Attack on Cloudbase

"Attack on Cloudbase"
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons episode
Mysteron spacecraft fire on Cloudbase.
Episode no.	Episode 31
Directed by	Ken Turner
Written by	Tony Barwick
Cinematography by	Ted Catford
Editing by	Bob Dearberg
Production code	30
Original air date	7 May 1968 (1968-05-07)
Episode chronology
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List of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons episodes

"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. In this episode, Symphony Angel ejects from her damaged interceptor into the Sahara Desert before Mysteron spacecraft arrive on Earth to launch a crippling assault on Cloudbase. While Tony Barwick contributed the script, executive producer Gerry Anderson selected Ken Turner as director on account of the episode's "bizarre" atmosphere.

Filmed in October 1967, "Attack on Cloudbase" underwent script alterations prior to shooting. Challenges facing the Century 21 production team's special effects department included a complex shot in which a scale Angel aircraft model flies over the full-size Symphony Angel puppet, and the extended sequence depicting the attack on Cloudbase itself. The department produced only a limited number of saucer-shaped spacecraft models, and decided to increase the apparent size of the Mysteron attacking force at low cost with the insertion of flashing light bulbs into the backdrop of the set.

Composer Barry Gray produced a unique score at the behest of Anderson, who considered none of the music used in earlier episodes to befit the tenor of "Attack on Cloudbase". Voice actress Liz Morgan recalls the emotion apparent in the script. Anderson praises Barwick for his "humanised" writing of some of the regular characters, and deems that the nature of the plot is essentially dark humour. In 1980, the New York branch of distributor ITC Entertainment re-edited "Attack on Cloudbase" to form a segment of Captain Scarlet vs the Mysterons, a Captain Scarlet compilation film.

Plot

While on aerial patrol, Symphony Angel is forced to eject into the Sahara Desert following a sudden explosion to the rear of her interceptor, and falls unconscious in the heat. When the Mysterons warn of its ultimate destruction, Spectrum's airborne headquarters, Cloudbase, is placed on red alert and sealed from all outside contact. Destiny Angel is launched to search for Symphony, but in light of the threat is recalled on the orders of Spectrum's commander-in-chief, Colonel White. This decision sparks a bitter argument between White and Captain Blue, who is attracted to the Angel. However, White refuses to permit Blue to join the ground forces that are being mobilised to locate Symphony.

When night falls, Captain Magenta detects a large trace in the Cloudbase Radar Room. Rhapsody Angel is launched to investigate and is shocked to find that the signal is emanating from a spinning Mysteron spacecraft, which blasts her fighter to pieces in mid-air. To prevent civilian deaths on the ground, Cloudbase moves into Himalayan airspace on its horizontal thrusters, while personnel prepare for the inevitable final confrontation. When Magenta announces that more hostile forces are appearing on the radar, Captain Scarlet volunteers to replace Destiny Angel to challenge the Mysterons, but crash-lands on the Cloudbase flight deck to critical injuries after his interceptor is damaged.

As the Mysterons fire on the base itself, Dr Fawn is killed. Posing as his assistant, Mysteron agent Captain Black reports that Scarlet's retro-metabolic powers cannot heal such serious trauma and that the officer is dead with no hope of recovery. The Mysteron attack continues, resulting in the deaths of Magenta and the other Angels, until only White, Blue and Lieutenant Green remain alive in the Control Room. As the stricken Cloudbase loses altitude, Green is killed in another explosion and Blue is left crippled and unable to save himself. White resolves to go down with his command, and is seen to salute in a spiralling freeze frame shot as Cloudbase is heard crashing to Earth.

Immediately after, Symphony regains consciousness in the desert facing Scarlet and Blue, who have commanded the ground forces sent for her rescue. In the final scene, it is made clear that Symphony dreamt the destruction of Cloudbase in a terrible nightmare brought on in the sweltering heat of the desert sun.

Production

One of the last episodes of Captain Scarlet to be produced, filming for "Attack on Cloudbase" commenced towards the end of October 1967. In Tony Barwick's original script for this episode, the role of Captain Magenta is filled with the introduction of a new Spectrum character, Captain Sienna. However, the lines passed to the Magenta character after the production team determined that a new Spectrum puppet uniform would be too expensive to manufacture. The director position fell to Ken Turner, since executive producer Gerry Anderson believed that his manner of direction best suited the "more bizarre" tone to this episode. Unique among Captain Scarlet episodes, "Attack on Cloudbase" includes no guest characters, and it is one of only two episodes (the other being "Flight to Atlantica") in which all the regular Spectrum personnel appear (although not all of them have speaking parts).

