tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3702514640507603932024-03-05T12:16:08.535+00:00Eyespider of PergrossInside the mind of Andrew Kearley...Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-66814845949128066272018-05-11T09:20:00.004+01:002018-05-26T10:17:23.646+01:00UFO - ordering the episodes<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Following on from the
previous article (which you should go and read if you haven't already
– it explains a lot of the background to this) I thought I would
lay out my preferred viewing order for <i>UFO</i>. It's probably also worth
reading my <a href="http://www.eyespider.org.uk/space/order.html" target="_blank">article about the episode order of <i>Space: 1999</i></a>, which also
covers a lot of the issues around the sequencing of film series.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I don't feel that
re-ordering <i>UFO</i> is as complex a task as <i>Space: 1999</i>, but there are
nevertheless some interesting anomalies that need to be addressed.
One thing to note from the start is that the series was filmed in two
distinct production blocks: after the first seventeen episodes were
completed, filming was suspended for several months while the
production relocated to a different studio. As a result of the
enforced break, there were a number of cast changes, and also quite a
few stylistic differences with what had gone before. Although the
show is generally regarded as a single season, I personally feel that
the two blocks are so distinct as to regard them as two different
seasons.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As with <i>Space: 1999</i>,
the default position in fandom these days is to go with production
order. This is how the DVDs are arranged – with one exception
which we'll come to shortly. For the first block, the production
order is as follows:</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
1. Identified</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
2. Computer Affair</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
3. Flight Path</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
4. Survival</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
5. Exposed</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
6. Conflict</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
7. The Dalotek Affair</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
8. A Question of Priorities</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
9. Ordeal</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
10. The Responsibility Seat</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
11. The Square Triangle</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
12. Court Martial</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
13. Close Up</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
14. Confetti Check A-O.K.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
15. E.S.P.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
16. Kill Straker!</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
17. Sub-Smash </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
On the DVDs, this order
is maintained except for reversing the sequence of <i>Survival </i>and
<i>Exposed </i>for “continuity reasons”: <i>Exposed </i>introduces the
character of Paul Foster, whereas in <i>Survival </i>he's already a
fully-fledged officer in command of the Moonbase. What happened was
this: the Andersons had originally cast the Italian actor Franco De
Rosa as the Moonbase Commander, but sacked him after a couple of days
of filming – apparently because of his “ego and temperament”.
Whether that just meant he was a prima donna pain in the arse on the
set, and thus holding up the tight shooting schedule of a tv series –
or if it's a polite way of saying he couldn't act for toffee – I
really couldn't say. It's interesting to note though that De Rosa
had also appeared in the Andersons' feature film <i>Journey to the Far
Side of the Sun</i>, as did many of the subsequent cast members of <i>UFO</i>.
He's listed pretty high up the cast list (above both George Sewell
and Ed Bishop!) and yet speaks one line and appears for about thirty
seconds. He was supposed to the focus of a major subplot that got
deleted from the movie – we'll never know why, I guess, but he
really doesn't have a good record in Anderson productions. There's
probably a lesson there not to just cast someone based on their
pretty boy looks alone!</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Well anyway, De Rosa
was out and that left a hole in the production. With the first
several scripts already completed and itching to get into the studio,
there was no time to pause production and recast. They managed to
cover this for the first few episodes by promoting Gabrielle Drake's
character up from a humble Space Tracker to Moonbase Commander,
inadvertently making the series more progressive for its time that it
was actually intended to be. But the fourth episode was intended to
be a sci-fi version of <i>Hell in the Pacific</i>, with the Moonbase
Commander stranded on the Moon's surface after a mission goes wrong,
and forced to work with an equally stranded alien to survive. It was
felt to be an unsuitable role for a female character (so I guess
progressiveness only goes so far!) – and the solution was to write
in a different male character to take on the more macho functions
that had been envisaged for De Rosa. By now, they've had time to
cast new actor Michael Billington, and <i>Survival</i> can get straight into
the studio with the name Paul Foster hastily scribbled onto the
script.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The problem is, Foster
isn't just a background Interceptor pilot, he's destined to be a
major character, and since he wasn't featured in the opening episode,
the producers decide he needs to have his own specific introductory
episode. The answer is to pull forward an upcoming script about an
investigative journalist who gets too close to the heart of the SHADO
set-up and has to be dealt with; give it a few tweaks so that Foster
becomes the lead character, a test pilot who witnesses a UFO
incident, investigates what's going on, and eventually gets the
chance to join SHADO. The hasty rewrite perhaps explains why the
title <i>Exposed</i>, which would have been appropriate to the investigative
journalist storyline, doesn't make a lot of sense any more.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Well, that explains why
<i>Exposed </i>needs to be viewed out of production order – but I still
find the simple reversal of episodes 4 and 5 unsatisfactory. <i> Exposed
</i>ends with Foster about to start his SHADO training. Even if he's
being fast-tracked through the process under Straker's sponsorship,
you'd think that some time ought to elapse before he's ready to take
charge of Moonbase. The obvious answer is to move <i>Exposed </i>back to be
the second episode – since it's specifically designed to be viewed
out of sequence, why not go the whole hog? Then Foster is introduced
to the series as soon as possible, and is plausibly absent for the
next couple of episodes. During that absence, we also get to
establish the character of Lieutenant Ellis as Moonbase Commander
before she's unceremoniously replaced by Foster for a few episodes.
(I'll talk a bit more about that later.) There's even a scene in
<i>Exposed </i>where Straker, concerned about slow interception times, tells
Freeman to make inspections of Moonbase to improve their efficiency –
something we actually see him doing in<i> Computer Affair</i>.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The next major issue I
have is with <i>Confetti Check A-O.K.</i> It's a flashback episode showing
the early days of setting up SHADO and the disintegration of
Straker's marriage. Now in a modern arc-based show, you might have a
reason for featuring a flashback episode so late in the season, in
that it might be the pay-off to unexplained character behaviours
earlier in the show. In <i>UFO</i>, it's simply the case that the producers
thought <i>A Question of Priorities</i> worked really well, and wanted to
explore more of the background to Straker's character. Due to the
episodic nature of an ITC film series, neither episode particularly
depends on the other. You can watch <i>A Question of Priorities</i> as a
self-contained piece, since all the information you need is there in
the episode – likewise, <i>Confetti Check A-O.K.</i> can be viewed on its
own. But viewing the two episodes as a pair does deepen one's
emotional involvement in the story of either. As to which way round
they should be seen – well, as I've said, there's no particular
revelatory reason for placing <i>Confetti Check</i> later on. I personally
feel that seeing it earlier in the series gives more emotional depth
to <i>A Question of Priorities</i>, as we already know what Straker has been
through to get to that point. It's an individual preference, but I
would drop <i>Confetti Check</i> back to the fourth slot. (It also helps to
pad out the “Foster in training” gap.)</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
These are the two big
changes I would make. Otherwise the production order is broadly
sensible, though I would make a few minor tweaks here and there to
aid the flow of the narrative. One of the notable things about the
show is its large semi-regular cast of SHADO operatives. Not
everyone is in every episode, but that helps to sell the idea of a
large military organization, where people could be on leave or
re-assigned (or even, we might be left to imagine, killed during an
off-screen mission). Occasionally, a character fills a different
position to his regular assignment, usually a temporary secondment as
a mission specialist – such as when Gay Ellis and Mark Bradley take
part in Freeman's ground mission in <i>Computer Affair</i>; Lieutenant
Masters works on the long-range camera probe in <i>Close Up</i>; or Nina
Barry is assigned to the Skydiver mission in <i>Sub-Smash</i>. The only
character who gets permanently re-assigned to a new role is Lew
Waterman, initially an Interceptor pilot, and later promoted to
Captain of Skydiver. And yet, after his first two episodes in charge
of the submarine, he suddenly reappears as an astronaut in <i>The Square
Triangle</i> – I suspect because stock footage of an interception was
used. Now, I'm perfectly happy with characters changing jobs during
the series, but I find it jarring to see Waterman yo-yoing back and
forth. The simple solution here is to shuffle <i>The Square Triangle</i> up
slightly to place it before <i>Ordeal</i>.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Paul Foster is the
exception to this pattern, as he bounces around through different
roles depending on the episode. I see Foster as being utilized by
Straker in a troubleshooter role, being sent into the most complex
and dangerous situations as the “man on the ground”. So, for
instance, in <i>Ordeal </i>he's stationed aboard Skydiver because it's Lew
Waterman's first tour as Captain, and Foster is there to oversee the
transition in command. He also replaces Gay Ellis as commander of
Moonbase for several episodes – although Ellis comes back in later
episodes, which is not something that usually happens. As it's a
film series, we don't get any explanation within the narrative for
why Foster has replaced her – (I've discussed the real world
reasons earlier) – one of the novelizations suggests that Ellis has
contracted a cold whilst on leave, and is thus forbidden from space
travel, which is as good an explanation as any. Later, in <i>The
Responsibility Seat</i>, Foster is doing another tour on Moonbase whilst
Gay Ellis remains in command. A little narrative oddity occurs
between <i>E.S.P.</i> and <i>Kill Straker!</i> The former ends with Foster
preparing to depart for a tour on Moonbase, and the latter opens with
him on his way back to Earth, the tour concluded. So to help smooth
the narrative flow, I'd move <i>The Responsibility Seat</i> between these
two episodes, creating a little arc for Foster's second Moonbase
tour.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Going back to those
three episodes where Foster is Moonbase Commander, it's interesting
to note that <i>The Dalotek Affair</i> is done as a flashback – Foster
recounting to Freeman events that happened “six months ago”. To
sell this better, I would move <i>Flight Path</i> (a Foster-free episode)
between <i>Conflict</i> and <i>The Dalotek Affair</i>. This would suggest that
Foster has been on leave following his stint on Moonbase, and is
meeting up with Freeman prior to resuming his duties.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So, with those
adjustments, we're left with an order like this:</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
1. Identified</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
2. Exposed</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
3. Computer Affair</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
4. Confetti Check A-O.K.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
5. Survival </div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
6. Conflict</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
7. Flight Path</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
8. The Dalotek Affair</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
9. A Question of Priorities</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
10. The Square Triangle</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
11. Ordeal</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
12. Court Martial</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
13. Close Up</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
14. E.S.P.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
15. The Responsibility Seat</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
16. Kill Straker!</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
17. Sub-Smash</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
The second block is
going to take a lot more work. Several cast members have left, most
notably George Sewell and Gabrielle Drake – and the producers also
decided to streamline the series, eliminating many of the
semi-regular characters. This does unfortunately mean that there are
a few more instances of characters incongruously popping up in
different operational roles (I guess because there are fewer actors
to go round) – and this isn't something that can be smoothed away
quite so easily with an episode reshuffle. The production order is
as follows:
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
18. The Sound of Silence</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
19. The Cat with Ten Lives</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
20. Destruction</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
21. The Man Who Came Back</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
22. The Psychobombs</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
23. Reflections in the Water</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
24. Timelash</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
25. Mindbender</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
26. The Long Sleep</div>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I certainly find it
disconcerting to have the two most bizarre episodes, <i>Timelash </i>and
<i>Mindbender</i> back-to-back like that – you'd really want to spread
that much weirdness out more.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>The Sound of Silence</i>,
with its minimal cast and relatively straightforward (for <i>UFO</i>) alien
abduction plot, serves as a nice transitional episode between the
blocks – you'd certainly notice the absence of Alec Freeman, but
it's not as bad as having a new second-in-command already in post
without an introduction. (We'll save that for the next episode.)</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The second block's most
obvious cast change is that Virginia Lake, the scientist who designed
SHADO's tracking system way back in the first episode, is now filling
the Freeman role. Meanwhile, the absence of Lieutenant Ellis sees
Nina Barry promoted into the role of Moonbase Commander. But there's
one episode which seems to be based on a completely different format,
and that's <i>The Man Who Came Back</i>. In this episode, the
second-in-command role is filled by the character of Colonel Grey,
much more obvious as a straight replacement for Freeman; and Virginia
Lake is serving as Moonbase Commander, and seems to have been in the
role for a while. She also has a relationship with Paul Foster –
himself on another Moonbase tour – although given that this is
never mentioned again, and the two continue working together in
future episodes without any animosity, we can probably assume it was
brief and ended amicably.<br />
<br />
Because of these differences, I'd actually
suggest this episode should be moved right after <i>The Sound of
Silence</i>. So, in this narrative, Virginia Lake is initially assigned
to be Moonbase Commander as replacement for Lieutenant Ellis – my
thinking is that she might be overseeing a major upgrade to the
tracking systems, which is her area of expertise after all – and
Colonel Grey is most definitely replacing Freeman. It's only after
the events of this episode that Grey – presumably – moves to a different role; Virginia (once her Moonbase tour is complete) takes over the
second-in-command position; and Nina Barry is permanently promoted to
command of Moonbase. It certainly feels a more natural progression
than having established characters jumping back and forth through
assignments. (As a side note, I will note that Nina does seem to be
serving as Moonbase Commander in <i>The Sound of Silence</i>, but it's easy
enough to assume she's just filling in until the new permanent
Commander arrives.)</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Timelash </i>features
Straker picking Virginia Lake up from the airport upon her return
from Moonbase – and they talk about it as if it's a new experience
for her. So in keeping with the narrative structure I've suggested
above, I think this episode needs to be placed right after <i>The Man
Who Came Back</i>. In effect, it means we get two episodes with Virginia
before she officially takes up that second-in-command role. I also
think that <i>The Psychobombs</i> should be seen next – it may just be me,
but I always feel that Virginia's reaction to Straker's
single-mindedness indicates that she's still getting used to seeing
his command style at close quarters. So I would place those three
episodes between <i>The Sound of Silence</i> and <i>The Cat with Ten Lives</i> to
form an arc reintroducing Virginia Lake to the series.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
(I would be remiss if I
didn't point out the flaw in this scheme. In <i>The Cat with Ten Lives</i>
and <i>The Man Who Came Back</i>, Straker has a temporary replacement
secretary, Miss Holland. There's a scene in <i>The Cat with Ten Lives</i>
clearly intended to introduce the character, where Straker thanks her
for standing in – and indeed, his regular secretary Miss Ealand
later returns. In my re-ordering, we unfortunately meet Miss Holland
in <i>The Man Who Came Back</i>, then we get Miss Ealand back in <i>Timelash</i>,
then we have Miss Holland again in <i>The Cat with Ten Lives</i> and only
here does Straker acknowledge her. It is a little jarring, but I
consider it the lesser of two evils compared to trying to smooth
Virginia Lake's reintroduction to the series – and creating a more
plausible narrative for the major characters. There it is. There's
no reason why Straker shouldn't have a relief secretary from time to
time, and maybe Miss Holland had been there a while in The Man Who
Came Back – but only recently returned for a second stint in <i>The
Cat with Ten Lives</i>.)</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The other change I'd
suggest is to move <i>Mindbender </i>slightly earlier, and the reason for
this goes back to that same problem of character continuity from the
first block. Lew Waterman is briefly seen as Captain of Skydiver in
<i>Mindbender</i>, through the use of stock footage once again – whereas
we establish a new (unnamed) Captain in <i>Destruction</i>, played by David
Warbeck. There's a little bonus though: we've now spread out
<i>Timelash</i>, <i>Mindbender </i>(and indeed <i>The Long Sleep</i>) – the most
“trippy” episodes.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So, we're left with
this sequence:</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
18. The Sound of Silence</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
19. The Man Who Came Back</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
20. Timelash</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
21. The Psychobombs</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
22. The Cat with Ten Lives</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
23. Mindbender</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
24. Destruction</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
25. Reflections in the Water</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
26. The Long Sleep</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Alternatively, you
could reverse the last two episodes. I like to give to give myself
the choice, depending on my mood at the time, between concluding the
series with a bleak, downbeat character piece (<i>The Long Sleep</i>) or
with a large-scale battle against massed UFOs (<i>Reflections in the
Water</i>). Of course neither is a proper conclusion in the narrative
sense, because this is an ITC film series – the story just goes on
forever...
</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-33046762451416256752018-04-17T01:06:00.000+01:002018-10-22T09:42:44.023+01:00Last Orders Please...<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Here's something about
me: I like putting things in order. (By which, I don't mean I'm some
sort of vigilante, nor do I correct historical events like Sam
Beckett out of <i>Quantum Leap</i>.) If you've followed any of my online
activities, you'll see that I devote an awful lot of time to devising
sequences for things. <b>Doctor Who – The Complete Adventures</b> is
obviously the most extreme example of this, and you may also have
seen my suggested re-sequencing of the episodes of <i>Space: 1999</i>. This
is a borderline autistic tendency of mine, and it can be seen in the
way I place any two related items together – as the book and DVD
shelves in my home would bear witness. Everything is carefully
arranged in a very precise order, which may not be the more obvious
alphabetical or publication orders, but instead reflect my personally
preferred reading or viewing orders. The shelves are also divided
and sub-divided into numerous sections, grouped variously by medium,
genre, director, studio, nationality – all dependent upon a complex
formula I keep in my head. It bewilders many, but it makes perfect
sense to me, and I know instantly where anything might be.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Well, that's an insight
into my peculiar mind. But I want to return to the subject of tv
shows and their running orders – and reflect on just how I first
got started with that. I personally think that any tv show without a
continuing storyline is fair game for a re-sequencing. Mainly this applies to the sort
of genre shows that used to populate American television: cop shows,
spy shows, sci-fi shows and so on. Now, in most cases, you get a new
story every week, the status quo is restored by the end of the
episode, there's no continuity to speak of and no consequences. And
for most people, myself included, watching such shows in any
broadcast order is just fine – <i>Kojak</i> or <i>The Incredible Hulk</i> or <i>The
Man from U.N.C.L.E.</i> or <i>The Six Million Dollar Man</i> work in just about
any order – although it's probably best to watch the episodes in
each season as separate blocks, as cast and format changes usually
occur at the season breaks, and occasionally you get sequels to
popular episodes from previous seasons. (In the case of one of my
favourite shows, <i>Mission: Impossible</i>, I might even argue that you
could watch the episodes from any season interchangeably – other
than the first, which had a different lead actor – since the very
premise of the show is that Jim Phelps goes through his dossier of
agents and selects those who are right for the particular mission at
hand. Having Leonard Nimoy and Lesley Warren one week, then Martin
Landau and Barbara Bain the next, reinforces that concept – as long
as you can overlook the clothes and longer hairstyles on display in
the late sixties/early seventies episodes!)</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But there are occasions
when being a fan of a show leads one to have a more direct engagement
with it, and indeed a more interactive relationship. A desire to
recontextualize the show is very much part of that – that can
include writing fan fiction, doing video re-edits, or re-ordering the
episodes to something more satisfying. In a lot of cases, it may
just mean going back to the production order rather than the network
broadcast order. This works for the original <i>Star Trek</i> for instance.
Sometimes though, a series requires a much more radical approach.
Where a show has little to no continuity between the episodes,
re-ordering them becomes a creative act in itself – you are
devising a new ongoing narrative, using the discrete episodes as
building blocks, positioning them in such a way as to strengthen the
storyline you're trying to tell. (For instance: asking yourself
whether a character makes a certain choice in episode X because of
his experience in episode Y?) It's this sort of engagement that
takes the fan above and beyond being a mere passive viewer, and it's
to be celebrated.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As an aside here, I
should point out that this generally applies more to American series
than British ones. British broadcasters have traditionally not been
as afraid of ongoing plotlines, continuity and character development
as the American networks seem to have been, and generally speaking
the series reset has not been a thing in this country. Whilst each
episode is clearly its own story, it contributes to an ever-ongoing
storyline for the characters. (Obviously, I'm not thinking about
serials and literary adaptations here, and soap operas have always
done this.) But it's just a given that British tv proceeds in order
– you can look back at pretty much any long-running show from the
sixties onwards and see this. <i>The Power Game, The Brothers, A Family
at War, The Onedin Line, Hadleigh, Warship, Callan, The Main Chance,
Colditz, Man at the Top, When the Boat Comes In, Upstairs Downstairs,
Sam, The Duchess of Duke Street, The Sandbaggers, Secret Army, All
Creatures Great and Small, Enemy at the Door, By the Sword Divided,
Nanny, Tenko, The House of Eliot, Survivors, Wish Me Luck</i>, and <i>Blakes
7</i> are just some examples that I can see on my DVD shelves right at
this moment. What I'm trying to say is, it's just normal for
Britain.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And yes, <i>Doctor Who</i> is
just such a show – to the extent that I would never question the
broadcast order of the episodes. (Arguments have been made for
re-ordering seasons 25 and 26, which had their sequences changed from
the original intended order quite late in the day. I might almost
concede the former, since the alteration was forced by an unexpected
scheduling change, and does lead to a minor visual continuity error.
The change to season 26 was an artistic decision made by the
producer, so I think should be respected. It doesn't mess up
continuity, though it may change the emphasis on certain lines of
dialogue. Ultimately though, the notion that broadcast order is the
right order for a BBC drama of this type is so ingrained in the
consciousness, that I find I cannot disagree with it.) The point of
<b>The Complete Adventures</b> is not to re-arrange the tv show itself, but
to go beyond into all the panoply of spin-off media. The creative
act here is to create the narrative for the Doctor's entire life (as
far as we know it) using the various disparate stories to construct
that – it's the same principle as an episode re-ordering, but on an
infinitely larger scale.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
In contrast, the
American networks seemed to prefer the “new story every week”
format for most of their drama shows, and this held true up until the
1990s, when story arcs became a thing. The legal drama <i>Murder One</i> is
usually held up as the first show to really push the envelope with a
season-long arc, although this probably just demonstrates how sci-fi
was a neglected poor cousin in those days, since <i>Babylon 5</i> was
already half-through a five year arc when Murder One came along and
excited the critics with its “innovation”. (And hell, I could
point out that the original <i>Battlestar Galactica</i> in 1978 had a very
definite arc plot running right through it.) Since then, the age of
the box set and binge-watching has come upon us, and continuing
plotlines are very much the norm in America now. So they finally
caught up with us!</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And that, in a
roundabout way, brings me back to my subject. I've stated that
ongoing plotlines are very much a British thing, but there are
exceptions – for example, some cop and detective shows, where each
episode is a new case (but even those often have underlying character
arcs running through them) – and most obviously, filmed adventure
series such as <i>The Avengers</i>, the Gerry Anderson shows and various ITC
action thrillers. These were designed to be sold to America, and so
aped the “new story every week” formula. In the majority of
cases, as with the US shows, any order works just fine. But there's
one ITC series where the running order has long been a subject of
intense debate and the cause of much anxiety. That show is <i>The
Prisoner</i>, and that's really where this story starts.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Like many people of my
generation, I first discovered <i>The Prisoner</i> through the Channel 4
repeats in the early 1980s – before that, it was something you'd
heard of (it was occasionally mentioned in the pages of <i>Starburst</i> and
<i>Doctor Who Monthly</i>) but had no real idea what it was. I was 14,
which was probably the right age to discover <i>The Prisoner</i>. To a
teenage boy, it seemed like the best thing ever, in a way it probably
wouldn't to a man in his forties. And indeed, I can't put my hand on
my heart 35 years later and say it's the best tv show I've ever seen,
because it patently isn't – not when you've read proper books and
seen things like <i>Edge of Darkness</i> or <i>Secret Army</i> or <i>I Claudius</i>.
Indeed, it's a show that demonstrates most of the tropes of the ITC
action shows – although it's trying to do something more
intellectually worthwhile with them. I still applaud it, and gain a
great deal of satisfaction when I watch it again.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But one thing that
surrounded the show right from the outset was the question of the
running order. I remember back in 1983, a man called Roger Goodman
(one of the original founders of the Six of One appreciation society)
appeared on <i>Did You See?</i> to review the repeats, and made much of
the fact that Channel 4 were showing the series in the wrong order.
