Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons

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Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons title screenshot
Also known as	Captain Scarlet (United States, DVD title)[1] Gerry Anderson's Captain Scarlet (Australia)[1]
Genre	Action Adventure Science fiction Thriller
Format	Supermarionation serial
Created by	Gerry Anderson
Developed by	Gerry Anderson Sylvia Anderson
Written by	Tony Barwick and others
Directed by	Brian Burgess Leo Eaton David Lane Robert Lynn Alan Perry Desmond Saunders Ken Turner
Voices of	Sylvia Anderson Ed Bishop Gary Files Cy Grant Donald Gray David Healy Janna Hill Martin King Lian-Shin Francis Matthews Paul Maxwell Neil McCallum Liz Morgan Shane Rimmer Charles Tingwell Jeremy Wilkin
Narrated by	Ed Bishop Donald Gray
Opening theme	Crew credits: "Main/Opening Titles"[2] Puppet credits: "The Mysterons"
Ending theme	Episodes 1-14: "Captain Scarlet"[3] (instrumental) Episodes 15-32: "Captain Scarlet" (sung by "The Spectrum")
Composer(s)	Barry Gray
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Language(s)	English
No. of series	1
No. of episodes	32 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Gerry Anderson
Producer(s)	Reg Hill
Camera setup	Single
Running time	25 mins approx. per episode (excluding advertisements)
Production company(s)	Century 21 Television
Distributor	ITC Entertainment
Broadcast
Original channel	ATV
Picture format	Film (35 mm)[4]
Audio format	Mono[1][5]
Original run	September 29, 1967 (1967-09-29)[6] – May 14, 1968 (1968-05-14)[7]
Chronology
Related shows	Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet (2005 reboot)

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, often referred to simply as Captain Scarlet,^[1] is a British science-fiction television series produced by the Century 21 Productions company of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, John Read and Reg Hill. It was first broadcast in the United Kingdom (originally on ATV Midlands, but later the whole of the UK) between September 1967^[6] and May 1968.^[7] It was filmed using a form of marionette puppetry known as Supermarionation and scale model special effects.

Set in the year 2068,^{[notes 1][eps 1]} the series charts the hostilities between Earth and a race of Martian extraterrestrials known as the Mysterons. After human explorers destroy their city on Mars over a misunderstanding, the Mysterons declare war on Earth and begin a series of revenge attacks,^{[eps 1]} which are countered by a worldwide security organisation, Spectrum. Spectrum boasts the extraordinary abilities of its top agent, Captain Scarlet, who comes to possess the Mysteron power of "retro-metabolism" (the ability to return to life after suffering fatal injury) which makes Scarlet "indestructible".^{[eps 2]}

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons is one of several science-fiction adventure series that the Andersons produced in the 1960s, preceded by Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds and followed by Joe 90 and the little-seen The Secret Service. Later productions include the live-action sci-fi series UFO and Space: 1999. Re-run a number of times on British television^[8][9][10] and broadcast extensively overseas,^[8] the series has been the foundation of numerous merchandising campaigns since its first appearance and has spawned associated media from audio adventures to novels. Elements from Captain Scarlet have entered popular culture, with the series appearing on Channel 4's 2003 list programme 100 Greatest Scary Moments at number 82^[11] for its portrayal of the Mysterons.

A computer-animated reboot series, Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, began UK transmission in 2005. Two years later, a poll conducted in Radio Times ranked the original series the 33rd greatest sci-fi television programme of all time.^[12]

[edit] Series synopsis

The Mysteron complex on Mars encountered in the series' first episode.

In the first episode of the series, a team of astronauts from the spacecraft Zero-X^{[notes 2]} are investigating the surface of Mars in the year 2068^{[notes 1][eps 1]} after unidentified radio signals originating from the planet are detected on Earth.^{[eps 1]} The source is discovered to be an alien city, which the humans attack and destroy when they mistake a harmless sensor device for a weapon.^{[eps 1]} The inhabitants, the Mysterons, use their extraordinary power of "reversing matter"^{[eps 1]} (referred to as "retro-metabolism" from the second episode onwards)^{[eps 2]} to reconstruct their city. Although they are generally peaceful beings, the Mysterons immediately declare that they will seek revenge on the human race for their unwarranted aggression.^{[eps 1]} They then take control of the mission leader, Captain Black, who is reported missing when the Zero-X returns to Earth.^{[eps 1]}

Through retro-metabolism, the Mysterons are able to replicate and then control any person or object once it has been killed or destroyed. They use this ability to conduct a "war of nerves" against Earth, which entails issuing threats against specific targets (from world leaders and military installations to whole cities and continents) and then destroying and reconstructing whatever instruments are required (whether human or machine) so that their plans may be carried out. The Mysterons are never seen; their presence is indicated by two circles of green light (the "Mysteron rings") which trail over scenes of destruction prior to the reconstruction of a destroyed person or object. Although the Mysterons are sometimes shown to manipulate objects and events remotely, their actions on Earth are usually performed by their replicated intermediaries, led by Black, who becomes the primary Mysteron agent. It is not made clear in the series whether Black has been killed and resurrected by normal retro-metabolism or simply "turned into" a Mysteron agent by mental control, but secondary sources support the first of these theories.^[13]

Prior to his death, Black was a senior officer in Spectrum, a recently-established,^{[notes 3][eps 3]} worldwide security organisation which quickly mobilises all its personnel, vehicles and other resources against the Mysterons. With central command maintained from Cloudbase, its airborne headquarters hovering at a constant height of 40,000 feet above sea level,^{[eps 4]} Spectrum has outposts in all of the world's major cities and employs thousands of operatives,^{[notes 4]} the most senior of which are stationed on Cloudbase and answer to the organisation's commander-in-chief, Colonel White.^{[notes 5]} While Cloudbase is defended by a squadron of interceptor aircraft codenamed "the Angels", the organisation also boasts a fleet of Spectrum Pursuit Vehicles ("SPVs")^{[notes 6]} hidden in secret locations all over the world.

