately re-awaken, prompting Scarlet and Spectrum to resume their struggle.
A manga
adaptation of the series, titled Captain Scarlet, ran in the Japanese Shōnen Book
anthology from January to August 1968. Century 21 published annuals
based on the series between 1967 and 1969, while the original Captain Scarlet comic strips were reprinted in the 1968 and 1969 editions of TV21 Annual. Further annuals, published in 1993 and 1994 by Grandreams, coincided with the BBC2 repeats of the TV episodes. In 2002, Carlton Books released a new edition to accompany the digitally remastered broadcasts that had started in 2001.
repeats of 2001, the box set incorporates a ninth tape including The Indestructible Captain Scarlet, a special programme that describes Spectrum, the Mysterons and the events of the TV series. Earlier releases, marketed by PolyGram
and "Channel 5", had numbered the episodes in an order different from that of the 1960s broadcasts and, in the case of the first two volumes, had added to them with the insertion of footage specially filmed for the ITC
Captain Scarlet compilation films of the 1980s.
Since September 2001, Captain Scarlet has also been available in five volumes on PAL
Region 2
DVD, also marketed by Carlton, with a new Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound sound mix to complement the original mono track. Special features for these releases include audio commentaries
with Gerry Anderson
for the episodes "The Mysterons" and "Attack on Cloudbase
", the five audio episodes from 1967, behind-the-scenes production photos, information about original ITC advertising and merchandise, and 1960s TV spots. As with the VHS releases, the five DVD volumes have also received a box set edition, which incorporates a bonus sixth disc including Captain Scarlet S.I.G. (a behind-the-scenes documentary produced and presented by Gerry Anderson) and five sets of alternative opening credits.
The special features of the four-disc NTSC
North American Region 1 edition of the box set, released by A&E Home Video
in 2002, are mostly similar to those of the Region 2 version, with the additions of a text-based "Introduction to Captain Scarlet" and DVD-ROM content. In 2004, Imavision
unveiled a French-language edition of the box set aimed at the Canadian market. The set is also available in Japan on Region 2 (as six discs) and Australia on Region 4 (as five discs).
VHS releases (UK)
DVD releases
catalogue have been transferred since the 1980s, initially to PolyGram Entertainment
, (or "PolyGram Television") then Carlton International
in the late 1990s after a partial sale to the BBC
in 1991. In 2004, Carlton International merged into Granada International, the current rights holder, which in 2008 was renamed ITV Global Entertainment, a division of ITV plc
. Theatrical release rights are held by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
(MGM). In addition to other projects, Gerry Anderson
announced plans for a live-action film adaptation of Captain Scarlet in 2000 and again in 2002 during the production of the Thunderbirds film
released in 2004, but the idea has not been developed since.
, combined episodes from the original series to make two compilation films for American audiences, with the aim of reviving transatlantic syndication sales. This became common practice for Anderson productions during the 1980s, with made-for-television films comprising episodes of Stingray
and Thunderbirds
airing to US cable
audiences under the generic promotional banner of "Super Space Theater". On 24 November 1988, the second Captain Scarlet film, Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars
, was broadcast as the second episode of the American television series Mystery Science Theater 3000
, from Minneapolis, on station KTMA.
supervised the production of a short computer-animated test film, Captain Scarlet and the Return of the Mysterons, to explore the possibility of updating a number of his 1960s Supermarionation
series for a 21st-century audience. The working title
was Captain Scarlet—The New Millennium. Produced in London by the Moving Picture Company
, the film features Francis Matthews
and Ed Bishop
reprising the roles of Captains Scarlet
and Blue
. Made using a combination of Maya 3D computer graphics software and motion-capture technology, the plot commences a few years after the Mysteron
s end their hostilities against Earth
, but the reappearance of Captain Black
sets the stage for a revival of the war with Mars
. Although the film has yet to receive a home video
release, it was publicly screened at a Fanderson
convention in 2000 and at a science lecture in 2001.
Plans for a full CGI Captain Scarlet television series to follow the test film finally resulted in Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet. A reboot of the original series, this was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on the Saturday-morning CITV
programme, Ministry of Mayhem, from 12 February 2005. Produced by "Anderson Entertainment" and the "Indestructible Production Company", the animation used to create the series is billed in the credits as "Hypermarionation" to acknowledge the 1960s puppet technique, Supermarionation.
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
and Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
, John Read
John Read (producer)
John Read is a British television producer, cinematographer and director.He is widely associated with the productions of Gerry Anderson. Having served as director of photography on Four Feather Falls , Crossroads to Crime , Supercar , Stingray and Thunderbirds , Read worked on the latter series'...
and Reg Hill
Reg Hill
Reginald E. Hill was a British television producer and was most prominently associated with the work of puppet animator Gerry Anderson.-Professional life:...
. First broadcast on ATV Midlands between September 1967 and May 1968, it has since been transmitted in more than 40 other countries, including the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Combined with scale model
Scale model
A scale model is a physical model, a representation or copy of an object that is larger or smaller than the actual size of the object, which seeks to maintain the relative proportions of the physical size of the original object. Very often the scale model is used as a guide to making the object in...
special effects, characters are presented as marionette
Marionette
A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a manipulator. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms...
puppets in a filming technique that the Andersons dubbed "Supermarionation
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
", a technology that incorporated internal solenoid
Solenoid
A solenoid is a coil wound into a tightly packed helix. In physics, the term solenoid refers to a long, thin loop of wire, often wrapped around a metallic core, which produces a magnetic field when an electric current is passed through it. Solenoids are important because they can create...
motors as a means of producing mouth movements synchronised
Lip sync
Lip sync, lip-sync, lip-synch is a technical term for matching lip movements with sung or spoken vocals...
with pre-recorded dialogue.
Set in 2068, the series charts the hostilities between Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
and a race of Martian
Martian
As an adjective, the term martian is used to describe anything pertaining to the planet Mars.However, a Martian is more usually a hypothetical or fictional native inhabitant of the planet Mars. Historically, life on Mars has often been hypothesized, although there is currently no solid evidence of...
s known as the Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
s. After a misunderstanding results in human astronauts destroying their base, the vengeful Mysterons declare war on Earth, initiating a succession of reprisal attacks that are countered by Spectrum, an international security organisation. Spectrum boasts the remarkable abilities of its top agent, Captain Scarlet
Captain Scarlet (character)
Captain Scarlet is the fictional main character in Gerry Anderson's British Supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet....
, who comes to possess the Mysteron healing power
Healing factor
A healing factor is a term used to describe the ability of some characters in fiction to recover from bodily injuries or disease at a superhuman rate...
of "retro-metabolism". This ability to return to life, even after suffering fatal injuries, essentially makes Scarlet "indestructible".
Captain Scarlet, the eighth of ten puppet series that the Andersons produced during the 1950s and 60s, follows Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
and precedes Joe 90
Joe 90
Joe 90 is a late-1960s British science-fiction television series documenting the exploits of a nine-year-old boy, Joe McClaine, who embarks on a double life as a schoolboy turned spy when his scientist father invents a pioneering machine capable of duplicating and transferring expert knowledge and...
and the little-seen The Secret Service
The Secret Service
The Secret Service is a British children's espionage television series, made as a Century 21 production for ITC Entertainment and broadcast in 1969...
. In terms of visual aesthetic, the series represents a departure from the style of Thunderbirds due to its use of non-caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
d marionette puppets of realistic
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
bodily proportions. Re-run a number of times on British television and purchased by the BBC in 1993, the 32-episode series has been the foundation of merchandising
Merchandising
Merchandising is the methods, practices, and operations used to promote and sustain certain categories of commercial activity. In the broadest sense, merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer...
campaigns since its first appearance, leading to the release of items such as toy doll
Doll
A doll is a model of a human being, often used as a toy for children. Dolls have traditionally been used in magic and religious rituals throughout the world, and traditional dolls made of materials like clay and wood are found in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe. The earliest documented dolls...
s and other associated media, including novels and comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
s in the Anderson-related children's magazine, TV Century 21
TV Century 21
TV Century 21, also known as TV 21, was a weekly British children's comic of the 1960s and early 1970s. It promoted the many television science-fiction puppet series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Century 21 Productions...
.
Compared to its antecedents, Captain Scarlet continues to be recognised as much "darker" in tone and less orientated towards child audiences
Children's television series
Children's television series, are commercial television programs designed for, and marketed to children, normally scheduled for broadcast during the morning and afternoon when children are awake. They can sometimes run in the early evening, for the children that go to school...
due to increased levels of violence
Media violence research
Research into the media and violence examines whether links between consuming media violence and subsequent aggressive and violent behavior exists...
and themes of extraterrestrial malevolence and interplanetary conflict
Interstellar war
In fiction, an interstellar war is a war between combatants whose respective headquarters lie in different planetary systems. It is a popular plot device in science fiction, especially in the space opera subgenre. An intergalactic war refers to war between combatants of different galaxies...
. The transition in puppet design has polarised the opinions of commentators and former production personnel, although the series has been praised for its depiction of a multinational and multiethnic cast of characters against the backdrop of a utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
n future Earth. Deciding to revive Captain Scarlet in the late 1990s, Gerry Anderson supervised the production of a computer-animated reboot series, Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet
Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet
Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet is a United Kingdom-produced computer-generated imagery action-adventure TV series which debuted in February 2005 as part of the Ministry of Mayhem on ITV....
, which commenced broadcast in the United Kingdom in 2005.
Plot summary
In the pilot episodeThe Mysterons (Captain Scarlet episode)
"The Mysterons" is the first episode of the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first officially broadcast in the UK on ATV Midlands on , although it had been granted an unscheduled test transmission for the London area on...
, a team of Zero-X
Zero-X
The Zero-X is a fictitious Earth spacecraft that appeared in two of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Supermarionation productions...
The Zero-X
Zero-X
The Zero-X is a fictitious Earth spacecraft that appeared in two of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Supermarionation productions...
and its lander craft, the Martian Exploration Vehicle (MEV), appear in the first Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
film, Thunderbirds Are Go
Thunderbirds Are GO
Thunderbirds Are Go is a 1966 British science-fiction film based on Thunderbirds, a 1960s television series starring marionette puppets and featuring scale model effects in a filming process dubbed "Supermarionation"...
. Production documentation from Captain Scarlet confirms that the MEV that appears in "The Mysterons
The Mysterons (Captain Scarlet episode)
"The Mysterons" is the first episode of the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first officially broadcast in the UK on ATV Midlands on , although it had been granted an unscheduled test transmission for the London area on...
" is the same vehicle, which places this series in the same fictional universe
Fictional universe
A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....
as Thunderbirds (Bentley, 59), set in 2065. Spectrum personnel biographies in Bentley's The Complete Book of Captain Scarlet also place the events of Stingray
Stingray (TV series)
Stingray is a children's marionette television show, created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and produced by AP Films for ATV and ITC Entertainment from 1964–65. Its 39 half-hour episodes were originally screened on ITV in the UK and in syndication in the USA. The scriptwriters included Gerry and...
(set in 2064) and Fireball XL5
Fireball XL5
Fireball XL5 is a science fiction-themed children's television show following the missions of spaceship Fireball XL5, commanded by Colonel Steve Zodiac of the World Space Patrol...
(set in 2063) in this universe (Bentley, 46–7, 50). astronauts investigate the surface of Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
in 2068 after unidentified radio signals emanating from the planet are detected on Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
. Episode 1. The source is discovered to be an extraterrestrial base, which is attacked and destroyed when the explorers mistake a harmless sensor device for a weapon. The inhabitants of the settlement, the Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
s, are sentient computers that form a collective consciousness
Group mind (science fiction)
A group mind, hive mind or group ego in science fiction is a single consciousness occupying many bodies. Its use in literature goes back at least as far as Olaf Stapledon's science fiction novel Last and First Men ....
. They are the remnants of the original Mysteron race, extraterrestrial life forms that originated in a galaxy other than the Milky Way
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...
and maintained their colony on Mars for 3,500 years before abandoning the planet at the turn of the 20th century. Possessing partial control over matter
Matter
Matter is a general term for the substance of which all physical objects consist. Typically, matter includes atoms and other particles which have mass. A common way of defining matter is as anything that has mass and occupies volume...
, the Mysteron computers draw on their power of "reversing matter" to rebuild the complex before vowing revenge for the unwarranted aggression.
Reversing matter, also described as "retro-metabolism", Episode 2. allows the Mysterons to re-create the likeness of a person or object in the form of a facsimile that is under their control. This ability is used to conduct a "war of nerves" against Earth, in which the Mysterons issue threats against specific targets (from world leaders and military installations to whole cities and continents) and then destroy and reconstruct whatever instruments are required (whether human or machine) to execute their plans. The presence of the Mysterons is indicated by two circles of green light (the "Mysteron rings") that trail across scenes of destruction and reconstruction. Although the Mysterons are able to manipulate events from Mars, their actions on Earth are usually performed by their replicated intermediaries.
The primary agent of the Mysterons, Zero-X mission leader Captain Black
Captain Black (Captain Scarlet)
Captain Black is the fictional nemesis of Captain Scarlet and recurring Mysteron agent in the 1960s British supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet...
, is killed and reconstructed during the encounter on Mars.The transformation of Captain Black
Captain Black (Captain Scarlet)
Captain Black is the fictional nemesis of Captain Scarlet and recurring Mysteron agent in the 1960s British supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet...
from human to Mysteron is indicated by a paling of the character's face and a deepening of his voice to match that of the Mysterons. Before the events of the pilot episode, Black held a senior officer rank in Spectrum, an international security organisation inaugurated in 2067 Episode 30. that mobilises all its personnel, vehiclesSpectrum Pursuit Vehicle
Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle
The Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle is a fictional pursuit and attack vehicle from Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons .-Appearance in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons:...
s (SPV) and Angel Interceptor fighter aircraft are two of a number of vehicles that Spectrum has at its disposal. The Spectrum Patrol Car (or Saloon Car, acronym either SPC of SSC) is used for unarmed land travel, while the Maximum Security Vehicle (MSV) and Yellow Fox, an unmarked security transport disguised as a fuel tanker, are used to protect Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
targets. Additional aircraft include the Spectrum Passenger Jet, the two-seater Spectrum Helicopter and the Magnacopter for transporting larger numbers of passengers. and other resources in response to the threat posed by the Mysterons. Spectrum is directed from Cloudbase
Cloudbase
Cloudbase is the fictional skyborne headquarters of international security organisation Spectrum, from Gerry Anderson's science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons .-Appearance in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons:...