He seemed certain that if the show had been broadcast in the right
order, it would all make a lot more sense. And some of things he
pointed out made sense. But let's face it, <i>The Prisoner</i> was shown in
the “right” order back in the sixties, and it didn't make a lot
of sense to the viewers back then either.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Anyway, as a insanely
keen teenager, I sent off my money and joined Six of One, and that's
where I discovered the controversy around the running order. What I
particularly loved about it was that a healthy debate was encouraged,
and there was no official fan club position. It was an eye-opener to
this teenage mind, who'd joined the club expecting to be given some
answers. And yet, it really does befit <i>The Prisoner</i> that there are
no easy answers – and that the rights of the individual to place
their own interpretation on the series is encouraged and celebrated.
(This seems to have changed in later years, and Six of One eventually
endorsed a particular running order for the series – this was used
for an American DVD release, which also described it as the “fan
preferred” order. It didn't say which fan preferred it though!
Six of One seems to be a shadow of its former self, with a dwindling
membership, so I'm not sure how representative of fan opinion they
can be these days. Even Roger Goodman has denounced them.)</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
There's a Wikipedia
page listing <i>Prisoner</i> episodes, and various attempts at ordering
them, which contains the statement that “everyone agrees on the
first and the last three episodes of the 17 produced shows”. I'm
not sure that's true – in the old days of intense debate, I knew
several people who shifted <i>The Girl Who Was Death</i> out of the
fifteenth slot for various reasons. In fact, I might go so far as to
suggest that even the opening and closing episodes don't have to be
set in stone. It's a fact that the final sequence of the last
episode is the same as the opening sequence of the first, suggesting
that the whole series goes round in a loop, and you can leap in
anywhere. It's like the televisual equivalent of <i>Finnegans Wake</i> or
<i>Dhalgren</i>. So perhaps the episodes can be viewed in any order –
perhaps a non-linear narrative is the whole point. You could even
open the series with <i>Fall Out</i> if you wanted, and treat the rest of
the episodes as flashbacks.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
My own preferred order
– though it's changed and developed over the years – is a bit
more conventional than that, and attempts to construct a more or less
linear narrative. I did this by looking at the production order, the
original UK and US broadcast orders, and assimilating the good and
bad points of each. And then applying those to the story I wanted to
tell. I set out certain narrative strands that I wanted to follow
through the series, and arranged the episodes to reflect those.
There are clearly some episodes where the Prisoner is fairly new, and
the Village authorities are treading carefully with him so as not to
risk damaging him – so there are simple psychological tricks,
deceptions and manipulations employed. Also, of course, it's in
these earlier episodes that he makes all his attempts to escape.
Later on, we see an escalation of the threat, with mind control,
brainwashing and dangerous drugs being used. At the same time, the
Prisoner seems to give up the idea of escape and concentrates on
trying to fight the Village from within. This in turn leads to a
change in the power dynamic between the Prisoner and his adversaries,
and he eventually brings about the downfall of several of the Number
2 characters in the process. Synthesizing the narrative progression
from all that leads me to this order:</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Arrival</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Free For All</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Dance of the Dead</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Checkmate</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The Chimes of Big Ben</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The Schizoid Man</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
It's Your Funeral</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Many Happy Returns</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Living in Harmony</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The General</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A. B. and C.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Do Not Forsake Me Oh My
Darling</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A Change of Mind</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Hammer into Anvil</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The Girl Who Was Death</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Once upon a Time</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Fall Out</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
That's a fan preferred
order, and I'm the fan who prefers it! Seriously, it's the order I
tend to stick to whenever I rewatch the show. It enhances my
enjoyment of the show, and that makes it worthwhile intellectual
exercise in its own right. Make of it what you will. (I's aware I
haven't gone into a detailed justification for my reasoning here as
it's outside the scope of this article – that's something to follow
up another time.)</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
As I said earlier, <i>The
Prisoner</i> is something of a special case, and the majority of the ITC
thriller shows are watchable in almost any order – I say “almost”
because many of the shows have an opening episode that sets up the
format and backstory, and in most cases should be watched first. But
sometimes even that is mutable. <i>The Champions</i> for example shot
additional footage to wrap around its first episode, turning it into
a flashback where the heroes look back to how it all began – which
meant the episode could now be dropped anywhere into a repeat run,
and indeed that the series could go round on a loop forever.
Conversely, although <i>Man in a Suitcase</i> has a first episode (<i>Man from
the Dead</i>) it was actually shown sixth on the initial transmission –
because it isn't the beginning of McGill's story, which starts in
media res – rather it's where he finds out why he's in the
situation he is. Placing it sixth does cause a few continuity
problems, such as where dialogue in other episodes refers back to a
situation we can only understand if we've seen <i>Man from the Dead</i>. In
that case, I'd recommend sticking with the production order, which is
how the show is sequenced on the DVDs.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
A few years after <i>The
Prisoner</i>, another show got me vexed over its running order. The
much-missed TVS started to repeat <i>UFO</i> as part of its Late Night Late
slot. (Strange to think now that 24 hour broadcasting was once a new
and exciting thing.) I didn't catch all the episodes initially, but
those I did see had a few weird juxtapositions that leapt out at me.
The disconnect between the end of Exposed, where Foster has just been
recruited into SHADO, and the start of Survival, where he's already
been made Commander of Moonbase didn't sit well. And some episodes
that seemed to me to belong early in the series were screened quite
late in the run. Obviously, I wasn't the only person who noticed
this: the host of Late Night Late, David Vickery, mentioned that
they'd received a few comments that they were playing the episodes in
the wrong order. (An in-vision continuity announcer – you don't
see many of them any more!) He then explained that when TVS had
announced they would be screening <i>UFO</i>, the station had received a
letter from a fan who'd listed the order they ought to run the
episodes. Since I'd already identified a few anomalies, I wondered
quite what rationale this fan had employed to devise his sequence.
I'd caught up with more of the episodes by then, and I began to piece
my own order together. (Something else |I'll come back to in more
detail at a later date.)</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Funnily enough, around
that time I caught with an old school-friend, Alec Baker, whom I
hadn't seen for a while. He shared my interest in <i>The Prisoner</i> and
<i>UFO</i>, and I remarked to him grumpily about the fan's letter to TVS,
and how it had got the running order completely wrong. You can
imagine how embarrassed I was when Alec revealed to me that he was
the one who'd written in! He was gracious enough to concede that he
probably hadn't gone into the series in quite as much forensic detail
as me, and had gleaned his order mainly from things he'd read in the
Fanderson magazines. Well, there's a lesson there probably. Looking
back with three decades' hindsight, I realize what an insufferable
prig I could be at times, especially when I'd decided I was an expert
on a particular topic. These days, I hope I'm more relaxed about it
all. I try never to lambaste another person's pet theories, instead
I just suggest a possible alternative, lay out my own arguments for
consideration – there's nothing wrong with a bit of healthy debate,
and frankly we should do all we can to oppose the development of an
ossified fan consensus. I do try and take care not to present myself
as some definitive authority just because I've got a website – and
I'm frequently at pains to point out that <b>The Complete Adventures</b> is
just my own take on the <i>Doctor Who</i> timeline, and encourage others to
develop their own ideas.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I don't always get the
same courtesy in return, but I guess that's the internet for you. I
was once accused in a Google group of trying to “rape” <i>Space:
1999</i> (yes really!) for suggesting a different running order. My
critic, who also said he wanted to throw up after reading my site,
went on to state that the production order was the only correct order
– not that he offered any sort of argument to support his position.
(I'd already explained why I found the production order
unsatisfactory.) As I've said, I'm all for discussion and debate,
and an amicable difference of opinion. But is there any need for
such inflammatory language, especially over something as trivial as a
tv show? I don't know, some people... On the other hand, there's a
<i>Space: 1999</i> themed wiki that's adopted my running order as its
standard – without any prompting from me, I might add. (And with
proper acknowledgement too.) So what started as an intellectual
parlour game, a creative exercise for my own amusement, ends up being
something of benefit to others – and that makes it all seem
worthwhile.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-25479400594558381192018-02-03T16:49:00.001+00:002018-02-03T16:49:47.366+00:00Canon Balls!
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Do you remember the 3W
Institute in Capaldi's first series finale? Named in recognition of
the “three words” that so terrified Dr Skarosa? (Actually it had
a funny resonance for me, since 3W was the form I was in at school at
the time of season 20 – our form teacher was Mr Caspell, who'd once
been a stunt driver on the tv show <i>Star Maidens</i> – but I digress...
maybe that's a story for another day.) What I'm getting at in this
rather tortuous opening paragraph is the notion that, for me, the
three terrifying words are something different: “Is it canon?”</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Yes, that's right –
the three words (or some variant thereof) that are guaranteed to
creep into – and very often derail – any forum discussion about
spin-off media. Usually by about the third or fourth post in any
thread! You know the sort of thing: someone posts a perfectly
innocent question on Reddit, like: “I enjoyed Paul McGann's
portrayal in <i>The Night of the Doctor</i> – what other stories are there
about the eighth Doctor's involvement in the Time War?” From
which, you might expect some helpful replies, pointing them towards
the Big Finish audios; then maybe mention of the War in the eighth
Doctor novels, prompting an interesting discussion about whether
that's a different earlier Time War, or the same event seen from
another perspective. But it's not long before someone will chip in
with the dread question – is any of that considered canon? It
makes you want to scream. (If it needed saying, this is indeed a
summary of a genuine Reddit discussion I encountered recently.)</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So why does it wind me
up so much? Primarily it's because the canon question is nearly
always used in a negative sense – it serves to shut down debate and
enquiry. I get that there are some people for whom only the tv show
counts, and that's fine as long as it's their choice, not something
that they feel has been imposed on them from without. (It does
strike me as perverse however for someone to pile into a conversation
that's clearly about spin-off media to question its canon status, as
if those discussing it were simply deluded and needed the scales
removed from their eyes.) For a long time <i>Doctor Who</i> fan like me,
this idea of canon as something to be strictly observed has always
seemed like an alien concept, probably imported into <i>Who</i> fandom as
the show has become better known internationally – imported from
other (that is to say American) fandoms. Don't worry, this isn't
going to be a rant about them being rubbish – as a matter of fact,
I like both of the chief culprits. More on them later.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But it's a fact that I
just don't remember it being a thing in the old days. That's not to
say that, even as a child, I didn't know the difference between the
tv show and the spin-offs. But the point is, I still read the <i>TV
Comic</i> strip or the Annuals as stories that were really happening to
the Doctor. I didn't expect the tv show to reference them of course,
but that didn't make them any less real for me. After all, these
were stories about a character who could go anywhere in time and
space, who could theoretically have any sort of adventure. The
notion that they weren't like the tv show didn't really occur to me
then – that had to wait until the 80s and my days as a super-nerd
fanboy. Thank God the 90s (and one hopes a degree of maturity)
loosened me up – with the arrival of the <i>New Adventures</i> (and I
suppose the lack of a tv show) pushing me towards embracing <i>Who</i> in
all its forms. Which, I guess, is why that's the decade when I first
conceived <i>The Complete Adventures</i>.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Now, it is interesting
to compare the way that other fandoms do it. <i>Star Trek</i> for instance:
Paramount is quite insistent that only the tv shows and the movies
count – none of the books or comics or other spin-offs really
happened. (In fact, at some times, even the cartoon series has been
in the exclusion zone – though that seems to have been done to
humour the whims of Gene Roddenberry, who in later years, decided he
didn't like it. After he died, the cartoon got brought back into the
fold.) That doesn't mean though that Paramount hasn't been happy to
license plenty of spin-offs over the years, and doubtless to reap the
financial rewards. It's effectively saying: “Please buy the books,
although we have no belief in them ourselves.”</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What's really happening
is that the producers are giving themselves a get-out clause – to
free themselves from having to remember and take account of the
details of fifty years of spin-offs when devising new stories. And
really no one can blame them for that. It's surely hard enough just
to keep track of all the tv episodes – which no doubt explains why
they've contradicted themselves a good few times over the decades!
What's troubling is the way that this sensible behind-the-scenes
decision has been interpreted as an instruction to fans. And I think
really it's the use of the word “canon” that's to blame for that.
I don't know if Paramount actually used the term themselves or if it
was the fans who applied it; but either way, the damage was done.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<i>Star Wars</i> on the other
hand adopted a multi-tiered system of canon: basically anything
George Lucas said was considered the topmost, unassailable level of
canon – so effectively that was the films themselves – and
various books and comic strips were placed on lower strata. They
were to be considered as canon unless or until they were contradicted
by something in one of the films. I suppose if you're going to have
a canon declaration, that's the most sensible way of doing it.
Effectively, it's the same as the <i>Star Trek</i> rationale, a way to
protect Lucasfilm from having to be beholden to their own spin-offs –
but it achieves it in an inclusive and less didactic fashion.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Or at least that would
be the case if Disney hadn't bought Lucasfilm and fucked it all up.
Now, I understand that Disney wanted to start making new <i>Star Wars</i>
movies, and didn't want to have to take account of all that “expanded
universe” stuff , which has effectively told us all about what
happened to Luke, Han and Leia for the next forty odd years – and
all about what happened to their kids too. Obviously that was going
to contradict any new stories that they wanted to tell with those
characters. Which makes it a more extreme case than that facing the
<i>Star Trek</i> producers, I suppose. The weird thing is that
Disney/Lucasfilm want to have their cake and eat it. They've
announced that every book and comic produced from now on is going to
be part of canon – but every spin-off produced previously is not.
But they still want to market those old books (for reasons of profit
one assumes) so they've rebranded them as “Legends” –
literally, there's a big gold flash across the top of each book
saying so. It's such an odd thing when one considers that <i>Star Wars</i>
is a sort of fairytale that we're quite specifically told occurred a
long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Aren't all their tales just
legends then? Nevertheless, the most hardcore <i>Star Wars</i> fans seem to
be happy embracing the distinction – I'm always finding YouTube
videos discussing characters and their backstories, where the
narrator clearly demarcates what's canon and what's only “legends”.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
One of the refreshing
things about <i>Doctor Who</i> is that the show's producers or the BBC have
never tried to lay down such rules. They've never so much as uttered
the word “canon” – (well, except for that one time when some PR
idiot used it to tell viewers the <i>Adventure Games</i> could be considered
part of the ongoing storyline.) Which I guess means that they trust
fans to make up their own minds what they want <i>Doctor Who</i> to be.
Some will point to the BBC charter expressly forbidding the need to
purchase additional material to make a story complete – surely that
proves that the spin-offs don't count? Well, I don't see that at
all. I think that is specifically to ensure that the show doesn't
conclude with a cliffhanger leading into a commercial spin-off;
imagine the last series had ended with <i>World Enough and Time</i> and an
announcement that the conclusion was exclusively available to buy
from BBC Store. But it doesn't deny the existence of further <i>Doctor
Who</i> material that you can buy <b><i>should you choose to do so</i></b> –
such material can even be referenced in the show itself (and it has
been) as long as it's just for colour and backstory. It can inform
one's viewing and give a deeper meaning, but it mustn't be essential
for the understanding of the general audience. (So I guess, as they
were free for licence fee payers to download, they were allowed to
plug the <i>Adventure Games</i> as being part of the series.) From the
point of view of the producers, they have a rich seam of history to
draw upon, but they don't need to feel bound to it. Of course, where
<i>Doctor Who</i> scores over <i>Star Trek</i> and <i>Star Wars</i> is that the very
nature of its narrative allows the wholesale rewriting and
disregarding of its backstory anyway. We're told that time keeps
getting rewritten, and I've discoursed at length before about the way
the Doctor's timeline might intersect with a changing universe. The
show has contradicted itself so many times that it's clear the
producers aren't even interested in keeping faith with past tv
episodes, let alone the spin-offs.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So we're left with the
current situation, where every fan can have their own idea or
interpretation of what constitutes canon. I think that's a
wonderfully liberating thing, something we should all cherish –
rather than fighting when another's opinion differs from our own. I
can fully understand why some only want to count the tv show – it's
the most easily accessible and requires the least investment in terms
of time and money. But as I've said above, even that can be optional
really. I'm sure there are fans who've come to <i>Doctor Who</i> only with
the modern series – for whom even the original 26 seasons must seem
like some distant legend. And some may want to include the novels
but not the comic strips – or only the <i>New Adventures</i> – or Big
Finish audios, but not books. It should be entirely up to the
individual. For myself, I decided long ago that there was no “canon”
as far as <i>Doctor Who</i> was concerned. There was just a mass of stories
that happened to the Doctor.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I think ultimately I
understand the purpose of the “is it canon?” question, especially
when it comes from a new fan. They're looking at the daunting mass
of past <i>Who</i> spin-offs and asking themselves if they really need to
get amongst all that to understand the series. And the answer is, of
course they don't. But if they want to dip their toe in, it doesn't
commit them to anything. And they may find something they love. The
flipside to that though is when a long term fan has decided not to
indulge in the spin-offs – and that could be for any reason, it's
not for us to judge – but then uses the “it's not canon”
argument to justify their choices. And the worst example of this is
when they use it to try and shut down discussions about material
they're not familiar with. I think it's a sort of inverted
self-justification, a way to belittle those whose conversations they
can't keep up with. What does that achieve? Just accept that
everyone gets something different out of <i>Doctor Who</i>, and bow out
gracefully. We'd all get along a lot better.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What do these different
reactions tell us about the fans of each series? I suppose no one
should be surprised that <i>Star Trek</i> fans are so eager to swallow the
dictates of Paramount. They've always struck me as the keenest to
embrace rules and regulations, and bow to a higher authority. That's
why they dress up in the uniforms, give themselves ranks, and act as
if they're really members of Starfleet. <i>Doctor Who</i> of course is a
story about a maverick, a pricker of pomposity, an anti-authoritarian
iconoclast, and that's why the “no canon” stance seems the most
appropriate, as long as we accept the choices of the individual to
embrace or reject whatever they like. The <i>Star Wars</i> fans intrigue me
though, with their quick embrace of a doublethink mentality over
“canon” and “legends”. You'd think that they would be
rebels, like the heroes of the series – not prepared to bow down
before didactic pronouncements from the content providers. Maybe,
they all secretly want to be in the Empire! Myself, I was always a
fan of the <i>Star Wars</i> EU – some of it was shockingly bad, some of it
was brilliant, but isn't that true of everything? Yet I've only
bought four books since the new canon declaration, and all of those
are ones set during the timeframe of the older films, so are just
filling in backstory. I've not bothered with anything set post-<i>Return of the Jedi</i>, because I've already got a continuation of the
<i>Star Wars</i> saga that I'm perfectly happy with. I've seen the new
films, of course, and I'm quite comfortable with the notion that
there are now alternative timelines. I'm just not feeling the need
to invest additional time into a whole other EU. And that's my
choice. But I don't call it “legends”, I just call it <i>Star Wars</i>.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</div>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So... canon?
It really is just a load of nonsense. I like <i>Doctor Who</i>, I like
<i>Star Trek</i>. Shouldn't I be happy that there are even more adventures
of the Doctor or Captain Kirk for me to enjoy? I think so. Do I
worry that they have some sort of sanctioned authority to exist?
What we're ultimately arguing about is whether one lot of fictional
tales is somehow more fictional than another lot. And frankly, I
can't see any sense in that.</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-78859356882351279622018-01-21T11:35:00.000+00:002018-01-21T23:02:37.509+00:00What the Hell Am I Doing?<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Blogging is a funny
thing really – it's based on the assumption that people want to
share my inane and random witterings on obscure subjects. (Maybe
some of you do.) Or then again, perhaps it comes from an inbuilt
desire to record my thoughts in a permanent form, without a care
whether anyone reads them or not. Perhaps that's really what it is.
Something like a diary, but without the more intimate thoughts.
(I've never kept a diary incidentally. I tried once, in about 1986,
but by the time it got to January 3<sup>rd</sup> and nothing much had
happened, I soon lost interest.)</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
If there is anyone out
there reading this stuff, you will no doubt have noticed that I
haven't really written anything here for a long time (over a year –
and that was a one-off after a four and a half year absence.) I
think perhaps some of the problem with a blog is the need to find a
focus for it. You'll look back and see that this one started as a
place where I could expound on the many issues of Doctor Who
continuity. And yes, I got a lot of that off my chest in the early
days – but then there wasn't so much more to write about. It's
more likely that a specific continuity matter would be discussed and
debated on my Facebook group, without the need arising to lay down my
definitive thoughts on the issue here.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So I tried a
reinvention: the “Anderthon”. Do you remember that? It
dominated 2011. But then that dried up the following year. I always
meant to get back to it, but then the death of Gerry Anderson put a
bit of a dampener on the whole thing, and I felt less comfortable
about criticizing the man and his work. So it all kind of fell by
the wayside. It's not that I stopped watching the Anderson shows, I
just didn't want to be writing “witty” capsule reviews of them
any more. There are still things I might want to say about them
though, just not necessarily in that context.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And that takes me back
to the original fundamental question: what is the blog for? There
are things I want to say, thoughts I want to express in words. For
my own satisfaction really. But they don't have to be about Doctor
Who or Supermarionation or tied to any particular theme really. So
what I want to do is wipe the slate clean, as it were, and say this
blog isn't about anything particular. Just whatever is exercising my
mind at any one time. Sometimes these might be reactions to actual
events. Sometimes they might be about things long past that have
only just occurred to me. Just freeform ramblings really, without
the need to tie them to a particular theme or direction – because
interests and enthusiasms change. I may even find myself
contradicting previous entries, because opinions too can alter with
time. So this blog becomes an exercise in documenting the state of
my mind over time – God help us!</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-35780559763538486982016-12-11T02:38:00.000+00:002018-02-06T18:58:40.248+00:00Doctor Who and the Facts of Inaccuracy<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Those of you who know
me well must realize that I can be at times a man of the most trivial
and petty obsessions, and it's just such a thing that's been
exercising me lately. It's a very, very minor and unimportant piece
of Doctor Who trivia, but it's been reported incorrectly and now the
inaccuracy has spread across numerous sites on the internet.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
This story actually
starts in 1974, but for me, it goes back to 2005, and it's then I'm
going to start this strange tale. BBC Audio released <i>Doctor Who at
the BBC</i> Volume 3, and its major selling point was a previously
unreleased mini-drama featuring Jon Pertwee and Lis Sladen. Needless
to say, I listened to this eagerly to try and ascertain where it
might fit into continuity. But the fact is, eleven years later, I
still haven't added it to “The Complete Adventures”. Why not?
Well, it's made quite clear that this “mini-drama” was actually a
series of audio inserts made to accompany a personal appearance
Sladen made for a public event at Goodwood – which to my mind, put
it in the same category as Hartnell opening that air show in the
sixties, or Tom Baker visiting childrens' hospitals in character –
I don't try to fit those into continuity either, they're just part of
the publicity machine.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
And that's probably
where I would have left it if two things hadn't happened recently.