Captain Scarlet becomes Spectrum's principal weapon in its battle against the Mysterons after the events of the first episode, in which the Mysterons threaten to assassinate the World President^{[notes 7]} as their first act of retaliation.^{[eps 1]} The original Scarlet (whose real name is Paul Metcalfe) is killed in a vehicle crash engineered by the Mysterons^{[notes 8]} and replaced with a reconstruction under their control.^{[eps 1]} However, for reasons that are never thoroughly explained in the series itself, when the duplicate is also destroyed after a fall from a tower, it returns to life with Metcalfe's consciousness restored and is thereafter free from the Mysteron influence.^{[notes 9][eps 1]} Not only that, but Scarlet's new body has two remarkable abilities: he is able to sense the presence of other Mysteron duplicates nearby (he becomes highly nauseous),^{[notes 10]} and if he is injured or even killed, retro-metabolism will restore him to a state of perfect health. This allows Scarlet to deploy suicidally reckless tactics in order to foil Mysteron threats, confident that while he will still experience the pain of injury or death, he will make a full recovery. This phenomenon is kept secret outside Spectrum, and in early episodes even Scarlet's colleague, Captain Blue, can be heard to protest with such lines as "But Captain, you'll be killed!"^{[eps 5]} when Scarlet places himself in danger.

[edit] Mysteron weaknesses

In the episode "Operation Time", Spectrum discovers that the Mysterons are especially vulnerable to high-voltage electricity.^{[eps 6]} It is also discovered that Mysteron agents can be detected via X-rays, since the slide produced reveals an ordinary black-and-white image rather than a skeleton.^{[eps 6]} These weaknesses are developed in the following episode, "Spectrum Strikes Back", in which two anti-Mysteron devices, the "Mysteron Gun"^{[notes 11]} and the "Mysteron Detector", are introduced^{[eps 7]} and seen to be in use in a number of later episodes.

[edit] Moon story arc

In "Lunarville 7", it is discovered that a Mysteron complex is being built on the far side of the Moon, to precede a lunar conquest and eventually one of Earth itself.^{[eps 8]} It is later destroyed by an atomic device in "Crater 101" after Scarlet, Blue and Spectrum Lieutenant Green remove the city's power source, a pulsating crystal, to prevent the Mysterons from reconstructing their complex.^{[eps 9]} The pulsator is later found to be a possible means of communication with the Mysterons in the concluding part of this story arc, "Dangerous Rendezvous", but Colonel White is unable to convince them to agree to a ceasefire in a diplomatic transmission.^{[eps 4]} The Mysterons instead turn their pulsator into an explosive device, which threatens to destroy Cloudbase itself until it is jettisoned and allowed to detonate in the open air.^{[eps 4]}

[edit] Anti-Mysteron efforts

Attempts are made to obtain detailed satellite images of Mars as part of an "Operation Sword" in "Shadow of Fear", but the observatory scheduled to receive the transmissions is destroyed by a Mysteron agent.^{[eps 10]} At the same time, Spectrum is planning a return to Mars: following abortive military conferences in "The Trap"^{[eps 5]} and "Flight 104",^{[eps 11]} development of a new space fleet is underway by the episode "Noose of Ice", but the Mysterons sabotage the Arctic mine where a metal vital to the construction is being excavated, bringing the project to a halt.^{[eps 12]}

Towards the end of the series, the episode "Treble Cross" reveals that a human can be mistaken for a Mysteron if they manage to survive their encounter with them.^{[eps 13]} This discovery, however, is not developed in later episodes. In the same episode, Spectrum comes close to apprehending Captain Black after failing to capture the Mysteron agent in "Manhunt".^{[eps 14]}

[edit] Series conclusion

The penultimate episode of the series, "Attack on Cloudbase", features an all-out Mysteron assault on Cloudbase itself.^{[eps 15]} This story leaves many characters dead, including Scarlet, but the episode eventually proves to be a nightmare dreamt by a delirious Symphony Angel.^{[eps 15]} Meanwhile, the final episode, "The Inquisition", is a clip show that provides no closure to the series in terms of the fate of either Spectrum or the Mysterons. Instead, it largely consists of flashbacks to earlier episodes while the main plot focuses on Captain Blue being held hostage inside a replica of Cloudbase built by Mysteron agents, who interrogate him for top-secret information on Spectrum.^{[eps 16]} At the end of the episode Blue escapes and finds that he has in fact been held inside an abandoned warehouse. ^{[eps 16]} This is destroyed by Captain Scarlet, who ends the series with the line, "Come on, Adam, you can tell me all about it ... back on the real Cloudbase."^{[eps 16]}

[edit] Production

[edit] Conception and development

When talks to find an American broadcaster for Thunderbirds fell through in the July 1966, production for the show's second season ended with the completion of just six episodes at the behest of ITC financier Lew Grade.^[15] Having overseen Gerry Anderson's work since the creation of Supercar in 1960 before going on to buy his production company, AP Films, during the making of Fireball XL5, Grade was eager for Anderson's programmes to be shown abroad and decided that a new concept would do more to attract potential bidders than a second season of Thunderbirds.^[15]

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 is unexpectedly murdered halfway through the series and replaced by a new lead character.^[16] Now giving fresh consideration to this idea, Anderson resolved that a selling point for his new series could be a character who 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,^[17] 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 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.^[17][18]