, an airborne headquarters stationed at a height of 40,000 feet above the Earth's surface, Episode 19. and has a presence in all major cities. The organisation employs operatives of many nationalities, of whom the most senior hold military rank
Military rank
Military rank is a system of hierarchical relationships in armed forces or civil institutions organized along military lines. Usually, uniforms denote the bearer's rank by particular insignia affixed to the uniforms...
s and colour-based codenames, are posted to Cloudbase, and answer directly to the commander-in-chief
Commander-in-Chief
A commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the military...
of Spectrum, Colonel White
Colonel White
Colonel White is a character in the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is the commander-in-Chief of Spectrum, the security organisation dedicated to defending Earth against the Mysterons from Mars...
.In communications, Spectrum personnel use the call signal "SIG" ("Spectrum Is Green") as their affirmative code
Voice procedure
Voice procedure includes various techniques used to clarify, simplify and standardize spoken communications over two-way radios, in use by the military, in civil aviation, police and fire dispatching systems, citizens' band radio , etc....
. The negative, "SIR" ("Spectrum Is Red"), is used less often. Cloudbase is defended by the Angels, a squadron of five female pilots named Destiny (squadron leader), Harmony, Melody, Rhapsody and Symphony, who fly the Angel Interceptor fighter aircraft. In addition, the organisation incorporates a fleet of Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle
Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle
The Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle is a fictional pursuit and attack vehicle from Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons .-Appearance in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons:...
s (SPV) hidden in secret locations around the world.
Captain Scarlet
Captain Scarlet (character)
Captain Scarlet is the fictional main character in Gerry Anderson's British Supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet....
becomes Spectrum's foremost weapon in its fight against the Mysterons after the events of the pilot episode, in which the Mysterons threaten to assassinate the World President
World government in science fiction
In both science fiction and utopian/dystopian fiction, authors have made frequent use of the age-old idea of a global state and, accordingly, of world government.- Overview :...
In the fictional universe of Captain Scarlet, power from many individual nations has been vested in a World Government
World government in science fiction
In both science fiction and utopian/dystopian fiction, authors have made frequent use of the age-old idea of a global state and, accordingly, of world government.- Overview :...
, which is headed by an elected World President and operates its own military and security forces. Spectrum is a unified operation established to provide a more efficient service than these separate bodies, since it is not hindered by interdepartmental red-tape (Bentley, 43). as their first act of retaliation. The original Scarlet is killed in a car accident engineered by the MysteronsFor the pilot episode exclusively, different techniques are used to indicate the Mysteron influence: in place of the Mysteron rings, the destroyed complex on Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
is reconstructed by a beam of blue light, while the deaths of the original Captain Scarlet
Captain Scarlet (character)
Captain Scarlet is the fictional main character in Gerry Anderson's British Supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet....
and Captain Brown
Captain Brown
Captain Brown is a character in the 1967 Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. A Spectrum officer, he is killed by the Mysterons in the first episode of the series...
are preceded by a transition from a full-colour picture to a blue monochrome
Monochrome
Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white...
. The rings make their first appearance in the second episode, "Winged Assassin
Winged Assassin
"Winged Assassin" is the second episode of the Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first broadcast in the UK on on ATV Midlands. It was written by Tony Barwick and directed by David Lane...
". and replaced with a Mysteron reconstruction. However, when the Scarlet duplicate is shot by Spectrum officer Captain Blue
Captain Blue (Captain Scarlet)
Captain Blue is a character in the 1967 Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is a senior officer of the Spectrum organisation and a close friend of Captain Scarlet....
and falls to his death from a tall structure, it returns to life with the consciousness of its human template restored, and is thereafter free from Mysteron control.When killed, Mysteron reconstructions are normally permanently destroyed. The one exception to this is Scarlet, who can die and subsequently revive. The character's biography in The Complete Book of Captain Scarlet states that the Mysterons intended their duplicate of Scarlet to be "indestructible", in contrast with their other reconstructions of deceased humans (Bentley, 44). Scarlet's ex-Mysteron body possesses two remarkable abilities: he is able to sense the presence of other Mysteron duplicates in his vicinity,Scarlet demonstrates this ability in the episodes "Winged Assassin" (production number: 2), "Point 783
Point 783
"Point 783" is the 13th episode of the Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first broadcast in the UK on on ATV Midlands, was written by Peter Curran and David Williams and directed by Robert Lynn...
" (production number: 5) and "Seek and Destroy" (production number: 9), but no others. From the episode "Spectrum Strikes Back
Spectrum Strikes Back
"Spectrum Strikes Back" is the ninth episode of the Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first broadcast in the UK on on ATV Midlands, was written by Tony Barwick and directed by Ken Turner....
" (production number: 10), Captain Scarlet is apparently unaware of the presence of Mysteron agents when near to them. He demonstrates an ability to sense the presence of Mysteron agents in the five EP
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
records, and in the novel Captain Scarlet and the Silent Saboteur. and if he is injured or killed, retro-metabolism restores him
Healing factor
A healing factor is a term used to describe the ability of some characters in fiction to recover from bodily injuries or disease at a superhuman rate...
to a state of top health. Now able to deploy suicidally reckless tactics to thwart Mysteron threats, Scarlet repeatedly braves the pain of death in the knowledge that he will recover to face the Mysterons once more.During the course of the series, two other Spectrum officers are killed and reconstructed by the Mysterons in addition to Scarlet and Black, but their likenesses do not possess the power of retro-metabolism: Captain Brown in "The Mysterons" (who explodes in proximity to, and almost assassinates, the World President in that episode) and Captain Indigo
Captain Indigo
Captain Indigo is a characters in the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons....
in "Spectrum Strikes Back" (who is permanently destroyed by the Mysteron Gun).
While Scarlet and Spectrum defend Earth against the threat from Mars, it is found that Mysteron reconstructions are particularly vulnerable to electricity Episode 8. and that they are detectable on X-ray
X-ray
X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 0.01 to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30 petahertz to 30 exahertz and energies in the range 120 eV to 120 keV. They are shorter in wavelength than UV rays and longer than gamma...
s, to which their biology is impervious. Consequently, two anti-Mysteron devices, the "Mysteron Gun"In "Spectrum Strikes Back," a line of dialogue from Captain Scarlet states that the Mysteron Gun "is the only gun that can kill a Mysteron." The gun fires lethal beams of electrons and is not shown in other episodes. Episodes both preceding and following "Spectrum Strikes Back" portray Mysteron agents as being vulnerable to conventional means of destruction, such as explosions (an example of which is in the 11th produced episode, "Avalanche") or bullets (of which there are many examples, including the 12th produced episode, "Shadow of Fear
Shadow of Fear
"Shadow of Fear" is the 18th episode of the Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first broadcast in the UK on on ATV Midlands, was written by Tony Barwick and directed by Robert Lynn....
"). and the "Mysteron Detector," are developed to aid Spectrum. Episode 9. A three-episode story arc
Story arc
A story arc is an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strips, boardgames, video games, and in some cases, films. On a television program, for example, the story would unfold over many episodes. In television, the use of the story...
charts the uncovering of a second Mysteron complex under construction on the Moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
, Episode 12. its destruction by Spectrum, Episode 17. and efforts to negotiate with the Mysterons on Mars via a crystal power source, salvaged from the complex, which is converted into an interplanetary communication device. A failed attempt at satellite surveillance
Spy satellite
A spy satellite is an Earth observation satellite or communications satellite deployed for military or intelligence applications....
of the Martian surface, Episode 18. aborted military conferences Episode 7. Episode 22. and the sabotaged construction of a new space fleet
Space Fleet
Space Fleet is a board game for 2-4 players, published in 1991 by Games Workshop and designed by Jervis Johnson and Andy Jones.The game is set in the Games Workshop fictional Warhammer 40,000 universe and is centered on combat between spacecraft...
Episode 24. hinder Spectrum's plans to return to Mars, and the organisation is unsuccessful on two occasions in apprehending Captain Black. Episode 21. Episode 4. The penultimate episode of the series depicts a Mysteron assault on Cloudbase with the use of armed spacecraft, which is ultimately revealed to be a nightmare
Dream sequence
A dream sequence is a technique used in storytelling, particularly in television and film, to set apart a brief interlude from the main story. The interlude may consist of a flashback, a flashforward, a fantasy, a vision, a dream, or some other element. Commonly, dream sequences appear in many...
dreamt by one of the Angel pilots. Episode 31. The finale is a flashback episode
Clip show
A clip show is an episode of a television series that consists primarily of excerpts from previous episodes. Most clip shows feature the format of a frame story in which cast members recall past events from past installments of the show, depicted with a clip of the event presented as a flashback. ...
that ends inconclusively with regards to the war between Earth and Mars and the fate of Spectrum and the Mysterons. Episode 32.
Production
When talks to find an American broadcaster for ThunderbirdsThunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
fell through in July 1966, production for the series' second season ended with the completion of just six episodes at the behest of ITC
ITC Entertainment
The Incorporated Television Company was a British television company largely involved in production and distribution. It was founded by Lew Grade.-History:...
financier Lew Grade
Lew Grade
Lew Grade, Baron Grade , born Lev Winogradsky, was an influential Russian-born English impresario and media mogul.-Early years:...
. Having overseen Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
's work since the creation of Supercar
Supercar (TV series)
Supercar was a children's TV show produced by Gerry Anderson and Arthur Provis's AP Films for ATV and ITC Entertainment. 39 episodes were produced between 1961 and 1962, and it was Anderson's first half-hour series. In the UK it was seen on ITV and in the US in syndication...
in 1960 - and going on to buy his production company, AP Films
AP Films
AP Films or APF, later becoming Century 21 Productions, was a British independent film production company of the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s...
, during the making of Fireball XL5
Fireball XL5
Fireball XL5 is a science fiction-themed children's television show following the missions of spaceship Fireball XL5, commanded by Colonel Steve Zodiac of the World Space Patrol...
- Grade was anxious for Anderson's programmes to be transmitted abroad, in the lucrative American market, and decided that a new concept would do more to attract potential bidders than a second season of Thunderbirds.
As a result of the cancellation, Anderson was required to come up with an idea for another Supermarionation
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
series. He had once been inspired by the thought of creating a live-action police drama in which the hero would have unexpectedly been murdered halfway through the series and replaced by a new lead character. Now giving fresh consideration to this idea, Anderson resolved that a selling point for his new series could be a character that can be killed at the end of each episode and resurrected by the beginning of the next. This, coupled with contemporary theories about the possibility of life on Mars
Life on Mars
Scientists have long speculated about the possibility of life on Mars owing to the planet's proximity and similarity to Earth. Fictional Martians have been a recurring feature of popular entertainment of the 20th and 21st centuries, but it remains an open question whether life currently exists on...
, led to the idea of an interplanetary war raging between Earth and its neighbour and a worldwide security organisation being called on to defend human civilisation. After further thought, Anderson decided that "Scarlet
Captain Scarlet (character)
Captain Scarlet is the fictional main character in Gerry Anderson's British Supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet....
" would make an unusual codename for this organisation's "indestructible" agent who can come back to life, while "Blue
Captain Blue (Captain Scarlet)
Captain Blue is a character in the 1967 Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is a senior officer of the Spectrum organisation and a close friend of Captain Scarlet....
" could be his partner's designation. From this, Anderson reasoned that all the personnel should have colours for names so as to form the whole "Spectrum" of colours, and decided that someone called "White
Colonel White
Colonel White is a character in the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is the commander-in-Chief of Spectrum, the security organisation dedicated to defending Earth against the Mysterons from Mars...
" should be the leader of the Spectrum Organisation, much in the same way that white light
White Light
White Light may refer to:*Light with the color white*White Light , a 1980 novel by Rudy Rucke*White Light , 1971 album*White Light , 2010 album...
is composed of, and can be broken down into
Dispersive prism
In optics, a dispersive prism is a type of optical prism, normally having the shape of a geometrical triangular prism. It is the most widely-known type of optical prism, although perhaps not the most common in actual use. Triangular prisms are used to disperse light, that is, to break light up into...
, the colours of the spectrum
Spectrum
A spectrum is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary infinitely within a continuum. The word saw its first scientific use within the field of optics to describe the rainbow of colors in visible light when separated using a prism; it has since been applied by...
.
Intrigued by the often-heard phrase "life as we know it", Anderson wanted to set the aliens of his new series apart from the conventional extraterrestrials of 1960s television and cinema. He therefore worked from a basis of "life as we don't know it", and made the Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
s that were to feature in the series a race of sentient computers as opposed to organic lifeforms, although this is not explicitly stated in the television episodes. The initial intention was that the original Mysteron civilisation came from another galaxy. Having established a settlement on Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
in the distant past, they fled the planet centuries later, abandoning their computer complex.
Contemporary recollections of the Second World War proved to be an inspiration for a number of design aspects. For instance, Anderson recalled that RAF pilots had found it difficult to counter German attacks during the Battle of Britain
Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain is the name given to the World War II air campaign waged by the German Air Force against the United Kingdom during the summer and autumn of 1940...
, since taking off from the ground meant that it took considerable time to intercept the enemy. He therefore made Spectrum's headquarters an airborne aircraft carrier
Airborne aircraft carrier
Airborne aircraft carriers are aircraft which can launch other aircraft. These typically are large aircraft that launch fighter-interceptor planes.-Dirigible aircraft carriers:...
called "Cloudbase
Cloudbase
Cloudbase is the fictional skyborne headquarters of international security organisation Spectrum, from Gerry Anderson's science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons .-Appearance in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons:...
". The Mysteron rings were inspired by an advertisement for the Oxo
Oxo (food)
Oxo is a range of food products, consisting of stock cubes, herbs and spices, dried gravy, and yeast extract. In the United Kingdom, Oxo products are manufactured by Premier Foods...
line of food products, which included an image of the brand name sliding over a frying pan and the outline of a woman's body.
Writing
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
, wrote a pilot script in August 1966. This differed significantly from the final draft of the pilot episode
The Mysterons (Captain Scarlet episode)
"The Mysterons" is the first episode of the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first officially broadcast in the UK on ATV Midlands on , although it had been granted an unscheduled test transmission for the London area on...
. Initially, it was decided that the Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
duplicate of Captain Scarlet
Captain Scarlet (character)
Captain Scarlet is the fictional main character in Gerry Anderson's British Supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet....
would be artificially resurrected by an advanced Spectrum computer rather than reviving naturally, and that thereafter he would no longer be truly human but a "mechanical man" akin to an android. Another early ambition was for each episode to feature a guest star voiced by a well-known actor of the day. To this end, the role of the World President
World government in science fiction
In both science fiction and utopian/dystopian fiction, authors have made frequent use of the age-old idea of a global state and, accordingly, of world government.- Overview :...
in the pilot episode was originally intended to be voiced by the American-born actor Patrick McGoohan
Patrick McGoohan
Patrick Joseph McGoohan was an American-born actor, raised in Ireland and England, with an extensive stage and film career, most notably in the 1960s television series Danger Man , and The Prisoner, which he co-created...