Firstly, BBC South Today released some clips of their coverage of the
event from 1974. It was fun to finally be able to put some images
behind the soundtrack, and also to learn that, in addition to the
Daleks and Aggedor, one of the Metebelis spiders was present at the
event (she wasn't mentioned in the audio inserts.) It also pretty
much confirmed my original interpretation of the soundtrack – that
it was played over the tannoy to give some context to the live event
which was being staged on the day, with Sladen effectively miming to
her pre-recorded dialogue.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr7HCJblRziNV0RYazt3iV2SpkKIbiSGwL7uZ_FVrwNFOwnhb2yXaYWbHpM1GNVQ1qYBCJBA0JnrsmB32cIb7_Vq3d66D26-DVevr5KUkL_GKGEI6CjHZ5IZCBo9JCyljM4ivVKuDxfPhu/s1600/g3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr7HCJblRziNV0RYazt3iV2SpkKIbiSGwL7uZ_FVrwNFOwnhb2yXaYWbHpM1GNVQ1qYBCJBA0JnrsmB32cIb7_Vq3d66D26-DVevr5KUkL_GKGEI6CjHZ5IZCBo9JCyljM4ivVKuDxfPhu/s1600/g3.JPG" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The second thing that
happened was that a member of my “Complete Adventures” Facebook
group asked me why I hadn't included the story. And though my
reasons for excluding it probably haven't changed since 2005, I'm
prepared to concede that the release of the news clips coupled with
the existence of the audio inserts might give it a bit more
permanence and legitimacy than other in-character personal
appearances might possess. So I might be re-considering some time
soon – I've already come up with a theory about how this story
might fit into continuity – but that's not what this article is
about.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
No, what intrigued me
was that my correspondent referred to this little piece of ephemera
as “the Third Doctor audio drama <i>Glorious Goodwood</i>”. For the
reasons I've outlined above, I'd dispute that you could call this an
audio drama, but what really leaped out at me was that title. Where
had it come from? Glorious Goodwood is the popular name for the
annual flat racing festival held at Goodwood Racecourse in late
Summer. I hadn't supposed that the Doctor Who event had any
connection with the Racecourse, but had taken place at the Goodwood
Motor Circuit, a motor racing venue a couple of miles to the South.
I mean, pretty obviously, you wouldn't drive the Whomobile around a
horse racing track, especially not one of the world's most
prestigious. You certainly wouldn't fight Daleks and blow up giant
spiders there. The dialogue also makes it pretty clear: Sarah says
she's going to take the Whomobile for “another spin around the
circuit”, and there are several references to British Leyland (even
the Daleks identify them as the organizers of the event!) and
Stirling Moss. It's obviously a motor show, and you wouldn't hold a
motor show at a racecourse.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So it was a bit
surprising to find that the back of the <i>Doctor Who at the BBC</i> CD said
the mini-drama was “specially recorded for Glorious Goodwood in
1974”. The track listing meanwhlle calls it “Personal appearance
at Goodwood Races”, although the booklet is a bit more vague saying
“although it's not clear at which particular event our item was
recorded, the reference to 'Glorious Goodwood' suggests that it was
part of the famous five-day festival held at the end of July “.
Lis Sladen even says in her links that the inserts were for a public
appearance at Goodwood Racecourse. So that would seem to settle the
matter – you'd think if anyone would know, it would be someone who
was actually there.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
But I just couldn't
reconcile that with my previous observations that the event must have
been staged at the Motor Circuit. These pictures from the South
Today report are clearly showing a motor track.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOWD4mJ42NQr-durcWKw2XaIuaopxAk_SjlwUOK-cPjnUngfNq5KFICUok-voTzKR4Iuhyphenhyphen94V7WYVc9d5a2ilg5TYvkS9xiu_Y7i5juXeFd-K0fIZwFlMjuG-7PjhyzHQky2BbKlDonTxg/s1600/g1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOWD4mJ42NQr-durcWKw2XaIuaopxAk_SjlwUOK-cPjnUngfNq5KFICUok-voTzKR4Iuhyphenhyphen94V7WYVc9d5a2ilg5TYvkS9xiu_Y7i5juXeFd-K0fIZwFlMjuG-7PjhyzHQky2BbKlDonTxg/s1600/g1.JPG" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Y2XYSZMNM17f-2-z7ZkFFfZf_mB1fh_3xykrk1xw8uU7Np7Q-iNs-76NuUn-AZSHj4Iv3lLra6NKetCL_tqEPAj4J2vcx_mt6vBaPKyDVvNTnMIMReWHBchea7_6CechCiuSzenWtDOD/s1600/g2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Y2XYSZMNM17f-2-z7ZkFFfZf_mB1fh_3xykrk1xw8uU7Np7Q-iNs-76NuUn-AZSHj4Iv3lLra6NKetCL_tqEPAj4J2vcx_mt6vBaPKyDVvNTnMIMReWHBchea7_6CechCiuSzenWtDOD/s1600/g2.JPG" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I'll be generous and
assume that Lis Sladen simply didn't remember the precise details
after thirty-odd years, and was happy to go along with what was
written in the script for her links – presumably written by the
disc producer Michael Stevens, who also seems to have done the blurb
in the booklet. And I think he's misunderstood the dialogue and
jumped to an erroneous conclusion. Now, it is true that when Sarah
phones the Doctor in the audio insert, she says she's calling from
“glorious Goodwood” – but she says it with something of a smile
in her voice. To me, it's obviously just a jokey reference to the
fact that the word glorious often precedes the name Goodwood, not a
definitive indicator of where she is.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I did a bit of digging
around online, and I found a 2008 post on a motor racing forum,
discussing the upcoming Goodwood Festival of Speed, in which the
poster casually mentioned that he'd been to Goodwood Circuit
previously in 1974 and had fought the Daleks then. Prompted for
further information, he'd explained that he was in the Royal Military
Police in 1974, and the Commandant had been approached to provide a
couple of teams of armed soldiers and vehicles to appear in a Doctor
Who production at the circuit. This absolutely confirmed the thing
for me. The RMP were stationed in those days at Rousillon Barracks
in the North of Chicester, literally a stone's throw from the
Goodwood Circuit. (I wouldn't say the poster was 100 percent
reliable, since he believed that he'd been taking part in an actual
tv episode – and that Tom Baker had been the Doctor at the time and
present at the filming – but again, three decades had passed, and
memories can get a bit jumbled. He might be recalling the South
Today news cameras, and misremembering the rest. But he's unlikely
to have forgotten being in the Royal Military Police, and as I say
they would absolutely be the nearest unit who could have been called
upon by the event organizers.)</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
I asked on
Gallifreybase if anyone could confirm or deny my conclusions, and the
ever-knowledgeable Richard Bignell came to my rescue. He even
provided me with an advertising poster that confirmed the event was
at the Goodwood Motor Circuit, and was indeed a British Leyland Test
Day – and it would seem that the legendary driver Stirling Moss was
also present, which explains Sarah's throwaway reference to him. It
even confirms the date of the event as 18<sup>th</sup> May 1974, the
same day <i>Planet of the Spiders</i> part three was broadcast, and a
good couple of months before the Glorious Goodwood festival.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR0gKkYmw1J_5cG6U4QUMzVD-i7QR5sIKDYZBgnGjwH_VG1lutiQk7ixRoWZvHT6CIzYRoOzmkUF4Xjv6ODjmSfPE2gjyAVxZk6mZRERc8dedE3NQpBfigUKPAqPrDNE3I1VDEJD2cklk-/s1600/g4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="443" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR0gKkYmw1J_5cG6U4QUMzVD-i7QR5sIKDYZBgnGjwH_VG1lutiQk7ixRoWZvHT6CIzYRoOzmkUF4Xjv6ODjmSfPE2gjyAVxZk6mZRERc8dedE3NQpBfigUKPAqPrDNE3I1VDEJD2cklk-/s640/g4.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So all this seems
pretty conclusive. I still couldn't work out how this thing had
somehow acquired the title <i>Glorious Goodwood</i>, so I did some
more googling, and found several references. There's an entry for
the thing on the DiscContinuity Guide website, which covers audio
adventures. There are several reviews and blog entries about it, all
of them calling it <i>Glorious Goodwood</i> and describing it as an
audio adventure or a radio story. And pretty much all of them assert
that the events take place at Goodwood Racecourse, some even
suggesting the date of July. I think eventually I traced this back
to its source when I found the article for the story on the Tardis
Wiki. On the article's “Talk” section, the page's creator
explains that “the mini-episode was untitled so I've created an
article under the title of the programme, as I did with <i>Tonight's the
Night</i>.” OK then, I can understand what he did there. The trouble
is, of course, that the audio inserts were not broadcast as part of a
programme (either radio or tv) called <i>Glorious Goodwood</i>. I think
he's taken the CD liner notes assertion that it was “specially
recorded for Glorious Goodwood in 1974” a bit too literally. The
other websites I've mentioned have just picked up this retronym, and
so it propagates itself across the web. Since we now know what event
this production was mounted for, if anything, it ought to be titled
“Hares Goodwood British Leyland Test Day”, which doesn't exactly
fly off the tongue.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The body of the article
tells us that:</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“<i>Glorious Goodwood</i>
was a BBC Radio Story.”</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“The episode was
created in conjunction with an appearance at Goodwood Racecourse in
West Sussex and was apparently to have been played at the venue
itself.”</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
“The untitled
mini-episode was never broadcast.”</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
...all of which we
can now disprove. (It's not a radio story, it was at Goodwood Motor
Circuit, and it was indeed broadcast exactly as intended – by
being played over the tannoy at the event – you can even hear it
in the background during the South Today footage .)
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
The wiki article
includes a plot synopsis, which repeats that it takes place at
Goodwood Racecourse. And also asserts that “the US Cavalry arrives
to help defeat the Daleks”. Which is a surprise. Again, I think
this is an over-literal interpretation of Sarah's line where she's
waiting for help to arrive, and calls out desperately: “Come on,
the US Cavalry, wherever you are!” Again, like the initial
“glorious Goodwood” comment, I read it as a jokey reference, in
this case to the tropes of Westerns, where the Cavalry sweep in to save
the day. The RMP officers playing the soldiers I would suggest are
more likely to be playing British or even UNIT troops. (In the South
Today interview, Lis and the reporter only refer to the army arriving
in the nick of time.) Still, I deal with the minutiae of Doctor Who
continuity all the time, and one of the things I'm constantly banging
my head against is fans taking everything ever said in the series
literally, every line of dialogue as a statement of absolute fact.
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Well, armed with all
this information, I wondered what should I do? I thought I could go
and edit the page on the Tardis Wiki, but as soon as I looked at it,
I realized that “Goodwood Racecourse” was a clickable link that
opened its own article, stating that Sarah Jane encountered the
Daleks there and defeated them with the help of the US Cavalry. And
“US Cavalry” lead to another article about them, which only
stated that they helped Sarah defeat the Daleks at Goodwood
Racecourse. And so on. And of course, the events are described
again in the article on Sarah Jane Smith, and probably on the one for
the Daleks. (I'd stopped looking by then.) Even on this one fan
wiki, the inaccurate information has started to spread itself into
several articles, all backing each other up. You'd have to edit,
delete, retitle, move several articles – and even then, would you
catch it all? And was it really worth the effort for eight minutes
of audio nonsense that most fans probably will never listen to?</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Of course it wasn't.
And anyway, even if I did all that, I couldn't change all the other
websites out there that are already quoting the wrong information.
It's too late, the genie's out of the bottle. Even the actual
Wikipedia contains the following note at the end of its article on
Goodwood Racecourse: “See Also: <i>Doctor Who at the BBC</i>, a series of
Doctor Who releases, which included an audio adventure entitled
<i>Glorious Goodwood</i>, set at a Goodwood race, featuring Elisabeth Sladen
and Jon Pertwee”. Which is both inaccurate, and really not very
relevant to an article on a famous racecourse.</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
So why am I so wound up
about all this? I'm not blaming someone for having originally made a
mistake. I'm just annoyed that the mistake has been taken up and
repeated across the internet when some basic checking could have laid
it to rest. With a few simple and verifiable assumptions, some
logical deductions, and about thirty minutes of research, I was able
to get at the truth of the matter. If I could do it, then so could
(and should) everyone else. Does it really matter in the scheme of
things? Probably not, but if this exceptionally insignificant error
can be perpetuated across numerous web sources, what guarantee do we
have that actual important news and information is being quoted and
reported truthfully? And that's the worry.<br />
<br />
<b>Small update: January 2018</b><br />
I see the Tardis wiki page was eventually updated based on my research here, by someone who clearly had more patience than me. Well done! It's just a pity that the title can't be changed too - or the mass conglomeration of misinformation everywhere else on the Web. Meanwhile, the event is now listed in <i>The Complete Adventures </i>under its proper name!</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-34230751354760127702012-07-17T23:08:00.000+01:002012-11-22T22:39:22.812+00:00Anderthon: Fireball XL5 episodes 25-28<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
</div>
<div class="western" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The
Forbidden Planet</span></div>
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2062
is interplanetary astronomical year, and in preparation all the
scientists of the “neutral planets” have been working on a great
new project. (And straightaway, it seems, they're still just
making this stuff up as they go along, as we've suddenly got a new
political grouping to swallow – wonder what happened to the “United
Planets”...?) The project is a space observatory, a space station
from which they hope to look further into the universe than ever
before – which seems like a cool idea, prefiguring things like the
Hubble Telescope. But unlike that, this isn't an automated machine
in planetary orbit – it's a manned station far out by itself in
space. (At least several hours flying time for Fireball XL5, as
we'll discover later in the episode.) And yet, despite the
contributions of all the neutral planets, the observatory is manned
only by Earthmen: Professor Matic and a Dr. Stamp. The interior of
the space station is rather spacious for just the two of them, but
the control room also doubles as a tv studio, with automated cameras
filming their work and beaming a special broadcast back to viewers
across the neutral planets. Back on Earth, Venus is tuning in with
Steve and Commander Zero. Steve has a very low opinion of television
(which is a bit like biting the hand that feeds!) – but Venus seems
to approve of the medium, saying that the programmes have a lot of
educational worth, and that Steve only ever bothers to watch the
interplanetary ball games. (A throwaway line that hints at great
social developments in the galaxy – we've got political
affiliations and now even sports leagues – a far cry from the
parochial patrols of local space and occasional contacts with aliens
that we saw in the earlier episodes. In a modern series, this stuff
would be part of a great world-building story arc. Here it just seems like random inconsistency.) Unfortunately,
the picture breaks down just as Matt is unveiling their latest
scientific breakthrough to the watching audience. Whilst the tv
company try to get the picture back, they stick on an episode of
<i>Four Feather Falls</i> as a stopgap. Steve though is worried about the
loss of contact, and decides to take Fireball XL5 to the space
observatory to find out what happened.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
What
happened is that Matt and Dr Stamp used a new long range device
called an ultrascope to observe Nutopia, the so-called “perfect
planet” – which they point out has never been seen before by
anyone in “all the universes”. (How many do they think there
are, then? And how do they know Nutopia is so perfect if no one's
ever seen it?) On Nutopia, the observation is detected, and the
Nutopians use an ultrascope of their own to look back at them. As
with so many worlds before, the entire planet seems to have a
population of two – human-looking but with exaggerated
characteristics. Perfectos has a monk's tonsure, whereas his
superior Privator (the Guardian of Nutopia) has a pointy nose. They
are outraged that the Earthmen have been spying on their world, which
no one can be allowed to do and live. Their secret weapon is
something called the protector ray, which they beam at the
observatory and render Matt and Dr Stamp unconscious. Then they use
a travel transmitter – what you or I would call a teleporter – to
travel to the observatory and bring the scientists back as prisoners.
(Interestingly, the ultrascope device allows instantaneous viewing
across vast interstellar distances, but the travel transmitter is a
bit slower – though still faster than the speed of light, of course
– and allows the subject to remain conscious and aware of the
sensation of motion through space. They're also rendered invisible,
which Privator says is “convenient” as it allows them to travel
around space without being seen.) The Nutopians keep Matt and Dr
Stamp in a glass case labelled as a specimen jar. Meanwhile,
Fireball arrives at the observatory, and Steve and Venus space walk
across – which makes me wonder why on Earth you'd build a space
station that didn't have the capacity for a spaceship to dock with
it! Inside, Steve and Venus are waylaid by the image of Privator on
the monitor screen, who explains to them exactly what the great
secret of Nutopia is: they possess eternal life. Why blab it so readily? Well, it seems that he's just keeping them talking until Perfectos can beam in and
take them prisoner as well.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The
presence on Nutopia of the “beautiful Earth woman” Venus causes
some distraction. Privator and Perfectos discuss the fact that there
are no females on Nutopia – it's implied that this was a deliberate
choice in the creation of their perfect world. (I'm not sure what
that says about the gender politics of the time!) I suppose if they
have eternal life, they don't need women around for reproductive
purposes. Nevertheless, Perfectos visits Venus and says that he will
allow the others to go free if she will stay and be his bride. He
has to hastily mumble an excuse when Privator catches them together –
but as soon as Perfectos has gone, Privator makes Venus the exact
same offer! Perfectos overhears however, and there's nothing for it
but for the two of them to fight a duel over Venus. And this is
where the absence of other inhabitants on the planet really shows
itself up – for they have to get Steve to act as umpire of the duel. He
switches the ammunition in their guns for some sort of knockout drug
– and while the two Nutopians are unconscious, the prisoners
escape. They use the travel transmitter to return to the space
observatory – but Matt has to guess how to operate the machine, and
manages to leave it on overload. By the time Perfectos and Privator
get back to their control room, the transmitter explodes, showering
them in debris. (But does this put paid to them? I can't believe
they wouldn't have another transmitter or the ability to rebuild it?
Will they come seeking revenge against the Earthmen? Isn't their
secret now out? There's a lot of loose ends here...)</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">The
Granatoid Tanks</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Planet
73 is being checked out for colonization by a small scientific
research party consisting of Professor Becker and his assistant
Zamson. Everything seems to be fine, and they're going to recommend
the planet – when suddenly Zamson notices the instruments are
detecting something moving on the other side of the planet, which as
the planet is supposed to be uninhabited, is something of a surprise.
What's causing the disturbance is a phalanx of heavily-armoured
tanks advancing inexorably on the research station – they've got
some serious cannon on them and amusingly, two radio aerials on each
tank that wave around like deely-boppers! Professor Becker
recognizes the tanks at once as belonging to the Granatoids, a race
of robots out to conquer everything in their path. For such a
terrible threat, the Granatoids are rather silly-looking robots with
square heads and moulded caricature human features – and their
leader has a head shaped a bit like a crown. (They also speak
exactly like Robert!) They are virtually unstoppable – the only
thing that has an effect on them is the mineral Plyton, which acts to
repel the Granatoids in some unspecified way. Of course, there's
none to be found on Planet 73, so the scientists are forced to call Space City
for an evacuation. (And again, I have to reflect upon the wisdom of
leaving people stuck out in deep space, in potentially hazardous
situations, without their own means of escape.)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Back
on Earth, Steve and Matt have gone to Space City's shopping arcade.
It's Venus's birthday tomorrow, and they're after a present. They
visit a music shop run by Ma Doughty, a little middle-aged Irish
woman. The shop makes no effort whatsoever to be anything other than
a 1960s record emporium. They're not buying downloads for their
ipods. No, my suspicions are confirmed: Ma Doughty is selling 12
inch records in card sleeves. There's even a listening booth into
which Steve and Matt can listen to the latest disc before deciding to
buy. The record in question is a rather cool Dave Brubeck-style
jazz piece. Also in the shop is a massive keyboard-based musical
instrument, which Matt calls an electrorchestra – it can simulate
the sounds of all the instruments of the orchestra, enabling one
person to play all the parts of a composition himself. (I suppose
we'd just call that a synthesizer these days – as such a thing had
hardly been invented in 1962, I'll forgive them for making up a silly
name for it – it seems a bit of a shame though that they didn't
realize the electronics would make such a thing small and portable,
rather than the size of a church organ!) Matt proves to be adept at
tinkling the ivories as he sits down to bash out a tune. Steve is
impressed, and decides to buy the electrorchestra for Venus. Ma
Doughty says she'll have it delivered tomorrow. Ma, it turns out, is
always pestering Steve about wanting to take a trip into space –
her father was one of the first ever astronauts, it seems, and she's
always wanted to honour his memory by following in his footsteps.
This is a well-worn argument for Steve, who tells her again that it's
simply not possible for her to go for a trip in Fireball XL5. At
that moment, Commander Zero's voice booms from a tannoy, announcing
that the Granatoids are attacking Planet 73 and calling Fireball's
crew to launch stations immediately. There's some nice throwaway
bits of sci-fi world-building here, as the characters talk of the
Granatoids as a past enemy that they'd hoped they'd seen the last of.
It helps to give a sense of depth and history to the story, rather
than just making the Granatoids seem like this week's random hostile
aliens. Ma Doughty says that her father told her all about the
Granatoids – so it would seem that the earliest space travellers
came into conflict with them – and that she didn't need to be
afraid of them. She also mentions that her father gave her the
necklace of rather roughly-hewn stones that she wears. I think I can
see where this is going.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Fireball
XL5 takes off for Planet 73. Matt works on building a gadget that
might be able to simulate the effects of Plyton on the Granatoids.
Meanwhile, Venus checks the hold, where she discovers the crate
containing the electrorchestra – but when opened, it actually
contains Ma Doughty, who's taken the opportunity to smuggle herself
on board and finally get her trip into space. Needless to say, Steve
is not best pleased. When they arrive on Planet 73, he confines Ma
to the lounge. Outside, there are clouds of dust looming on the
horizon as the Granatoid tanks approach rapidly. Matt tries to
deploy his gadget, which proves to have no effect on the Granatoids
whatsoever. By this time, the tanks have surrounded the research
station, and they find themselves cut them off from Fireball. But as
all seems lost, Ma Doughty emerges from the ship (through a hatch in
the side I don't think we've seen before – she has to climb down a
rope ladder) – and tells the Granatoids to leave the planet in
peace. Her necklace glows with an inner light, and the robots
retreat. It's not a surprise when Matt discovers that the necklace
is made from Plyton. Back on Earth, the crew take over the Space
City control room to throw a birthday party for Venus. Somehow they
even bring the electrorchestra for Matt to play, despite the fact
it's far too large to get it in the lift...</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Dangerous
Cargo</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Fireball
XL5 calls in at Pharos, the “derelict planet”. It's the site of
a Ciluvium mine, now worked out and abandoned. We're told that the
mine was built and worked by robot miners in 1998 – which doesn't
explain why it looks like an old Western town, with run-down wooden
shacks. The planet is so riddled with mine shafts that it's
literally falling apart. The ground is continually caving in, and
structures collapsing. Steve and Venus land in Fireball Junior, and
take a look around on their jetmobiles. It's clear that the planet
could break up at any moment, so Steve is going to recommend to
Commander Zero that it be destroyed as a hazard to navigation –
which is sad for Venus, who discovers some beautiful flowers growing
amid the rocks. However, there are a couple of random aliens
secretly watching them, who seem to have some sort of grudge against
Steve Zodiac. (It's not really explained – though obviously Steve
has pissed off any number of aliens during the course of his
adventures! The lack of any proper motivation is just lazy writing
here – especially coming after last week when a few well-chosen
lines filled in a bit of background history to the Granatoids). The
aliens plan to wait until Steve returns, and then take their revenge
upon him. Back at Space City, Zoonie has been left to wander around
unsupervised. (Venus mentions that Commander Zero is supposed to be
looking after him, but I guess he's a busy guy...) Zoonie manages to
get into the city's power plant. Incredibly, there are no guards
(and, it would seem, no locks) on the doors, and no one working
inside, so there's nothing to stop the lazoon getting inside and
tampering with the controls. When Zoonie overloads the power output,
the control tower starts to speed up its revolutions, eventually
careening around like some crazy fairground ride and leaving Zero and
Ninety pinned down by centrifugal force! As you'd imagine, the
Commander is not pleased with the lazoon, and wants him out of his
sight.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Steve
reports the condition of Pharos to Commander Zero, who agrees that
the planet should be destroyed. It's too close to the space freight
routes from them to use normal missiles, as it would take years to
clear the resultant debris. The only option therefore is to
completely vaporize the planet, using an explosive called Visevium 9.