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, and thus worked from a basis of "life as we don't know it".^[17] He therefore made the Mysterons that were to feature in the series a race of sentient computers as opposed to organic lifeforms.^[19] Although this is not explicitly stated in the television episodes, the original 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.^[19]

Some design aspects were inspired by contemporary recollections of the Second World War. For example, Anderson recalled that RAF pilots had found it difficult to counter German attacks during the Battle of Britain, because 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, "Cloudbase".^[20] The Mysteron rings were inspired by an advertisement for the Oxo range of food products, which included an image of the brand name sliding over a frying pan and the outline of a woman's body.^[18][20]

[edit] Writing

On this foundation, and with a provisional series title of The Mysterons,^[21] Anderson and his wife, Sylvia, wrote a pilot script in August 1966.^[22] This differed significantly from the final draft of the first episode. Initially, it was decided that the Mysteron duplicate of Captain Scarlet would be resurrected (along with the original Paul Metcalfe's consciousness and personality) by a highly-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.^{[notes 9][21]} Another early ambition was for each episode to feature a guest star voiced by well-known actor of the day; thus, the role of the World President, who appears in the first episode, was at first intended to be voiced by the American-born actor Patrick McGoohan.^[23][24]

With Anderson serving in the role of executive producer for the rest of the series, the majority of the writing input for Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons was provided by Tony Barwick, who had previously written for the short-lived second series of Thunderbirds.^[25] Originally given the role of script editor, Barwick went on to pen 18 of the 32 episodes himself, including the first three adventures to follow on from the series opener. He was also often required to make substantial changes to other writers' work.^[25] 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 recurring villain The Hood.^[25]

[edit] Direction

Most of the directors for previous 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 and the Mysterons was being made. Although Desmond Saunders was available to direct the first episode and Lane the second, while the veteran AP Films director Brian Burgess also contributed to the series, the Andersons had to transfer some of the more junior production personnel to replace the outgoing staff. To this end, Alan Perry and Ken Turner were promoted from the camera operator and art departments.^[26] Directors were also drafted in from outside AP Films; these 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.^[26]

[edit] Filming

After a two-month period of pre-production between November and December 1966, which involved the collaboration of the puppet workshop and art and visual effects departments, filming for the series' first episode, "The Mysterons", began on 2 January 1967,^[27] with a budget of £1,500,000^[20][28] for the whole series. A month before, Anderson and his team had dropped the name "AP Films" and renamed their company "Century 21 Productions".^[27]

The Slough Trading Estate^{[locations 1]} in east Berkshire had served as Anderson's production base since the making of Stingray three years earlier.^[29] To speed up production on previous Supermarionation series, two episodes at a time had been filmed simultaneously on separate sound stages, a practice which continued for Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. Some of the filming for Captain Scarlet coincided with the production of Thunderbird 6,^[25] 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 estate, while the crew collaborated with the Standard Telecommunication Laboratories in Harlow, Essex^{[locations 2]} for the technical and electronic side of the series' production.^[30]

A third production unit, headed by Derek Meddings and design assistant Mike Trim, handled special effects and miniatures and was tasked with creating all the permanent sets and models to be used from the first episode onwards, such as the various Cloudbase interiors and scaled-down Spectrum Pursuit Vehicles. 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.^[31] The six-foot long miniature of the Cloudbase exterior, used for establishing shots of the base that were recycled in later episodes, was too heavy to be held up with strings and was instead supported by a metal pole.^[32] To transfer the Mysteron rings from script to screen, the production team took 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.^[18]

By the time the series started broadcasting on ATV in September 1967, principal photography had been completed for the first 20 episodes.^[33] In general, turnaround for completing all the puppet shots for each episode was two weeks.^[28][34][35] It was originally predicted that all shooting could be wrapped within eight months,^[28] but filming overran up until late October because of the demands of the Thunderbird 6 shoot.^[28] While production on Anderson's next Supermarionation series, Joe 90, began in November,^[36] the 32 episodes of Captain Scarlet had not been edited ready for transmission until the start of 1968.^[33]

[edit] Music

Music for Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons was composed by Barry Gray, an experimenter in electronic music, who had scored all the Supermarionation series preceding it.

The opening title sequence theme was rendered electronically and accompanied by a staccato drum beat to introduce the lead character of Captain Scarlet.^[37] This same beat was also used to link scenes within episodes,^[37] with an image of the Spectrum logo overlaid. The closing credits music, meanwhile, underwent significant change after the first 14 episodes had been completed. The early ending theme had been mostly instrumental, with vocoded interruptions provided by Gray himself;^[37] this was eventually revised as a song performed by a London-based pop group The Spectrum, an imitation of the American band The Monkees,^[37] who happened to share their name with the security organisation which featured in Captain Scarlet.^[37]

In addition to the main theme, Gray scored incidental music for 18 episodes of Captain Scarlet between March and December 1967.^[33][38] For this work, Gray generally restricted his use of electronic synthesisers to tracks that would accompany scenes set in space, preferring traditional instruments for Earth-bound action.^[37] Musical accompaniment for the other 14 episodes was achieved by re-using these completed tracks as well as music from previous Anderson productions such as Thunderbirds.^[33]

[edit] Puppets

[edit] Development

Supermarionation, the technique by which the movement of marionette puppet mouths is electronically synchronised with the words of pre-recorded dialogue, had first been demonstrated six years previously for Four Feather Falls. Up until Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, the proportions used for the puppet bodies had been artificial — the head especially was large in comparison with the rest of the body due to the fact that it contained the solenoid that was the key component of each puppet's lip-synch mechanism. Since the solenoid was so large, it could not be placed anywhere else to allow for proper proportions, as the whole puppet would have had to be scaled up in size to the extent that it became difficult to operate.^[39] Since the production of the second season of Thunderbirds, the AP Films puppet workshop had been experimenting with a new type of puppet in which the solenoid was relocated to the chest area.^{[28][31][39][40]} The result was that the puppets no longer needed oversized heads and could be built using normal proportions for the first time, which made the design more realistic and less caricatured than it had been on previous series.^[28][31][40]