.
With Anderson serving chiefly as executive producer
Executive producer
An executive producer is a producer who is not involved in any technical aspects of the film making or music process, but who is still responsible for the overall production...
, the majority of the writing input for Captain Scarlet was provided by Tony Barwick
Tony Barwick
Tony Barwick was a British television scriptwriter who worked extensively on series created and produced by Gerry Anderson....
, who had previously written for the short-lived second season of Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
. Originally given the role of script editor
Script editor
A script editor is a member of the production team of scripted television programmes, usually dramas and comedies. The script editor has many responsibilities including finding new script writers, developing storyline and series ideas with writers, ensuring that scripts are suitable for production...
, Barwick went on to pen 18 of the 32 episodes himself, and was also often required to make substantial changes to other writers' work. While discussing his approach to writing episodes in a 1986 interview, he drew parallels between the premise and characters of Captain Scarlet and those of Thunderbirds, suggesting, for example, that the Spectrum Organisation was similar to International Rescue and that the character of Captain Black
Captain Black (Captain Scarlet)
Captain Black is the fictional nemesis of Captain Scarlet and recurring Mysteron agent in the 1960s British supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet...
was like the earlier recurring villain from Thunderbirds, The Hood
The Hood (Thunderbirds)
The Hood is the main villain and adversary of International Rescue in the Thunderbirds TV series.-TV series:The Hood's precise origins are unknown but it is thought to have been based loosely on Wayne Pembridge...
.
Filming
After a two-month pre-productionPre-production
Pre-production or In Production is the process of preparing all the elements involved in a film, play, or other performance.- In film :...
period lasting from November to December 1966, filming for the pilot episode, "The Mysterons
The Mysterons (Captain Scarlet episode)
"The Mysterons" is the first episode of the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first officially broadcast in the UK on ATV Midlands on , although it had been granted an unscheduled test transmission for the London area on...
", began on 2 January 1967, with a budget of £1.5 million for the 32-episode series. At an average cost of £46,000 per episode, or £2,000 per minute, it was the most expensive Anderson production to date. A month before, Anderson and his team had dropped the name "AP Films," since Arthur Provis was no longer working alongside Anderson on a full-time basis, and renamed their company "Century 21 Productions". Many of the directors for earlier Anderson series, such as Alan Pattillo, David Elliott
David Elliott (director)
David Elliott is a British television director and film editor, who worked on various series produced by Gerry Anderson.-External links:...
and David Lane
David Lane (director)
David Lane is a British television and film director, best known for his association with series produced by Gerry Anderson's AP Films.Lane directed several episodes of the Thunderbirds television series, including "Attack of the Alligators!", as well as the two cinema films Thunderbirds are GO and...
, had either left AP Films or were involved in the production of Thunderbird 6
Thunderbird 6
Thunderbird 6 is a 1968 British science-fiction and adventure film written by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, directed by David Lane and produced by Century 21 Cinema...
, the second Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
feature film, at the time that Captain Scarlet was being produced. Although Desmond Saunders
Desmond Saunders
Desmond Saunders is a British television director and film editor.He has a long association with producer Gerry Anderson, having served as a director for the series Supercar , Stingray , Thunderbirds , Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons , Joe 90 and Terrahawks...
and Lane were available to direct the first and second episodes, while veteran AP Films director Brian Burgess also contributed, the Andersons needed to transfer some of the more junior production personnel to replace the outgoing staff. To this effect, Alan Perry and Ken Turner
Ken Turner (director)
Ken Turner is a British television and film director and screenwriter who has worked extensively on series created by Gerry Anderson....
were promoted from the camera operator and art department
Art department
Art department in movie terms means the section of a production's crew concerned with visual artistry. Working under the supervision of the production designer and/or art director, the art department is responsible for arranging the overall look of the film as desired by the film director...
s. Directors drafted in from outside AP Films were Peter Anderson, Leo Eaton and finally Robert Lynn, who had worked as an assistant director
Assistant director
The role of an Assistant director include tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, maintaining order on the set. They also have to take care of health and safety of the crew...
on the 1958 Hammer
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
films Dracula
Dracula (1958 film)
Dracula, also known as Horror of Dracula in the United States, is a 1958 British horror film. It is the first in the series of Hammer Horror films inspired by the Bram Stoker novel Dracula. It was directed by Terence Fisher, and stars Peter Cushing, Michael Gough, Carol Marsh, Melissa Stribling and...
and The Revenge of Frankenstein
The Revenge of Frankenstein
The Revenge of Frankenstein is a 1958 British horror film made by Hammer Film Productions. Directed by Terence Fisher, the film stars Peter Cushing, Francis Matthews, Michael Gwynn and Eunice Gayson....
.
The Slough Trading Estate
Slough Trading Estate
The Slough Trading Estate founded in Slough, Berkshire in 1920, was an early business park in the United Kingdom. According to the estate's owners and operators, SEGRO , Slough Trading Estate consists of of commercial property in Slough and provides of accommodation to 500 businesses and has...
Slough Trading Estate
Slough Trading Estate
The Slough Trading Estate founded in Slough, Berkshire in 1920, was an early business park in the United Kingdom. According to the estate's owners and operators, SEGRO , Slough Trading Estate consists of of commercial property in Slough and provides of accommodation to 500 businesses and has...
: 51.5244°N 0.6250°W (principal photography and editing) in Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
had served as Anderson's production base since the filming of Stingray
Stingray (TV series)
Stingray is a children's marionette television show, created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and produced by AP Films for ATV and ITC Entertainment from 1964–65. Its 39 half-hour episodes were originally screened on ITV in the UK and in syndication in the USA. The scriptwriters included Gerry and...
in 1964. To accelerate production on earlier Supermarionation
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
series, pairs of episodes had been filmed simultaneously on separate sound stage
Sound stage
In common usage, a sound stage is a soundproof, hangar-like structure, building, or room, used for the production of theatrical filmmaking and television production, usually located on a secure movie studio property.-Overview:...
s, a practice that continued for Captain Scarlet. Some filming coincided with the production of Thunderbird 6, which was recorded on a separate puppet stage and released in July 1968. Editing rooms, post-production
Post-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
offices and a preview theatre were housed in a separate building on the Slough Trading Estate; the crew collaborated with the Standard Telecommunication Laboratories
Standard Telecommunication Laboratories
Standard Telecommunication Laboratories was the UK Research Laboratories for the Standard Telephones and Cables Company .Initially based in Enfield, North London, and moved to Harlow Essex in 1959. At this time STC was part of ITT....
at Harlow
Harlow
Harlow is a new town and local government district in Essex, England. It is located in the west of the county and on the border with Hertfordshire, on the Stort Valley, The town is near the M11 motorway and forms part of the London commuter belt.The district has a current population of 78,889...
in Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
Standard Telecommunication Laboratories
Standard Telecommunication Laboratories
Standard Telecommunication Laboratories was the UK Research Laboratories for the Standard Telephones and Cables Company .Initially based in Enfield, North London, and moved to Harlow Essex in 1959. At this time STC was part of ITT....
: 51.779°N 0.128°W (electronic collaboration) on the technical and electronic side of the production.
A third unit, headed by Derek Meddings
Derek Meddings
Derek Meddings was a British television and cinema special effects expert, initially noted for his work on the "Supermarionation" television puppet series produced by Gerry Anderson, and later for the 1970s James Bond films and the Superman film series.-Early years:Both Meddings' parents had...
and his assistant Mike Trim
Michael Trim
Michael Trim is an artist most famous for illustrating the cover of Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds, which depicts a Martian tripod striking down the heroic Thunder Child...
, handled special effect
Special effect
The illusions used in the film, television, theatre, or entertainment industries to simulate the imagined events in a story are traditionally called special effects ....
s and miniatures
Scale model
A scale model is a physical model, a representation or copy of an object that is larger or smaller than the actual size of the object, which seeks to maintain the relative proportions of the physical size of the original object. Very often the scale model is used as a guide to making the object in...
and was tasked with creating all the permanent sets and models to be used from the pilot episode, such as the Cloudbase
Cloudbase
Cloudbase is the fictional skyborne headquarters of international security organisation Spectrum, from Gerry Anderson's science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons .-Appearance in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons:...
interiors and scaled-down Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle
Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle
The Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle is a fictional pursuit and attack vehicle from Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons .-Appearance in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons:...
s. A design innovation for this series meant that the noses of the miniature vehicles would "dip" when stopped, to imitate the sudden application of brakes and deceleration on a real-life vehicle. The miniature of the Cloudbase exterior, which ran to six feet (1.8 m) in length, proved to be too heavy to be held up with strings and was instead supported by a metal pole. To transfer the Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
rings from script to screen, the production team acted on the advice of producer Reg Hill
Reg Hill
Reginald E. Hill was a British television producer and was most prominently associated with the work of puppet animator Gerry Anderson.-Professional life:...
, who suggested that a transparency be made that could be panned across the puppet sets using a slide projector.
By the time the series started broadcasting on ATV
Associated TeleVision
Associated Television, often referred to as ATV, was a British television company, holder of various licences to broadcast on the ITV network from 24 September 1955 until 00:34 on 1 January 1982...
in September 1967, principal photography
Principal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
had been completed for the first 20 episodes. In general, turnaround for completing all the puppet shots for each episode was two weeks or 11 working days. It was initially predicted that all shooting would be wrapped within eight months, but filming overran up until late October because of the demands of the Thunderbird 6 shoot. While production on Anderson's next Supermarionation series, , began in November it was not until early 1968 that the last episodes of Captain Scarlet were edited and prepared for broadcast.
Music
Music for Captain Scarlet was composed by Barry GrayBarry Gray
Barry Gray was a British musician and composer who is best known for his work for Gerry Anderson.-Life:...
, an innovator in electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
, who had scored all the Supermarionation
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
series preceding it. The opening title sequence
Title sequence
A Title Sequence is the method by which cinematic films or television programs present their title, key production and cast members, or both, utilizing conceptual visuals and sound...
theme, "The Mysterons", was rendered electronically and accompanied by a staccato
Staccato
Staccato is a form of musical articulation. In modern notation it signifies a note of shortened duration and separated from the note that may follow by silence...
drum beat to introduce the lead character of Captain Scarlet
Captain Scarlet (character)
Captain Scarlet is the fictional main character in Gerry Anderson's British Supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet....
. This seven-note beat was also used to link scenes within episodes, and to cut to advertisement breaks
Television advertisement
A television advertisement or television commercial, often just commercial, advert, ad, or ad-film – is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization that conveys a message, typically one intended to market a product...
, for which it was accompanied by a zooming image of the Spectrum logo as designed by Tony Dunsterville of the art department
Art department
Art department in movie terms means the section of a production's crew concerned with visual artistry. Working under the supervision of the production designer and/or art director, the art department is responsible for arranging the overall look of the film as desired by the film director...
. On the subject of the beat, Anderson recalls, "When I went to the recording session, I heard the drum beat he had come up with and I thought, 'Christ, is this all he could produce?' Looking back on it, however, I can see that what he came up with worked very well."
The closing credits
Closing credits
Closing credits or end credits are added at the end of a motion picture, television program, or video game to list the cast and crew involved in the production. They usually appear as a list of names in small type, which either flip very quickly from page to page, or move smoothly across the...
theme, "Captain Scarlet", underwent significant change after the completion of the first 14 episodes. The first version had been mainly instrumental, with vocoded interruptions of the words "Captain Scarlet!" provided by Gray himself. This was then revised as a song performed by a London-based pop group The Spectrum, assembled by RCA Victor as an imitation of the American band The Monkees
The Monkees
The Monkees are an American pop rock group. Assembled in Los Angeles in 1966 by Robert "Bob" Rafelson and Bert Schneider for the American television series The Monkees, which aired from 1966 to 1968, the musical acting quartet was composed of Americans Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork,...
, who happened to share their name with the organisation that appears in Captain Scarlet.
In addition to the main theme, Gray scored incidental music
Incidental music
Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, film or some other form not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the "film score" or "soundtrack"....
for 18 episodes of Captain Scarlet between March and December 1967. Musical accompaniment for the remaining 14 episodes was achieved by re-using these completed tracks as well as music from previous Anderson productions such as Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
. In composing his incidental music, Gray made extensive use of two contrasting, yet similar, themes to illustrate Spectrum and the Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
s. In their notes to the soundtrack release, Ralph Titterton and Tim Mallett suggest that the music is dominated by a "military
Military band
A military band originally was a group of personnel that performs musical duties for military functions, usually for the armed forces. A typical military band consists mostly of wind and percussion instruments. The conductor of a band commonly bears the title of Bandmaster or Director of Music...
feel", with an emphasis placed on percussion, brass
Brass instrument
A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...
and wind instruments, by contrast to the full orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
l sound of the Thunderbirds score. With the exception of the four-note Mysteron motif
Motif (music)
In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition....
, Gray generally restricted his use of electronic synthesisers, including an Ondes Martenot
Ondes Martenot
The ondes Martenot , also known as the ondium Martenot, Martenot and ondes musicales, is an early electronic musical instrument invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot. The original design was similar in sound to the theremin...
, to space sequences, preferring traditional instruments for Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
-bound action. Captain Scarlet's motif, heard in both versions of the end credits theme and the incidental music, is a melodic variation
Variation (music)
In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.-Variation form:...
on the Mysteron theme, emphasising Scarlet's history as an ex-Mysteron.
Awarding the soundtrack CD release a rating of four stars out of five, Bruce Eder of the Allmusic website describes the collection of theme and incidental music as "a strange mix of otherworldly 'music of the spheres', late-50s/early-60s 'space-age pop
Space age pop
Space age pop is a general and loosely based term for a music genre associated with certain Mexican and American composers and songwriters in the Space Age of the 1950s and 1960s. It is also called bachelor pad music or lounge music...
', 'British Invasion
British Invasion
The British Invasion is a term used to describe the large number of rock and roll, beat, rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the time period from 1964 through 1966.- Background :...
' beat, Scottish folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
-inspired tunes, kids-style 'Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...
' scoring, marital music, light jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, and light classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
", and singles out both "Cocktail Music", from "Model Spy
Model Spy
"Model Spy" is the 14th episode of the Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first broadcast in the UK on on ATV Midlands, was written by Bill Hedley and directed by Ken Turner....
", and the piano track, performed by Gray, from "The Inquisition", for particular praise. In his BBC Online review, Peter Marsh opines that the darker tone of the music is reflective of Captain Scarlet as a programme featuring realistic puppets and death, frightening alien villains and "no laughs", stating that "dissonant vibraphone
Vibraphone
The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....
chords shimmer under hovering, tremulous strings contrasted with urgent, militaristic drums and pulsing brass—driving the action ever onto its climax (and, no doubt, a big explosion)."