This is a ridiculously-volatile substance, which is delivered to the
launch site inside a large packing case that's winched aboard
Fireball. It's stored in Matt's lab, which causes the poor Professor
some consternation, as he's afraid of even the slightest jolt that
might set it off. Meanwhile, Venus has the problem of what to do
with Zoonie. Since she can't leave him with the Commander again,
Steve agrees that she can bring him aboard Fireball, but only if the
lazoon is confined to the space jail. (Though once they arrive on
Pharos, he relents and lets Zoonie out, although insists he remain
confined to Fireball.) Steve and Matt take the Visevium into one of
the old mine shafts, where Matt works to assemble a bomb. With an
hour to go until detonation, the aliens use a large boulder to seal
the entrance to the mine shaft, trapping Steve, Venus and Matt
inside. The bomb has already been activated, and there's nothing
they can do now to stop it detonating. They'll all be killed.
(Honestly, do these people never think about safety measures?) The
aliens meanwhile scarper in their own spaceship, and that's the last
we see of them in the episode – wonder if we'll see a rematch?
Steve suddenly thinks about calling Robert on the radio to come and
help them, but even the robot can't shift the boulder. What they
don't realize is that Zoonie followed Robert outside, and goes off
into the rocks to pick some of the flowers Venus admired earlier.
Steve tries one last desperate thing – removing the power pack from
his ray gun and overloading it to blast the boulder to fragments –
despite the risk that an explosion in such close proximity might set
off the Visevium early. Fortunately, it succeeds and they get back
to Fireball with just seconds to spare. It's then that Venus
discovers Zoonie is not on board. He must have been destroyed on the
planet. Hearing the news, even Commander Zero is upset and regrets
his earlier harsh treatment of the lazoon. But in Fireball's lounge,
as everyone is mourning Zoonie, they suddenly find him asleep behind the couch, with one of the flowers he's picked for Venus. All I can say to that
is: Venus couldn't have looked for him very hard before jumping to
the worst conclusion!</div>
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<br /></div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: large;">1875</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
Matt
Matic has sealed himself away in his workshop for days, with only
Robert for company, while he works on some new invention. The whole
thing is played like a surgical procedure, with Robert handing Matt
the tools as he requests them – cue some heavy-handed slapstick
moments with hammers dropped on feet, and so on. Security seems to
have been stepped up in Space City, maybe as a result of events last
week – there’s now a security guard patrolling on a jetmobile,
checking on the outlying buildings. (Despite his futuristic uniform,
he’s written and played as the stereotypical Irish cop familiar
from US police dramas of the period.) Anyway, what’s Matt been
working on? That's what Venus would like to know – she's got Steve
and Commander Zero round for dinner, but Matt never bothered to turn
up – his dinner's still in the “atom oven”. (There they are
again, thinking that atomic equates to futuristic – I've no problem
with Space City being powered by atomic energy, but what that does is
generate electricity, which you'd use to power your oven in the
normal way – it's hard to imagine an oven directly powered by its
own nuclear reactor, which seems ridiculously wasteful and
dangerous.)</div>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
Matt's
invention is finished – and it's a time machine. It has a large
control panel, with a dial that can select specific years, and a
glass booth into which the time traveller is placed. Matt decides to
test it by sending Robert back to the year 1875, where he arrives in
a Wild West town. (Interesting that there appears to be a movement
in space as well as time – since we've previously established that
Space City is on an island in the Pacific...) I'm prepared to
forgive this, though, since it gives the producers the chance to
revisit the milieu of <i>Four Feather Falls</i> – and indeed, this is all
a very familiar setting, complete with puppet horses tied up outside
the saloon, and harmonica music coming from the town jail. Playing
the instrument is Deputy Dodgem. He decides that he wants some
coffee, and is rather startled by the appearance of Robert from the
back room with a coffee pot. The Deputy thinks the robot must be a
ghost, and locks himself in his own jail cell. Around this time,
Matt decides to bring Robert back, and the robot fades away to
reappear in the time machine's booth. The time machine seems to work
by projecting the subject into the past – certainly no part of the
machine actually travels there – so the fact that Matt can
subsequently retrieve his subject suggests to me that the machine
could also be used to snatch people from the past. The fact that
Robert returns still carrying a coffee pot from 1875 might seem to
support this hypothesis. But I'll return to this theme later. Matt
locks up his lab and leaves the key with Lieutenant Ninety, telling
him the lab is not to be opened until the assessors from the
interplanetary patents committee arrive in the morning – which is
an amusing twist. I can't imagine anyone inventing time travel in
any other series, and their first concern being to secure the
intellectual property and commercial exploitation rights – although
it strikes me as what would probably happen in the real world. A
neat touch by the writer.</div>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" lang="en-GB" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
Overcome
by curiosity, Commander Zero demands that Ninety hand over the key to
the lab. He goes with Steve and Venus to investigate, fearing that
Matt has been wasting public money on some useless invention. Unable
to work out what the machine is, the three of them enter the glass
booth. The only trouble is that Zoonie has followed them into the
lab, and starts fiddling with the controls. This isn't going to end
well... Sure enough, the three interlopers are dematerialized. The
process of time travel is depicted from their point of view as a
sensation of travelling through the stars whilst intangible and
invisible (which is so similar to the way they were transported by
the Nutopians, I found it rather disappointing). But then something
strange happens. When he arrives in the Western town, Steve is
dressed as a cowboy and doesn't remember anything about being a space
pilot from the future. Seeing that the town is in need of a sheriff,
he takes the vacant position. Meanwhile, Venus and Zero have arrived
at an encampment some way from the town and believe themselves to be
a couple of bandits, keen to hit the town while it has no resident
sheriff. (So the people going back don't realize they're from the
future – it's a very odd take on the time travel concept. I wonder
if it's what Matt intended.) Sheriff Zodiac discusses his new
responsibilities with the Deputy and Doc, who runs the town bank –
unaware that Frenchie Lil and Zero are already breaking in. They use
dynamite to blow open the safe, and then capture Steve and his
friends when they come to investigate, locking them up in their own
jail. Meeting Lil stirs a strange memory in Steve, who suddenly
feels that he knows her... But before anything can come of that,
Zero knocks Lil out and escapes the town with the loot – which is
only fair enough, since Lil had been planning to double cross Zero
too!</div>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<br /></div>
<div align="LEFT" class="western" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
Back
in 2062, Lieutenant Ninety wakes Matt and tells him that the others
went to his lab, and have now vanished. Matt rushes to the time
machine – but Zoonie has fiddled with the controls and changed the
year setting to 1066, so Matt can't be sure where they've ended up.
I was expecting a trip to the Battle of Hastings, but Matt decides to
gamble that the machine was on its original setting of 1875 when the
others left. He manages to retrieve Steve and Commander Zero, who
come back to the present in their WSP uniforms, with only the vaguest
memories of what's been happening to them. But Matt can't seem to
retrieve Venus, and surmises that she must be unconscious. (So
perhaps the machine can home in the subject's brain waves.) He tries
to turn up the gain to find Venus, running the time machine to
overload – and manages to extract Venus just moments before she
would be caught in a second dynamite explosion! But the strain is
too much for the time machine, which blows itself up. Then the two
assessors from the patent office turn up, and appear to be Doc and
Deputy Dodgem! They seem to feel that they've met Steve and co
before – a very long time ago, Steve tells them. I'm not really
sure what this ending is supposed to mean. I suppose, theoretically,
they could be descendants of the original Doc and Dodgem, but why
would they remember Steve? This, as well as the odd and inconsistent
way in which the time travel process seems to work, suggests to me
that the writer hasn't really thought it all through. (I suspect
they wanted to do a Western, and weren't too bothered about the
question of how it was going to work.) I'm also wondering, now that
they've invented time travel, whether they'll be using it again in
future episodes...</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-51943534776746171002011-11-22T00:10:00.002+00:002011-11-22T00:47:53.205+00:00Anderthon: Welcome Home...<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Fireball XL5<br />episodes 21-24</span><br /><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Flight to Danger</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The episode opens with Fireball XL5 executing a series of erratic manoeuvres.<span style=""> </span>But it’s alright, nothing’s gone wrong this time: the ship is being piloted by Lieutenant Ninety (under Steve’s tutelage) – it’s part of his training towards earning his astronaut’s wings.<span style=""> </span>We learn that this is Commander Zero’s idea – but interestingly, he’s not really seeking to sponsor his assistant’s advancement in the organization; rather, he believes that Ninety will be better able to function as a flight controller if he understands the spaceships from the astronauts’ point of view.<span style=""> </span>Zero in fact has less confidence in Ninety than Steve has: there are three main tests that the trainee astronaut has to complete, the first of which is to successfully land the ship.<span style=""> </span>Zero doesn’t believe the Lieutenant is ready yet, but Steve decides to let him go for it.<span style=""> </span>Despite a few hairy moments and some wobbly steering, Ninety manages to bring Fireball in to land on the apron amid the usual clouds of exhaust smoke.<span style=""> </span>The next test is to successfully launch the ship (which it seems to me ought to be easier than the landing – you’ve just got to sit back and let the rocket sled shoot you along the track – although remembering the time Lieutenant Ross failed to get XL1 Alpha into the air, perhaps there’s a bit more to it than that…)<span style=""> </span>Anyway, Lieutenant Ninety successfully gets XL5 off the ground, and Commander Zero agrees that they can press on with the final test.<span style=""> </span>This is the true challenge: a solo flight around the Moon in a one-man capsule.<span style=""> </span>On the night before the launch, the Fireball crew hold a party for Lieutenant Ninety at Venus’s beach house – juxtaposed with scenes of Commander Zero sitting alone in the darkened control tower, stoked up on coffee and fags like a late night radio talk show host.<span style=""> </span>It’s a lovely character moment, once again stripping away some the aura of the commanding officer to show him as a human being, worried about his subordinate in a way he could never admit to in public.<span style=""> </span>When Ninety’s rocket launches the next day, Fireball XL5 takes off to track the capsule on its journey.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately during the flight, a component breaks away from its mounting inside Ninety’s capsule – thanks to a label on its side, we know this is a nuclear reactor.<span style=""> </span>(In the real world, nuclear reactors probably don’t come so handily labelled, but overly precise and demonstrative signage is one of the endearing charms of the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB">’ world.)<span style=""> </span>I also doubt that a real nuclear reactor would be the size of the small canister depicted here – and given that the nuclear industry is subject to the most rigorous safety regulations in the world, it’s unlikely it would be attached to the wall of a spaceship by a couple of clips, nor that it would be positioned precisely so that it could fall into a reservoir of highly volatile fuel – nor that this potential disaster area would be separated from Lieutenant Ninety’s cabin by a thin wall.<span style=""> </span>They’re just looking for a tragedy to happen!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">As the capsule passes behind the Moon, radio contact with Lieutenant Ninety is temporarily cut off.<span style=""> </span>(Hey look, a bit of accurate science.<span style=""> </span>You see, they can do it…)<span style=""> </span>When he comes back into contact, Ninety reports that the capsule is overheating.<span style=""> </span>The heat from the fallen reactor has ignited the fuel – before long, flames are lapping around the cabin.<span style=""> </span>Steve asks Matt what could have happened, Matt can only conclude that the nuclear reactor must have broken loose.<span style=""> </span>(The fact that Matt can instantly think of it suggests to me that the reactor’s dodgy connections have already been identified as a potential design flaw – which only makes me ask why they haven’t already done something about it.<span style=""> </span>There’s something prophetic about this though – I’m unfortunately reminded of the way NASA ignored the potential problem with the o-ring seals in the space shuttle’s booster rockets.)<span style=""> </span>Fireball XL5 rushes to the rescue, but it’s a real race against time – and incredibly, actually ends in disaster: the capsule blows up before XL5 can reach it.<span style=""> </span>Since you expect a nick of time rescue in this kind of show, it’s actually quite shocking.<span style=""> </span>The Fireball crew are stunned by the tragedy – but no one is as badly affected as Commander Zero, left alone in the control tower to mourn “the best assistant I ever had”.<span style=""> </span>You have to wonder also whether he’s feeling guilt since he was the one who put Ninety forward for the astronaut training.<span style=""> </span>What none of our heroes realizes is that Lieutenant Ninety is still alive, having managed to eject from his capsule at the last moment.<span style=""> </span>It’s only a temporary respite however, as he’s got no way of contacting the others and only has one oxygen pill left.<span style=""> </span>(Though I would probably imagine that a slow slide into oblivion due to oxygen starvation is preferable to being burnt alive or blown up.)<span style=""> </span>In his final moments of consciousness, Ninety reflects fatalistically on his situation in a sequence that’s surprisingly mature for this kids’ series.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, Matt detects an unusual reading on the “spacemograph” and, despite their dejection, Steve determines that they still have their duty to do and sets off to investigate.<span style=""> </span>Just as well, for the mysterious blip is none other than Ninety’s unconscious body.<span style=""> </span>As Steve rushes to recover him, we rather neatly fade into the Lieutenant recovering in hospital.<span style=""> </span>As everyone gathers around him, excited by his miraculous escape, all Ninety can focus on is the set of astronaut’s wings that Commander Zero presents him.<span style=""> </span>This is almost a “bottle episode”, featuring only the regular cast and mostly the existing sets and effects.<span style=""> </span>It’s also brilliantly effective – probably the single best episode so far – exploring facets of our characters (particularly Zero and Ninety) that we don’t normally see amid the usual gung-ho alien encounters.<span style=""> </span>Terrific stuff!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Space Vacation</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The planets Kemble and </span><span lang="EN-GB">Olympus</span><span lang="EN-GB"> are ridiculously close together – to the extent that Kemble fills half the sky of </span><span lang="EN-GB">Olympus</span><span lang="EN-GB"> and surface features can be made out in precise detail. If they’re really that close, then they have to be a twin planet system sharing the same orbit, and revolving around a common centre of gravity – as indeed the Earth and the Moon do – and yet the Moon is so small in the sky that you can cover it with your extended thumb. Despite that, the Moon exerts enough gravitational pull on the Earth to cause our ocean tides – so at the distances we see here, I’d expect Kemble and Olympus to be literally pulling each other apart… It’s also interesting that two worlds in the same orbit are so different: </span><span lang="EN-GB">Olympus</span><span lang="EN-GB"> being a verdant paradise, while Kemble is a barren, rocky hellhole racked by lightning storms and earthquakes. This dichotomy works well for the sake of the script though, which sets up the two worlds to be polar opposites of each other. This even extends to the inhabitants: both species have the same sculpted faces with prominent cheekbones, but the inhabitants of Kemble are dark haired and sinister, whilst those of </span><span lang="EN-GB">Olympus</span><span lang="EN-GB"> are white haired and saintly-looking. The people of Kemble live in underground shelters since their world is so awful – their leader Canarik is due to go to Olympus soon for peace talks – but he announces to his (unseen) people that his real plan is to take control of Olympus and migrate his people there. On </span><span lang="EN-GB">Olympus</span><span lang="EN-GB"> meanwhile, the leader Jankel is planning to assassinate Canarik with a bomb fixed to his chair at the official banquet. The voice of reason here is his son, Ergon, who points out that there’s plenty of room on the planet for both peoples to be able to live in harmony – but Jankel doesn’t trust Canarik and doesn’t want to take any chances. Into this fraught situation come the crew of Fireball XL5, who’ve selected </span><span lang="EN-GB">Olympus</span><span lang="EN-GB"> as a holiday destination, after Steve flew past it once and thought it looked nice. (Astonishingly, Commander Zero allows them to use Fireball – an expensive piece of military hardware, after all – for their vacation.) As our heroes pack for the trip, we get predictably sexist jokes about the number of suitcases Venus wants to bring. Then they set off, dressed up like stereotyped American tourists in Hawaiian shirts.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">On </span><span lang="EN-GB">Olympus</span><span lang="EN-GB">, they’re invited to the banquet, where Canarik presents Ergon with a gift (it’s his birthday apparently) – a bottle containing an “Elixir of Life”. (Amusingly, it comes with a nice printed label on it, as if it’s something mass-produced that you can just buy from the chemists on Kemble…) The Elixir is really the deadly “glansta” poison, and Ergon collapses into a coma. Thinking that he’s suffered an allergic reaction, Venus goes back to Fireball Junior to fetch some medicine – but she’s waylaid by Canarik, who kidnaps her and spirits her back to Kemble aboard his ship. He doesn’t want her being able to cure Ergon. So it appears his big plan to secure an invasion of Olympus is to murder the leader’s son – I’m not really sure how this is going to help him, especially seeing that Jankel is the hostile one, and Ergon would have been the more likely to have welcomed the people of Kemble. Jankel tries to make political capital out of the incident, saying how it proves Canarik cannot be trusted – at which point the chair he’d earlier directed Canarik to sit in blows up! Jankel pulls a ray gun and demands that Steve fly to Kemble to retrieve Venus and/or find an antidote – and just to make sure, he keeps Matt as a hostage. Initially, he starts out with the usual “if my son dies, the Professor dies” threat – but he eventually has Matt tied up to a chair facing a crossbow on a timer mechanism: three hours to go until he’s shot dead… Steve arrives on Kemble and explores the underground chambers – where he finds Venus chained to a wall. He sneaks up behind Canarik and drops a rock on his head – not a small rock either! (Luckily, he seems to have a thick skull. Equally luckily, none of Canarik’s people come out of their shelters to hinder Steve…) Quickly, Steve races back to Olympus with Venus, the captive Canarik and the antidote – just in time to save Matt from the crossbow. Once Ergon has recovered, Steve’s solution to the problems is basically to bang Jankel and Canarik’s heads together and tell them to sort it out between themselves. So negotiations proceed with the two leaders like squabbling kids, constantly inflicting practical jokes on each other (of the exploding cigar variety) – with Ergon threatening to call Fireball XL5 back whenever it looks like they can’t get along! This is an interesting episode, with a clever reversal of expectations as the apparently saintly Jankel turns out to be just as bad as Canarik. It suggests that some terrible past animosity between the two peoples has led to deep-seated hostilities, while Ergon represents a new generation moving beyond ethnic hatred and looking for a peaceful future. I also liked that Steve left them to find their own solution rather than imposing one by force – I hope it’s a sign of a new maturity for the characters and the show.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Mystery of the TA 2</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Matt detects an unusual reading, so Steve decides to investigate: they find a piece of floating space junk which they deduce is part of an old WSP ship.<span style=""> </span>Plotting its trajectory, Matt is able to work out where it must have come from – so they follow that course, and eventually find the wreckage of the TA 2, an old one-man patrol ship that vanished nearly fifty years ago.<span style=""> </span>Although it’s battered and broken, it’s possible to see that the TA 2 is like a primitive version of the Fireball ship – a long cylindrical ship with the same large glass cockpit – so it’s nice to see that the modelmakers have bothered to extrapolate the design lineage back logically.<span style=""> </span>Exploring the ship, Venus and Steve enter through a hatch, while Matt floats through one of the broken windows of the cockpit.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, he didn’t warn the others of this, so he’s standing behind a door when Steve and Venus open it, sending the Professor shooting off into space!<span style=""> </span>Matt’s taken his thruster pack off to explore, so he’s got no way to arrest his flight.<span style=""> </span>Steve has to fly off after him – oddly, the way the scene is filmed, it looks like Matt comes to a halt and ends up floating some distance away, allowing Steve the chance to catch him up.<span style=""> </span>(I’m not sure that was the intention though, so I won’t mark the show down for another science failure for this one.)<span style=""> </span>There’s no trace of the TA 2’s pilot, Colonel Harry Denton, so Steve begins to wonder if he might have escaped the wreck and still be alive somewhere – even after all this time.<span style=""> </span>Matt plots some more vectors, and deduces that the wreckage has come from the planet Arctan.<span style=""> </span>They decide to follow the trail.<span style=""> </span>Steve, Matt and Venus proceed down to the surface of Arctan in Fireball Junior.<span style=""> </span>It’s a frozen planet, so they wrap up in furs, and split up to explore.<span style=""> </span>Some kind of seismic activity opens up a crack in the ground, into which Venus falls.<span style=""> </span>Later when Steve and Matt come back to meet up, they find Venus’s jetmobile abandoned and her footprints leading up to the edge of the crevasse, and figure that she must have fallen inside.<span style=""> </span>They descend into the crack on their jetmobiles – but when they try to explore the cavern, gas pours out of a vent in the wall and renders them unconscious.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, Commander Zero tries to contact Fireball XL5 to find out what’s keeping them, but only manages to get through to Zoonie who’s been left aboard the ship.<span style=""> </span>The creature merely repeats his stock phrases – needless to say, the Commander isn’t too happy about it.<span style=""> </span>(I’m not sure why Robert wasn’t able to answer the radio – he was sitting right next to the lazoon – mind you, his conversation doesn’t consist of much more than repeating the odd catchphrase either…)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Steve wakes up to find that he, Matt and Venus have been tied to stone slabs under a cave ceiling from which jagged icicles are hanging.<span style=""> </span>Two aliens appear and proclaim that they know the Earthmen have come to take their king away, which seems an odd assumption to make.<span style=""> </span>(As this point, I guessed where this story was going…)<span style=""> </span>Steve denies the charge, but the aliens subject them to a trial – as their body heat melts the icicles, they will fall from the ceiling – should the icicles strike them, then their guilt will be revealed.<span style=""> </span>(Which is a somewhat vague and crude concept on which to base a judicial system – especially as Matt has a particularly sharp-looking icicle right above his face!<span style=""> </span>As he says, he’s going to be guilty!)<span style=""> </span>The icicles start to fall, but the trial is interrupted by the arrival of the king, who demands the Earth people are released.<span style=""> </span>The king is not one of the aliens’ own race – he’s clearly an elderly human, with a straggly beard down to his knees.<span style=""> </span>The crew are freed just in time, Matt sitting up just as the icicle falls where his face would have been moments before.<span style=""> </span>As you may have guessed, the king is the aged Colonel Denton.<span style=""> </span>He’s pleased to talk to Steve and co about what life is like now on Earth, but he doesn’t want to leave with them.<span style=""> </span>His life is now here on Arctan.<span style=""> </span>As Junior departs though, </span><span lang="EN-GB">Denton</span><span lang="EN-GB"> remarks wistfully how much he would have liked to return to Earth aboard XL5 – but he feels under a moral obligation to the Arctan people.<span style=""> </span>They are like children, and he cannot leave them.<span style=""> </span>(I’m not sure if he means he thinks of them like his own children, or if they’re so simple he feels he needs to stay and take care of them – their justice system might suggest the latter, but you have to wonder how the race managed to survive before </span><span lang="EN-GB">Denton</span><span lang="EN-GB"> turned up.<span style=""> </span>There’s an untold story here – of how </span><span lang="EN-GB">Denton</span><span lang="EN-GB"> first came amongst the people of Arctan, and how he became their king, what he’s done for them in the last 50 years…<span style=""> </span>What I like about this is the complexity, the hints of things that happened off the page – there’s a pleasing depth to the writing, something for the adult viewer to contemplate beneath the surface adventure.)<span style=""> </span>Back on Earth, Zero chews the crew out for leaving Zoonie in charge of the main ship – and bans them from taking pets on future spaceflights – but seems to mellow a little as Zoonie bids him “Welcome home.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Robert to the Rescue</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The episode opens with a strange expanse of riveted metal sheets, which we eventually realize is part of an artificial planet – years before the Death Star!<span style=""> </span>A spaceship approaches, piloted by two aliens with tall dome-shaped heads – and flies through a hatch into the metal world.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile in </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB">, Professor Matic has built a new telescope, which he’s using to make astronomical observations.<span style=""> </span>In a rather laboured comedy sequence, he initially thinks a giant lazoon is in orbit – but it turns out to be Zoonie looking into the aperture.<span style=""> </span>Matt makes a real discovery however: a new planet that’s appeared in the solar system.<span style=""> </span>He wonders if it might be named after him – but the control tower cannot detect the new world at all, and Commander Zero dismisses Matt’s claims.<span style=""> </span>But when an unexpected solar eclipse occurs, it becomes clear that there really is something up there.<span style=""> </span>Zero finds Matt breaking all the safety rules of solar observation by looking at the eclipse directly through his telescope – to make matters worse, the Commander’s soon peering through the eyepiece himself.<span style=""> </span>(What a ridiculously irresponsible thing to show in a kids' programme…)<span style=""> </span>Whatever the new planet is, it can’t be detected with </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB">’s radar.<span style=""> </span>Zero despatches Fireball XL5 to check it out.<span style=""> </span>On the way, Steve and Venus take time out to discuss how Robert is single-mindedly obedient: give him an instruction, and he’ll keep going until he’s carried it out. <span style=""> </span>(I suspect this observation may turn out to be important later on.)<span style=""> </span>Arriving at the metal planet, they land Fireball Junior on the surface – but after a quick reconnaissance on their jetmobiles, Steve and Matt can’t find any way in.<span style=""> </span>They take off again – but before Junior can rejoin the main ship, it’s pulled back down to the metal planet by some unexplained force.