The stranding of Symphony Angel in a desert and the final Mysteron assault on Cloudbase posed a number of challenges to the special effects department, under the supervision of Derek Meddings. A shot depicting the jet of Destiny Angel shooting past the grounded Symphony required close collaboration between puppeteers (to control the wired Symphony marionette) and effects staff (to stage the scale model fighter travelling overhead in the same shot). Designers modelled the Mysteron spacecraft on the traditional "saucer-shaped" appearance of UFOs as reported during the 1960s. To aid the impression that the objects are spinning in mid-air, Meddings added veins to each model to catch and reflect light directed onto the set. Although models appear in the foreground of the high-altitude attack sequence, due to a shortage of model operators, small light bulbs flash in the background to give the impression of a larger number of spinning vehicles.

Just before Cloudbase crashes to Earth off-screen, Colonel White is seen in a still shot giving a solemn salute from behind his Control Room desk. Anderson, who attributes this creative decision to maritime tradition, remembers suggesting, "Let's make sure [Colonel White] goes down like the captain of a big ship." Liz Morgan, who provided the voices of Destiny and Rhapsody Angels, recalls how the emotion of the script manifested itself at the recording session: "It was a moment when Destiny was very worried about Captain Scarlet and she was making impassioned pleas for him. Well, I started to cry, and immediately a voice came down from the recording booth and [producer] Reg Hill, who was directing that particular week, said, 'No, Liz, love. Do it again, love. Puppets don't cry!'"

Unlike most of the later Captain Scarlet episodes, incidental music for "Attack on Cloudbase" uses a special score as opposed to being recycled from a track library. Composer Barry Gray created new tracks for "Attack on Cloudbase" after Anderson decided that that none of the used incidental music suited the atmosphere of the episode. Gray recorded the music on 3 December 1967, four months after his last contribution to the series, with an orchestra of 14 musicians. The new pieces are titled "Desert Symphony" and "The Mysterons Attack!" Music for the earlier episode "Expo 2068" originates from the same studio session.

Reception

In a DVD audio commentary for "Attack on Cloudbase", Gerry Anderson recalls that the episode originally set out to be comic, but suggests that the finished product can instead be categorised under black humour. Although he concedes that the use of the dream and reset button techniques in fiction can appear clichéd and uninspired, in the case of "Attack on Cloudbase" he defends them as ideal means both to shock viewers with the apparent deaths of main characters and then to reassure them that the narrative events are, in the end, "all a dream". Anderson goes on to praise Tony Barwick's script, stating that the decisions to depict the characters of Captain Blue and Symphony Angel in a romantic relationship, and Blue in moral conflict with Colonel White, are strong examples of Barwick's "humanisation of these puppets". The comic role of the character of Captain Magenta is, similarly, another "wonderful example of 'Barwickism'".

In their Captain Scarlet tie-in guide, Chris Drake and Graeme Bassett describe "Attack on Cloudbase" as "tense and exciting", and assert that it is "guaranteed to keep the viewer guessing". Passing the episode with a "U" certificate, the British Board of Film Classification states that "Attack on Cloudbase" contains "very mild, fantasy" violence. Anderson argues that the dramatic content of the episode is balanced with Barwick's scripting of the end scene, which followed the reasoning that there needed to be "a sequence where everyone was happy together, and clearly no one had come to any grief" to form the "inevitable happy ending" to the plot.

Later appearances

Footage from "Attack on Cloudbase" has been re-edited to form a segment of Captain Scarlet vs the Mysterons, a Captain Scarlet compilation film released in 1980. An additional sequence created at the New York offices of original distributor ITC Entertainment presents a computer-animated Mysteron pyramid with a voice-over implying that the attack on Cloudbase is in fact real and not a dream. Time is then reversed to leave the base intact. The alterations made to the original footage have attracted a negative response from fans.

References

Bibliography

• Bentley, Chris (2001). The Complete Book of Captain Scarlet. London: Carlton Books. ISBN 1-84222-405-0. 

External links

• "Attack on Cloudbase" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Attack on Cloudbase" at TV.com
• "Attack on Cloudbase" at TheVervoid.com