Puppets
Supermarionation, a technique in which the movement of the marionetteMarionette
A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a manipulator. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms...
puppet's mouth is electronically synchronised
Lip sync
Lip sync, lip-sync, lip-synch is a technical term for matching lip movements with sung or spoken vocals...
with character dialogue, had been formulated by Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
for Four Feather Falls
Four Feather Falls
Four Feather Falls was the third puppet TV show produced by Gerry Anderson for Granada Television, from an idea by Barry Gray.-Production:The show was made on a tight budget and could not afford sophisticated special effects...
in 1960. Until production for Captain Scarlet, the head of the puppet had been disproportionately large in comparison to its body, as the head contained a solenoid
Solenoid
A solenoid is a coil wound into a tightly packed helix. In physics, the term solenoid refers to a long, thin loop of wire, often wrapped around a metallic core, which produces a magnetic field when an electric current is passed through it. Solenoids are important because they can create...
that formed the key component of the lip-synch mechanism. The production team was not able to scale up the body to match the head, as this would have made the puppets hard to operate and have necessitated a proportionate scaling-up in the size of the puppet sets. Since Gerry Anderson had expressed frustration with this caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
d design during production of earlier Supermarionation series, and wished that the puppets would more accurately reflect human biology, before production commenced on Captain Scarlet the producer, Reg Hill
Reg Hill
Reginald E. Hill was a British television producer and was most prominently associated with the work of puppet animator Gerry Anderson.-Professional life:...
, and his associate, John Read
John Read (producer)
John Read is a British television producer, cinematographer and director.He is widely associated with the productions of Gerry Anderson. Having served as director of photography on Four Feather Falls , Crossroads to Crime , Supercar , Stingray and Thunderbirds , Read worked on the latter series'...
, designed a new type of puppet in which the solenoid was instead placed inside the chest, to permit a head of realistic proportion. The costume designer
Costume Designer
A costume designer or costume mistress/master is a person whose responsibility is to design costumes for a film or stage production. He or she is considered an important part of the "production team", working alongside the director, scenic and lighting designers as well as the sound designer. The...
for Captain Scarlet was Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
, who was influenced by the work of French fashion designer Pierre Cardin
Pierre Cardin
Pierre Cardin Cardin was known for his avant-garde style and his Space Age designs. He prefers geometric shapes and motifs, often ignoring the female form. He advanced into unisex fashions, sometimes experimental, and not always practical...
, in particular his 1966 "Cosmonaut" collection, in designing the Spectrum uniforms.
After test-sculpting in Plasticine
Plasticine
Plasticine, a brand of modelling clay, is a putty-like modelling material made from calcium salts, petroleum jelly and aliphatic acids. The name is a registered trademark of Flair Leisure Products plc...
, the puppet heads were moulded on a silicone rubber
Silicone rubber
Silicone rubber is an elastomer composed of silicone—itself a polymer—containing silicon together with carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Silicone rubbers are widely used in industry, and there are multiple formulations...
base and made using fibreglass. At heights ranging from 20 to 24 inches (approximately one-third life-size) the next-generation puppets were no shorter than their predecessors. For previous series, puppet eyes had been sized out of proportion to the heads, but as part of the realistic look introduced in Captain Scarlet, the eyes of production personnel were photographed and the images scaled down for attachment to the eye sockets. As had been the case for earlier series, a number of alternative heads displaying a range of expressions were created for main character puppets, including "smilers", "frowners" and "blinkers". Since episodes of Captain Scarlet were filmed in pairs, one on each of the puppet stages available at the Century 21 Studios, duplicates were made of the "expressionless" template of each main character. For the pilot episode
The Mysterons (Captain Scarlet episode)
"The Mysterons" is the first episode of the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first officially broadcast in the UK on ATV Midlands on , although it had been granted an unscheduled test transmission for the London area on...
, an "agony" head was specially sculpted for the Captain Scarlet
Captain Scarlet (character)
Captain Scarlet is the fictional main character in Gerry Anderson's British Supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet....
puppet for a brief reaction shot
Reaction shot
Reaction shot is a term used in motion picture production and cinematography referring to a basic unit of film grammar. It is a shot which cuts away from the main scene in order to show the reaction of a character to it....
of Scarlet's Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
double being shot by Captain Blue
Captain Blue (Captain Scarlet)
Captain Blue is a character in the 1967 Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is a senior officer of the Spectrum organisation and a close friend of Captain Scarlet....
.
The increased realism
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
of the puppets meant that their mobility was significantly reduced, ironically leaving the new design less life-like than Anderson had hoped, as he recalls: "Suddenly, all the movements had to be as realistic as the puppets and that made it difficult for the puppeteers to animate them." To minimise the amount of movement required, the puppets were made to stand on moving walkways or sit at moving desks: for example, Colonel White
Colonel White
Colonel White is a character in the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is the commander-in-Chief of Spectrum, the security organisation dedicated to defending Earth against the Mysterons from Mars...
's desk on Cloudbase
Cloudbase
Cloudbase is the fictional skyborne headquarters of international security organisation Spectrum, from Gerry Anderson's science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons .-Appearance in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons:...
is seen to rotate, while Lieutenant Green
Lieutenant Green
Lieutenant Green is the assistant of Colonel White in the Supermarionation television series series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is of Trinidadian origin, and as well as being the only non-white male on Cloudbase, he is the only officer to hold the rank of lieutenant...
is seen to operate the Cloudbase main computer from a sliding chair. Puppeteer Jan King recalls:
The "under control" puppets described by King were stringless and controlled from the waist. One resulting advantage was that a puppet could be moved through a doorway without necessitating a break in the shot. For shots displaying characters such as the Angels seated in aircraft cockpits, variations of the "under control" design, comprising just a head and torso, were manipulated by levers and wires located beneath the set. This development of Supermarionation would be named "Supermacromation" when Anderson returned to puppetry in the 1980s with his later production, Terrahawks
Terrahawks
Gerry Anderson & Christopher Burr's Terrahawks, simply referred to as Terrahawks, was a British science fiction television series produced by Anderson Burr Pictures and created by the production team of Gerry Anderson and Christopher Burr. The show was Anderson's first in over a decade to utilize...
.
Revamps and likenesses
Before Captain Scarlet, supporting character puppets had been specially sculpted in clayClay
Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...
as and when episodes required them. The guest parts in Captain Scarlet, however, were filled by a permanent "repertory company" of over 50 puppets made to the same standards of workmanship as the main characters. Known as "revamp puppets" or "revamps", these puppets appeared on an episode-by-episode basis, cosmetically altered for each role in aspects such as hairstyle and hair colour. An initial intention was for each episode to include a "guest star" puppet, to be sculpted on, and voiced by, a known public figure, but this idea was abandoned due to budgetary constraints. Both main character and revamp puppets from Captain Scarlet appeared in Anderson's final two Supermarionation
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
series, Joe 90
Joe 90
Joe 90 is a late-1960s British science-fiction television series documenting the exploits of a nine-year-old boy, Joe McClaine, who embarks on a double life as a schoolboy turned spy when his scientist father invents a pioneering machine capable of duplicating and transferring expert knowledge and...
and The Secret Service
The Secret Service
The Secret Service is a British children's espionage television series, made as a Century 21 production for ITC Entertainment and broadcast in 1969...
.
The likeness of the Captain Scarlet
Captain Scarlet (character)
Captain Scarlet is the fictional main character in Gerry Anderson's British Supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet....
character has, since his first appearance, been attributed to Francis Matthews
Francis Matthews (actor)
-Early life:Matthews attended St Michael's Jesuit College, Leeds and started his acting career with Leeds repertory theatre before service in the Royal Navy.-Career:...
, who voiced Scarlet in the series, Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
and Roger Moore
Roger Moore
Sir Roger George Moore KBE , is an English actor, perhaps best known for portraying British secret agent James Bond in seven films from 1973 to 1985. He also portrayed Simon Templar in the long-running British television series The Saint.-Early life:Moore was born in Stockwell, London...
. Ed Bishop
Ed Bishop
Ed Bishop was an American film, television, stage and radio actor based in Britain.-Early life:Bishop served in the US Army from 8 October 1952 to 24 September 1954, working as a disc jockey with the Armed Forces Radio at St. Johns in Newfoundland...
later claimed that Captain Blue
Captain Blue (Captain Scarlet)
Captain Blue is a character in the 1967 Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is a senior officer of the Spectrum organisation and a close friend of Captain Scarlet....
had been modelled on his likeness, but sculptor Terry Curtis states that he made the puppet to resemble himself and simply added a blond wig when he learnt that Bishop was to voice Blue. Curtis, a James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
fan, based the appearance of Captain Grey
Captain Grey
Captain Grey is a characters in the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is a senior officer of the Spectrum organisation, but seldom leaves Cloudbase....
on Sean Connery
Sean Connery
Sir Thomas Sean Connery , better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards and three Golden Globes Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born 25 August 1930), better known as Sean Connery, is a Scottish actor and producer who has won an Academy...
and Destiny Angel on Ursula Andress
Ursula Andress
Ursula Andress is a Swiss actress and a sex symbol of the 1960s. She is known for her roles as Bond girl Honey Ryder in Dr...
, Connery's co-star in the 1962 Bond film Dr No
Dr. No (film)
Dr. No is a 1962 spy film, starring Sean Connery; it is the first James Bond film. Based on the 1958 Ian Fleming novel of the same name, it was adapted by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, and Berkely Mather and was directed by Terence Young. The film was produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert R...
. Meanwhile, the character of Lieutenant Green
Lieutenant Green
Lieutenant Green is the assistant of Colonel White in the Supermarionation television series series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is of Trinidadian origin, and as well as being the only non-white male on Cloudbase, he is the only officer to hold the rank of lieutenant...
was sculpted on its voice actor, Cy Grant
Cy Grant
Cy Grant was a Guyanese actor, singer, writer and poet, who in the 1950s became the first black person to appear regularly on British television...
; Rhapsody Angel on model and actress Jean Shrimpton
Jean Shrimpton
Jean Rosemary Shrimpton is an English model and actress. She was an icon of Swinging London and is considered to be one of the world's first supermodels....
; Melody Angel on singer and actress Eartha Kitt
Eartha Kitt
Eartha Mae Kitt was an American singer, actress, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 hit recordings of "C'est Si Bon" and the enduring Christmas novelty smash "Santa Baby." Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the...
; and Harmony Angel on actress Tsai Chin
Tsai Chin (actress)
Tsai Chin , also known as Irene Chow, is a Chinese-born actress living in England.-Early life, family & education:Chin was born to Peking Opera actor Zhou Xinfang in 1936. She spent her early life in Shanghai. She had two short marriages which both ended in divorce. Her brother is Michael...
.
Casting and characters
| Regular Puppet Cast | |||
| Codename | Real nameNo real names, except those of Scarlet and Blue Captain Blue (Captain Scarlet) Captain Blue is a character in the 1967 Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is a senior officer of the Spectrum organisation and a close friend of Captain Scarlet.... , are used in the television episodes. Instead, they originate from licensed associated media, such as Bentley's The Complete Book of Captain Scarlet. |
Nationality | Voice actor(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Captain Scarlet Captain Scarlet (character) Captain Scarlet is the fictional main character in Gerry Anderson's British Supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet.... |
Paul Metcalfe | British | Francis Matthews Francis Matthews (actor) -Early life:Matthews attended St Michael's Jesuit College, Leeds and started his acting career with Leeds repertory theatre before service in the Royal Navy.-Career:... |
| Captain Blue Captain Blue (Captain Scarlet) Captain Blue is a character in the 1967 Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is a senior officer of the Spectrum organisation and a close friend of Captain Scarlet.... |
Adam Svenson | American | Ed Bishop Ed Bishop Ed Bishop was an American film, television, stage and radio actor based in Britain.-Early life:Bishop served in the US Army from 8 October 1952 to 24 September 1954, working as a disc jockey with the Armed Forces Radio at St. Johns in Newfoundland... |
| Colonel White Colonel White Colonel White is a character in the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is the commander-in-Chief of Spectrum, the security organisation dedicated to defending Earth against the Mysterons from Mars... |
Charles Gray | British | Donald Gray Donald Gray Donald Gray was a South African actor, probably best remembered for providing the voices to Colonel White, Captain Black and the Mysterons in the TV series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and for being the reason that Donald Marshall Gray changed his name to Charles Gray when he became an actor... |
| Captain Black Captain Black (Captain Scarlet) Captain Black is the fictional nemesis of Captain Scarlet and recurring Mysteron agent in the 1960s British supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet... |
Conrad Turner | British | Donald Gray |
| Lieutenant Green Lieutenant Green Lieutenant Green is the assistant of Colonel White in the Supermarionation television series series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is of Trinidadian origin, and as well as being the only non-white male on Cloudbase, he is the only officer to hold the rank of lieutenant... |
Seymour Griffiths | Trinidadian | Cy Grant Cy Grant Cy Grant was a Guyanese actor, singer, writer and poet, who in the 1950s became the first black person to appear regularly on British television... |
| Captain Ochre | Richard Fraser | American | Jeremy Wilkin Jeremy Wilkin Jeremy Wilkin is a British actor, possibly best known for his contributions to the television productions of Gerry Anderson.... |
| Captain Magenta Captain Magenta Captain Magenta is a character in the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is a senior officer of the Spectrum organisation, but seldom leaves Cloudbase.... |
Patrick Donaghue | Irish | Gary Files Gary Files Gary Files was born in Melbourne, Australia and is an Australian-Canadian actor, writer and director who has resided in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. He has lived in Australia since 1976.-Early life:... |
| Captain Grey Captain Grey Captain Grey is a characters in the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is a senior officer of the Spectrum organisation, but seldom leaves Cloudbase.... |
Bradley Holden | American | Paul Maxwell Paul Maxwell Paul Maxwell was a Canadian actor who worked mostly in British television and films, in which he was usually cast as an American... |
| Doctor Fawn | Edward Wilkie | Australian | Charles Tingwell Charles Tingwell In 1941, aged 18, he volunteered for war service overseas with the Royal Australian Air Force. Under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, personnel from Commonwealth air forces were part of a joint training and assignment system. Consequently, Tingwell trained as a pilot in Canada during 1942... |
| Destiny Angel | Juliette Pontoin | French | Liz Morgan Elizabeth Morgan (actor) Elizabeth Morgan is a British actress, primarily in supporting roles, in films, television, and onstage. She was often credited as "Liz Morgan".-External links:... |
| Symphony Angel | Karen Wainwright | American | Janna Hill |
| Rhapsody Angel | Dianne Simms | British | Liz Morgan |
| Melody Angel | Magnolia Jones | American | Sylvia Anderson Sylvia Anderson Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975.... |
| Harmony Angel | Chan Kwan | Japanese | Liz Morgan Lian-Shin |
The regular puppet cast of Captain Scarlet was the largest of all the Anderson Supermarionation
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
series. While earlier productions had emphasised the benefits of futuristic technology, for Captain Scarlet it was decided to develop and deepen the cast of characters. Further to the enhanced realism
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
of the puppet design, voice roles for Captain Scarlet were, as opposed to Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
and other predecessors, also intended to be less caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
d. Anderson biographers Simon Archer and Marcus Hearn note that, between Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet, a proliferation of English-accented voices altered the sound of the Supermarionation production and its impression on the viewer.