<span style=""> </span>Retrorockets have no effect – but just when it seems they’re going to crash, a hatch opens in the side of the planet, and Junior disappears within – and vanishes from the radar screens in </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>Inside the planet, Junior is floating within an eerie pitch black void, devoid of gravity.<span style=""> </span>Steve, Matt and Venus explore with their thruster packs, and eventually locate a set of double doors in the void.<span style=""> </span>This leads to a corridor with normal gravity – but once they’ve passed through that, they go through more doors into another void.<span style=""> </span>After crossing another chamber, they eventually meet the two aliens, who announce that they hadn’t intended to encounter any humans, but now they’ve no choice but to take them prisoner.<span style=""> </span>Steve reacts hostilely to the word prisoner, but finds his ray gun has been neutralized.<span style=""> </span>(It’s not explained what the aliens are doing in our solar system – it seems an odd place to have brought their artificial planet if they wanted to avoid detection – but at the same time, they don’t seem to have any hostile or war-like intent.<span style=""> </span>It’s all very strange…)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Matt calls the aliens “domeheads”, which seems rather personal – if not borderline racist!<span style=""> </span>The aliens fetch Robert from Junior, and then declare that they’re going to make the crew part of their race.<span style=""> </span>They take Venus and Matt away and strap them to a machine which erases their memory and will.<span style=""> </span>(Again, there doesn’t seem to be any real malice in their actions – they’ve decided that, since they can’t let the Earthmen go, they’re going to absorb and integrate them into their society.<span style=""> </span>There is something unsettling about seeing our heroes losing their own identities however.)<span style=""> </span>Realizing he’s next, Steve quickly gives Robert an order: to take Junior and crew back home.<span style=""> </span>The domeheads have no use for Robert, and have him tossed over a balcony onto a conveyor belt, which is feeding ore into a furnace.<span style=""> </span>Robert – unable to do anything but obey Steve’s last order – tries desperately to escape, but his arm has been trapped under a huge chunk of ore.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, Steve has been put in the aliens’ machine, and his mind wiped.<span style=""> </span>Literally at the entrance to the furnace, Robert manages to pull himself free and climbs back up to find the crew.<span style=""> </span>Steve, Matt and Venus no longer know each other, let alone what they’re doing there.<span style=""> </span>When Robert re-appears, and tells them to follow him, they have to obey him, as they have no will of their own.<span style=""> </span>(Rather neatly, they take on the same blind obedience that drives the robot.)<span style=""> </span>Robert leads them back to Junior, telling them when to put their thruster packs back on.<span style=""> </span>Eventually, Robert fires a missile to blow a hole in the side of the metal planet, and flies Junior out of there.<span style=""> </span>With their minds empty, the crew are reduced to sitting on the floor, unaware of what’s going on.<span style=""> </span>When the domeheads realize that their prisoners have gone, they also know that their memories will soon return once free of the metal planet – and decide they have no choice but to leave the solar system.<span style=""> </span>So they take their artificial world off once again.<span style=""> </span>We never do find out what they wanted.<span style=""> </span>In a way, I find that more interesting than the usual plans for invasion or conquest – it makes the aliens seem strange, remote and incomprehensible – the sort of trick that <i>Space: 1999</i> will pull off one day.<span style=""> </span>The crew of Fireball recover their minds – but finding no trace of the new planet, Venus decides that they must all have been suffering from space hallucinations.<span style=""> </span>It’s a clever reversal of the usual “all a bad dream” story.<span style=""> </span>Even more subtle is the final shot, which closes in on Robert’s crushed and damaged arm – proof that it really did happen after all…</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">So, four cracking episodes – character studies, depth and layers of complexity.<span style=""> </span>Has this series found its feet at last?<span style=""> </span>I don’t know if it’s significant, but I note that three of these instalments were written by Dennis Spooner, one of the true greats of British television: he’ll soon become one of the most important writers on the early <i>Doctor Who</i>, and go on to create and write many of the ITC adventure series.<span style=""> </span>(Although in the interests of fairness, I should point out that he also wrote the incoherent <i>Space Pen</i> episode.)<span style=""> </span>But I’m certainly hopeful that this is a sign of things to come…</span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-18652334991975468102011-10-31T21:46:00.004+00:002011-10-31T22:02:24.491+00:00Anderthon: Everything's Real Boss, Steve...<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Fireball XL5<br />episodes 17-20</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /><br />Wings of Danger</span><br /><br />There’s some nice continuity on display here, as this episode forms a direct sequel to the opening instalment. We start with a slow pan across the surface of Planet 46, then into the caves and across the lake of lava to the doors of the Subterrains’ base. Inside, a Subterrain helpfully breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience to explain that they’re seeking their revenge against the Earthmen for the capture of their leader. The vengeance takes the form of what they call a “robot bird”, although it looks to me like a model aircraft (or perhaps the sort of “spaceplane” design beloved of pulp sci-fi illustrators, shiny metallic finish and swept back delta wings). Effectively, it’s what we’d nowadays call a pilotless aircraft, and thus seems quite a modern concept. The bird is launched as the nose of a missile, before taking independent flight – whereupon it’s programmed to hunt down a specific living target, and fire a tiny radium capsule at it, which infects and eventually kills it. The Subterrains test it out on a tree, which duly withers and dies. It’s a success, so they determine to put the bird into operation. Their plan: to use it to hunt down and kill Steve Zodiac. Now, it seems a bit petty and vindictive to me to exact personal vengeance against a single officer, rather than to wage war against the government in whose name he’s acted. I’m not sure how it really furthers the ends of the Subterrains, other than giving them a few moments of smug satisfaction. (And it’s not much of a plan for attacking the Earth either – what do they hope to do? Use the robot bird against every inhabitant one at a time? That’s going to take them a while…)<br /><br />Anyway, the robot bird follows Fireball XL5 back to Earth – once in the planet’s atmosphere, it at least justifies its name by starting to flap its metal wings. It tracks down Steve as he’s driving Venus home in his hovercar – after he’s shot with the radium capsule, Steve passes out at the wheel, but Venus is able to prevent the car from crashing by engaging the emergency brake. She has Steve admitted to hospital, and manages to treat him for the infection. As Steve makes a slow recovery, the robot bird remains hovering outside his window, looking for a chance to fire at him again – it’s programmed to keep trying until its target is eliminated. After a few days, Steve is impatient to get back on duty, and disobeys Venus’s instruction to stay in bed. Standing by the window, he presents another chance to the robot bird. Fortunately, there’s a vase of flowers in the window between Steve and the bird – struck by the radium capsule, the flowers quickly wilt and die. Realizing that the bird is not natural, Steve grabs a gun and shoots it down. Determining that the bird originated on Planet 46, Matt and Steve reprogram it, and then take it back to its world of origin – where they get their own back by leaving it hovering over the planet, ready to fire its capsules at any Subterrain who dares to come out onto the surface. I don’t know, I personally find our heroes’ behaviour here just a little callous and indeed childish. The Subterrains might have been exceedingly petty, but answering that with such tit-for-tat behaviour is hardly the response of a mature government. So I can only hope that they use this deterrent weapon as the starting point for some serious negotiations with the eventual aim of détente. Certainly, I’d wish for the future to be one of sensible diplomacy and eventual understanding. Perhaps I'm taking it all a bit too seriously? I'll admit there's a certain poetic justice to the Subterrains' fate – hoist by their own petard. But there's a lack of depth in the characterization which sees everyone (heroes and villains alike) portrayed as little more than squabbling children or playground bullies. In episodes like this, it's very hard to actually like or care about them.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Triads</span><br /><br />Though the title might suggest a thriller about Chinese gangsters, what we actually get is a charmingly daft fantasy adventure. The episode opens with a rocket being launched – one of the best effects sequences so far seen in the series. Amongst his many great achievements, Derek Meddings can really do a convincing rocket launch; the suggestion of thrust, of power overcoming gravity to force a mass of metal into the sky – I’m really sold. When the rocket gets beyond the planet’s atmosphere however, it blows up. The explosion is monitored in Space City, despite being on a planet far beyond Sector 25 – further out than any human has ever been before. It’s one of several explosions that they’ve detected in recent days, so Zero decides to send Fireball XL5 to investigate. The location is a planet to which the WSP have recently given the name Triad – because it’s three times the size of the Earth. Professor Matic plots a course, which will take Fireball three weeks to complete. Our heroes discuss how thrilling it is to be pushing out into the unknown, beyond the boundaries of human knowledge – even given how compact the universe seems to be in this series, I’m left thinking: it’s only three weeks away! How adventurous can these people be if they can’t even manage to voyage out for a mere three weeks to reach a whole new planet? What a lack of ambition… When they finally get to Triad, they leave Robert and Zoonie aboard the mothership and descend in Fireball Junior. Because of the greater gravity of the large planet, Junior is pulled down faster than normal, and Steve fears they’ll burn up or crash. He’s forced to fire the retrorockets to brake the craft, and uses up all the fuel. They won’t be able to take off again unless they can find some means to refuel Junior. Investigating the planet, they discover a world of scientific implausibility. On the one hand, the writers acknowledge the effects of high gravity – the greater fuel requirements, for instance, and Steve mentions that he’s feeling the strain on his muscles a lot more, just from walking and standing upright; but on the other hand, they’ve made the basic error of deciding that if the planet is three times bigger than Earth, then so must be everything on it. The plants and trees are normal Earth species, but three times bigger. Matt runs into a lion – courtesy of some stock footage and back projection – and it’s a normal lion, just three times bigger. Of course, on a high gravity world, the lifeforms would be squat and stunted. The lion such as depicted here would be unable to support its own weight.<br /><br />Our heroes escape the lion by hiding in a tree, from which they are eventually rescued by two local inhabitants. Again, these are normal humanoid beings (in puppet form) – just three times the size. (Interestingly, they also call their world Triad – so either they’re just being polite to their visitors, or the WSP somehow managed to correctly guess what an unknown planet was called…) The two are Gruff and Snuff, who are two middle-aged, eccentric and rather camp scientists. It turns out they are the engineers responsible for the rocket launches – they don’t know why their rockets are exploding once they clear the atmosphere, and ask for help. It seems they’re likely to be fired by their government if they can’t get it right. Matt estimates that the Triads are about 100 years behind Earth in space technology. He deduces that the rocket fuel they are using needs to be altered, and sets to work to develop an alternative. (Our heroes don’t seem to have any qualms about speeding up the development of another species – although they do have the ulterior motive that without an effective rocket fuel, they won’t be able to get back to Fireball. There’s an added layer of jeopardy that Venus didn’t leave any food out for Zoonie, so they need to get back before he starves.) The episode repeats many of the ideas and images seen in the Supercar story Calling Charlie Queen, with our puppet characters working in a full size laboratory, with real human actors or back projection representing the Triads. Despite the eccentric charm of it all, there’s just a hint of menace – I wasn’t quite sure if Gruff and Snuff were as amiable as they seemed, or whether they were in fact stringing our heroes along. Even when Matt perfects the necessary fuel, they suggest that they hope the Earthmen might stay with them – with just enough of a sinister edge to it to keep me guessing about their true motives. My fears were groundless though – the Triads are harmless. They proceed to test their next rocket with Matt’s fuel – following a very amusing countdown sequence, which sees Snuff interjecting camp little comments after each number Gruff reads out. It all goes very well, and our heroes refuel Junior and return to Fireball in time to feed Zoonie and recharge Robert, whose batteries have run down. Gruff and Snuff meanwhile look forward to future visits from the Earthmen. That’s the way to conduct interplanetary relations.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sabotage</span><br /><br />Fireball XL5 is just completing a quiet, routine patrol and heading for home, when there’s an explosion onboard. The ship is badly damaged – the explosion seems centred on the Space Gyro, which as its name suggests is a large spinning mechanism. It’s not really explained what this does, but as the ship loses all motive power as a result, it must presumably be an essential part of the power plant or the engines. Steve moves quickly to extinguish the flames, before they can spread to the fuel tanks. Matt meanwhile has become trapped in a comedy sequence which sees him spinning round helplessly in the centre of his navigation console – even though Robert is trying to help him, for the purposes of slapstick, Matt is unable to give sensible instructions like “turn it off”. Steve discovers that the explosion was caused by a neutroni bomb planted in the Space Gyro. (I was a bit perturbed at first, as I thought Steve was calling the device a neutron bomb, which I’d have thought would do a lot more damage than what we see here – but then I remembered that “neutroni” is the name the series gives to its communications system – effectively, they just replace every instance of the word “radio” with “neutroni”, so a neutroni bomb is one detonated by a radio signal. Simple… It’s not the only instance of confusingly-named technology in this episode, as we shall see.) With the Gyro destroyed, Fireball ignores the laws of physics which dictate that it should continue at its present velocity until any new force acts upon, and instead comes to a complete halt and ends up floating in space. The neutroni transmitter has also been damaged in the explosion, so they can’t tell Space City what’s happened. Seeing the ship floating there on the sector map, Commander Zero thinks it’s a sitting duck, and diverts a ship from a neighbouring sector to investigate: Light Patrol 22, a one-man vessel piloted by Master Astronaut Kelly. Meanwhile, Fireball is approached by a Gamma ship from the planet Electra – the model looks suspiciously like a toy submarine, with various futuristic accoutrements stuck onto it. Piloting it is an Archon Commander – it was he who detonated the bomb aboard XL5; now he uses a gamma ray against the crew. This has the result of mesmerizing them – even Robert! – and drawing them towards its light as moths to a flame. (The hypnotic effect I can just about buy into, but then the crew find themselves floating up towards the hatch, as if Fireball’s internal gravity no longer affects them. Then they drift through space towards the enemy vessel – I can only presume that they’d all taken their oxygen pills before falling under the influence, just on the off chance that something like this might happen…) Waking up aboard the Gamma ship, Steve finds that his eyesight is a bit blurred. Frankly, if he’s been exposed to gamma rays of that intensity, I think his hair should be falling out, his gums bleeding, and leukaemia starting to affect his bone marrow. Since none of this happens, I’ll have to assume that the “gamma ray” deployed here is not the same high-frequency EM radiation given off by radio isotopes, but instead an inappropriately scary trade name for the Archons’ hypnosis beam.<br /><br />Steve seems familiar with both the ray and the Gamma ship, suggesting that Earthmen have encountered the Archons before. He’s also aware that Gamma ships have a relatively short range, as they need to return to Electra to be recharged fairly often – this is the reason the Archons have never been able to reach Earth. The Archon commander reveals that bombs have been planted aboard all WSP vessels – their plan is to immobilize them all, remove the crews with the gamma ray, and then use the WSP’s own ships to attack the Earth. I’m missing something here. If their ships are so short range, how did they ever manage to travel far enough to be able to locate and sabotage every WSP ship? (It’s later revealed that they’ve planted bombs in Space City itself – again, how did they get there…?) Meanwhile, LP22 arrives at the abandoned XL5. Kelly goes aboard, but he falls foul of the gamma ray, and ends up unconscious in the cockpit. (But didn’t the gamma ray go back to Electra aboard the Gamma ship – there so much about this episode that doesn’t make sense…) With no word from Steve or Kelly, Commander Zero decides his only course of action is to head there himself, in Space Rescue Ship 1. SR1 is another Fireball type ship (presumably so they can use the same model shot of the launch sequence) – although by its designation, I presume it’s fitted with specialist rescue equipment. On Electra, Steve and the crew meet the Ultra Archon – he has little time for “pink people” as he calls them, but he seems fascinated with Robert for some reason. He has Steve, Venus and Matt locked up in a storeroom full of junk, while he proceeds to make Robert carry out simple instructions (“sit down”, “stand up” and so on) and even starts to disassemble his head. In the storeroom, Steve luckily finds a box containing a pair of protective goggles that counter the effects of the gamma ray. So, our heroes are able to escape, overpower the Archon, rescue Robert, and steal the Gamma ship. They head back to Fireball XL5, only to run into Commander Zero in SR1 – thinking they’re an enemy, Zero prepares to attack the Gamma ship. Steve can’t contact him, in case the neutroni transmission sets off the bomb planted aboard SR1. The only chance is to switch on the gamma ray, and mesmerize the Commander. Once everything’s been explained and they’re heading back to Earth, it doesn’t take Zero long to revert to his old self! (No one mentions the bombs that are planted in Space City or the WSP’s ships, but I suppose they’re going to be busy for the next few months clearing all that up. And I wonder if we’ve seen the last of the Archons. The way this show works, there really ought to be a rematch coming up later in the series.)<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Prisoner on the Lost Planet</span><br /><br />Professor Matic builds a new “ultra neutroni” receiver, something that can pick up signals from further away than ever before. Trying it out in the control tower, they soon receive a transmission. It’s a series of beeping signals like Morse code – Steve recognizes it as the old Space Distress Call, that hasn’t been in use for years now. It’s coming from uncharted space, out beyond the furthest edge of Sector 25. Though Commander Zero is initially cautious, Steve and Venus are keen to answer the distress call, pointing out that the Space Patrol is pledged to assist those in distress. (When they’re not blowing them up presumably! I do admire the lofty ambitions of the WSP, and I’d like to see a bit more of mankind striving to meet the unknown with peace and diplomacy – Steve is rather too keen to fire off an interceptor missile at times…) Fireball XL5 soon gets under way. One thing I don’t get is any sense of consistency concerning the speed of the ship or the scale of the galaxy. If we consider that a couple of episodes ago, it took three weeks to get from their patrol sector to Triad – here they get all the way across Sector 25 and out in uncharted territory in what seems no time at all, while Commander Zero watches their progress from the control tower. Suddenly, they come across a belt of meteorites in their path – there’s no chance of going round them, so the only option is to plough straight through and hope for the best. The writers fail their astronomy exams again here. I assumed at first that they meant to say asteroids, but no! – what we see here are small chunks of flaming rock trailing fiery tails and raining down around the ship. Real meteors are dust and rock debris left behind in the wake of a comet – they only become “shooting stars” when a planet passes through them and causes them to burn up in its atmosphere – so with no atmosphere out in deep space, what’s causing them to burn up here? Steve manages to avoid any serious damage, and eventually we discover the planet that’s the source of the distress call. It’s a forbidding, volcanic world. The crew descend in Fireball Junior, and discover that the distress call is coming from a cave at the foot of the volcano.<br /><br />Leaving Venus and Matt waiting in Junior, Steve proceeds on his jetmobile. He discovers a luxurious secret chamber, in which Afros, the Queen of the Space Amazons, is reclining seductively on a chaise longue. As you might expect, she’s dressed in a faux Ancient Greek style costume, and also has the longest and thinnest neck you’ve ever seen. She tells Steve that she has been exiled here for five years by her own people. However, she was able to build a super-powerful transmitter with which to summon help, and now he’s here, she tries to entice Steve into rescuing her. He refuses however, pointing out that she was legally sentenced by her people, and that Earth and Amazonia are both members of the United Planets Organization, and therefore honour bound to respect each other’s laws and justice. (Where did this come from? Halfway through the series, and they suddenly introduce a system of inter-governmental co-operation and diplomacy? As I’ve pointed out many times already, there’s not been much evidence of this in the Earth’s rather fractious relations with its neighbours. Are they just making this stuff up as they go along?) Afros drugs Steve, and quickly switches from seductive siren into full-on vindictive psycho-bitch mode. She reveals that she’s also built a machine that can control the volcano. (I’m just staggered that she was left here with these technological means at her disposal. I can understand her people leaving her with various creature comforts, but to have given her the electronic components and tools to achieve all this is incredible. Did they not think she might try to escape?) The volcano erupts, and molten lava starts to engulf Fireball Junior. Venus is unable to fire the rockets to take off, so it looks like Afros’s machine has somehow disabled the ship. As they face certain doom, Matt decides to fire a missile into the cave, in the hope it will disable the volcano controls – despite the risk that Steve might get caught in the blast. (It’s rather a dramatic moment as Matt has to make this brave choice.) Fortunately, Steve is unharmed, and the machine is crippled. Steve is able to return on his jetmobile, carrying the unconscious Afros with him. He’s able to fire the rockets to lift Junior free of the lava – there was nothing wrong with the motors, Venus had forgotten to engage the correct circuits. (And unfortunately, they descend to trite sexism again, especially in contrasting the technical prowess of Afros – “brains as well as beauty” – with Venus’s “hilarious” lapse.) XL5 departs with Afros in the Space Jail, presumably to be handed back to the authorities on Amazonia.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /><br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-25123521123584204352011-10-19T22:50:00.008+01:002011-11-05T22:07:11.887+00:00Anderthon: I Wish I Was a Spaceman...<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Fireball XL5<br />episodes 13-16</span><br /><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Space Pirates</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Venus volunteers to babysit Commander Zero's son, while the Commander and his wife go out to attend an important function.<span style=""> </span>(Or as we soon discover, to go to the staff bingo night!<span style=""> </span>It’s important to maintain morale, he points out.)<span style=""> </span>What’s interesting here is the way the writers are deconstructing the commander’s character – previously viewed only as the hard-nosed and hectoring senior officer, forever bawling out the unfortunate Lieutenant Ninety, now we get to prick some of that pomposity by showing him awkward and embarrassed; and also, it’s implied, somewhat hen-pecked by his wife (who in the best sitcom tradition remains only an offscreen voice).<span style=""> </span>Now, I had assumed that Zero was just a codename or designation, but here it appears on the nameplate outside his apartment, and more importantly, his son is called Jonathan Zero, so it seems it really is the family surname.<span style=""> </span>(I don’t know why I should be so surprised really.)<span style=""> </span>Venus has given young Jonathan a storybook about pirates, but he’s not very keen on it as it seems “old timey”.<span style=""> </span>(He’s clearly not averse to things of the past though, as there’s a <i>Supercar</i> book clearly visible on his shelf – nice to know that there’ll still be fans of archive television in the 2060s…)<span style=""> </span>So Venus starts to tell him a story about pirates operating right here and now in the 21st Century.<span style=""> </span>In her tale, Jock the engineer lands a space freighter on the planet Minera, which is rich in radioactive minerals that are essential on Earth – all the mining is done by robot.<span style=""> </span>The nearest planet to Minera is Aridan, which is a desolate desert world with no water – no one lives there, but it makes the perfect base for pirates to attack the space freighters and steal the precious cargoes.<span style=""> </span>(Where would pulp sci-fi be without staggeringly appropriate and literal planet names?<span style=""> </span>Still, as Venus is narrating this story, there’s at least a suggestion that she’s embroidering it a little.)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">On Aridan is the pirate Captain Kat and his henchman Patch – they are full-blown 18th Century pirates right out of Jonathan’s storybook, eye-patches, earrings, frock coats and tricorn hats all present and correct.<span style=""> </span>But that’s the whole point: the story is Jonathan’s imagining of the tale as Venus tells it, so he fills it with the imagery in his head.<span style=""> </span>In this way, the writers effectively undercut the dreaded “it was all a dream” scenario by going all meta-textual on us – we’re now seeing the adventures of Fireball XL5 through the eyes of a small boy.<span style=""> </span>The book <i>Filmed in Supermarionation</i> reveals that there were two concepts floating around for the show that eventually became <i>Fireball XL5</i>.<span style=""> </span>The idea they didn’t go with would have seen a live action framing device, wherein a contemporary schoolboy dreams that he’s a famous space pilot (the sci-fi sequences would have been done with puppets of course).<span style=""> </span>Though they didn’t do that in the end, I wonder whether some of that notion fed into the basic set-up of this episode.<span style=""> </span>(And come to think of it, it makes a certain sense of the closing theme song, <i>I Wish I Was a Spaceman</i>.<span style=""> </span>You know, the various contemporary 1960s ideas and attitudes and technology that creep into this series could all be explained by the notion that “it’s all imagination”…)<span style=""> </span>Anyway, Venus’s story involves Steve flying a Q-Ship, a disguised space freighter, to try and smoke the pirates out – but the pirates have already hijacked Jock’s ship and are planning to use it to raid the Earth itself.<span style=""> </span>They capture Steve along the way, but stupidly manage to dump all the ship’s water overboard.<span style=""> </span>Using Steve as a hostage, they demand that a supply of water is brought to Aridan.<span style=""> </span>Venus and Matt arrive in Fireball, and manage to slip the pirates drugged water courtesy of some conjuring tricks that Matt has been demonstrating throughout the episode (rather than getting on with the serious research into alternative fuel sources he’s supposed to be doing – but I suppose that just demonstrates how either Venus or Jonathan Zero see the Professor…)<span style=""> </span>All that’s left for Jonathan is to ask if the story is true, but Venus tells him he’ll just have to decide that for himself!<span style=""> </span>This is a fun episode, and in its way, quite daring by playing fast and loose with the show’s concepts and characters.<span style=""> </span>More like this, please.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The Last of the Zanadus</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Kudos is the ruler of the planet Zanadu.