After test-sculpting in Plasticine, the final head for each puppet was moulded on a silicone rubber base and made of fibreglass. At heights ranging from 20 to 24 inches^[41] (approximately one-third scale), the next-generation puppets were the same height as those that had been used up until Thunderbirds. Whereas puppet eyes in earlier series had been of a size disproportionate to the heads, in accordance with the new realistic look introduced in Captain Scarlet, photographs were taken of the eyes of various crewmembers and scaled down to be attached to the puppets' eyeballs.^[20][31] In keeping with previous series, a range of alternative heads were made for the puppets of the main characters: these included heads with smiling or frowning expressions and the ability to blink eyelids.^[41] For the first episode, a separate head was sculpted for the Captain Scarlet puppet, exclusively for a brief close-up reaction shot of him being hit by a bullet fired by Captain Blue. Wardrobe was supervised by Sylvia Anderson, who was influenced by the work of French fashion designer Pierre Cardin, in particular his 1966 "Cosmonaut" collection,^[42] when it came to designing the Spectrum uniforms. In a chapter of The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader, Mark Bould praises the "commitment to fashion"^[43] evident throughout the Anderson programmes, singling out the design of Spectrum Angel uniforms.^[43]

[edit] Revamp puppets

Unlike earlier shows, in which supporting character puppets had been specially sculpted in clay for episodes as and when required, the guest parts in Captain Scarlet were filled by a permanent "repertory company" of over 50 puppets^[41] made to the same standards of workmanship as the main characters.^[39] Referred to as "revamp puppets" or simply "revamps",^[39][41] these appeared on an episode-by-episode basis, generally altered for each role in aspects such as hairstyle and hair colour.^[31] Along with the main character puppets, the revamps from Captain Scarlet would reappear in Anderson's final two Supermarionation series, Joe 90 and The Secret Service.^[39]

[edit] Likenesses

Whether the puppets of the various Anderson series were modelled on real-life people, and who those people were, is the subject of some debate. The Andersons have claimed that they asked the designers to give the puppets rough resemblances to specific celebrities of the day. Some of the puppets, however, appeared to be modelled instead on the actors who provided their voices. For example, the leading puppet designer on Thunderbirds, Mary Turner, admitted that the character of Lady Penelope was modelled on Sylvia Anderson.^[44]

In the case of Captain Scarlet, the look of the Scarlet character has, over the years, been attributed to a young Cary Grant,^[45] Roger Moore^[45][46] and Francis Matthews,^[45] the actor who voiced Scarlet in the series. Ed Bishop later claimed that Captain Blue had been modelled on his likeness,^[23] but Terry Curtis, the sculptor, states that he based the character on himself and simply added a blond wig when he learnt that Bishop was to voice Blue.^[23] Curtis, a James Bond fan,^[47] based the appearance of Captain Grey on Sean Connery^[47][48] and Destiny Angel on Ursula Andress,^[23] Connery's co-star in the 1962 Bond film Dr. No. The character of Lieutenant Green, meanwhile, was sculpted on its voice actor, Cy Grant,^[23] Rhapsody Angel on model and actress Jean Shrimpton,^[49] Melody Angel on singer and actress Eartha Kitt,^[50] and Harmony Angel on actress Tsai Chin, who was most notable for her appearances in the Fu Manchu films.^[51] An early intention was for each episode to feature a "guest star" puppet that would be sculpted after a well-known celebrity who, it was hoped, would also voice the character.^[31] Thus, celebrities would effectively star as themselves in the form of puppets.^[31] The face of the World President puppet, seen in the first episode and also in "Spectrum Strikes Back", was based on Patrick McGoohan, the actor originally intended to voice the character.^[23]

[edit] Response

In a 2002 interview, Anderson revealed that he had always been wanting to move into live-action television at about the time that Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons was being made, and that he endorsed the new, realistic design of the Supermarionation puppets so that they would resemble real human beings as much as possible.^[52] The realistic look of the new puppets has been the subject of both praise by analysts such as Vincent Terrace^[53] and criticism by others. Some members of the production crew perceived a lack of charm in comparison to the earlier puppets, due to the realistic proportions that were now being used: director David Lane's initial thoughts on a prototype 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."^[16] Head of puppets John Brown remembers how one of the new puppets was once placed beside the Lady Penelope puppet from Thunderbirds and how "some people were horrified at the difference",^[20] while sculptor John Blundall has branded the new puppet design "ridiculous".^[20] Over the years critics have picked up on the sacrifice of facial expression in favour of a realistic design,^[54] as 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 White, he had a lot of trouble doing different expressions as the face was just so realistic. I had a similar problem with Captain Blue. I remember I did a Blue "smiler" head and people could hardly tell the difference between that and the normal one.^[47]

An ironic setback was that the increased realism of the puppets actually meant that their mobility was significantly reduced,^[31] which resulted in awkward and unconvincing movements.^{[notes 12]} As puppeteer Jan King notes, getting the puppets to move was a challenge:

The Captain Scarlet puppets were not built to walk. They were too heavy and not weighted properly anyway ... It is virtually impossible to get a string puppet to walk convincingly on film unless it is a very caricatured puppet. In Captain Scarlet, if a puppet had to move off-screen, it was done in a head-and-shoulders shot — the floor puppeteer would hold the legs of the puppet and then move the puppet physically out of shot at the right time, trying to make the body and shoulders move as if the puppet were walking. In Captain Scarlet ... you never once saw the legs actually moving.^[47]

Such "under control"^[31] puppets as those described by King often did not require wires to be attached to the head from above. One advantage of this was that puppets could be moved through a doorway without necessitating a break in the shot.^[31] For scenes of characters such as the Angels sitting in aircraft cockpits, "under control" versions of the puppets comprising just a head and torso were manipulated by levers and wires located beneath the model.^[31] This variation on the usual Supermarionation technique would be referred to as "Supermacromation" when Anderson returned to puppetry in his 1980s TV series Terrahawks and used this method exclusively.

