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Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons

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This article is about the 1967 Supermarionation TV series. For the 2005 CGI remake series, see Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet.
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
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North American DVD release

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Genre Supermarionation Sci-Fi Adventure
Running time 30 min.
Creator(s) Gerry Anderson
Starring Francis Matthews
Country of origin UK
Original channel ITV
Original run September 1, 1967–May 14, 1968
No. of episodes 32

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, often referred to as simply Captain Scarlet, is a science fiction television series produced by the Century 21 Productions Television company of Sylvia and Gerry Anderson and Lew Grade and first shown in Britain (originally on ATV Midlands, but later the whole of the UK) between September 1967 and April 1968. It used puppetry (Supermarionation) and scale model special effects.

The series is one of several of popular science-fiction TV adventure series the Andersons produced in the 1960s, beginning with Supercar and followed by Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90, and the little-seen The Secret Service. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons was the first series made after the international success of Thunderbirds in 1964-66.

Contents

[edit] The story

The basic premise, played out over 32 episodes, is that a special international group, Spectrum, defends the Earth from the insidious plans of the alien Mysterons.

On a mission to Mars in 2068, a Mysteron installation is destroyed by Captain Black, leading the Mysterons to declare a "War of Nerves" on Earth. The Mysterons have the ability to replicate and then control any person or object they first kill or destroy, through their power of "retro-metabolism". They use this power to conduct a war of terror against Earth—primarily aimed at the world leaders, major cities, industrial and defence establishments, and, of course, "Spectrum" and its airborne Cloudbase headquarters. The Mysterons are never seen; their presence is indicated by two circles of light tracking across the scene. Their actions on Earth are always through their replicated intermediaries — with the possible exception of Captain Black whose death is never portrayed and who may simply have been "turned" as their first agent whilst still on Mars. Although this distinction is never made in the series, the accompanying book states that Black was killed and revitalised by the Mysterons in much the same way as their other victims throughout the series.

Captain Scarlet becomes Spectrum's principal weapon at the forefront of the battle with the Mysterons after the events of the first episode, "The Mysterons". In that episode, Scarlet (whose real name is Paul Metcalfe) is one of two Spectrum agents (the other being fellow Spectrum agent Captain Brown) killed by the Mysterons and then replaced with a duplicate under their control; for reasons never explained in or out of the series, however, when the duplicate falls 800 feet from a tower the personality of Paul Metcalfe reasserts itself in the duplicate, who is immune thereafter to Mysteron control. Not only that, but Scarlet's new body has two new powers: it allows him to sense the presence of other Mysteron duplicates nearby, and if he should be injured or even killed, retro-metabolism will re-create him as good as before. ("Self-repairing" might be a more accurate way to describe this than the "indestructible" that the series uses, since it is established that Scarlet feels all the pain associated with any injuries he suffers.) This advantage is kept secret outside Spectrum, and even Captain Blue is often heard saying "But Captain, you'll be killed!" Later in the series, the Mysteron duplicates are discovered to be vulnerable to high-voltage electricity, implying that the same could permanently destroy Scarlet.

[edit] Characters

Spectrum personnel have military ranks and colour based code names (hence Captain Scarlet), and they are headed by Colonel White. Other characters include Captains Blue, Ochre, Grey, and Magenta, Lieutenant Green,<ref name="leftenant">"Lieutenant" is usually pronounced "left-tenant" (/lɛf'tɛnənt/) by all but the American characters in the series.</ref> and the five female fighter pilots, who have a different collective codename — the Angels — and are individually Destiny, Symphony, Melody, Rhapsody, and Harmony.

  • Captain Scarlet - Real name Paul Metcalfe
  • Captain Blue - Real name Adam Svenson
  • Colonel White - Real name Charles Grey
  • Lieutenant Green - Real name Seymour Griffiths
  • Doctor Fawn - Real name Edward Wilkie
  • Captain Black - Real name Conrad Turner
  • Captain Ochre - Real name Richard Fraser
  • Captain Magenta - Real name Patrick Donaghue
  • Captain Grey - Real name Bradley Holden
  • Captain Brown - Real name unknown - killed by the Mysterons
  • Captain Indigo - Real name unknown - killed by the Mysterons
  • Destiny Angel - Real name Juliette Pontoin
  • Symphony Angel - Real name Karen Wainwright
  • Melody Angel - Real name Magnolia Jones
  • Rhapsody Angel - Real name Dianne Simms
  • Harmony Angel - Real name Chan Kwan

Note: with the exception of Captain Scarlet and Captain Blue, none of the above real names were actually mentioned on screen. They originate from various licensed spin-off publications. As such, it is debatable whether these names are actually canon, but are generally accepted as such.