Francis Matthews
Francis Matthews (actor)
-Early life:Matthews attended St Michael's Jesuit College, Leeds and started his acting career with Leeds repertory theatre before service in the Royal Navy.-Career:...
, voicing Captain Scarlet
Captain Scarlet (character)
Captain Scarlet is the fictional main character in Gerry Anderson's British Supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet....
, had previously turned down offers for voice-acting on Thunderbirds. Matthews claims that Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
went to great lengths to get him to sign on to Captain Scarlet because of the skilled Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
impression that he had once used for a radio programme, and indeed the English actor based the tones of Scarlet on Grant's Mid-Atlantic
Mid-Atlantic English
Mid-Atlantic English is a cultivated or acquired version of the English language that is not a typical idiom of any location. It blends American and British without being predominantly either. It is also used to describe various forms of North American speech that have assimilated some British...
accent. In contrast, Anderson claims in his biography that the impression was Matthews' choice at audition, and that while it was not what had been intended for Scarlet the production team nevertheless elected to use it. Matthews' filmography prior to Captain Scarlet included the Hammer
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
films The Revenge of Frankenstein
The Revenge of Frankenstein
The Revenge of Frankenstein is a 1958 British horror film made by Hammer Film Productions. Directed by Terence Fisher, the film stars Peter Cushing, Francis Matthews, Michael Gwynn and Eunice Gayson....
(1958), Rasputin, the Mad Monk
Rasputin, the Mad Monk
Rasputin, the Mad Monk is a 1966 Hammer film directed by Don Sharp.It stars Christopher Lee as Grigori Rasputin, the Russian peasant-mystic notable for gaining great influence with the Tsars prior to the Russian Revolution. It also stars Barbara Shelley, Francis Matthews, Suzan Farmer, Richard...
(1966) and Dracula: Prince of Darkness
Dracula: Prince of Darkness
Dracula: Prince of Darkness is a 1966 British horror film directed by Terence Fisher for Hammer Studios. The film was photographed in Techniscope by Michael Reed, designed by Bernard Robinson and scored by James Bernard.-Plot:...
(1966).
Matthew's co-star in Dracula: Prince of Darkness had been Charles Tingwell
Charles Tingwell
In 1941, aged 18, he volunteered for war service overseas with the Royal Australian Air Force. Under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, personnel from Commonwealth air forces were part of a joint training and assignment system. Consequently, Tingwell trained as a pilot in Canada during 1942...
, chosen to voice Dr Fawn, the Cloudbase
Cloudbase
Cloudbase is the fictional skyborne headquarters of international security organisation Spectrum, from Gerry Anderson's science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons .-Appearance in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons:...
chief medical officer. Tingwell, who had provided voices for the second season of Thunderbirds and its first feature film, Thunderbirds Are Go
Thunderbirds Are GO
Thunderbirds Are Go is a 1966 British science-fiction film based on Thunderbirds, a 1960s television series starring marionette puppets and featuring scale model effects in a filming process dubbed "Supermarionation"...
, had initially been recommended to the Andersons by Ray Barrett
Ray Barrett
Raymond Charles "Ray" Barrett was an Australian actor. He was one of the more popular leading men on British television in the 1960s, where he was best known for his appearances in The Troubleshooters . Back in Australia he was a leading man in many TV series over the years.-Biography:Barrett was...
, a fellow Australian actor who had worked on Stingray
Stingray (TV series)
Stingray is a children's marionette television show, created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and produced by AP Films for ATV and ITC Entertainment from 1964–65. Its 39 half-hour episodes were originally screened on ITV in the UK and in syndication in the USA. The scriptwriters included Gerry and...
and Thunderbirds. However, due to theatre commitments, Tingwell could only contribute to the first 12 produced episodes of Captain Scarlet. Also departing after the completion of "Shadow of Fear
Shadow of Fear
"Shadow of Fear" is the 18th episode of the Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first broadcast in the UK on on ATV Midlands, was written by Tony Barwick and directed by Robert Lynn....
" was the voice of Captain Grey
Captain Grey
Captain Grey is a characters in the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is a senior officer of the Spectrum organisation, but seldom leaves Cloudbase....
, Paul Maxwell
Paul Maxwell
Paul Maxwell was a Canadian actor who worked mostly in British television and films, in which he was usually cast as an American...
, a Canadian actor who had voiced the character of Steve Zodiac three years earlier in Fireball XL5
Fireball XL5
Fireball XL5 is a science fiction-themed children's television show following the missions of spaceship Fireball XL5, commanded by Colonel Steve Zodiac of the World Space Patrol...
.
Cy Grant
Cy Grant
Cy Grant was a Guyanese actor, singer, writer and poet, who in the 1950s became the first black person to appear regularly on British television...
, a Guyanese actor selected for the role of Lieutenant Green
Lieutenant Green
Lieutenant Green is the assistant of Colonel White in the Supermarionation television series series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is of Trinidadian origin, and as well as being the only non-white male on Cloudbase, he is the only officer to hold the rank of lieutenant...
"Lieutenant" is generally pronounced in the British manner, lɛfˈtɛnənt ("left-tenant"), by all but the American characters in the series. (Colonel White's assistant and Cloudbase's main computer operator
Computer operator
A role within IT, computer operators oversee the running of computer systems, ensuring that the machines are running and physically secured. The traditional role of a computer operator was to work with mainframes which required a great deal of management day-to-day, however nowaday they often work...
and public announcer
Public address
A public address system is an electronic amplification system with a mixer, amplifier and loudspeakers, used to reinforce a sound source, e.g., a person giving a speech, a DJ playing prerecorded music, and distributing the sound throughout a venue or building.Simple PA systems are often used in...
), had been known to the Andersons for singing topical calypsos
Calypso music
Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago from African and European roots. The roots of the genre lay in the arrival of enslaved Africans, who, not being allowed to speak with each other, communicated through song...
on the current affairs programme Tonight
Tonight (1957 TV series)
Tonight was a BBC television current affairs programme presented by Cliff Michelmore and broadcast in Britain live on weekday evenings from February 1957 to 1965. The producers were the future Controller of BBC1 Donald Baverstock and the future Director-General of the BBC Alasdair Milne...
. His casting influenced the decision to accept Ed Bishop
Ed Bishop
Ed Bishop was an American film, television, stage and radio actor based in Britain.-Early life:Bishop served in the US Army from 8 October 1952 to 24 September 1954, working as a disc jockey with the Armed Forces Radio at St. Johns in Newfoundland...
as Captain Blue
Captain Blue (Captain Scarlet)
Captain Blue is a character in the 1967 Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is a senior officer of the Spectrum organisation and a close friend of Captain Scarlet....
(Captain Scarlet's friend and mission partner), as Bishop recalled in an interview recorded in 1995: "It was just that a girl in my agent's office happened to be on the ball. She represented this black actor by the name of Cy Grant and Gerry and Sylvia
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
wanted to use him ... And the girl said, 'Oh, by the way, Mr Anderson, we've just taken on a new, young American actor'—shows you how long ago it was—'a new American actor, name of Edward Bishop. And we know how much you like American voices. Would you like to meet him as well?' He said, 'Okay, send him out.' So I went out and auditioned and got the job."
Donald Gray
Donald Gray
Donald Gray was a South African actor, probably best remembered for providing the voices to Colonel White, Captain Black and the Mysterons in the TV series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and for being the reason that Donald Marshall Gray changed his name to Charles Gray when he became an actor...
, who had found himself typecast
Typecasting (acting)
In TV, film, and theatre, typecasting is the process by which a particular actor becomes strongly identified with a specific character; one or more particular roles; or, characters having the same traits or coming from the same social or ethnic groups...
after appearing in the lead role in Saber of London
The Vise
The Vise is a half-hour dramatic anthology television series which aired at 9:30 p.m. EST on Fridays on ABC from December 1955 to June 1957....
, a detective series
Detective fiction
Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...
, was having to resort to voice work to support his acting career. The South African actor was selected for three regular roles: Colonel White
Colonel White
Colonel White is a character in the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is the commander-in-Chief of Spectrum, the security organisation dedicated to defending Earth against the Mysterons from Mars...
, Captain Black
Captain Black (Captain Scarlet)
Captain Black is the fictional nemesis of Captain Scarlet and recurring Mysteron agent in the 1960s British supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet...
and the Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
s. After his mind is hijacked in the pilot episode
The Mysterons (Captain Scarlet episode)
"The Mysterons" is the first episode of the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first officially broadcast in the UK on ATV Midlands on , although it had been granted an unscheduled test transmission for the London area on...
, Black speaks with the same voice that the Mysterons are heard to use when transmitting threats to Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
. For his portrayals of Black and his Mysteron masters, Gray's voice was electronically deepened, by running the tape at high speed whilst he was recording his lines and playing it back at normal speed, to produce a haunting effect.
The voice of Captain Ochre was provided by English-born Canadian, Jeremy Wilkin
Jeremy Wilkin
Jeremy Wilkin is a British actor, possibly best known for his contributions to the television productions of Gerry Anderson....
. Having served in the role of Virgil Tracy
Virgil Tracy
Virgil Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the live action movie Thunderbirds....
during the second series of Thunderbirds, Wilkin remained to voice Ochre for the subsequent production. The character of Captain Magenta
Captain Magenta
Captain Magenta is a character in the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is a senior officer of the Spectrum organisation, but seldom leaves Cloudbase....
, meanwhile, was voiced by Gary Files
Gary Files
Gary Files was born in Melbourne, Australia and is an Australian-Canadian actor, writer and director who has resided in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. He has lived in Australia since 1976.-Early life:...
. Another Australian actor, Files was a fresh addition to Century 21 Productions, and was cast for a number of roles in the second Thunderbirds film, Thunderbird 6
Thunderbird 6
Thunderbird 6 is a 1968 British science-fiction and adventure film written by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, directed by David Lane and produced by Century 21 Cinema...
, before progressing to the role of Magenta for Captain Scarlet. Like Files, Welsh actress Liz Morgan
Elizabeth Morgan (actor)
Elizabeth Morgan is a British actress, primarily in supporting roles, in films, television, and onstage. She was often credited as "Liz Morgan".-External links:...
was new to the Anderson productions and voiced the regular characters of Destiny Angel, the lead pilot of the Spectrum Angel fighter squadron, and one of her subordinates, Rhapsody Angel.
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
, the voice of Lady Penelope from Thunderbirds, voiced Melody Angel, while Canadian actress Janna Hill was given the part of Symphony. The character of Harmony Angel was voiced by Morgan for five episodes before being replaced by Chinese actress Lian-Shin about one-third of the way through the recording sessions. Although Lian only provided the voice of Harmony for one episode, "The Launching
The Launching
"The Launching" is the 26th episode of the Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first broadcast in the UK on 2 April 1968 on ATV Midlands, was written by Peter Curran and David Williams and directed by Brian Burgess....
," she received billing for 20 episodes.
Supporting character voices were performed by Anderson, Files, Hill, Maxwell, Morgan, Tingwell and Wilkin. Completing the supporting cast were American actor David Healy
David Healy (actor)
David Healy was an American-born actor who starred in many British and American television shows. His credits include voices for the Supermarionation series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90 and The Secret Service, as well as parts in UFO, The Troubleshooters, Randall and Hopkirk , Space...
and British actor Martin King
Martin King (actor)
Martin King is a British actor, voice actor and former continuity announcer.His television credits include Dixon of Dock Green , Crossroads , Detective and The Troubleshooters...
. Canadian Shane Rimmer
Shane Rimmer
Shane Rimmer is a Canadian actor and voice actor, probably best known as the voice of Scott Tracy in Thunderbirds.He has mostly performed in supporting roles, frequently in films and television series filmed in the United Kingdom, having relocated to England in the late 1950s, initially performing...
, who had performed the voice of Scott Tracy
Scott Tracy
Scott Tracy is a fictional character from Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation television show Thunderbirds and the subsequent films Thunderbirds Are GO and Thunderbird 6. The character also appeared in the live action movie Thunderbirds....
in Thunderbirds and its films, made a number of uncredited contributions in addition to writing for the series. Fellow Canadian Neil McCallum
Neil McCallum (actor)
Neil McCallum was a British Canadian actor, trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. His first major appearance on stage was with Sam Wanamaker in The Rainmaker in the mid-1950s. He appeared in many British TV series in the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s. He also appeared in several films...
, who had provided the voice of the character of Dr Ray Pierce in Thunderbirds Are Go, can be heard in four episodes uncredited. Six members of the voice cast would continue their association with the Andersons after Captain Scarlet. Healy would voice the character of Shane Weston in the penultimate Supermarionation series, Joe 90
Joe 90
Joe 90 is a late-1960s British science-fiction television series documenting the exploits of a nine-year-old boy, Joe McClaine, who embarks on a double life as a schoolboy turned spy when his scientist father invents a pioneering machine capable of duplicating and transferring expert knowledge and...
, while Files would voice Matthew Harding on The Secret Service
The Secret Service
The Secret Service is a British children's espionage television series, made as a Century 21 production for ITC Entertainment and broadcast in 1969...
. Wilkin, Morgan and King were all given small roles for these final two Supermarionation series, while Bishop appeared as SHADO Commander Ed Straker in Anderson's live-action series, UFO
UFO (TV series)
UFO is a 1970-1971 British television science fiction series about an alien invasion of Earth, created by Gerry Anderson and Sylvia Anderson with Reg Hill, and produced by the Andersons and Lew Grade's Century 21 Productions for Grade's ITC Entertainment company.UFO first aired in the UK and Canada...
, which was transmitted in the United Kingdom from 1970.
Voice recording
Character dialogue was recorded on a fortnightly basis, with lines for up to four episodes taped at each session, at the Anvil Films Recording StudioDenham Film Studios
Denham Film Studios were a British film production studio operating from 1936 to 1952.The studios were founded by Alexander Korda, on a 165 acre site near the village of Denham, Buckinghamshire. At the time it was the largest facility of its kind in the UK, but it was merged with Rank's Pinewood...