[edit] Characters and casting

The multinational Spectrum personnel have military ranks and colour-based codenames (hence "Captain Scarlet"), and are led by Colonel White. The 13 Spectrum personnel who regularly appear in the series are stationed on Cloudbase.

Over the course of the series, two other Spectrum officers are killed and reconstructed by the Mysterons in addition to Scarlet, but their duplicates do not possess the power of retro-metabolism: Captain Brown in "The Mysterons"^{[eps 1]} and Captain Indigo in the episode "Spectrum Strikes Back".^{[eps 7]}

[edit] Spectrum personnel

[edit] Villains

[edit] Casting

Voicing of the 15 regular parts was performed by a group of 12 actors. Francis Matthews, who had previously turned down offers for voice-acting on Thunderbirds,^[57] claims that Gerry Anderson went to great lengths to get him to sign on to Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons because of the skilled Cary Grant impression that he had once used for a radio programme.^[57][58] Anderson, however, claims in his biography^[59] that the impression was Matthews' choice at audition, and while it was not what had been intended for Scarlet they chose to use it.^[28] Cy Grant was known to the Andersons for singing topical calypsos on the current affairs programme Tonight.^[60] This led to the casting of Ed Bishop as Blue,^[61] as Bishop recalled in an interview recorded in 1995: "... 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 ... [Gerry] said, 'Okay, send [Bishop] out.' So I went out and auditioned and got the job."^[62]

Donald Gray had found himself typecast after appearing in the lead role of the TV series Saber of London^[63] and was having to resort to voice work to support his acting career. Meanwhile, Charles Tingwell was recommended to the programme makers by Ray Barrett,^[64] a fellow Australian actor who had worked on the earlier Supermarionation series Stingray. However, Tingwell could only provide voices for the first 12 produced episodes of Captain Scarlet due to theatre commitments.^{[notes 17][64]} He had very recently been Matthews' co-star in the Hammer film Dracula: Prince of Darkness, released in 1966, and was also one of a few Captain Scarlet actors who had participated in Supermarionation productions before, providing voices for the second season of Thunderbirds and the series' first feature film, Thunderbirds Are Go. Jeremy Wilkin had served in the role of Virgil Tracy during this period and Paul Maxwell had voiced the character of Steve Zodiac three years earlier in Fireball XL5. Like Tingwell, Maxwell left the series after the completion of the first 12 episodes.^{[notes 17][64]}

The minor voice parts of Captain Scarlet were filled by a number of actors: Wilkin, Maxwell and Tingwell regularly doubled up for guest roles, along with Gary Files and the main female voice artist, Liz Morgan. Others were David Healy, Martin King and Sylvia Anderson herself, the voice of Lady Penelope from Thunderbirds, who had the regular speaking role of Melody Angel. Shane Rimmer, notable for voicing Scott Tracy in Thunderbirds, made several uncredited contributions while also writing for the series. Canadian actor Neil McCallum, who had voiced 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 began airing in 1970.

[edit] Voice recording

Character dialogue was recorded on a fortnightly basis,^[33] with up to four episodes' worth of lines being completed in each session,^[65] at the Anvil Films Recording Studio^{[locations 3]} in Denham, Buckinghamshire.^[65] Each actor, regardless of the size of their contribution, was paid £15 15 shillings per episode^[66] with repeat fees.

The cast were not given the opportunity to tour the Century 21 studios in Slough until all their work was complete^[57] 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."^[67]

[edit] Titles and credits

Gerry Anderson intended the titles for Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons to be darker and subtler than those which had introduced his earlier puppet shows, commenting in one interview: "The titles on the series were always devised by me. When it came to Scarlet I was frightened people would say, 'Oh, it's the same old "crash, bang, wallop" stuff again.' So I made a conscious effort to do something totally different. I don't think I necessarily did the right thing."^[20][28]

[edit] Opening sequences

Whereas previous Supermarionation series had used only one title and credit sequence to introduce each episode, for Captain Scarlet this was divided into two distinct sequences.

[edit] Opening crew credits

Accompanying the title card and major crew credits, each episode begins with a film sequence shown through the eyes of an unseen assassin, who is approaching the corner of a run-down street at night. A voice-over from Ed Bishop (who voiced Captain Blue) states: "The Mysterons. Sworn enemies of Earth. Possessing the ability to recreate an exact likeness of an object or person. But first, they must destroy ..." Suddenly, the assassin finds himself face-to-face with Captain Scarlet and opens fire with a machine gun, but the bullets have no effect. Scarlet fires his own gun and the attacker grunts as he falls to the ground dead. With a series of seven drumbeats, the Captain Scarlet logo appears on the screen letter by letter and the voice-over concludes: "Leading the fight, one man fate has made indestructible. His name: Captain Scarlet."