[edit] Puppets

Whether the puppets of the various Anderson series were modelled on real people, and who those real people were, is the subject of some question. Gerry and Sylvia Anderson have claimed that they asked the puppet designers to give the puppets rough resemblances to specific celebrities of the day. Some of the puppets, however, appear to be quite clearly modelled instead on the actors who provided their voices; chief puppet artist Mary Turner admitted that Thunderbirds' Lady Penelope was modelled on Sylvia, a revelation the latter claimed came as a surprise.

On Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Captain Blue and Colonel White were said particularly to resemble their voice actors, Ed Bishop and Donald Gray respectively. (Ironically, although many fans believe the resemblance of Captain Blue and Ed Bishop to be particularly strong, based on Ed Bishop's appearance in Anderson's live-action series UFO, the blonde hair that Bishop's UFO character Straker shares with Captain Blue is Bishop's brunette hair bleached blonde in the first episode, and a wig in subsequent episodes of the series.) The Captain Scarlet character has been said at various times to have been modelled on Cary Grant, Roger Moore,<ref name="FABFacts-86">Archer, Simon (1993). Gerry Anderson's FAB Facts. Harper Collins, 86. ISBN 0-00-638247-9.</ref> and on Scarlet's voice actor Francis Matthews; while no definite answer appears to be forthcoming, Matthews says that Gerry Anderson went to great lengths to get him to sign on to the production because of his skilled Cary Grant impression. Anderson, however, claims (in his biography<ref name="GAbio">Gerry Anderson: The Authorised Biography by Simon Archer and Stan Nicholls; ISBN 0-09-978141-7</ref>) that the impression was Matthews' choice at audition, and whilst it wasn't what had been intended for the character they chose to use it. Lieutenant Green was the first black character to appear in such a series and was voiced by black actor Cy Grant.

As in the Andersons' previous puppet series, the characters' mouths were operated electronically, but in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons the solenoid was placed in the puppets' chests rather than their heads. This meant that the puppets no longer needed oversized heads to accommodate the mechanisms and could be built with normal proportions for the first time. (Anderson later admitted in interviews that this was probably a mistake since the puppets lost a lot of their charm.) In order to enhance the sense of realism further, the puppets were never seen walking, as it was impossible to make their legs move realistically. For this reason characters are often seen standing on moving walkways or even sitting at moving desks, and there are of course any number of futuristic land, sea, air, and space vehicles for them to ride in, such as the Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle (SPV), the bright-red Spectrum Patrol Car (also referred to as the Spectrum Saloon), the Spectrum Passenger Jet (SPJ), and the streamlined Angel Interceptor aircraft, armed with missile guns, all of them courtesy of special effects director Derek Meddings, his design assistant Michael Trim, and the miniatures unit.

SPVs were located around the world, hidden in public or commercial buildings. Upon meeting the staff of a building, a Spectrum agent would show his identification and the SPV would either be moved out for use, or the camouflage which had concealed it (a shack, or a goods container) would collapse to reveal it.