Anvil Films Recording Studio
Denham Film Studios
Denham Film Studios were a British film production studio operating from 1936 to 1952.The studios were founded by Alexander Korda, on a 165 acre site near the village of Denham, Buckinghamshire. At the time it was the largest facility of its kind in the UK, but it was merged with Rank's Pinewood...
: 51.5632°N 0.4987°W (voice recording) at Denham
Denham, Buckinghamshire
Denham is a village and civil parish in the South Buckinghamshire district of Buckinghamshire, England. It is north west of Uxbridge and north of junction 1 of the M40 motorway. Denham contains the Buckinghamshire Golf Club.-Origin:...
in Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
. Each actor, regardless of the size of their contribution, was paid 15 guineas (£15 15 shillings) per episode with repeat fees. The cast were not given the opportunity to tour the Century 21 studios in Slough
Slough
Slough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road and the Great Western Main Line, west of central London...
until all their work was finished and therefore had no visualisation of their characters during the recording itself. This was to the regret of Liz Morgan
Elizabeth Morgan (actor)
Elizabeth Morgan is a British actress, primarily in supporting roles, in films, television, and onstage. She was often credited as "Liz Morgan".-External links:...
: "we all said that we wished we had seen the puppets before doing the dialogue, as it would have been helpful to have something physical to base the voices on. I knew that Destiny was French and that Rhapsody had to be frightfully 'Sloaney
Sloane Ranger
The term Sloane Ranger refers to a stereotype in the UK of young, upper class or upper-middle-class women, or men who share distinctive and common lifestyle traits...
,' but that was about it."
Titles and credits
Captain Scarlet episodes, with the exception of the pilotThe Mysterons (Captain Scarlet episode)
"The Mysterons" is the first episode of the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first officially broadcast in the UK on ATV Midlands on , although it had been granted an unscheduled test transmission for the London area on...
, incorporate two sets of opening titles. The first of these sequences presents the title card and major production team credits. The camera moves forward through the model set of a run-down, night-time alleyway, forming the point-of-view shot
Point of view shot
A point of view shot is a short film scene that shows what a character is looking at . It is usually established by being positioned between a shot of a character looking at something, and a shot showing the character's reaction...
of an unseen assassin, who turns a corner only to meet his death at the gun barrel of Captain Scarlet
Captain Scarlet (character)
Captain Scarlet is the fictional main character in Gerry Anderson's British Supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet....
. The two seven-letter words of "Captain Scarlet" then appear on-screen in time with the seven strikes of the Captain Scarlet staccato
Staccato
Staccato is a form of musical articulation. In modern notation it signifies a note of shortened duration and separated from the note that may follow by silence...
drum beat composed by Barry Gray
Barry Gray
Barry Gray was a British musician and composer who is best known for his work for Gerry Anderson.-Life:...
. This opening sequence is accompanied by a voice-over
Voice-over
Voice-over is a production technique where a voice which is not part of the narrative is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentations...
from Ed Bishop
Ed Bishop
Ed Bishop was an American film, television, stage and radio actor based in Britain.-Early life:Bishop served in the US Army from 8 October 1952 to 24 September 1954, working as a disc jockey with the Armed Forces Radio at St. Johns in Newfoundland...
, which states, "The Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
s. Sworn enemies of Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
. Possessing the ability to recreate an exact likeness of an object or person. But first, they must destroy ... Leading the fight, one man fate has made indestructible. His name: Captain Scarlet." The sequence is intended to demonstrate Scarlet's indestructibility; the assassin fires on the agent with a machine gun
Machine gun
A machine gun is a fully automatic mounted or portable firearm, usually designed to fire rounds in quick succession from an ammunition belt or large-capacity magazine, typically at a rate of several hundred rounds per minute....
, but the bullets have no effect.
A number of variations on this voice-over exist. Firstly, Ed Bishop's introduction in the pilot, which is unique to that episode, and runs: "The finger is on the trigger. About to unleash a force with terrible powers, beyond the comprehension of Man. This force we shall know as 'the Mysterons'... This man will be our hero, for fate will make him indestructible. His name: Captain Scarlet." A rare alternative version runs: "One man. A man who is different. Chosen by fate. Caught up in Earth's unwanted conflict with the Mysterons. Determined. Courageous. Indestructible. His name: Captain Scarlet."
Later prints of the episodes feature an additional voice-over, a warning from Donald Gray
Donald Gray
Donald Gray was a South African actor, probably best remembered for providing the voices to Colonel White, Captain Black and the Mysterons in the TV series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and for being the reason that Donald Marshall Gray changed his name to Charles Gray when he became an actor...
, which states: "Captain Scarlet is indestructible. You are not. Remember this. Do not try to imitate him." This served both to establish the background to the series and to warn younger fans not to take risks by copying Scarlet's exploits. The warning was placed after the alternative "One man ..." voiceover or else was used in isolation, with Gray's warning providing the sole narration in the opening sequence.
From the second episode
Winged Assassin
"Winged Assassin" is the second episode of the Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first broadcast in the UK on on ATV Midlands. It was written by Tony Barwick and directed by David Lane...
, a continuation of the opening sequence, presenting the main puppet cast, runs after the teaser
Cold open
A cold open in a television program or movie is the technique of jumping directly into a story at the beginning or opening of the show, before the title sequence or opening credits are shown...
that establishes the plot to each episode. While the Mysterons are announcing their latest threat against Earth, the "Mysteron rings" pass over the characters in a number of environments to demonstrate the omnipresence of the extraterrestrials, while the Spectrum codenames are being credited on-screen. The Mysterons invariably begin their threat with the words, "This is the voice of the Mysterons. We know that you can hear us, Earthmen
Earthling
Earthling is a term commonly used in science fiction to identify humans as opposed to extraterrestrials. The literary effect aimed for is a distancing effect, inviting the readers to contemplate their own species as it might be seen from an external point of view...
." For Japanese broadcasts, the opening credits were replaced with a montage of action scenes from various episodes, with children singing an accompanying theme tune. This version can be found in the special features of the Captain Scarlet DVD box set.
The end credits
End Credits
"End Credits" is the first single from Drum and Bass duo Chase & Status' second studio album No More Idols. The single was co-written, co-produced and features vocals from Plan B and was released on 29 October 2009, reaching a peak position of No. 9 in the UK Singles Chart...
were originally to be accompanied by images of printed circuit board
Printed circuit board
A printed circuit board, or PCB, is used to mechanically support and electrically connect electronic components using conductive pathways, tracks or signal traces etched from copper sheets laminated onto a non-conductive substrate. It is also referred to as printed wiring board or etched wiring...
s and other electronic components, to fit in with the Andersons' original conception of the resurrected Captain Scarlet being a "mechanical man". In the finished series, the credits are superimposed on ten paintings of Scarlet, who is depicted in moments of mortal peril. In the earlier episodes, he instrumental version of Gray's Captain Scarlet end theme accompanies these images; this is replaced by the Spectrum pop group's lyrical version in the later episodes. The paintings were produced by comic artist Ron Embleton
Ron Embleton
Ronald Sydney Embleton was a British comics artist and illustrator whose work was much admired by fans and editors alike...
, who would later illustrate the adult comic strip "Oh, Wicked Wanda!
Wicked Wanda
Oh, Wicked Wanda! was a British full-color, satirical adult comic strip, written by Frederic Mullally, and drawn by Ron Embleton. The strip regularly appeared in Penthouse magazine from 1973 to 1980...
" for Penthouse
Penthouse (magazine)
Penthouse, a men's magazine founded by Bob Guccione, combines urban lifestyle articles and softcore pornographic pictorials that, in the 1990s, evolved into hardcore. Penthouse is owned by FriendFinder Network. formerly known as General Media, Inc. whose parent company was Penthouse International...
magazine in the 1970s. In 2005, the Animation Art Gallery in London released licensed limited editions of the Captain Scarlet paintings featuring the signature of Francis Matthews
Francis Matthews (actor)
-Early life:Matthews attended St Michael's Jesuit College, Leeds and started his acting career with Leeds repertory theatre before service in the Royal Navy.-Career:...
, the voice of Scarlet.
Broadcasts
Captain Scarlet officially opened on British television on 29 September 1967, in the late-afternoon slot of 5.25 pm, in the ATV Midlands region. Viewing figuresAudience measurement
Audience measurement measures how many people are in an audience, usually in relation to radio listenership and television viewership, but also in relation to newspaper and magazine readership and, increasingly, web traffic on websites...
for the pilot episode, "The Mysterons
The Mysterons (Captain Scarlet episode)
"The Mysterons" is the first episode of the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first officially broadcast in the UK on ATV Midlands on , although it had been granted an unscheduled test transmission for the London area on...
", were promising at 0.45 million. Five months earlier, on 29 April, the series opener had been given a late-night test transmission in the London area. After the start of the Midlands
English Midlands
The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...
broadcasts, London and Scotland followed on 1 October, with the Granada
Granada Television
Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
, Anglia
Anglia Television
Anglia Television is the ITV franchise holder for the East Anglia franchise region. Although Anglia Television takes its name from East Anglia, its transmission coverage extends beyond the generally accepted boundaries of that region. The station is based at Anglia House in Norwich, with regional...
, Southern
Southern Television
Southern Television was the first ITV broadcasting licence holder for the south and south-east of England from 30 August 1958 until the night of 31 December 1981. The company was launched as Southern Television Limited and the title Southern Television was consistently used on-air throughout its life...
, Westward
Westward Television
Westward Television was the first ITV franchise holder for the South West of England from 29 April 1961 until 31 December 1981. After a difficult start, Westward provided a popular, distinctive and highly regarded service to its region, until public boardroom squabbles led to its franchise not...
and Channel
Channel Television
Channel Television is a British television station which has served as an Independent Television contractor to the Channel Islands since 1962. It is based in Jersey...
areas all televising the series by the end of the month. However, it was not until the start of 1968 that the series was being broadcast all across the nation. In the Midlands region, the ratings averaged 1.1 million. In 1968, Captain Scarlet was also screened in more than 40 other countries, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. In the United States, the series was transmitted on first-run syndication. Meanwhile, only six episodes of the series were transmitted in the Netherlands.
Repeat runs
Rerun
A rerun or repeat is a re-airing of an episode of a radio or television broadcast. The invention of the rerun is generally credited to Desi Arnaz. There are two types of reruns—those that occur during a hiatus, and those that occur when a program is syndicated. Reruns can also be, as the...
have varied greatly according to region. While Granada, HTV
HTV
HTV, now legally known as ITV Wales & West, is the ITV contractor for Wales and the West of England, which operated from studios in Cardiff and Bristol. The company provided commercial television for the dual-region 'Wales and West' franchise, which it won from TWW in 1968...
and Tyne Tees continued to broadcast the series into 1972, the Midlands received four colour
Color television
Color television is part of the history of television, the technology of television and practices associated with television's transmission of moving images in color video....
re-runs from 1969 to 1974, while in other areas, such as Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
, it was not repeated at all. All 32 episodes were purchased by the ITV network for broadcast on Saturday mornings between 1985 and 1986, with broadcasting in segmented form on the ITV Night Network
Night Network
Night Network, Night Time and Night Shift were names given to the overnight schedule of the ITV network in the United Kingdom. The first ITV company began 24 hour broadcasting in 1986, with all of the companies broadcasting through the night by 1988...
in 1987. A BBC commission led to the series' first simultaneous network
Television network
A television network is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, whereby a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay TV providers. Until the mid-1980s, television programming in most countries of the world was dominated by a small...
broadcast on BBC2 starting on 1 October 1993. On this occasion, the pilot episode attracted an audience of four million, high enough to award it third position in the BBC2 ratings chart for the week of transmission.
Digitally remastered
Remaster
Remaster is a word marketed mostly in the digital audio age, although the remastering process has existed since recording began...
, the series resurfaced on BBC Two in the autumn of 2001. On this occasion, the episode schedule needed to be re-arranged at short notice to avoid offence in the immediate aftermath of the 11 September attacks. The second episode, "Winged Assassin
Winged Assassin
"Winged Assassin" is the second episode of the Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first broadcast in the UK on on ATV Midlands. It was written by Tony Barwick and directed by David Lane...
", in which the Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
s destroy and reconstruct a plane to assassinate a world leader, and the third, "Big Ben Strikes Again
Big Ben Strikes Again
"Big Ben Strikes Again" is the third episode of the Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first broadcast in the UK on on ATV Midlands, written by Tony Barwick and directed by Brian Burgess...
", in which London comes under threat from an atomic device, were held back and replaced with the fourth episode, "Manhunt", due to parallels between the plotlines and events in the real world. In the week after the attacks, the Captain Scarlet section on the Carlton
Carlton Communications
Carlton Communications was a British media company. It was led by Michael Green and listed on the London Stock Exchange from 1983 until 2 February 2004, when it taken over by Granada plc to form ITV plc with Carlton gaining 32% of the new company....
website was also temporarily removed.
Reception
Although ThunderbirdsThunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
had run to a second series, Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
states that Lew Grade
Lew Grade
Lew Grade, Baron Grade , born Lev Winogradsky, was an influential Russian-born English impresario and media mogul.-Early years:...
's unexpected cancellation of the production led him to assume that there was no possibility of Captain Scarlet lasting for more than one series. He comments that, "As far as I can recall, I didn't expect it to continue. I simply went to Lew and asked, 'What's the next thing you want us to do?
Captain Scarlet has generally been regarded as much "darker" in tone compared to Gerry Anderson's earlier sci-fi series, as Andrew Billen noted in the New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
when the programme was remade for 2005: "Whereas Thunderbirds was about rescuing people, Scarlet was about damnation, the soul of a resurrected man being fought for between Captain Scarlet
Captain Scarlet (character)
Captain Scarlet is the fictional main character in Gerry Anderson's British Supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet....
and the equally indestructible Captain Black
Captain Black (Captain Scarlet)
Captain Black is the fictional nemesis of Captain Scarlet and recurring Mysteron agent in the 1960s British supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet...
. It was Anderson's Gothic
Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...
period." The horror factor of the Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
s has been recognised, with the depiction of the aliens leading to the series appearing at number 82 in Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
's list programme 100 Greatest Scary Moments in 2003. Simon Wickes of the TV Century 21 website suggests that seriousness of the scripts is ultimately due to the realism
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
of the new, accurately proportioned puppets, and that this aesthetic change also answers for the enhanced realism in the use of miniature models.
Parallels have been drawn between the series and the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. Historian Nicholas J. Cull
Nicholas J. Cull
Professor Nicholas J. Cull is a historian and the director of the Master's in Public Diplomacy program at the University of Southern California.-Biography:...