[edit] Puppet credits

From "Winged Assassin" onwards, a sequence featuring the Mysteron rings is inserted after the episode's plot is introduced. The Mysterons (voiced by Donald Gray) announce their latest threat, always starting with the words, "This is the voice of the Mysterons. We know that you can hear us, Earthmen." Meanwhile, the rings pan over the supporting characters in various environments and their names are credited onscreen, from Captain Blue driving an SPV, to Destiny Angel flying her interceptor, to Colonel White sitting at his Cloudbase control desk, to the other Angels waiting in a standby room, to Captain Black standing in a moonlit graveyard. After this sequence, the episode resumes.

[edit] End credits

At the earliest stage of development, the end credits were to be accompanied by images of printed circuit boards and other electronic components, to fit in with the Andersons' early idea that the resurrected Captain Scarlet would be a "mechanical man".^[21] In the finished series, the credits are presented with various paintings of Scarlet in life-threatening situations — drowning in a swamp filled with green liquid, falling from a skyscraper, being confronted by a venomous snake, being thrown out of a moving car, being pinned under boulders while trying to reach for a lit stick of dynamite, finding himself surrounded underwater by a group of sharks, being menaced by crushing walls lined with spikes, seen trapped beneath falling crates, being pushed over a ridge by a tank, and finally getting caught in a huge explosion of ignited oil drums. The sequence is complemented by instrumental music in the earlier episodes, which is replaced by vocals provided by pop group The Spectrum for the later episodes.

The ten closing-credit paintings were created by comic book artist Ron Embleton.^[68][69] Remaining in the safe of producer Reg Hill for more than 30 years, they were auctioned at Christie's in London in 2003, raising between £2,300 and £3,500 per painting. The following year, art publishers Iconagraph released licensed limited editions of the paintings featuring the signature of Francis Matthews, the voice of Captain Scarlet.^[69][70].

[edit] Alternative versions

• The opening voice-over from Bishop is different for the first episode, "The Mysterons": "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'." It ends: "This man will be our hero, for fate will make him indestructible. His name: Captain Scarlet."^{[eps 1]}

• An alternative voice-over for all episodes, not commonly heard, goes: "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."^[71]

• Later prints of the episodes feature a warning from Colonel White as voiced by Gray, stating, "Captain Scarlet is indestructible. You are not. Remember this. Do not try to imitate him."^[72] This served both to establish the background to the series and to warn younger fans not to take risks by copying Scarlet's exploits.^[71][73]

• The Japanese version of the show abandoned the original opening credits and replaced them with a montage of action scenes from various episodes, accompanied by a theme tune sung by children. This version can be found among the special features of the Complete Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons DVD box set.^[74][75]

[edit] Broadcasting and reception

[edit] Original run

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons made its formal début on British television on 29 September 1967, in the late-afternoon slot of 5.25pm, in the ATV Midlands region. Five months earlier, on 29 April, the first episode had been given a late-evening test transmission exclusively for the London area.^[6] Following the start of the Midlands broadcasts, the Granada, Anglia, Southern, Westward and Channel areas had begun to screen the series by the end of October,^[6] although it was not until early 1968 that the series had nationwide coverage. In the same year, Captain Scarlet was screened abroad in over 40 countries, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.^[8] In the United States, the series was shown on first-run syndication.^[53][76][77]

[edit] Re-runs

The number of initial repeat runs of the series differed greatly between regions, from four colour re-runs in the Midlands between 1969 and 1974, to none at all in other areas, such as Yorkshire.^[8] All 32 episodes were eventually purchased by the ITV network for broadcast between 1985 and 1986,^[8] before a subsequent purchase by the BBC for the programme's first ever simultaneous network broadcast on BBC2 beginning on 1 October 1993.^[9] Digitially remastered, the show resurfaced on the same channel in the autumn of 2001.^[10] For this run, however, the episode schedule was re-arranged to avoid causing offence in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks:^[39] the second episode, "Winged Assassin", in which the Mysterons 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 pushed back and replaced with episode 4, "Manhunt", due to the similarities between the plotlines and real-world events.^[78] Furthermore, in the week following the attacks, the Captain Scarlet section on the Carlton website was temporarily taken offline.^[78]

[edit] Viewership

Viewing figures for the original Midlands broadcasts started off at 0.45 million for "The Mysterons", averaging out at 1.1 million halfway through the series.^[6] The 1993 BBC repeats were a success, attracting four million for the first episode (giving it third position in the BBC2 ratings chart for the week of transmission).^[9]

[edit] Critical response

Captain Scarlet has generally been regarded as much "darker"^[28][79] or more "adult" in tone compared to Gerry Anderson's earlier sci-fi series, as critic 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."^[80] The frightening nature of the Mysterons 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.^[11] 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 series' miniature models.^[31]

Parallels have been drawn between the series and the Cold War.^[81] 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.^[73] Mark Bould has noted in The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction that the series "seemed in tune with a decade of civil disobedience and anti-imperialist guerilla wars,"^[79] a view supported by Rebecca Feasey of the University of Edinburgh.^[82] Similarities have also been interpreted with the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the subsequent War on Terrorism.^[39][78]

However, to other reviewers the series is a "camp classic"^[83][84] which, according to Bould in The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader, relates well to other Anderson productions due to a shared depiction of "a utopian 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."^[85] He has also discussed the "Euro-cool consumerism"^[79] 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."^[86] Peter Wright has similar ideas to Bould on the technological side of the series, noting the "qualified technophilia" that it shares with Thunderbirds.^[87]

Complaints levelled against the series over the years have targeted the camera work, which has been viewed as too static due to the problem of moving the puppets convincingly.^[31][88] 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 subplots.^[88] 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"^[25] which 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."^[25] Sylvia Anderson has expressed similar views, commenting in 1992:

"I think [Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons] was too perfect. There was a lack of humour. It was too mechanical and needed humanising ... [Gerry] always wanted to make the characters a lot more rigid than I did. I wanted to start to give them human flaws, start to make them more important. He was more inclined to make them just say the lines and fit into a rigid pattern."^[89]

Nevertheless, the series has maintained its status as a renowned television programme. Although seen as a cult series by some analysts,^[90] it ranked 33rd in a 2007 Radio Times poll to determine the greatest sci-fi programme of all time.^[12] Despite claims that it is not a true "children's" television series because of its "dark" tone and level of violence,^[54][71] it achieved 51st position in Channel 4's 2001 list show 100 Greatest Kids' TV shows.^[91]

[edit] Race, gender and symbolism

The series was criticised during its UK run in 1993 for its use of the codenames "White" and "Black" to designate the the good-natured chief of Spectrum, Colonel White, and the villainous character of Captain Black.^[9][92] This has been recognised by academics such as Robert B. Moore.^[93] Gerry Anderson defending his series against the accusations of racism by reminding critics that the Spectrum characters Lieutenant Green, Melody Angel and Harmony Angel play heroic roles despite being of either black or Asian descent.^[9] In academic works, the diversity of the Spectrum personnel in terms of both race and gender has been viewed highly.^[94] Bould, for example, makes mention of "Captain Scarlet's beautiful, multiethnic, female Angel fighter pilots"^[43] and "secondary roles played by capable women."^[43] 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."^[95]

Guyanese actor Cy Grant, who voiced Lieutenant Green and saw the series as having positive multicultural value, has also noted the allegorical nature of the series. 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.^[60]

[edit] Home media releases

A&E Region 1 DVD release cover, featuring Captains Scarlet, Blue and Black as well as Destiny Angel.

In the UK, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons has been released several times in the VHS format, firstly by PolyGram and most recently by Carlton Video (in eight volumes) between September 2001 and March 2002.^[96][97] The latest releases use the remastered picture quality from the 2001 BBC Two repeat transmissions.

Since September 2001, the series has also been available on PAL Region 2 DVD in five instalments, also from Carlton,^[75][96] which feature Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound to replace the series' original mono track.^[98] Special features for these releases include:^[75]

• Audio commentaries from Gerry Anderson for the episodes "The Mysterons" and "Attack on Cloudbase"
• Audio adventures from 1967
• Behind-the-scenes production photos
• Information on original ITC publicity and merchandise
• Original 1960s TV spots

These volumes have been also been released collectively as a complete series box set,^[75] which contains a bonus sixth disc including:

• Captain Scarlet S.I.G.,^[99] an exclusive background documentary presented by Anderson^[75]
• Five sets of alternative opening credits^[75]

A four-disc^[98] NTSC Region 1 version of the box set, released in 2002 by A&E Home Video,^[14][98] contains much the same special features as its Region 2 counterpart with the exception of a text-based "Introduction to Captain Scarlet" on the bonus disc and various DVD-ROM material.^[98][100] An alternative French-language edition of this release is aimed at the Canadian market,^[75] while the box set is also available in Japan on Region 2^[75] and Australia on Region 4.^[75]

[edit] Other media

[edit] Novels

Three novels based on the series were published in the late 1960s by "John Theydon" (a pseudonym for writer John William Jennison). These were:

• Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967)
• Captain Scarlet and the Silent Saboteur (1967)
• The Angels and the Creeping Enemy (1968)

In 1993, Corgi Books published four original series novelisations for young readers based upon the episodes "The Mysterons", "Lunarville 7", "Noose of Ice" and "The Launching".^[101]

[edit] Comics

The series formed the basis of three comic strips created for the weekly children's magazine TV Century 21. Spanning 17 issues (numbers 141–157) between September 1967 and January 1968,^[68] these adventures were written by Angus P. Allan with artwork by Ron Embleton and were individually titled, "We Will Destroy Unity City", "We Will Destroy the Observatory Network" and "We Shall Make Earth a Planet of Silence". After the TV series ended its original run, the comic continued the Captain Scarlet storyline, eventually revealing that the Mysterons shut down their complex on Mars and abandon Captain Black for dead, while Scarlet leaves Spectrum to use his powers in the fight against Earth-bound criminals and threats. The Mysterons finally re-awaken, prompting Scarlet and Spectrum to resume their struggle.

A manga adaption of the series ran in the Shōnen Book anthology from January to August 1968. The series was titled Captain Scarlet.^[102]

[edit] Audio adventures

To accompany the TV series, Century 21 released five additional Captain Scarlet adventures as vinyl record EPs, each roughly as long as a television episode, in 1967:

• Introducing Captain Scarlet, by Angus P. Allan
• Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, by Angus P. Allan
• Captain Scarlet is Indestructible, by Richard O'Neill
• Captain Scarlet of Spectrum, by Angus P. Allan
• Captain Scarlet versus Captain Black, by Richard O'Neill

The first of these audio adventures, Introducing Captain Scarlet, is set during the dénouement to the first television episode, "The Mysterons". It also makes use of the Andersons' early idea that an advanced computer is responsible for bringing the Mysteron copy of Captain Scarlet back under the control of Spectrum. Comprising audio flashbacks to "The Mysterons", the story revolves around a conference investigating the events of the Zero-X mission to Mars, the Mysteron threat against the World President and the murder and reconstruction of Captains Scarlet and Brown. At the end of story, it is revealed that Scarlet's Mysteron duplicate, believed destroyed, has come back to life and that the agent's loyalty to Spectrum can be restored with the help of the computer. This links to the concluding scene of the TV episode, in which Colonel White briefs the Spectrum personnel and predicts that Scarlet will become humanity's greatest weapon against the Mysterons.