<span style=""> </span>He looks like a bizarre cross between a glam rocker and a farmer (an effect heightened by the strange, almost West Country accent he seems to slip into on occasion…)<span style=""> </span>We see him addressing his people, promising to wreak vengeance on their foes – things take a surreal turn as we realize that his “people” are a series of abstract paintings, and the chants and cheers that greet his declarations are played in from a tape (reel-to-reel of course!)<span style=""> </span>It’s a weird image, which inverts the usual alien megalomaniac clichés, and presents us with something pathetic and pitiable instead, lending a bit more depth to the proceedings than usual.<span style=""> </span>Anyway, the great enemies that Kudos is plotting against are the lazoons!<span style=""> </span>It seems to the Zanadus they are no more than space rodents, pests to be eradicated.<span style=""> </span>We learn here that lazoons have spread throughout the galaxy, and indeed there are plenty of them living on Earth – whereas previously I’d just assumed that Zoonie was Venus’s one-of-a-kind exotic pet.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB"> is welcoming the arrival of the famous explorer Major Ireland, who’s been away on “space safari”.<span style=""> </span>He comes to dinner with Commander Zero and the crew of Fireball XL5, and afterwards shows his home movies of the worlds he’s visited.<span style=""> </span>What no one realizes is that Major Ireland has been brainwashed by Kudos – he’s brought some sweets which have been infected with a deadly virus that will wipe out the lazoons.<span style=""> </span>The plan goes slightly awry when Zoonie sneaks in during the night and eats all the sweets.<span style=""> </span>In the morning, they find the poor creature suffering from the virus.<span style=""> </span>Steven and Venus take him to Fireball’s medical lab to try and work out what’s wrong with him, and thus they’re on board when Major Ireland steals the ship.<span style=""> </span>He’s still acting under the control of Kudos, and intends to use Fireball to spread the disease to every lazoon across the galaxy.<span style=""> </span>Commander Zero believes that </span><span lang="EN-GB">Ireland</span><span lang="EN-GB"> will destroy the ship and crew in the process, as he’s only used to handling a small one-man explorer ship, not something as big and powerful as XL5.<span style=""> </span>(This incident highlights a basic security concern: namely that Robert will take orders from anyone in the pilot’s seat, regardless of whether they’re authorized to be there or not.)<span style=""> </span>Fortunately, Steve is able to break into the cockpit, and overpowers </span><span lang="EN-GB">Ireland</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>Although Zero orders them back to Earth, Steve decides to continue on to Zanadu, the only place where an antidote for the virus can be located.<span style=""> </span>Major Ireland reveals how he landed on the planet and fell under Kudos’s spell – but he also knows that the antidote can be obtained from the frozen fountain of life.<span style=""> </span>Landing on the planet, Steve and Matt accompany </span><span lang="EN-GB">Ireland</span><span lang="EN-GB"> into some catacombs, where they find the mummified remains of Kudos’s ancestors, and learn that he is the only survivor of his race.<span style=""> </span>They locate the frozen fountain, only to run into Kudos himself.<span style=""> </span>In the ensuing stand-off, Steve shoots at the fountain to break off some chunks of ice – but as the fountain starts to melt, Kudos ages and turns to dust.<span style=""> </span>His very life force is bound up in the fountain, his time frozen – when the fountain is destroyed, the last of the Zanadus dies.<span style=""> </span>It reminds me of horror film imagery, such as Dracula turning to dust – and indeed, some of the spooky imagery we’ll be seeing later on in <i>Space: 1999</i>.<span style=""> </span>The ice from the fountain cures Zoonie, so it all ends well.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Space Pen</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">A space freighter approaches the Earth.<span style=""> </span>Even though Lieutenant Ninety is suspicious, as the freighter is way ahead of schedule, Commander Zero bawls him out and tells him to grant landing clearance.<span style=""> </span>As the series goes on, the Commander does seem to be quite incompetent really – more interested in throwing his weight around than<span style=""> </span>actually listening to his subordinates’ good advice.<span style=""> </span>In this instance, Ninety is quite right to be suspicious, as the freighter is an imposter, using the call sign of a genuine ship in order to gain access to </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>The freighter is being flown by two criminals: in their dress, speech and mannerisms, they’re basically presented as a couple of 1940s </span><span lang="EN-GB">New York</span><span lang="EN-GB"> gangsters.<span style=""> </span>There’s no reason for this: at least the pirates were explained as products of Jonathan’s imagination – there’s no such excuse here.<span style=""> </span>The crooks’ plan is to wait until dark and then burgle the living apartments of </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>What a coincidence then that Professor Matic has just invented a new burglar alarm, which he wants to install in Steve’s apartment.<span style=""> </span>A ridiculously complicated thing, it proves difficult to get working, leading to some Dr Beaker-like business which sees alarms ringing constantly and disturbing the peace of </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>The pay-off to the gag is that the thing doesn’t actually work when it’s needed – the burglars get in without setting it off.<span style=""> </span>Amongst their boodle, they manage to steal Steve’s astronaut licence and Commander Zero’s uniform – scheming all manner of mischief that they can get up if they’re able to impersonate a member of the World Space Patrol.<span style=""> </span>The next day, Commander Zero turns up at the control tower in mufti, and Steve’s discovered his papers missing.<span style=""> </span>They’re very concerned about the trouble the crooks will cause – but to me, this is another example of the way the writers aren’t realistically projecting the world of the future.<span style=""> </span>The idea that Steve’s astronaut licence is a piece of paper in a wallet that anyone can flash around seems like a nonsense now, a mere fifty years later, when passports have microchips in and can carry biometric data, credit cards can be cancelled with a phone call – they ought to be able to block the use of the licence through a few online commands.<span style=""> </span>It’s a 1960s problem – they’re not thinking through how things will have changed after a hundred years.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">They soon work out that the criminals have come from Conva, the penal planet – also known as the “space penitentiary”.<span style=""> </span>Steve decides to infiltrate the place: he gets Commander Zero to put out a fake newsflash that Fireball XL5 has been hijacked, so that when he arrives, the convicts will think he is another criminal.<span style=""> </span>Professor Matic gets into the mood by watching some old crime movies, so much so that he adopts the clothing and mannerisms of a 1940s gangster and takes to calling himself “Muggsy”.<span style=""> </span>(So that’s his excuse – it doesn’t explain why the genuine 21st Century criminals are so anachronistic…)<span style=""> </span>Arriving on Conva, Steve and the crew are met by the two thiefs, who accept their fake identities, and take them to meet “the boss”.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, the boss turns out to be Boris and Griselda Space Spy.<span style=""> </span>They’ve got a whole hoard of valuables that the convicts have been stealing and stockpiling here.<span style=""> </span>Really, at this point, I can’t understand how the Space Pen set-up is supposed to work.<span style=""> </span>There’s a throwaway line that there’s been “some trouble there” and the WSP have to wait for General Shand, the officer in charge, to take some action.<span style=""> </span>Now, this might suggest that the inmates have rioted and maybe taken control of the prison.<span style=""> </span>That seems feasible.<span style=""> </span>But to suggest that they have access to spacecraft, and can go out committing robberies – and then bring all the proceeds right back to the prison!<span style=""> </span>It doesn’t make sense.<span style=""> </span>If they had ships, why not just make a run for it? – they’re convicted criminals suddenly granted the chance of freedom.<span style=""> </span>The two burglars shut Steve and the crew inside a sealed chamber which they start flooding with water.<span style=""> </span>Fortunately, they’re saved by the arrival of General Shand, who takes back control of the prison.<span style=""> </span>He’s quite a guy, since he appears to do this single-handedly.<span style=""> </span>(I could be charitable here and assume he has other men under his command, who are working off-screen to round up the other convicts – then again, we don’t actually see any other convicts…)<span style=""> </span>Boris and Griselda have decided to run out on their criminal colleagues, taking all the loot with them.<span style=""> </span>They start trying to load it all into the SS Thor – but realizing that the Fireball crew have got free, they cut their losses and take off.<span style=""> </span>XL5 gives chase, and Steve takes his usual action of firing a missile at the retreating Thor.<span style=""> </span>It crashes back to the surface of Conva with an almighty explosion – but like Masterspy before them, the villains escape with only charred faces (despite falling metal wreckage which actually just bounces off their heads!)<span style=""> </span>They’re left vowing their revenge.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Convict in Space</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The notorious alien thief,<span style=""> </span>Grothan Deblis, breaks into a World Space Patrol research lab and steals some top secret plans, which he hopes to sell to the highest bidder.<span style=""> </span>He makes off in his spaceship, heading for sector 25, where fortunately Fireball XL5 is on patrol.<span style=""> </span>Steve intercepts Deblis, destroying his ship with a missile, and taking the thief captive.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, the secret plans are nowhere to be found.<span style=""> </span>Deblis has managed to hide them somewhere before Steve caught up with him – and he isn’t going to reveal where they are.<span style=""> </span>We learn via a tv news report that Deblis is tried and found guilty – and sentenced to a term in the Space Pen on Conva (so it seems that General Shand has got everything up and running there once again).<span style=""> </span>The news report is like something from 1950s television, a man in a bowtie sitting behind a desk in a plain studio – again, it’s a failure to imagine what the future will be like.<span style=""> </span>Here in 2011, we expect flashy computer graphics, moving onscreen captions, and so on – who knows what tv be doing by 2063?<span style=""> </span>Steve is given the task of transporting Deblis to Conva.<span style=""> </span>But Boris and Griselda have been watching the news – they sense the chance to get rich quick, by rescuing Deblis and getting a cut of the proceeds from selling the secret plans.<span style=""> </span>They’ve managed to rebuild the SS Thor (which is impressive considering it was blown up last week!) with the addition of some camouflage devices – basically metal panels that close over the ship’s markings.<span style=""> </span>(Which only makes you wonder why space spies would have their ship’s name painted so boldly on it in the first place!)<span style=""> </span>Pretending to be a ship in distress, they lure Steve into stopping to help them.<span style=""> </span>He sends Matt across to see what needs to be done – whereupon Boris and Griselda capture the Professor, and demand Steve hands Deblis over if he wants Matt back safely.<span style=""> </span>Steve has no choice but to comply.<span style=""> </span>Deblis isn’t taking any chances: he traps Steve and Venus in the cockpit by smashing the door mechanism, smashes up Fireball’s navigation equipment so he can’t be tracked – and once he’s aboard the SS Thor, decides to keep hold of Matt as a hostage.<span style=""> </span>He directs Boris and Griselda to fly to the planet Voldanda, which is the volcanic world where he hid the secret plans.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, after futilely trying to shift the cockpit door by sheer brute force, Steve realizes that he should have ordered Robert </span><span lang="EN-GB">–</span><span lang="EN-GB"> with his far greater mechanical strength </span><span lang="EN-GB">–</span><span lang="EN-GB"> to do it!<span style=""> </span>Once free of the cockpit, Steve sets to work trying to repair the navigation equipment to try and find out where the villains have taken Matt.<span style=""> </span>On Voldanda, there is some sort of abandoned mining station, with a control cabin on top of a gantry tower.<span style=""> </span>Deblis retrieves the stolen plans, and then locks Matt up inside the tower – the nearest volcano is about to erupt, so he’s planning on letting that take care of the Professor.<span style=""> </span>He also reveals that he’s going to double cross Boris and Griselda and leave them on the planet too.<span style=""> </span>He steals the SS Thor to make his escape.<span style=""> </span>By this time, Steve has worked out where the villains went, and soon turns up in Fireball.<span style=""> </span>He takes Boris and Griselda prisoner, and then takes Fireball Junior to rescue Matt from the tower.<span style=""> </span>The model work of the erupting volcano is some of the best in the series so far – flows of lava engulfing the foot of the tower, and causing the gantry to start to buckle and eventually collapse are very impressively done.<span style=""> </span>Steve manages to retrieve Matt from the cabin before the tower falls.<span style=""> </span>Then Fireball gives chase to Deblis.<span style=""> </span>The SS Thor is no match for XL5’s speed, and they soon overtake him.<span style=""> </span>This time, Steve only has to threaten the use of missiles to get Deblis to surrender – and the episode ends with the criminal on his way to the Space Pen, with Robert holding him at gunpoint.</span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-18555370094055688012011-10-19T07:42:00.002+01:002011-10-19T07:48:11.899+01:00Like the Complete Adventures on FacebookI'm conscious of the fact that the nature of this blog is changing, and certainly that the Anderthon has taken things over in recent months, so I've decided to create a new Facebook page for my website "Doctor Who - The Complete Adventures". It's here:<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Doctor-Who-The-Complete-Adventures/301135009899954">Complete Adventures on Facebook</a><br /><br />It'll be a one-stop place for me to post all the latest updates, revisions and changes to the site. Get over there and "like" it!<div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-73948953658762425132011-09-19T00:58:00.009+01:002011-09-19T01:43:04.958+01:00Anderthon: I'm a Real Tootie<span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" ><span style="font-size:130%;">Fireball XL5<br />episodes 9-12</span></span><span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span></span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Space Monster</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;">Fireball XL2 has crashed on the planet Monotone.<span style=""> </span>One of the crew, who goes by the fantastic name of Al Stomper, has been injured and his colleague Ken Johnson has managed to drag him into a cave where they take shelter from an alarmingly unconvincing monster – a huge dinosaur-like creature, with a horned head, long neck and big goggly eyes.<span style=""> </span>It seems it was a flick of the creature’s tail that brought XL2 down, and now it’s out to eat the astronauts.<span style=""> </span>Fortunately, its bulk means it can’t get more than its head through the entrance to the cave so it can’t reach them – but it’s got them pinned down with little hope of survival.<span style=""> </span>I do find it difficult to take the monster seriously – I think it’s because in my mind (fed by things like <i style="">Jurassic Park</i>), I’d regard the depiction of an alien creature as being under the aegis of special effects, and so I’d expect it to have the same verisimilitude as the model work.<span style=""> </span>Yes, I know I’ve previously said that the models are a bit ropey, but there’s still a solidness and reality to them that’s missing from this goofy dinosaur.<span style=""> </span>It is, of course, a puppet, operated in exactly the same way as the human characters – a combination of scaled sets and back projection creating the illusion of its immense size – and in retrospect, it seems obvious that the producers would use a puppet to represent a living creature.<span style=""> </span>I’ll just have to adjust my preconceptions.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:arial;">Back on Earth, Venus is playing Steve another of her discs, and dancing the Twist to it.<span style=""> </span>Though Venus and the lazoon get very into it, Steve seems far from enthused, and comments how it was all the rage 100 years ago.<span style=""> </span>(Which is interesting – perhaps I was too quick to condemn the use of contemporary 1960s music, as that comment basically acknowledges the anachronism.<span style=""> </span>Maybe we should assume that Venus is a vintage record buff – after all, people today still listen to fifty year old Beatles recordings…)<span style=""> </span>Steve is rescued by a phone call from Commander Zero – they’ve picked up the emergency beacon from Fireball XL2, and need to send out a rescue mission.<span style=""> </span>Fireball XL5 is soon on its way to Monotone.<span style=""> </span>As Steve, Venus and Matt discuss the situation in the lounge, Robert is left flying the ship with Zoonie as his “co-pilot”.<span style=""> </span>The creature incessantly parrots every course correction instruction that Robert gives, driving the poor robot into letting off plenty of steam.<span style=""> </span>Yet amidst this slapstick comic relief, there’s a moment of moody introspection, as Steve contemplates the depths of space outside and reflects how lonely and forbidding it can be.<span style=""> </span>It really seems to conjure up an image of astronauts as pioneers stretching out into a vast uncharted wilderness, which seems much better than the usual gung-ho militarism that Steve usually exhibits.</p> <p face="arial" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p face="arial" class="MsoNormal">Arriving at Monotone, Steve and Venus take Fireball Junior down to the surface.<span style=""> </span>After finding the wreckage of XL2, they explore on their jetmobiles, and soon find Ken and Al in the cave.<span style=""> </span>While Venus attends to Al’s wounds, Ken explains to Steve about the monster.<span style=""> </span>Sure enough, it soon turns up again and traps them all in the cave.<span style=""> </span>When he doesn’t hear from Steve, Matt makes the decision to bring the main ship down to the surface as well.<span style=""> </span>He comes out to explore, and finds himself in a comedy sequence as the monster looms up behind him without Matt noticing.<span style=""> </span>He turns his head and does a double take, and then flees from the monster, with comedy chase music undercutting any sort of tension that the scene might be expected to have.<span style=""> </span>(This wouldn’t be so bad if the show was being played for laughs – but they’ve gone to great lengths to emphasize the jeopardy our heroes are in.<span style=""> </span>It’s the unevenness of the whole thing that’s still spoiling it for me.)<span style=""> </span>Eventually, Matt ends up trapped in the cave with the others!<span style=""> </span>Our heroes attempt a desperate plan, Ken Johnson firing his gun to distract the monster while Steve tries to make a run for Fireball Junior to use the transmitter there.<span style=""> </span>But Steve falls and breaks his leg, and it looks as if all is lost – until the lazoon comes to the rescue.<span style=""> </span>It’s innate desire to imitate sounds leads it to make the same bellowing noise as the monster. This causes the terrifying creature to turn and wander off in search of a potential mate – allowing our heroes to make good their escape.</p> <p style="font-family: arial;" face="georgia" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: arial;" face="georgia" class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p face="arial" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal">Flying Zodiac</p> <p face="arial" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal">Steve and Matt are round Venus’s house, and Steve is reminiscing about his ancestors, who were circus performers: the Flying Zodiacs, a famous troupe of trapeze artists.<span style=""> </span>(And I think that’s fantastic – it would be so obvious in a show like this for Steve to be descended from a famous explorer or military commander – but here the writers are giving us something unexpected.<span style=""> </span>And pleasingly, it also explains why Steve’s got such a silly surname – if at some point in the past, the family name was changed for professional purposes.)<span style=""> </span>He’s also got a crystal ball, which used to belong to his grandmother Clara Zodiac, a world-famous clairvoyant.<span style=""> </span>When Steve and Matt go into the kitchen to make coffee, Venus finds herself staring into the crystal ball, and suddenly the picture starts to go wobbly.<span style=""> </span>Oh no, it’s a dreaded dream episode!<span style=""> </span>In Venus’s dream, Commander Zero has given permission for a charity circus to be performed on the Space City launching ground.<span style=""> </span>Most of our main characters seem to be taking part.<span style=""> </span>Venus has trained the lazoon to play a musical instrument – it appears to be a collection of different bicycle horns, but makes an electronic noise!<span style=""> </span>Jock the engineer is a human cannonball.<span style=""> </span>Robert the robot is a sword swallower – despite the fact that the puppet’s body can’t bend enough to realistically get a sword down his “throat” – it all goes wrong in any case, as Robert manages to short himself out in process.<span style=""> </span>And Steve is rigging up a trapeze from beneath a hovering spaceship so he can recreate his ancestors’ act.<span style=""> </span>There are also a couple of visiting performers: Cosmo the clown and Madame Mivea, the “Martian clairvoyant”.<span style=""> </span>They turn out to be a couple of villains.<span style=""> </span>Cosmo breaks into the stores and sabotages jet thruster backpacks.<span style=""> </span>He also saws through the cables that will support Steve’s trapeze rig.<span style=""> </span>This all coincides with the arrival at Earth of a caravan of gypsy spaceships.<span style=""> </span>The rather literal interpretation of this concept sees the interior of their spaceships decked out liked traditional gypsy caravans, and their leader depicted as a stereotypical gypsy with hooped earrings and headscarf.<span style=""> </span>(It’s hard to decide whether this is a good thing or not – on the one hand, I think of the designers basically being lazy and using the visual imagery of gypsies to depict these itinerant space people – on the other, it could be seen as an ancient people holding onto their traditional ways even when they go out into space.)<span style=""> </span>Commander Zero sends Steve up to give the gypsies their marching orders.<span style=""> </span>They can stay for a couple of days, and then move on.<span style=""> </span>It’s very hard not to see this as a present day man from the local council moving gypsy caravans on from a patch of common ground, and I’m not sure what this says about the prejudices of the writers – or given that this is all happening in Venus’s dream, what it says about her!</p> <p style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: arial;" face="arial" class="MsoNormal">Anyway, Cosmo and Mivea are working for the gypsies.<span style=""> </span>Their efforts to disrupt the circus are part of a wider plan to put Space City out of action so there’ll be nothing to prevent the gypsies from invading the Earth.<span style=""> </span>Ken Johnson from XL2 is helping to rig up Steve’s flying harness when his sabotaged thruster pack gives out and he plummets to the ground.<span style=""> </span>Fortunately, he falls into the safety net, and sustains only minor injuries.<span style=""> </span>(Though oddly, he seems to have acquired a completely different voice from last week – also at one point, Jock calls him Ross, even though it’s clearly the Johnson puppet and everyone else calls him Ken.<span style=""> </span>I wonder if the part was originally written for Lieutenant Ross, and that part of the script didn’t get changed.<span style=""> </span>Then again, it’s a dream, so weird things are allowed to happen, I suppose.)<span style=""> </span>Steve goes to perform his high wire act, even as the gypsies have landed and attempt to take over the control tower – Cosmo and Mivea having overpowered Lieutenant Ninety, the officer on duty.<span style=""> </span>Fortunately, Venus and Zoonie find Ninety in time, and manage to take the control tower back without much difficulty.<span style=""> </span>(It was a pretty flimsy takeover plan, all things considered.)<span style=""> </span>Steve’s wire gives way, and he starts to fall – but he’s saved by Commander Zero launching Jock the human cannonball.<span style=""> </span>Jock catches Steve and carries him into a safety net.<span style=""> </span>Meantime, Matt is working on some new invention in his workshop which blows up in his face – the noise wakes Venus up, and she returns to the present to find Matt has indeed blown something up – the coffee machine!<span style=""> </span>Ah well... Like some of the previous dream episodes, part of the problem with this one is that it’s so unnecessary.<span style=""> </span>There’s nothing really “way out” in this episode that can only be explained by it being a dream, so again I’m just not sure why the writers felt that need.<span style=""> </span>It makes for an ultimately unsatisfying experience.</p> <p style="font-family: arial;" face="arial" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: arial;" face="arial" class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal">Spy in Space</p> <p face="arial" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal">Fireball XL9 is suddenly attacked by a spaceship called S.S. Thor – it’s marked with a skull and crossbones, so I suspect it’s up to no good.<span style=""> </span>(More scale problems are evident with the effects sequences here, as XL9 is shown on fire, the flames being far too large in comparison with the ship – I’m also not sure if flames can burn like that in the vacuum of space…)<span style=""> </span>The upshot of all this is that XL9 has to make a run for Earth, and Commander Zero assigns Fireball XL5 to take over its patrol.<span style=""> </span>This is bad news for Steve and the crew, who have just completed a three month tour of duty and were expecting to go home on leave.<span style=""> </span>They will need to refuel if they are to stay out in space for another three months, so they head for a space station called Companion 12.<span style=""> </span>When they arrive, Steve has to turn off the ship’s artificial gravity to stop Fireball crashing into the station.<span style=""> </span>(This is an interesting idea.<span style=""> </span>It doesn’t really explain how artificial gravity works – most sci-fi tends to avoid going into the specifics! – but this suggests that they perhaps generate a field to make the ship super-massive and thus give it an Earth-normal gravitational pull.<span style=""> </span>The notion that they therefore can’t use it close to other vessels is certainly unusual and novel – it’ll be interesting to see whether they maintain this in future episodes.)<span style=""> </span>To compensate for the lack of gravity, they strap magnetic plates to the soles of their boots.<span style=""> </span>Steve, Venus and Matt spacewalk across to the station – unfortunately represented by some out-of-scale back projection –<span style=""> </span>and find the S.S. Thor parked outside.<span style=""> </span>However, they can find no sign of anyone inside the vessel.<span style=""> </span>(This sequence highlights another oddity involving the oxygen pills – even allowing that they can oxygenate the blood or whatever, how do the characters communicate with each other?<span style=""> </span>There they are, in vacuum and therefore no transmission medium for sound, carrying on perfectly normal conversations with each other!)<span style=""> </span>They enter the space station to find the crew completely missing.</p> <p style="font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal">In the control room, they encounter an odd couple: a tall thin man and a dumpy woman, whom Steve identifies as Mr and Mrs Space Spy – Boris and Griselda.<span style=""> </span>It’s pretty clear that these are supposed to be major villains for the series but, like Masterspy and Zarin before them, they don’t get a proper introduction.<span style=""> </span>We’re just expected to accept their villainous status, and it would seem that our heroes have had run-ins with them before.<span style=""> </span>(And then I suddenly realized – they were Cosmo and Mivea in Venus’s dream sequence last week.<span style=""> </span>It makes sense, I suppose, that she didn’t just dream up two random bad guys, but imagined them as avatars of her recurring enemies – except it had no impact considering we’d never met the characters before…<span style=""> </span>I’m suspecting that the episodes are not on the DVD in the correct order.)<span style=""> </span>Anyway, it’s clear that the writers are sticking to a tried and tested pattern with their villains here: camp and ineffectual, the fat bossy one and the tall weasely put-upon one.<span style=""> </span>They are effectively Pedro and Fernando or Masterspy and Zarin reimagined in a new setting.<span style=""> </span>It’s interesting that one of them is now a woman – I wonder if they’re trying to draw a line under some of the inherently gay connotations of their previous pairings.