[edit] Episode list

  • "The Mysterons" - "The finger is on the trigger..." - Captain Black destroys a Mysteron Complex on Mars, unleashing the terror of Earth's sworn enemies. Can Spectrum save the World President from assassination? And why does the Mysteron duplicate of Captain Scarlet wake up unharmed after an 800-foot fall?
  • "Winged Assassin" - Scarlet's first assignment with his incredible powers of retrometabolism is to protect the Director-General of the United Asian Republic from assassination at the hands of the Mysterons.
  • "Big Ben Strikes Again" - Can Spectrum locate a hi-jacked atomic device and save London from total destruction?
  • "Manhunt" - The hunt is on to apprehend Captain Black after he unwittingly becomes a radioactive hotspot.
  • "Avalanche" - A series of crippling attacks on Frost Line Defence bases sees Captain Scarlet and Lieutenant Green race to stop the Mysteron assailant before a trigger-happy general starts an interplanetary war with Mars.
  • "White As Snow" - Colonel White himself is targeted by the Mysterons.
  • "The Trap" - A summit of top military commanders is actually a Mysteron ruse to eliminate the best minds of Earth's armed forces.
  • "Operation Time" - A crucial Mysteron weakness is revealed when a leading brain surgeon is killed and reconstructed by the Mysterons to murder a top army general.
  • "Spectrum Strikes Back" - Two brilliant devices are created to counter the Mysteron threat - but will the guests at the meeting escape from a deadly trap?
  • "Special Assignment" - Captain Scarlet turns double agent to thwart Mysteron plans to destroy the whole of North America.
  • "The Heart Of New York" - A group of professional bank-robbers try to get the Mysterons to work for them, after the Mysterons target New York City.
  • "Lunarville 7" - Scarlet, Blue and Green investigate strange signals hailing from the far side of the Moon, only to discover that another Mysteron complex is being built under Earth's nose.
  • "Point 783" - The Supreme Commander of Earth Forces is in the sights of a seemingly invincible, renegade super-weapon.
  • "Model Spy" - A French intelligence agent posing as a fashion designer is under the threat of kidnap by his own duplicated models.
  • "Seek And Destroy" - When Spectrum's Angels are threatened by the Mysterons, reconstructed Angel fighters menace Scarlet, Blue, and Destiny.
  • "Traitor" - A succession of hovercraft accidents in the Australian outback means that Scarlet and Blue must expose humanity's traitor before he can strike again.
  • "Renegade Rocket" - A rocket launched with a nuclear warhead vanishes from radar. Will the correct self-destruct code be found before the mystery target is annihilated?
  • "Crater 101" - The sequel episode to "Lunarville 7", Scarlet, Blue and Green return to the Moon's far side to destroy the second Mysteron complex and find out more about their adversaries' technologies. They are able to return the heart of the complex - a crystal pulsator - to Spectrum.
  • "Shadow Of Fear" - A powerful Himalayan observatory receiving precious photographs of Mars is under siege from one of its own reconstructed astronomers.
  • "Dangerous Rendezvous" - For the first time, Earth is able to contact the Mysterons using the strange properties of the crystal pulsator recovered from the Mysterons' ill-fated lunar complex. But can Scarlet defend Cloudbase itself from obliteration?
  • "Fire At Rig 15" - The source of all Spectrum's vehicle fuel is threatened when a demolitions expert contracted to put out an oil rig fire is killed and reconstructed by the Mysterons.
  • "Treble Cross" - A test pilot survives a car crash brought about by the Mysterons and aids Spectrum in its latest attempt to capture Captain Black.
  • "Flight 104" - Scarlet, Blue, one of the world's best space experts and a pair of parasitic journalists find themselves stranded on an airliner under Mysteron control.
  • "Place Of Angels" - A jar of a lethal new chemical is stolen from a maximum-security laboratory. Scarlet must stop the Mysteron agent before Los Angeles' water supply is polluted with the contents.
  • "Noose Of Ice" - An undersea Arctic mine extracting a unique metal to be used in Earth's return to Mars is terrorised when its heating elements are sabotaged and the surrounding water threatens to freeze and crush the tower.
  • "Expo 2068" - Scarlet must disable a stolen nuclear bomb before total devastation is brought to a futuristic building project.
  • "The Launching" - The President of the United States is apparently threatened with assassination.
  • "Codename Europa" - Three of Europe's leading statesmen are targeted by a duplicated electronics entrepreneur.
  • "Inferno" - Spectrum personnel are assigned to protect a South American irrigation plant from attack by an orbiting spacecraft taken over by the Mysterons.
  • "Flight To Atlantica" - Captains Blue and Ochre go on a mindless destructive spree of the world's most important naval complex after drinking drugged champagne.
  • "Attack On Cloudbase" - The Mysterons themselves arrive on Earth to wipe out Cloudbase.
  • "The Inquisition" - Captain Blue is drugged and wakes up three months later on Cloudbase facing stern questioning from a man claiming to be from Spectrum Intelligence.

[edit] Series storyline

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Unlike Gerry Anderson's earlier shows Thunderbirds and Stingray where each episode was a different rescue attempt, Captain Scarlet had a continuous storyline running throughout the episodes concerning Spectrum's attempt to find the weaknesses of and destroy the Mysterons. For instance, in the episode "Operation Time" it was revealed that a key Mysteron weakness was that high voltage electricity could kill them. They could also be detected when X-Rayed as the slide produced would just reveal a normal picture of that individual rather than their skeleton. These weaknesses were further developed in the following episode "Spectrum Strikes Back" in which the Mysteron gun and Mysteron detector were introduced and used throughout the rest of the series. Towards the end of the series, the episode "Treble Cross" revealed that a human being could be mistaken for a Mysteron if they managed to survive their encounter with them. This weakness however, was not developed in future episodes.