[edit] Video game

A driving-based video game titled Captain Scarlet was released for the PlayStation 2 platform in 2007.

[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. The development and distribution rights to the majority of the ITC Entertainment catalogue have been transferred to various companies over the last two decades: to PolyGram, then Carlton Communications^[103] which (through a merger with Granada in 2004) now forms ITV plc.

[edit] Compilation films

In 1980, the New York offices of ITC, under the supervision of Robert Mandell, combined several episodes of the original series to make two compilation movies for American audiences with the aim of reinvigorating transatlantic syndication sales.^[104] The second film, Revenge of the Mysterons from Mars, was later aired as the second episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, shown on Thanksgiving Day (24 November), 1988 in Minneapolis, Minnesota on station KTMA. It is one of the few MST3K episodes that, to date, has not been found to exist among fan-made copies of the series.

[edit] CGI test film

In 1999, Gerry Anderson oversaw the production of a four-minute^[105] computer-animated test film, entitled 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.^[106][107] The working title was Captain Scarlet — The New Millennium.^[107] The film, produced in London by the Moving Picture Company,^[105][106] featured Francis Matthews and Ed Bishop reprising the roles of Scarlet and Blue from the original show.^{[39][105][107]} Made using a combination of Maya 3D computer graphics software and motion-capture technology,^[3][107] the story picks up a few years after the Mysterons end their hostilities against Earth before the reappearance of Captain Black sets the stage for a revival of the war with Mars.^[105]

Although the film has yet to be released on any home entertainment format, it was publicly screened at a Fanderson convention in 2000^{[10][105][107][108]} and a science lecture in 2001.^[10]

[edit] CGI reboot series

Plans for a full CGI Captain Scarlet television series to follow on from the test film eventually resulted in Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet. A reboot of the original series, this was first broadcast in the UK on the Saturday-morning CITV show Ministry of Mayhem from 12 February 2005. Produced by "Anderson Entertainment" and the "Indestructible Production Company",^[107] the animation used to create the series was billed in the credits as "Hypermarionation" (as a nod to the 1960s puppet technique Supermarionation).

[edit] Possible live-action remake

Anderson announced plans for a live-action film version of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons in 2000^[108] and again in 2002^{[109][110][111]} during production of the 2004 Thunderbirds film. The idea has yet to advance beyond the conceptual stage.

[edit] See also

• Cloudbase
• Mysteron
• Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle
• Spectrum Saloon Car

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] References

[edit] Primary sources

[edit] Secondary sources

[edit] Bibliography

• Archer, Simon (1993). Gerry Anderson's FAB Facts. HarperCollins. pp. 38, 86. ISBN 0-00-638247-9. 
• Bentley, Chris (2001). The Complete Book of Captain Scarlet. London: Carlton Books. pp. 5, 7, 12-9, 21-5, 27, 29-32, 34-41, 43-51, 57, 59, 90, 102, 114, 118-9, 121-5, 128. ISBN 1-84222-405-0. 
• Bould, Mark (2008). "Science Fiction Television in the United Kingdom". in Telotte, J.P. The Essential Science Fiction Television Reader. University Press of Kentucky, 2008. pp. 219–20. ISBN 978-0-8131-2492-6. 
• Cull, Nicholas J. (2006). "The Man who Made Thunderbirds: an Interview with Gerry Anderson". in Cook, John R.; Wright, Peter. British Science Fiction Television: a Hitchhiker's Guide. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006. pp. 121, 127. ISBN 1-84511-048-X.  Interview conducted 19 July 2003 at the XXth International Association for Media and History conference, "The History of the Future: Visions from the Past", held at the University of Leicester. Transcribed by Joe Parkes.
• Cull, Nicholas J. (August 2006). "Was Captain Black really red? The TV Science Fiction of Gerry Anderson in its Cold War Context". Media History (Routledge) 12 (2): 200, 206. doi:10.1080/13688800600808005. ISSN 1368-8804. OCLC 364457089. 
• Kompare, Derek (November 2006). "Publishing Flow: DVD Box Sets and the Reconception of Television" (PDF). Television & New Media (Southern Methodist University: SAGE Publications) 7 (4): 335-60. doi:10.1177/1527476404270609. ISSN 1527-4764. OCLC 202064875. Archived from the original on 13 December 2009. http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rasaneh.org%2Fpics%2Fattach-bulletin-15-100.pdf&date=2009-12-13. Retrieved 9 December 2009. 

[edit] Production locations

[edit] External links

• Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons at the Internet Movie Database
• Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons at TV.com. (Archive copy at the Internet Archive)
• Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons mini-website at BBC Online. (Archive copy at the Internet Archive)
• Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons at the British Film Institute's screenonline. (Archive copy at the Internet Archive)
• Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons at epguides.com. (Archive copy at the Internet Archive)
• Fanderson.org.uk: episode guide from Fanderson, the official Gerry Anderson appreciation society. (Archive copy at the Internet Archive)
• Clivebanks.co.uk: includes information on episodes and 1960s audio stories. (Archive copy at the Internet Archive)
• "The Secretive Bus and the Mysterons": a tongue-in-cheek episode guide at www.thevervoid.com. (Archive copy at the Internet Archive)
• Spectrum Headquarters: an unofficial Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons website. (Archive copy at the Internet Archive)
• The Models of Captain Scarlet at official website www.tvcentury21.com. (Archive copy at the Internet Archive)
• Gerry Anderson's Title Sequences: includes the title sequence and closing credits for Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. (Archive copy at the Internet Archive)
• The Gerry Anderson Complete Comic History: Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons in TV Century 21 comic. (Archive copy at the Internet Archive)