, for example, interprets the "war of nerves" between Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
and Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
as a reflection of the strained international relations of the 1960s and compares the "enemy within" scenario of aliens taking control of human beings to such sci-fi films as 1956's Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Mark Bould has written that the series "seemed in tune with a decade of civil disobedience
Civil disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...
and anti-imperialist guerrilla wars," a view supported by Rebecca Feasey of the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
, who has written that it is one of a number of series that "exploited the fears of 1960s America by presenting civil disobedience and the potentially negative impact of new technologies." Since 2001, similarities have also been interpreted between the series and the 11 September attacks, as well as the ensuing War on Terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
.
However, to other reviewers, Captain Scarlet is a "camp
Camp (style)
Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
classic" which, according to Bould, relates well to other Anderson productions due to a shared depiction of "a utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
n future benefitting from world government
World government in science fiction
In both science fiction and utopian/dystopian fiction, authors have made frequent use of the age-old idea of a global state and, accordingly, of world government.- Overview :...
, high technology, ethnic diversity, and a generally positive sense of Americanisation. They articulate the commonly made connection between technological developments and economic prosperity." He has also discussed the "Euro-cool consumerism
Consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
" of Captain Scarlet. The concept of world government is common to Anderson's work and was inspired by his thoughts on the matter at the time: "I had all sorts of fancy ideas about the future ... we had the United Nations and I imagined that the world would come together and there would be a world government." Peter Wright has similar ideas to Bould on the technological side of the series, noting the "qualified technophilia
Technophilia
Technophilia refers generally to a strong enthusiasm for technology, especially new technologies such as personal computers, the Internet, mobile phones and home cinema...
" that it shares with Thunderbirds.
Since its first appearance, complaints levelled against the series have targeted the camera work, which has been viewed as too static due to the problem of moving the puppets convincingly. The return to a 25-minute episode format as had been the scenario with Stingray
Stingray (TV series)
Stingray is a children's marionette television show, created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and produced by AP Films for ATV and ITC Entertainment from 1964–65. Its 39 half-hour episodes were originally screened on ITV in the UK and in syndication in the USA. The scriptwriters included Gerry and...
and earlier Supermarionation
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
series, as opposed to the 50-minute Thunderbirds episodes, has been blamed for a perceived drop in the quality of the storytelling and lack of subplot
Subplot
A subplot is a secondary plot strand that is a supporting side story for any story or the main plot. Subplots may connect to main plots, in either time and place or in thematic significance...
s. Concerns have also been expressed about the characters being underdeveloped: in a 1986 interview, script editor Tony Barwick
Tony Barwick
Tony Barwick was a British television scriptwriter who worked extensively on series created and produced by Gerry Anderson....
described the series as "hard-nosed stuff" that lacked humour, and also said, "It was all for the American market and to that extent there was no deep characterisation
Characterisation
Characterization or characterisation is the art of creating characters for a narrative, including the process of conveying information about them. It may be employed in dramatic works of art or everyday conversation...
. [The characters] all balanced one against the other."
Science-fiction author John Peel
John Peel (writer)
John Peel is a British writer, best known for his books connected to several television series. He has written under several pseudonyms, including John Vincent and Nicholas Adams. He lives in Long Island, New York and his wife is a U.S...
perceives a drop in quality between Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet in terms of the use of special effects in relation to richness of the scripting. In this respect, he compares the divide to the commercial disappointment of Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a 1984 American adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. It is the second film in the Indiana Jones franchise and prequel to Raiders of the Lost Ark . After arriving in India, Indiana Jones is asked by a desperate village to find a mystical stone...
(1984) after the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a 1981 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by George Lucas, and starring Harrison Ford. It is the first film in the Indiana Jones franchise...
(1981): "Anderson made the same mistake that George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
made, assuming that if the effects were praised in Thunderbirds, the public wanted a show with more effects." Peel also turns attention to the nature of Captain Scarlet himself, suggesting that Anderson's conception of an indestructible hero who can unfailingly return to life after death made the conclusions to plotlines too predictable. He also notes his concern that Scarlet, who is often seen to risk his life to foil Mysteron plots, provided a poor role model for an impressionable target audience of children.
Although seen as a cult
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
series by some critics, Captain Scarlet ranked 33rd in a 2007 Radio Times
Radio Times
Radio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
poll to determine the greatest sci-fi series of all time. Despite concerns that it is not a true "children's
Children's television series
Children's television series, are commercial television programs designed for, and marketed to children, normally scheduled for broadcast during the morning and afternoon when children are awake. They can sometimes run in the early evening, for the children that go to school...
" television series because of its "dark" tone and level of violence, it achieved 51st position in Channel 4's 2001 list programme 100 Greatest Kids' TV Shows. Considering Captain Scarlet alongside its immediate predecessor, Thunderbirds, Gerry Anderson's personal verdict is unambiguous: "Nothing was as successful as Thunderbirds. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons was very successful, but once you've had a smash hit, everything tends to look less successful in comparison."
Puppets
On the subject of Sylvia AndersonSylvia Anderson
Sylvia Anderson , born 25 March 1937, is a British voice artist and film producer, most notable for collaborations with Gerry Anderson, to whom she was married from 1962 to 1975....
's costume design, critic Mark Bould praises the "commitment to fashion" evident throughout the Anderson series, but particularly lauds the design of the Spectrum Angel uniforms. Meanwhile, the realistic
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
design of the new puppets has been praised by commentators such as Vincent Terrace and criticised by others. Some members of the production team perceived a lack of charm in comparison to the earlier puppets due to the more natural proportions that were now being used. Director David Lane
David Lane (director)
David Lane is a British television and film director, best known for his association with series produced by Gerry Anderson's AP Films.Lane directed several episodes of the Thunderbirds television series, including "Attack of the Alligators!", as well as the two cinema films Thunderbirds are GO and...
's initial thoughts on a prototype, produced by head of puppets John Brown, were, "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." Brown remembers presenting the prototype alongside the Lady Penelope puppet from Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
and gauging the response from production staff, stating, "when they saw it, some people were horrified by the difference. Some didn't like it, some did." Critics have highlighted the sacrifice of facial expression in favour of a realistic design, a consequence on which Terry Curtis elaborates:
The changes of expression on those puppets had to be perfect and in no way exaggerated like the old ones were. I remember when [fellow puppet designer] Tim Cooksey did Colonel WhiteColonel WhiteColonel White is a character in the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is the commander-in-Chief of Spectrum, the security organisation dedicated to defending Earth against the Mysterons from Mars...
, he had a lot of trouble doing different expressions as the face was just so realistic. I had a similar problem with Captain BlueCaptain Blue (Captain Scarlet)Captain Blue is a character in the 1967 Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is a senior officer of the Spectrum organisation and a close friend of Captain Scarlet....
. I remember I did a Blue "smiler" head and people could hardly tell the difference between that and the normal one.
Sculptor John Blundall has referred to the new puppet design as "ridiculous", denouncing Anderson's attempts to have the puppets appear more life-like for the reason that, in his view, "We always try to do with puppets what you can't do with humans." Stating a preference for the Thunderbirds-era design, Blundall agrees that the transition from caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
to realism led to a reduction in "character and personality", asserting that "If the puppet appears completely natural, the audience no longer has to use its imagination." In response, Anderson himself states that he pushed for the decision to reshape the puppets to satisfy viewers, summarising the development as not "a case of moving to a new technique, but more a case of incorporating new ideas with existing methods."
Summing up Captain Scarlet, in comparison to Thunderbirds, as "better puppets, bigger action and a huge step backwards in stories", Peel
John Peel (writer)
John Peel is a British writer, best known for his books connected to several television series. He has written under several pseudonyms, including John Vincent and Nicholas Adams. He lives in Long Island, New York and his wife is a U.S...
disputes the claim that the next generation of Supermarionation
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
puppets constitute a failure on the part of the series, arguing that the increased realism did not deter viewers who had been familiar with the earlier design. Although he believes that the characterisation
Characterisation
Characterization or characterisation is the art of creating characters for a narrative, including the process of conveying information about them. It may be employed in dramatic works of art or everyday conversation...
s became less endearing, Peel suggests that it is an over-emphasis on the visual elements, evident at the expense of characterisation, that truly accounts for the reduced credibility of the series.
Race, gender and symbolism
During its repeat run in the UK in 1993, Captain Scarlet became involved in the black-and-white dualismBlack-and-white dualism
The colors White and Black are widely used to depict opposites. Visually, white and black offer the highest possible contrast. In western culture, white and black traditionally symbolize the dichotomy of good and evil, metaphorically related to light and darkness and day and night.The dichotomy of...
debate for its use of the codenames "White" to designate the head of Spectrum, Colonel White
Colonel White
Colonel White is a character in the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is the commander-in-Chief of Spectrum, the security organisation dedicated to defending Earth against the Mysterons from Mars...
, and "Black" in reference to the villainous Captain Black
Captain Black (Captain Scarlet)
Captain Black is the fictional nemesis of Captain Scarlet and recurring Mysteron agent in the 1960s British supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet...
. Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
defended his series against the accusations of racism and political incorrectness by reminding critics that Lieutenant Green
Lieutenant Green
Lieutenant Green is the assistant of Colonel White in the Supermarionation television series series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is of Trinidadian origin, and as well as being the only non-white male on Cloudbase, he is the only officer to hold the rank of lieutenant...
, Melody Angel and Harmony Angel are heroic characters despite being of either African or Asian descent. Green is the only male black character to have a significant role in an Anderson production.
In academic works, the diversity of the Spectrum personnel in terms of both race and gender has been viewed highly. Bould, for example, mentions "Captain Scarlet
Guyanese actor Cy Grant
Cy Grant
Cy Grant was a Guyanese actor, singer, writer and poet, who in the 1950s became the first black person to appear regularly on British television...
, who voiced Green and saw the series as having positive multicultural value, has also noted the allegorical nature of Captain Scarlet. Christian symbolism is heavily implied, with Colonel White as God
God in Christianity
In Christianity, God is the eternal being that created and preserves the universe. God is believed by most Christians to be immanent , while others believe the plan of redemption show he will be immanent later...
, Captain Black as the Devil, Captain Scarlet
Captain Scarlet (character)
Captain Scarlet is the fictional main character in Gerry Anderson's British Supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet....
as Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...
, Cloudbase
Cloudbase
Cloudbase is the fictional skyborne headquarters of international security organisation Spectrum, from Gerry Anderson's science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons .-Appearance in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons:...
as Heaven, and characters codenamed "the Angels", but Grant also mentions the idea of Lieutenant Green as an African trickster hero. On dualism, he suggests that, "the 'darkness
Darkness
Darkness, in contrast with brightness, is a relative absence of visible light. It is the appearance of black in a color space. When light is not present, rod and cone cells within the eye are not stimulated. This lack of stimulation means photoreceptor cells are unable to distinguish color...
' of the Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
s is most easily seen as the psychological rift—the struggle of 'good' and 'evil' — of the Western world
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
as personified by Colonel White and his team. Dark and light
Light (theology)
In theology, light or divine light is a term used to refer to an aspect of divine presence, specifically an unknown and mysterious ability of God, angels, or human beings to express themselves communicatively through spiritual means, rather than through physical capacities...
are but aspects of each other. Incidentally, green is the colour of nature that can heal that rift."
Other media
Since the 1960s, the TV series has been supplemented by tie-in merchandise, example products ranging from toy dolls to a driving-themedVehicular combat game
Vehicular combat games are typically video or computer games where the primary focus of play concerns automobiles or other vehicles, normally armed with guns or other weaponry, attempting to destroy vehicles controlled by the CPU or by opposing players...
video game, released for the PlayStation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
platform in 2006. The ATV game show The Golden Shot
The Golden Shot
The Golden Shot is a British television game show produced by ATV for ITV between 1 July 1967 and 13 April 1975, based on the German TV show Der goldene Schuss. It is most commonly associated with host Bob Monkhouse, though, three other presenters also hosted the show during its lifetime...
, presented by Bob Monkhouse
Bob Monkhouse
Robert Alan "Bob" Monkhouse, OBE was an English entertainer. He was a successful comedy writer, comedian and actor and was also well known on British television as a presenter and game show host...
, adopted Captain Scarlet as the theme for its 1967 Christmas special. Broadcast live on 23 December, the programme featured guest appearances from Francis Matthews
Francis Matthews (actor)
-Early life:Matthews attended St Michael's Jesuit College, Leeds and started his acting career with Leeds repertory theatre before service in the Royal Navy.-Career:...
and "The Spectrum", who performed their latest single, "Headin' for a Heatwave".
Audio episodes
To complement the TV episodes, Century 21 released five further Captain Scarlet stories as vinyl record EPExtended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...
s, each running to approximately 21 minutes, and starring the original voice cast, in 1967. TV Century 21
TV Century 21
TV Century 21, also known as TV 21, was a weekly British children's comic of the 1960s and early 1970s. It promoted the many television science-fiction puppet series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's Century 21 Productions...
script editor Angus P. Allan wrote Introducing Captain Scarlet, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Captain Scarlet of Spectrum, while Captain Scarlet is Indestructible and Captain Scarlet versus Captain Black were scripted by his assistant, Richard O'Neill
Richard O'Neill
Richard O'Neill is an Anglo-Irish author and editor. Formerly a regular soldier, itinerant labourer and professional boxer, he now specializes in military history and has contributed to many books on weaponry and military history, as well as writing on Victorian painting. He has a son and a...
.
The first of the audio adventure
Radio drama
Radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story...
s, Introducing Captain Scarlet, is set during the dénouement to the pilot episode, The Mysterons
The Mysterons (Captain Scarlet episode)
"The Mysterons" is the first episode of the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first officially broadcast in the UK on ATV Midlands on , although it had been granted an unscheduled test transmission for the London area on...
. The plot mainly focuses on a military conference investigating the events of the episode, with the inclusion of audio flashbacks
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
to provide exposition
Exposition (literary technique)
At the beginning of a narrative, the exposition is the author's providing of some background information to the audience about the plot, characters' histories, setting, and theme. Exposition is considered one of four rhetorical modes of discourse, along with argumentation, description, and narration...
. At the conclusion to the adventure, it is revealed that the Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
duplicate of Captain Scarlet
Captain Scarlet (character)
Captain Scarlet is the fictional main character in Gerry Anderson's British Supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet....
has returned to life and that Scarlet's loyalty to Spectrum can be restored with the aid of the advanced computer that featured in the Andersons' pilot script for "The Mysterons".
Books and comics
In the late 1960s, three tie-in novels were published under the pen name "John Theydon", a pseudonym for author John William Jennison, titled Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967), Captain Scarlet and the Silent Saboteur (1967) and The Angels and the Creeping Enemy (1968). As implied by its title, the third novel places the focus on the Spectrum Angels as the primary protagonists. Later, in 1993, Young Corgi BooksRandom House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
published four novelisations, targeted at children, based upon the original series episodes "The Mysterons", "Lunarville 7
Lunarville 7
"Lunarville 7" is the 12th episode of the Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first broadcast in the UK on on ATV Midlands...