<span style=""> </span>The spies’ plan is simple: they want to take control of Fireball XL5.<span style=""> </span>Steve goes to refuel the ship with Boris guarding him, while Griselda holds Venus and Matt hostage.<span style=""> </span>(The refuelling is amusingly low-tech, Steve carrying effectively a fuel hose across with him and using it to top up Fireball’s tank!)<span style=""> </span>On the way back, he surreptitiously loosens the straps holding on Boris’s magnetic sole plates.<span style=""> </span>Back in the control room, the plates work loose and Boris finds himself rising into the air and ends up stuck on the ceiling.<span style=""> </span>(So once again, the writers demonstrate that they don’t understand the concept of zero gravity – all Boris should have to do is push off the ceiling and he’ll float back to the floor.)<span style=""> </span>Griselda demands that Matt and Steve rescue Boris and fix his sole plates.<span style=""> </span>While she holds Venus at gunpoint, she allows them to go off into a workshop, where they set about rigging Boris’s boots with rocket jets that they can operate by remote control.<span style=""> </span>It takes ages, but Griselda doesn’t suspect anything.<span style=""> </span>With Boris back on the ground, they make their way out of the station, intending to leave our heroes to die there.<span style=""> </span>Steve operates the boot jets, and Boris is shot right through the wall of the space station and out into space.<span style=""> </span>(What was it made of, cardboard?)<span style=""> </span>Boris goes into a wide elliptical orbit around Companion 12, leaving Griselda struggling to get S.S. Thor going so she can rescue him.<span style=""> </span>In the confusion, our heroes make it back to Fireball and escape.<span style=""> </span>It’s fun to see our camp villains getting their comic comeuppance – though it’s a pity that Griselda’s incompetence gives Steve an excuse to crack some sexist gags.</p> <p style="font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p style="font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal">XL5 to H<sub>2</sub>0</p> <p style="font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"> </p> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-family: arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">This week we visit the planet Zolfite, where the entire civilization has been wiped out by invading Aquaphibians.<span style=""> </span>(Well, despite a bit of dialogue suggesting that there are loads of invaders, we only actually see one Aquaphibian, a tall lizard man carrying a big gun.<span style=""> </span>Until the others were mentioned in passing, I was rather enjoying the idea that this lone invader was so hard he could destroy the entire population single-handed.)<span style=""> </span>Now there are only two survivors left – Rald and Jenek – and the Aquaphibian is stalking them.<span style=""> </span>He advances on their building, and uses his gun to shine a bright beam of light at it.<span style=""> </span>This shatters their windows.<span style=""> </span>The gun then produces a poisonous smoke which starts to fill the building up.<span style=""> </span>Rald and Jenek try desperately to send a distress signal to Earth, before they manage to get into an escape lift just before the smoke overcomes them – and go down into the bowels of the planet.<span style=""> </span>Receiving the distress call, Commander Zero sends Fireball XL5 to investigate.<span style=""> </span>This is an interesting development, showing the World Space Patrol acting more as a sort of police force, assisting other worlds in trouble.<span style=""> </span>It’s a bit more like the later <i>Star Trek</i> perhaps, but it’s the sort of depiction of the future I'd want to see – a sense of responsibility and community, rather than the petty militarism we’ve seen previously in the show.<span style=""> </span>Hopefully, we’ll continue in this direction.<span style=""> </span>Arriving at Zolfite, Fireball Junior comes under attack from the Aquaphibian, and his light beam punches a hole in the glass of the cockpit.<span style=""> </span>(To me, this only serves to highlight a weakness of the design – all that glass in a spaceship cockpit is asking for trouble.<span style=""> </span>That’s a hostile environment out there – do you ever wonder why submarines don’t have windows?)<span style=""> </span>Steve manages to return to Fireball before the poison can get at them, and sets Matt to work making the glass beam-proof.<span style=""> </span>(Which gives us some amusing Dr Beaker-like scenes of scientific experimentation.)<span style=""> </span>Finally, with the glass replaced, Steve and Venus go back down.<span style=""> </span>The Aquaphibian opens fire again, but this time is unable to puncture Fireball Junior.<span style=""> </span>Steve retaliates by firing a missile at the creature, causing it to… duck back behind some rocks.<span style=""> </span>Steve goes in to land, only to find that what appears to be some surface vegetation is in fact weed on top of water, and Junior starts to sink into a sort of subterranean ocean.<span style=""> </span>Fortunately, Junior is rigged for undersea operation.<span style=""> </span>The Aquaphibian reappears down here, and Steve tries to elude it by sailing into a cave – whereupon some large doors close behind them, sealing the cave and shutting the enemy out.<span style=""> </span>Fireball Junior surfaces inside a cavern</span><span lang="EN-GB"> – and there's some really good modelwork in this sequence</span><span lang="EN-GB"> – </span><span lang="EN-GB">and Steve and Venus set out to explore.<span style=""> </span>They find an underground survival chamber where Rald and Jenek are hiding out.<span style=""> </span>(It was they who closed the doors.)<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, the Aquaphibian has gained access to the cavern, and starts trying to pump his poison smoke in there.<span style=""> </span>The two Zolfites pass out, and Steve and Venus have to carry them back on their jetmobiles.<span style=""> </span>Steve manages to fight off the Aquaphibian long enough for them to get Fireball Junior under way.<span style=""> </span>They get back to the surface, and join up with Fireball to take the two survivors safely back to Earth.<span style=""> </span>I do wonder though what happened about the planet.<span style=""> </span>Was it just abandoned to the Aquaphibians?<span style=""> </span>Did aggression win out in the end?<span style=""> </span>Did the Aquaphibians get away with genocide?<span style=""> </span>Presumably in a later episode, we’ll see full scale military intervention, followed by war crimes tribunals…</span><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-72398335961100296792011-09-04T10:12:00.003+01:002011-09-04T10:51:41.674+01:00Anderthon: Professor, Put the Kettle On!<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Fireball XL5
<br />episodes 5-8
<br />
<br /></span></span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The Doomed Planet</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Professor Matic suddenly warns Steve of approaching danger – a rogue planet that’s broken away from its own solar system is bearing down on Fireball XL5!<span style=""> </span>Steve is able to get out of its way just in time.<span style=""> </span>(Once again, the effects sequence here is completely out of scale – as Fireball dives to avoid the collision, the ship is quite clearly not much smaller than the planet – and indeed, the very idea that you can swerve out of the path of a planet that’s literally on top of you is absurd.<span style=""> </span>As the ship “dives”, Venus and Matt slide towards the nose, as if they’re descending a steep incline, completely ignoring the fact that there’s no downward gravity in space…)<span style=""> </span>Well, after that dramatic if implausible opening, Matt determines that the rogue planet is heading straight for the planet Membrono.<span style=""> </span>They fly there to check out the planet – it’s apparently uninhabited, but Steve wants to make sure. <span style=""> </span>Fireball Junior lands in a very impressive bubbling swamp set, and Steve explores on his jetmobile.<span style=""> </span>The sense of otherworldliness is really sold by Barry Gray’s background atmosphere, all weird juddery electronic noises.<span style=""> </span>As Steve explores, he gets the feeling he’s being watched – but he sees nobody and dismisses the sensation.<span style=""> </span>But once he’s gone by, we see a mysterious shadow and a trail of weird alien footprints.<span style=""> </span>After Steve returns to Fireball, a flying saucer lifts off from the surface of Membrono.<span style=""> </span>Steve glimpses it from the cockpit, but the others think he must have imagined it.<span style=""> </span>Back on Earth, Commander Zero is equally dismissive about the existence of flying saucers.<span style=""> </span>Again, it’s something which highlights that the show is being made in the 1960s, when such scepticism might have seemed warranted – but it’s supposedly set in a world where the existence of alien civilizations (and spacecraft of every shape and size) is an accepted fact. <span style=""> </span>They’re just not really constructing a consistent worldview.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Steve drives Venus home in his hovercar, because she wants to play him a new disc she’s picked up.<span style=""> </span>(Another anachronism?<span style=""> </span>Well, we don’t see it, so conceivably it could be some future HD format, a couple of generations beyond bluray…<span style=""> </span>Oh, who am I kidding?<span style=""> </span>You know it’s going to be a record on a turntable!)<span style=""> </span>She’s also been teaching her lazoon to talk.<span style=""> </span>He greets them with a raucous cry of “Welcome Home!”<span style=""> </span>Strangely though, he keeps saying it throughout the evening.<span style=""> </span>What the ever-sensitive Zoonie knows is that the flying saucer has followed them to Earth, and has even now landed under the water near Venus’s house.<span style=""> </span>Steve and Venus see it taking off, and call Commander Zero on the telephone – and yes, there’s no attempt to create any kind of futuristic communications system, it’s just a telephone.<span style=""> </span>This time, the control tower are tracking the flying saucer.<span style=""> </span>Fireball XL5 is launched, and follows it back to Membrono.<span style=""> </span>Steve and Matt go down to the planet, guns drawn, and demand that the mysterious alien show himself.<span style=""> </span>It turns out that, oddly-shaped feet aside, the alien is a kindly-looking, bearded old man.<span style=""> </span>He cannot speak to them directly, but uses some sort of telepathy to speak through Robert’s loudspeaker.<span style=""> </span>He tells them to put away their guns – he’s led them here because he knows they are good men, and he needs their help.<span style=""> </span>His civilization is the oldest in the universe, and has been observing Earth for centuries.<span style=""> </span>(This is a lovely change of pace after some of the indiscriminately hostile aliens we’ve met so far – all this talk of ancient races communing with younger species has a sort of mythic grandeur, reminding me a bit of the work of Olaf Stapledon, and perhaps prefigures some of what we’ll see in <i>Space: 1999</i>.<span style=""> </span>I’ll also be interested to see whether this encounter might lead to our heroes losing some of their belligerent attitude…)<span style=""> </span>The alien explains that his race live on Membrono’s moon.<span style=""> </span>They forsook all weapons centuries ago, so they have no means of destroying the rogue planet – if it destroys Membrono, then their moon will drift off into space.<span style=""> </span>Steve agrees to use Fireball’s missiles to try and destroy the rogue planet.<span style=""> </span>But the first impact does only minimal damage.<span style=""> </span>Steve and Matt calculate that three missiles fired together will start a nuclear chain reaction, which might be their only hope of destroying the planet.<span style=""> </span>It works, and the planet starts to go up in flames.<span style=""> </span>(Again, there’s a problem with scale in the effects sequence, the size of the flames indicating quite clearly that this is a small model ball on fire.)<span style=""> </span>The alien speaks through Robert one more time, as his saucer returns home, suggesting that one day he may be able to repay the debt he owes the Earthmen.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">
<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Plant Man from Space</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">We discover a planet covered in rich vegetation, and then a row of greenhouses in the middle of it.<span style=""> </span>Inside is a man-sized, walking, talking plant creature (evidently the titular character) – as well as lots of smaller plants growing under glass.<span style=""> </span>(I wonder, are they his children?)<span style=""> </span>The plant man announces his intention to destroy </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB"> – he’s even gone to the extent of building a very detailed scale model of the complex, seemingly so that he can dramatically knock it over at the peak of his rant.<span style=""> </span>There’s some unsettling juddering musical effects backing these scenes which really add to the strangeness of it.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile at </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB">, the team are preparing for the test of a new ejector seat system.<span style=""> </span>Professor Matic is entertaining a visitor, Dr Howard Roots, a botanist whom he used to know at </span><span lang="EN-GB">Universe</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">University</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>(I’ve got to assume that’s just an Earthbound educational institution with a self-aggrandizing name, rather than actually an interplanetary seat of learning – I can’t imagine that the state of human-alien relations is quite at an co-educational level yet…)<span style=""> </span>They’re looking around </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB">’s nuclear power station, which is maintained by Jock, the Scottish engineer.<span style=""> </span>Just as the control room detect a missile heading for Earth, we see a mysterious hand place something inside the nuclear pile – whereupon the power goes out across </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB">, leaving the Earth completely defenceless.<span style=""> </span>Carrying a candle, Jock investigates.<span style=""> </span>(A candle?<span style=""> </span>What, they don’t even have torches?)<span style=""> </span>He discovers that a pellet of radioactive retardant has been placed inside the reactor – it’s deliberate sabotage!<span style=""> </span>Realizing the culprit must still be in </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB">, Commander Zero orders a security lockdown – no one is allowed in or out.<span style=""> </span>(Considering that Matt and Dr Roots were the only people in the power station with Jock, I wouldn’t have thought it was that difficult to work it out!)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">When Jock finally gets the power back on, the missile has come a lot closer.<span style=""> </span>They need to get a ship up to intercept it.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, Fireball XL5 is in for repairs, and the only other ship available is Fireball XL1 Alpha.<span style=""> </span>From the designation, I’m assuming this is the prototype vessel of the Fireball class – the way everyone talks about it implies that it’s old and obsolete, though it looks just like XL5.<span style=""> </span>A laborious sequence follows in which the ship is winched up out of an underground hangar, then carried slowly by the crane over to the launching track and lowered onto the rocket sled.<span style=""> </span>(I’m not really sure what the plant man’s plan was, but the sabotage achieved very little, considering the missile is still hours away and they’ve got all this time to get the ship ready.)<span style=""> </span>I was surprised that Steve didn’t take command of XL1 Alpha – but instead Lieutenant Ross, the commander of XL7, is given the task (so presumably he’s not been held responsible for the loss of his old ship on Magneton).<span style=""> </span>We see the familiar Fireball launch sequence, exactly as when XL5 takes off (let’s face it, it’s the same bit of film) – so it’s actually quite a shock when XL1 Alpha fails to get airborne, following the rocket sled off the end of the track to crash on the other side of the hill.<span style=""> </span>Fortunately, Ross survives thanks to the new ejector seat system.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">But now there’s only fifteen seconds until the missile hits – it impacts on the beach outside Venus’s house, but doesn’t go off.<span style=""> </span>Matt and Steve inspect it, and decide it looks harmless enough.<span style=""> </span>(They don’t seem to notice the whacking great door in the side.)<span style=""> </span>During the night, it opens and a virulent strain of ivy starts growing out of it.<span style=""> </span>By morning, it’s covered most of </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB">, including clogging the launch track and Fireball XL5.<span style=""> </span>It’s deduced that they need to obtain a hormone to destroy the creeper before it infests the whole planet.<span style=""> </span>Luckily, Dr Roots is on hand to identify the ivy as coming from the jungle planet Hedera – they would need to go there to get the hormone.<span style=""> </span>They clear the ivy away from XL5, and take off on this mission.<span style=""> </span>On the way, Roots releases more of the ivy, which starts to infest the interior of the ship – if you hadn’t guessed, he turns out to be the brains behind the whole thing.<span style=""> </span>He seems to have an unhealthy admiration for plant life – Matt decides he’s been working away in space for too long!<span style=""> </span>Roots’ plan is to force XL5 to turn back to Earth – but Steve decides to press on to Hedera.<span style=""> </span>The planet is so richly covered with vegetation that they can’t land – instead, they leave the ship in “free float” mode, hovering above the jungle.<span style=""> </span>(There’s no explanation of how a ship that heavy could be left floating in the air.)<span style=""> </span>Entering the greenhouses, they meet the plant man, whom Roots identifies as the “Chloro-Form”!<span style=""> </span>It would appear that he created the creature by injecting a poor luckless human victim with plant hormone.<span style=""> </span>He intends to now do the same to the others, and create a race of the plant beings, who will conquer the universe and turn it into a huge wild garden.<span style=""> </span>Steve has Robert smash up the Chloro-Form, and they return to Earth with the hormone to destroy the ivy.<span style=""> </span>Howard Roots is admitted to psychiatric hospital, but appears to show some remorse for his actions – he sends Venus some giant flowers!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">
<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The </span><span lang="EN-GB">Sun</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">Temple</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB">’s latest project is to send a missile into space carrying a meteorite dispersal bomb – they want to destroy a region of meteorites that pose a danger to astronauts.<span style=""> </span>(Given the show’s usual shaky grasp of science, I’m not sure if they actually mean asteroids here – i.e. chunks of rock floating in space – rather than meteorites, which are caused when the dust residue from a comet<span style=""> </span>burns up in a planet’s atmosphere.)<span style=""> </span>Near the target zone is the planet Rajusca – they know it’s inhabited, but otherwise know very little about it, as the meteorites have prevented them exploring.<span style=""> </span>Matt assures Venus that the planet is well outside the radioactive blast area.<span style=""> </span>(In which case, where’s the hazard to navigation?<span style=""> </span>The show always seems to forget that space is big – if there’s such a safe distance between the meteorites and Rajusca, then you ought to be able to get a spaceship safely through that gap.)<span style=""> </span>On Rajusca, we discover a strange domed building in the middle of a desert.<span style=""> </span>It’s some sort of temple (or maybe, given the desert setting, a mosque – an effect rather heightened by the middle eastern flavour of the music) – it also has what appears to be a telescope sticking out of it, suggesting that it’s an observatory as well.<span style=""> </span>The building is inhabited by a high priest called Karzak, and his acolyte Zodan.<span style=""> </span>They worship their sun, Miras (a fact which explains the dual temple/observatory nature of the building).<span style=""> </span>When the meteorite dispersal bombs goes off, Karzak is outraged – he believes the Earthmen have created a new sun in the sky to try and rival Miras.<span style=""> </span>He prays for a sign from his god – the light from the sun shines down the telescope, and starts a fire on the altar, from which Karzak concludes that Miras wants them to burn the Earth.<span style=""> </span>The temple is able to concentrate the light of the sun into an energy beam, which they transmit towards the Earth.<span style=""> </span>It shines down on the region of </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB"> (which we thus discover for the first time is on an island in the Pacific, off the coast of </span><span lang="EN-GB">South America</span><span lang="EN-GB">) and destroys the missile launch site.<span style=""> </span>The origin of the beam is pinpointed to Rajusca, and Matt surmises that the inhabitants must have misinterpreted the meteorite dispersal as a hostile act.<span style=""> </span>Steve decides they need to go and set them straight!<span style=""> </span>Venus takes her lazoon on the journey – she’s been teaching him new phrases, such as “Follow me” and “Howdy folks”.<span style=""> </span>Arriving at Rajusca, Steve and Venus head for the temple building on their jetmobiles.<span style=""> </span>They’re knocked out by a blast from the sun ray – when Steve recovers, Venus has gone.<span style=""> </span>He guesses she’s inside the temple, but is unable to find a way inside.<span style=""> </span>Zoonie becomes agitated and keeps saying, “Follow me.”<span style=""> </span>Steve and Matt realize that lazoons are naturally telepathic, and that Zoonie has a psychic connection to Venus that enables him to sense how to find her.<span style=""> </span>He takes Steve to a secret trap door located in the desert, which leads into a tunnel.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, Karzak and Zodan have got Venus tied up on their altar as a sacrifice to their god – she’ll be burnt up as the sunlight through the telescope moves across the altar.<span style=""> </span>Realizing Steve is coming along their tunnel, they activate a collapsing roof section.<span style=""> </span>Steve is almost crushed, but manages to get himself clear just in time.<span style=""> </span>Finally arriving in the temple, he shoots out their control console, which causes a chain reaction of explosions.<span style=""> </span>He frees Venus, and they escape along the tunnel.<span style=""> </span>Karzak and Zodan are trapped when the door to their escape chamber jams, and are inside as the entire temple blows up.<span style=""> </span>This seems a harsh fate considering that the whole thing was a misunderstanding – Steve seems to be reverting to his gung-ho ways.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps the writer realized this, as there’s a little coda where Matt reveals that he’s made contact with the people who live on the other, fertile, side of Rajusca – and learnt that the two sun worshippers were renegades who’d been banished to the desert for their evil and superstitious ways.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">
<br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Space Immigrants</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Poor Lieutenant Ross is the unluckiest pilot in the World Space Patrol.<span style=""> </span>Not only has he lost Fireball XL7, and crashed XL1 Alpha, now he’s been taken prisoner by a couple of Lillispacians.<span style=""> </span>As the name suggests, they’re basically a spin on the Lilliputians of <i>Gulliver’s Travels</i>, and the episode riffs on the visual imagery of that tale with the aliens keeping Ross tied up on the floor (represented by a full-size pair of boots in the foreground of the shot).<span style=""> </span>Ross had been sent ahead to survey this planet, which has been named New Earth, and is intended to become the home of the first human colony in space.<span style=""> </span>It seems to be perfect, but for two small issues: the gravity is very slight, and the atmosphere is poisonous, necessitating the wearing of lead boots and the constant use of oxygen pills.<span style=""> </span>Ross is to wait for the colonists’ ship to arrive.<span style=""> </span>What he hasn’t bargained for are the Lillispacians.<span style=""> </span>They are about two foot tall, with high domed heads, spatula-like hands and flippers for feet, which they use like propellers to let themselves hover up and down in the low gravity.<span style=""> </span>They’re supposedly the biggest and most powerful brains in the universe, but are portrayed here as inept, camp and bickering, and for some reason speak in exaggerated Southern US accents.<span style=""> </span>They are basically a lazy and indolent people.<span style=""> </span>Their plan is to wait for the colonists to arrive, and then ensnare them into becoming a slave labour force.<span style=""> </span>They ration Ross’s access to oxygen pills to maintain control over their prisoner, and intend to do the same with the newcomers.<span style=""> </span>Back on Earth, the colony ship Mayflower 3 is being readied for departure.<span style=""> </span>It’s a much more down to Earth design than Fireball, basically various cylindrical pods and modules bolted together with some engines.<span style=""> </span>It's also carrying an atmosphere converter, so that the air of New Earth can eventually be made breathable. The expedition is going to be under the command of Venus, with Matt, Robert, Zoonie and Jock the engineer going along for the ride.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps indicative of the time the series was made, Matt and Jock both display misogynist attitudes by expressing their doubts that a woman could lead such an important mission, so it’s nice to see that macho man Steve is the one who comes over all progressive – well, he points out she’s not just a pretty face!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The Lillispacians have various technological means to carry out their plan: a voice imitator that enables them to make positive reports to </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB"> with Ross’s voice – and a beam that enables them to take control of Robert.<span style=""> </span>They send the robot to the sick bay, where he destroys the Mayflower’s entire supply of medicines – including the crucial oxygen pills.<span style=""> </span>(I notice that the Lillispacians explicitly state that Earth is 632 light years away.<span style=""> </span>I wonder if the writer has any real idea of how vast that is, since they’re able to manage instantaneous transmission over that distance – not to mention that an Earth ship will be able to reach it in a comparatively short time.<span style=""> </span>The astronomy on display in the show is very woolly, I know, and in that respect, I think I’d prefer it if they left things a little vague and let the viewer roll with it – stating a precise distance like that only highlights how impossible it all is.)<span style=""> </span>The Mayflower 3 gets under way, but it’s not long before trouble strikes: Jock goes down with appendicitis.<span style=""> </span>Venus decides that she must operate at once.<span style=""> </span>Discovering that the medicines have gone, they try to call </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB"> for advice – but the Lillispacians jam their transmissions to Earth.<span style=""> </span>They use their voice imitator to impersonate Steve, telling the Mayflower to proceed on to New Earth while he catches them up in Fireball XL5 with new medical supplies.<span style=""> </span>When the Mayflower arrives on New Earth, they find only the Lillispacians waiting for them.<span style=""> </span>They demand that the Earthmen become their slaves – with Ross as a hostage, and control of the only supply of oxygen pills on the planet.<span style=""> </span>However, worried by the lack of contact with Mayflower 3, Steve has decided to fly out in Fireball – and overhears the Lillispacians’ broadcast.<span style=""> </span>The aliens allow Venus to operate on Jock – oddly, whenever Venus lets go of a scalpel, the instrument floats up to the ceiling, which makes no sense at all.<span style=""> </span>(The producers seem to have mistaken low gravity for reverse gravity, if there were such a thing…)<span style=""> </span>That night, Steve lands on the planet – since he has his own supply of oxygen pills, he’s able to move around.<span style=""> </span>He sneaks into the Mayflower, and takes Zoonie with him.<span style=""> </span>He’s remembered that the one thing the Lillispacians fear is a lazoon, and the sight of the beast looming in front of them reduces the two aliens to cowering terror.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">These episodes have been an improvement on the previous four, and I'm starting to appreciate the show more. There's been less reliance on aliens being evil for the sake of it; instead, we get wise and ancient civilizations, or misguided human villains. The daft ideas and camp comedy aliens of <span style="font-style: italic;">Space Immigrants</span> really make it the best episode so far</span>, as the humour allows us to gloss over the implausibilities of the series and just enjoy the fun of it. It's starting to look more like it was made by the same people who produced <span style="font-style: italic;">Supercar</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Four Feather Falls</span>.