A large disappointment to many fans of the show was that the final episode, "The Inquistition", was a "clip show" episode that provided no closure to the series in terms of the fate of either Spectrum or The Mysterons. Moreover, it ended with Spectrum still battling them and The Mysterons remaining in power on Mars with Captain Black still at large on Earth. The episode itself largely consisted of flashbacks to earlier episodes with the main story centering on Captain Blue being held hostage inside a fake Cloudbase developed by Mysteron agents. This was done in an attempt to make him reveal Spectrum's secrets to them. At the end of the episode he escapes and realises he has been held in an abandoned factory, which Captain Scarlet then destroys and tells him they'll return to the real Cloudbase.

[edit] Later productions

The rights to the show belong to ITC Entertainment, Lew Grade's production company which co-produced all the Anderson shows from Thunderbirds onwards. In 1980 ITC combined several episodes of the original show to make two compilation movies, titled Captain Scarlet vs. the Mysterons and Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars. This second movie was later used for the second episode of the KTMA version of Mystery Science Theater 3000, shown on Thanksgiving Day (24 November) 1988 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

[edit] Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet

Main article: Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet

A new version of the series, entitled Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, began broadcast on ITV on 12 February 2005. The series, produced by Anderson and backed by Sony Pictures Television, uses computer-generated imagery (CGI) instead of puppetry, although as a nod to Supermarionation, the show is promoted as being produced in "Hypermarionation".

[edit] Original novels

Several novels based upon the series were published in the late 1960s:

  • Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, John Theydon (pseudonym for John W. Jennison), 1967
  • Captain Scarlet and the Silent Saboteur, Theydon, 1967
  • The Angels and the Creeping Enemy, Theydon, 1968 (not published under the Captain Scarlet series title)

In 1993, Corgi Books published four episode novelizations for young readers based upon the episodes "The Mysterons", "Noose of Ice", "Lunarville 7", and "The Launching".

[edit] Trivia

The mid-1980s musical duo Scarlett & Black took their name from the characters of Captain Scarlet and Captain Black.

The Zero-X mission seen and referred to in the pilot episode ("The Mysterons") involved the same spacecraft seen in the feature film "Thunderbirds Are Go". This is allegedly due to a Japanese model manufacturer paying a sizeable license fee for the Zero-X ship, and expressed great concern that it was only to appear in the one film.[citation needed]

The oft-repeated expression "S.I.G." in the series stands for "Spectrum Is Green"; i.e. affirmative, understood, or an indication of a safe and stable situation depending on context. The corresponding "S.I.R." ("Spectrum Is Red"), meaning the reverse, is rarely heard. These catch phrases are a common Anderson-ism, similar to the Thunderbirds' "F.A.B." or Stingray's "P.W.O.R." ("Proceeding With Orders Received").

As with many puppets in the Andersons' series, four of the Angels are all allegedly based in appearance on contemporary celebrities:

The character of the World President in the very first episode is modelled on its intended voice artist - actor Patrick McGoohan,<ref name="FABFacts-38">Archer, Simon (1993). Gerry Anderson's FAB Facts. Harper Collins, 38. ISBN 0-00-638247-9.</ref> then an ITC/ATV contract player.[citation needed]

[edit] Footnotes

<references/>

[edit] External links


Gerry Anderson
Television
The Adventures of Twizzle | Torchy the Battery Boy | Four Feather Falls | Supercar | Fireball XL5 | Stingray | Thunderbirds | Captain Scarlet | Joe 90 | The Secret Service | UFO | The Protectors | Space: 1999 | Terrahawks | Dick Spanner, P.I. | Space Precinct | Lavender Castle | New Captain Scarlet
Feature Films
Crossroads to Crime | Thunderbirds Are GO | Thunderbird 6 | Doppelgänger
Companies/Techniques
AP Films | Century 21 Productions | Supermarionation
Notable Collaborators
Sylvia Anderson | David Lane | Barry Gray | Reg Hill | Derek Meddings | John Read | Shane Rimmer
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