", "Noose of Ice
Noose of Ice
"Noose of Ice" is the 24th episode of the Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first broadcast in the UK on on ATV Midlands, was written by Tony Barwick and directed by Ken Turner...
" and "The Launching
The Launching
"The Launching" is the 26th episode of the Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first broadcast in the UK on 2 April 1968 on ATV Midlands, was written by Peter Curran and David Williams and directed by Brian Burgess....
".
Captain Scarlet also formed the basis of three comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
s drawn for the weekly children's comic, TV Century 21. Spanning 17 issues (numbers 141–157) from September 1967 to January 1968, the strip adventures were written by Angus P. Allan with artwork by Ron Embleton
Ron Embleton
Ronald Sydney Embleton was a British comics artist and illustrator whose work was much admired by fans and editors alike...
, and were titled We Will Destroy Unity City, We Will Destroy the Observatory Network and We Shall Make Earth a Planet of Silence. Following the end of the TV series, the comic continued the story of the Captain Scarlet universe, with later strips revealing that the Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
s deactivate their Martian complex and relinquish their control over Captain Black
Captain Black (Captain Scarlet)
Captain Black is the fictional nemesis of Captain Scarlet and recurring Mysteron agent in the 1960s British supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet...
, while Scarlet himself leaves Spectrum to make use of his powers in the fight against Earth-bound criminals and threats. The Mysterons ultimately re-awaken, prompting Scarlet and Spectrum to resume their struggle.
A manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
adaptation of the series, titled Captain Scarlet, ran in the Japanese Shōnen Book
Shonen Book
is a manga magazine by Shueisha, which debuted March 1958 and ended in April 1969. Shōnen Book was originally a spin-off of Shueisha's . Shōnen Book is famously known in Japan for being the predecessor to the company's famous Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine. The Shōnen Book tankōbon manga volumes are...
anthology from January to August 1968. Century 21 published annuals
Annual publication
An annual publication, more often called simply an annual, is a book or a magazine, comic book or comic strip published yearly. For example, a weekly or monthly publication may produce an Annual featuring similar materials to the regular publication....
based on the series between 1967 and 1969, while the original Captain Scarlet comic strips were reprinted in the 1968 and 1969 editions of TV21 Annual. Further annuals, published in 1993 and 1994 by Grandreams, coincided with the BBC2 repeats of the TV episodes. In 2002, Carlton Books released a new edition to accompany the digitally remastered broadcasts that had started in 2001.
Video and DVD
In the United Kingdom, Carlton Video commercially released the series, as both eight separate volumes and as a "Complete Series Box Set", from September 2001 to March 2002. Presented with the same remastered video and audio quality that was introduced for the BBC TwoBBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
repeats of 2001, the box set incorporates a ninth tape including The Indestructible Captain Scarlet, a special programme that describes Spectrum, the Mysterons and the events of the TV series. Earlier releases, marketed by PolyGram
PolyGram
PolyGram was the name of the major label recording company started by Philips from as a holding company for its music interests in 1945. In 1999 it was sold to Seagram and merged into Universal Music Group.-Hollandsche Decca Distributie , 1929-1950:...
and "Channel 5", had numbered the episodes in an order different from that of the 1960s broadcasts and, in the case of the first two volumes, had added to them with the insertion of footage specially filmed for the ITC
ITC Entertainment
The Incorporated Television Company was a British television company largely involved in production and distribution. It was founded by Lew Grade.-History:...
Captain Scarlet compilation films of the 1980s.
Since September 2001, Captain Scarlet has also been available in five volumes on PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
Region 2
DVD region code
DVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
DVD, also marketed by Carlton, with a new Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound sound mix to complement the original mono track. Special features for these releases include audio commentaries
Audio commentary
On disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...
with Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
for the episodes "The Mysterons" and "Attack on Cloudbase
Attack on Cloudbase
"Attack on Cloudbase" is the 31st episode of the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. The penultimate instalment of the series, it first aired in the United Kingdom on ATV Midlands on 7 May 1968...
", the five audio episodes from 1967, behind-the-scenes production photos, information about original ITC advertising and merchandise, and 1960s TV spots. As with the VHS releases, the five DVD volumes have also received a box set edition, which incorporates a bonus sixth disc including Captain Scarlet S.I.G. (a behind-the-scenes documentary produced and presented by Gerry Anderson) and five sets of alternative opening credits.
The special features of the four-disc NTSC
NTSC
NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...
North American Region 1 edition of the box set, released by A&E Home Video
A&E Television Networks
A&E Television Networks is a U.S. media company that owns a group of television channels available via cable & satellite in the US and abroad...
in 2002, are mostly similar to those of the Region 2 version, with the additions of a text-based "Introduction to Captain Scarlet" and DVD-ROM content. In 2004, Imavision
Imavision
Imavision, also known as Imavision Distribution, Imavision Productions and Imavision.com, is a Canadian company recognized for the acquisition of entertainment content for DVD distribution on retail and institutional markets in Canada, the United States and French-speaking Europe...
unveiled a French-language edition of the box set aimed at the Canadian market. The set is also available in Japan on Region 2 (as six discs) and Australia on Region 4 (as five discs).
VHS releases (UK)
| Title | Episodes | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - Complete Series Box Set |
1-32 Captain Scarlet - The Indestructible |
17 September 2001 |
| Captain Scarlet - The Indestructible | Behind-the-Scenes | 17 September 2001 |
| Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - Volume 1 | 1-4 | 17 September 2001 |
| Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - Volume 2 | 5-8 | 17 September 2001 |
| Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - Volume 3 | 9-12 | 12 November 2001 |
| Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - Volume 4 | 13-16 | 12 November 2001 |
| Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - Volume 5 | 17-20 | 28 January 2002 |
| Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - Volume 6 | 21-24 | 28 January 2002 |
| Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - Volume 7 | 25-28 | 18 March 2002 |
| Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - Volume 8 | 29-32 | 18 March 2002 |
DVD releases
| Title | Episodes | Region 1 Dates | Region 2 Dates | Region 4 Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - Complete Series Box Set |
1–32 Captain Scarlet S.I.G. |
25 June 2002 (United States and Canada) 18 December 2009 (Canada) 26 January 2010 (United States) |
17 September 2001 (United Kingdom) 27 September 2002 (Japan) |
11 November 2009 (Australia and New Zealand) |
| Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - Volume 1 | 1–6 | 17 September 2001 (UK) | ||
| Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - Volume 2 | 7–12 | 17 September 2001 (UK) | ||
| Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - Volume 3 | 13–18 | 12 November 2001 (UK) | ||
| Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - Volume 4 | 19–24 | 12 November 2001 (UK) | ||
| Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - Volume 5 | 25-32 | 12 November 2001 (UK) | ||
| Joe 90 / Captain Scarlet / Stingray Box Set | Selection | 20 October 2003 (UK) |
Video games
| Title | Genre | Platform | Studio | Release Date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Captain Scarlet: In the Shadow of Fear | Action Action game Action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges, including hand–eye coordination and reaction-time. The genre includes diverse subgenres such as fighting games, shooter games, and platform games, which are widely considered the most important action games, though some... |
PC | Europress Europress Europress was a British magazine and software publisher. Their magazine publishing business was previously known as Database Publications.-History:... |
31 May 2002 (UK) | Driving and piloting vehicles Includes Captain Scarlet guide and multimedia content |
| Captain Scarlet: In the Shadow of Fear & Thunderbirds: Operation Volcano |
Action | PC | Europress | 31 May 2002 (UK) | Released both separately and as double pack |
| Captain Scarlet Activity Pack | Action | PC | Digital Workshop | 5 July 2002 (UK) | Includes games and trivia, video and sound clips, screensavers and desktop wallpapers |
| Captain Scarlet: Retaliation | Tactical strategy Strategy video game Strategy video games is a video game genre that emphasizes skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory. They emphasize strategic, tactical, and sometimes logistical challenges. Many games also offer economic challenges and exploration... |
PC | Batfish Studios Digital Workshop |
Cancelled | Originally scheduled for 5 September 2003 (UK) Re-scheduled for 14 November 2003 (UK) Unfinished due to closure of Batfish Studios on 15 October 2003 |
| Captain Scarlet | Driving Vehicular combat game Vehicular combat games are typically video or computer games where the primary focus of play concerns automobiles or other vehicles, normally armed with guns or other weaponry, attempting to destroy vehicles controlled by the CPU or by opposing players... |
Playstation 2 | Blast! Entertainment Brain in a Jar |
5 December 2006 (UK) |
Later productions
Distribution rights to much of the ITC EntertainmentITC Entertainment
The Incorporated Television Company was a British television company largely involved in production and distribution. It was founded by Lew Grade.-History:...
catalogue have been transferred since the 1980s, initially to PolyGram Entertainment
PolyGram
PolyGram was the name of the major label recording company started by Philips from as a holding company for its music interests in 1945. In 1999 it was sold to Seagram and merged into Universal Music Group.-Hollandsche Decca Distributie , 1929-1950:...
, (or "PolyGram Television") then Carlton International
Carlton Communications
Carlton Communications was a British media company. It was led by Michael Green and listed on the London Stock Exchange from 1983 until 2 February 2004, when it taken over by Granada plc to form ITV plc with Carlton gaining 32% of the new company....
in the late 1990s after a partial sale to the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in 1991. In 2004, Carlton International merged into Granada International, the current rights holder, which in 2008 was renamed ITV Global Entertainment, a division of ITV plc
ITV plc
ITV plc is a British media company that operates 12 of the 15 regional television broadcasters that make up the ITV Network, the oldest and largest commercial terrestrial television network in the United Kingdom...
. Theatrical release rights are held by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
(MGM). In addition to other projects, Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
announced plans for a live-action film adaptation of Captain Scarlet in 2000 and again in 2002 during the production of the Thunderbirds film
Thunderbirds (film)
Thunderbirds is a 2004 science-fiction adventure film loosely based upon the television series of the same name of the 1960s, directed by Jonathan Frakes....
released in 2004, but the idea has not been developed since.
Compilation films
In 1980, the New York offices of ITC, under the supervision of Robert MandellRobert Mandell
Robert Mandell is an American animated series and film writer, director and producer. He is a five-time NY Golden Apple Award winner in graphics arts and design....
, combined episodes from the original series to make two compilation films for American audiences, with the aim of reviving transatlantic syndication sales. This became common practice for Anderson productions during the 1980s, with made-for-television films comprising episodes of Stingray
Stingray (TV series)
Stingray is a children's marionette television show, created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and produced by AP Films for ATV and ITC Entertainment from 1964–65. Its 39 half-hour episodes were originally screened on ITV in the UK and in syndication in the USA. The scriptwriters included Gerry and...
and Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
airing to US cable
Cable television in the United States
Cable television in the United States is a common form of television delivery, generally by subscription. Cable television first became available in the United States in 1948, with subscription services in 1949. Data by SNL Kagan shows that as of 2006 about 58.4% of all American homes subscribe to...
audiences under the generic promotional banner of "Super Space Theater". On 24 November 1988, the second Captain Scarlet film, Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars
Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars
Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars is a 1981 television film incorporating re-edited footage from the 1967 British Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. Created by ITC Entertainment's New York offices, the film is a compilation of the original episodes "Shadow of...
, was broadcast as the second episode of the American television series Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999....
, from Minneapolis, on station KTMA.
CGI test film and series
In 1999, Gerry AndersonGerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
supervised the production of a short computer-animated test film, Captain Scarlet and the Return of the Mysterons, to explore the possibility of updating a number of his 1960s Supermarionation
Supermarionation
Supermarionation is a puppetry technique devised in the 1960s by British production company AP Films. It was used extensively in the company's numerous Gerry and Sylvia Anderson-produced action-adventure series, the most famous of which was Thunderbirds...
series for a 21st-century audience. The working title
Working title
A working title, sometimes called a production title, is the temporary name of a product or project used during its development, usually used in filmmaking, television production, novel, video game, or music album.-Purpose:...
was Captain Scarlet—The New Millennium. Produced in London by the Moving Picture Company
Moving Picture Company
The Moving Picture Company is a post production facility creating digital visual effects and computer animation for feature films, commercials, music videos and television...
, the film features Francis Matthews
Francis Matthews (actor)
-Early life:Matthews attended St Michael's Jesuit College, Leeds and started his acting career with Leeds repertory theatre before service in the Royal Navy.-Career:...
and Ed Bishop
Ed Bishop
Ed Bishop was an American film, television, stage and radio actor based in Britain.-Early life:Bishop served in the US Army from 8 October 1952 to 24 September 1954, working as a disc jockey with the Armed Forces Radio at St. Johns in Newfoundland...
reprising the roles of Captains Scarlet
Captain Scarlet (character)
Captain Scarlet is the fictional main character in Gerry Anderson's British Supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet....
and Blue
Captain Blue (Captain Scarlet)
Captain Blue is a character in the 1967 Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. He is a senior officer of the Spectrum organisation and a close friend of Captain Scarlet....
. Made using a combination of Maya 3D computer graphics software and motion-capture technology, the plot commences a few years after the Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
s end their hostilities against Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
, but the reappearance of Captain Black
Captain Black (Captain Scarlet)
Captain Black is the fictional nemesis of Captain Scarlet and recurring Mysteron agent in the 1960s British supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet...
sets the stage for a revival of the war with Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
. Although the film has yet to receive a home video
Home video
Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...
release, it was publicly screened at a Fanderson
Fanderson
Fanderson is the official appreciation society for the works of Gerry Anderson. It is a not-for-profit organisation endorsed by Anderson Entertainment Ltd, Gerry Anderson Productions plc and ITC Entertainment Group Ltd...
convention in 2000 and at a science lecture in 2001.
Plans for a full CGI Captain Scarlet television series to follow the test film finally resulted in Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet. A reboot of the original series, this was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on the Saturday-morning CITV
CITV
CITV is a British television channel from ITV Digital Channels Ltd, a division of ITV plc. It broadcasts content from the CITV archive, as well as commissions and acquisitions. CITV itself is the programming block on the main ITV Network .The CITV channel broadcasts from 06:00 to 18:00...
programme, Ministry of Mayhem, from 12 February 2005. Produced by "Anderson Entertainment" and the "Indestructible Production Company", the animation used to create the series is billed in the credits as "Hypermarionation" to acknowledge the 1960s puppet technique, Supermarionation.
External links
- Gerry Anderson's Title Sequences: includes the pilot episode title sequence
- The Gerry Anderson Complete Comic History: includes the Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons 1960s comic strips