<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-64294197242594694382011-08-27T12:21:00.003+01:002011-08-27T13:48:11.969+01:00Anderthon: OK, Venus?
<br />
<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Fireball XL5
<br />episodes 1-4
<br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">
<br /></span></span></span></span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="text-align: left;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">And so we blast off in</span><span lang="EN-GB">to outer space!<span style=""> </span>After <i>Supercar</i>’s tentative first tentative steps into science fiction territory, finally we get full blown futuristic adventure of the kind that the Andersons are perhaps most famous for.<span style=""> </span>The only trouble is: <i>Fireball XL5</i> is not actually very good sci-fi – </span><span lang="EN-GB">or at least, it seems </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMATmxTYJSPsCfiPsqlamriOL_1Pve8yMFwvIfu0rnrz1Ljkz2LzUH0DhzeC6j1lrqhUiBnaHwBKkoTvD9MtJM3Jl-CmaSICLfAvaXr_XlGhWxiAO41yhFrUL8GfynVUAu8YgKYCTLsgTj/s1600/fireball.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 188px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMATmxTYJSPsCfiPsqlamriOL_1Pve8yMFwvIfu0rnrz1Ljkz2LzUH0DhzeC6j1lrqhUiBnaHwBKkoTvD9MtJM3Jl-CmaSICLfAvaXr_XlGhWxiAO41yhFrUL8GfynVUAu8YgKYCTLsgTj/s320/fireball.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645516320118211026" border="0" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">horrendously</span><span lang="EN-GB"> old fashioned – and I don’t just mean from a modern viewpoint.<span style=""> </span>I’ve heard it said that television a</span><span lang="EN-GB">nd film science fiction tends to lag behind the written form by a good ten year</span><span lang="EN-GB">s or so – </span><span lang="EN-GB">whereas <i>Fireball XL5</i> seems like something from 20 or 30 years earlier.<span style=""> </span>It’s very much in the pulp sc</span><span lang="EN-GB">i-fi tradition: heroic adventurers patrol the galaxy in a spaceship with wings and rocket exhaust, thwar</span><span lang="EN-GB">ting the plans of would-be ali</span><span lang="EN-GB">en co</span><span lang="EN-GB">n</span><span lang="EN-GB">queror</span><span lang="EN-GB">s.</span><span lang="EN-GB"><span style=""> </span>I think it’s fair to say, at least based on these opening instalments, that the scripts lack the sophistication of <i>Supercar</i>.<span style=""> </span>The whole setting of t</span><span lang="EN-GB">he show is confusing.<span style=""> </span>Fireball XL5 is based on Earth, and operated by the World Space Patrol, whose very name suggests a parochial Earth</span><span lang="EN-GB">-centric interest.<span style=""> </span>Given that the show is set in the late 21st Century, this might seem a realistic attempt to limit the extent of man’s space exploration – no warp drive or other faster-than-light propulsion.<span style=""> </span>And yet, the ship seems able to visit various alien planets after just a few days of rocket travel.<span style=""> </span>It’s as if the entire galaxy has contracted somehow, and various other star systems are now encroached on the edges of our own.<span style=""> </span>It’s probably fair to say that science is not the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB">’ strong suit, and that they really do underestimate the distances involved in interstellar travel.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The puppets have come along a little way since <i>Supercar</i>.<span style=""> </span>There are less grotesqu</span><span lang="EN-GB">e caricatures now – instead, characters are designed to appear more realistically human (albeit stylized with their big heads and hands).<span style=""> </span>Our hero Steve Zodiac is </span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0-mt4HLmQJ31s_jSk0QKHhm0X8lUS25hUj5JBdeo-5kC1Xkh6b7UCDXZt2BJvNZChJkK-jsrTNRQVsR8Xkkhrnn_kRyXmy91UIgrJXUoH9g6WAx4HCDKZjgeFZttaYa6iJeDPrfa-tT8N/s1600/steve.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 188px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0-mt4HLmQJ31s_jSk0QKHhm0X8lUS25hUj5JBdeo-5kC1Xkh6b7UCDXZt2BJvNZChJkK-jsrTNRQVsR8Xkkhrnn_kRyXmy91UIgrJXUoH9g6WAx4HCDKZjgeFZttaYa6iJeDPrfa-tT8N/s320/steve.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645515432125629890" border="0" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">square-jawed, blond and clean cut.<span style=""> </span>Professor Matthew Matic has thick pebble-lensed spectacles, behind which he appears as an avuncular quirky older character (he’s less a Dr Beaker substitu</span><span lang="EN-GB">te, and mor</span><span lang="EN-GB">e </span><span lang="EN-GB">a </span><span lang="EN-GB">s</span><span lang="EN-GB">ort of spi</span><span lang="EN-GB">ritual ancestor of Victor Bergman).<span style=""> </span>And we also get an innovation: the first proper fe</span><span lang="EN-GB">male lead character in an </span><span lang="EN-GB">Anderson</span><span lang="EN-GB"> show (Ma Jones aside): Ve</span><span lang="EN-GB">nus, the Doctor of space m</span><span lang="EN-GB">e</span><span lang="EN-GB">dicine.<span style=""> </span>Again, she’s stylized and exagg</span><span lang="EN-GB">erated, but she looks like a real person.<span style=""> </span>(You only need to think of characters like Zizi or Princess Caroline in <i>Supercar</i>, who basically looked like </span><span lang="EN-GB">dolls.)<span style=""> </span>I’ll also note that all three of our leads have got consciously silly sci-fi names, which I suppose reminds me that the series is being aimed at children.<span style=""> </span>Another thing to notice is that the producers are still concerned with the fact that puppets can’t be made to walk convincingly.<span style=""> </span>So in addition to Fireball itself, now we’ve got jetmobiles, basically hovering motorbikes which they can use to get from A to B without having to use their legs!<span style=""> </span>This does lead to the oddity which we see </span><span lang="EN-GB">i</span><span lang="EN-GB">n the opening titles, as Steve and Venus use their jetmobiles to actually board Fireball XL5.<span style=""> </span>They fly up, past the tailplane, along the fuselage, before descending through an open roof hatch.<span style=""> </span>It just seems to me the most insanely convoluted method of entry, when</span><span lang="EN-GB"> surely an underside hatch and a ladder would be a lot more sensible and economical.<span style=""> </span>(And you’ve got to worry – what would happen if their jetmobiles broke down on some alien surface?<span style=""> </span>Would they be unable to get back into Fireball?)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">With the show being set in outer space and in the future, miniature effects work starts to take a more prominent role.<span style=""> </span>Whereas I was impressed with the model work in the later episodes of <i>Supercar</i>, here some of the effects work is a little bit ropey – possibly a result of Derek Meddings having to spread his budget more thinly.<span style=""> </span>The most obvious example of this is the launch sequence of Fireball XL5 itself: despite being the show’</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlvP023iTkVUmJUIbgvaB9iC56meKyHKC64eY6mNH1Arp73Pfp-qCzOv41j2I3C967lN42EPzeYfj5Eo0kAQgu43-8dHwR3cNXKdvIw_TGsC9aIu_NjOH74158nTtUP1_YZxa0DHNYmq5o/s1600/xl5.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 188px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlvP023iTkVUmJUIbgvaB9iC56meKyHKC64eY6mNH1Arp73Pfp-qCzOv41j2I3C967lN42EPzeYfj5Eo0kAQgu43-8dHwR3cNXKdvIw_TGsC9aIu_NjOH74158nTtUP1_YZxa0DHNYmq5o/s320/xl5.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645516069061941682" border="0" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">s beauty shot, seen in every episode, the model visibly wobbles rather alarmingly on its rocket sled, suggesting that the resource wasn’t there to reshoot it. <span style=""> </span>The scale of the ship is also confusing.<span style=""> </span>Placed next to the control tower of </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB">, it appears to be massive – yet it’s operated by a crew of three people and a robot.<span style=""> </span>The large glass cockpit fills the whole of the nose cone, and that gives us a clear indication of the size of the interior, as the ship is pretty much a cylinder of the same diameter for its entire length – so it seems to me that there can only be a few rooms positioned one behind the other inside the fuselage.<span style=""> </span>The interior design is also quite minimalist, with the bare metal girders of the ship’s skeleton visible – all<span style=""> </span>of which suggests a fairly small patrol ship.<span style=""> </span>It’s rather odd then to see the well-appointed and luxurious lounge that the crew often retire to – it’s so out of step with the rest of the design that I didn’t realize at first that it was supposed to be aboard the ship.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">
<br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Planet 46</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Someone is attacking the Earth with planatomic missiles.<span style=""> </span>(<i>Fireball XL5</i> seems to delight in sticking different words together to create new terminology that hopefully sounds a bit futuristic.<span style=""> </span>I’m assuming this is meant to be an atomic missile that can take out a whole planet.)<span style=""> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB"> sends Fireball XL5 to investigate as it’s the ship in the relevant patrol sector – Sector 25.<span style=""> </span>(There only appear to be three sectors on Commander Zero’s map however.)<span style=""> </span>It’s not really clear whether the sectors are parts of Earth’s own space territory or areas beyond the borders – though I suppose the presence of so many hostile alien worlds in these sectors might suggest the latter.<span style=""> </span>Anyway, Fireball tracks down the missile and is able to destroy it before it can become a danger to Earth.<span style=""> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB"> determines that the missile came from Planet 46, and Fireball is despatched to check it out.<span style=""> </span>It’s several days’ journey time to get there.<span style=""> </span>On arrival, Steve and Venus travel down to the planet’s surface in the ship’s detachable nose section, nicknamed Fireball Junior.<span style=""> </span>I do like the idea of the ship having its own integrated shuttlecraft – it makes it more than just a static model.<span style=""> </span>I can understand why the toys and models have been very popular over the years – a toy spaceship is pretty cool in itself, but a toy spaceship with moving or detachable parts is just fantastic!<span style=""> </span>Also, from a realistic scientific perspective, it makes more sense to have a large mothership that stays in orbit whilst a smaller vehicle does the difficult and fuel-costly business of landing and taking off.<span style=""> </span>At least that would make sense, if the size and scale of Fireball XL5 wasn’t handled so inconsistently throughout the series.<span style=""> </span>The main craft seems perfectly capable of making planetfall without any difficulty, and presumably launching again – and whereas it needs the elaborate rocket sled on rails arrangement (inspired, I suspect, by something similar in the movie <i>When Worlds Collide</i>) to take off from Earth, it doesn’t seem to have the same requirements to lift off from any alien surface.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Using their jetmobiles, Steve and Venus explore some caves, and discover a mysterious set of doors.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, they’re on the far side of a lake of volcanic lava.<span style=""> </span>Steve decides to ride his jetmobile over the lake, and there are a few hairy moments as the heat threatens to make the machine malfunction – but he just manages to make it, whereupon he’s captured by two aliens with odd, angular plastic heads.<span style=""> </span>He tries to tell Venus to hightail it back to Fireball, but she gets captured too on her way out of the caves.<span style=""> </span>Steve wakes up in a secret control room, where the aliens are planning to launch another missile at Earth.<span style=""> </span>The aliens are called Subterrains, yet they don’t get any real introduction – Steve seems familiar with them and immediately regards them as enemies, leading me to wonder if there’s some past animosity between them and the Earthlings.<span style=""> </span>They’ve got Venus tied up inside the missile, to force Steve to order Fireball XL5 down to land on the planet.<span style=""> </span>But they direct the ship to a deep pit filled with volcanic ash – as soon as it touches down it starts to sink.<span style=""> </span>Then they fire the missile off with Venus inside it anyway (and a Subterrain pilot on a kamikaze mission)!<span style=""> </span>Steve manages to use a concealed gun to capture the Subterrain leader, and gets back to Fireball Junior – docking with the mothership, he uses Junior’s engines to pull it free from the ash pit.<span style=""> </span>Then they set off after the missile.<span style=""> </span>Professor Matic (who previously seemed quite a kindly fellow to me!) threatens the Subterrain leader with the destruction of his planet if he doesn’t order the pilot to eject Venus from the missile before they destroy it.<span style=""> </span>Steve then spacewalks to capture the pilot and rescue Venus, and we’re introduced to one of the show’s more unusual ideas: taking oxygen pills that enable you to survive in vacuum without a space suit.<span style=""> </span>It’s scientific nonsense of course, because I can’t see how it would alleviate all the problems of zero pressure and extreme low temperatures: collapsed lungs, burst capillaries, frozen eyeballs and so on – but it’s certainly a distinctive concept and gives us some incongruous imagery.<span style=""> </span>With Venus safe, they blow up the missile in the nick of time – so close to Earth in fact that the explosion can be seen up in the sky over </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB"> – which by my reckoning ought still to flood the planet with deadly radiation, and almost certainly blind poor Lieutenant Ninety who’s looking out the window at the time!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">
<br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Hypnotic Sphere</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Venus has electrodes wired up to Steve’s head, as regulations dictate she has to give him a medical check every day that Fireball’s on patrol.<span style=""> </span>When Steve suggests that Robert the robot ought to get a daily check-up too, Robert gets so wound up that steam vents from his head.<span style=""> </span>(It doesn’t really make any sense that an electronic robot should produce steam in moments of stress – but it provides an amusing visual image.)<span style=""> </span>Professor Matic then detects something odd on his spacemograph.<span style=""> </span>That’s right, they’ve stuck two words together again to try and suggest a piece of futuristic technology – presumably this is supposed to be a sort of space seismograph, something to detect unusual vibrations or tremors in space – despite the fact that you can’t have vibrations in a vacuum where there’s no transmission medium.<span style=""> </span>Ah well…<span style=""> </span>What Matt’s detected turns out to be a tanker ship from Earth.<span style=""> </span>It appears to be adrift.<span style=""> </span>Steve and Matt take their oxygen pills, and spacewalk across to the tanker.<span style=""> </span>(They use a sort of jetpack to propel themselves – so why do they need to make those swimming motions with their legs?<span style=""> </span>There’s nothing to kick against in a vacuum!<span style=""> </span>It’s like the puppeteers felt they had to be doing something to indicate motion.)<span style=""> </span>As Steve and Matt investigate the tanker, the musical score is insanely inappropriate: a really jazzy score that would be perfect for a film noir thriller (or indeed many episodes of <i>Supercar</i>).<span style=""> </span>They find the pilot cowering inside the ship, having apparently been hypnotized.<span style=""> </span>It turns out that several tankers have vanished recently, so it’s decided that Fireball should escort the next one and find out what’s been happening. <span style=""> </span>What they encounter is a spherical device launched from the planet Sevenna – it pulses with light and broadcasts a voice that hypnotizes those who come near it – under this influence, the tanker pilot alters his course for Sevenna.<span style=""> </span>Steve starts to follow suit, but somehow realizing what’s happening, tells Robert to maintain the present course.<span style=""> </span>The confusion of the conflicting orders causes the robot to let off steam again, and he responds by karate-chopping Steve in the throat!<span style=""> </span>With the crew unconscious, the ship continues on its course – unfortunately, it’s ultimately heading straight for Mirana, the planet of fire.<span style=""> </span>At the last moment, the heat revives Steve and he manages to pull Fireball away from certain destruction.<span style=""> </span>Backtracking to the hypnotic sphere, Fireball follows the course of the tanker.<span style=""> </span>The crew black out their windows and turn off the electronic systems to avoid getting hypnotized again.<span style=""> </span>Arriving at Sevenna, they discover a whole fleet of the hypnotic spheres waiting on the surface.<span style=""> </span>Entering a building, they encounter the alien responsible – basically a pulsating brain in a glass tank, with a creepy magnified eye.<span style=""> </span>(I think it might actually have been quite disturbing for kids.)<span style=""> </span>The alien reveals its plan: the hijacked tankers will provide fuel for the fleet of spheres, which it will send out across the galaxy, spreading its hypnotic will everywhere and making it ruler of everything.<span style=""> </span>Steve’s heard enough, and despite being held in the brain’s hypnotic power, he manages to get off a shot from his gun – destroying the base’s heating system.<span style=""> </span>The extreme cold kills the brain, which is a physically delicate creature.<span style=""> </span>It’s odd to note that both episodes so far have effectively the same story: our heroes discover aliens operating from a hidden base and using weapons to conquer the Earth/galaxy.<span style=""> </span>This suggests that the solar system is surrounded by hostile worlds with vaguely defined grudges against humanity, which in turn might explain the aggressive attitude demonstrated by Steve and his crew – they’ve got a really gung-ho, shoot first and ask no questions thing going on.<span style=""> </span>It’s like a sort of </span><span lang="EN-GB">Middle East</span><span lang="EN-GB"> situation, with lots of rogue states sabre-rattling, and the Western powers sending in a gunboat to make a few threatening gestures. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">
<br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Planet of Platonia</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">A friendly planet this week – well, sort of.<span style=""> </span>Platonia has vast deposits of platinum, but is lacking in many essential resources.<span style=""> </span>President Barzan wants to initiate a trade agreement with Earth.<span style=""> </span>However, he’s opposed by Jinerva, the leader of a more militant/fundamentalist faction.<span style=""> </span>Again, it reminds me of countries in the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Middle East</span><span lang="EN-GB"> where a progressive president wants to cosy up to the West, but faces danger from hardliners.<span style=""> </span>Barzan is attended by his aide Volvo – (presumably Skoda and Audi were busy somewhere else) – but he doesn’t realize that Volvo is secretly working for Jinerva, not even when the aide makes several incompetent attempts to poison or assassinate him.<span style=""> </span>Barzan manages to survive or avoid each attempt (by luck rather than judgement) and though Volvo’s suspicious manner gives him the occasional moment of doubt, ultimately he remains convinced of his aide’s loyalty.<span style=""> </span>The trade talks are considered important enough that Fireball XL5 is despatched to collect Barzan and bring him safely to Earth.<span style=""> </span>Steve and Venus arrive in Fireball Junior, and tell Robert to stay on guard – the robot interprets this literally, by standing in the open upper hatch with a gun in his hand!<span style=""> </span>Following a massive multi-course meal, Steve and Venus retire to guest quarters for the night – but some instinct has made Steve suspicious, and he gets up to go and check on Fireball Junior.<span style=""> </span>He finds that Volvo has incapacitated Robert and got aboard the vessel.<span style=""> </span>So Steve shoots him, with some sort of stun gun that puts Volvo in a coma!<span style=""> </span>But don’t worry, Venus is able to bring the traitor round with “anti-coma drugs”.<span style=""> </span>Fireball XL5 departs, carrying President Barzan to his trade talks – with Volvo locked up in a cell on board (which is labelled with the words “Space Jail”).<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, Jinerva launches a space interceptor from Platonia to pursue Fireball – it’s interesting to note that he buys his spacecraft from the same place as the Subterrains.<span style=""> </span>Maybe there’s a hostile foreign power that supplies aid and equipment to various rogue regimes, like the Russians used to supply the various Communist states.<span style=""> </span>(Or maybe they just used some stock footage from <i>Planet 46</i>!)<span style=""> </span>Volvo is able to overpower Venus when she goes to feed him, and ejects from Fireball planning to be picked up by Jinerva’s ship.<span style=""> </span>His hopes are dashed when Steve fires a missile and destroys the craft – it turns out that Jinerva was actually on board, so all hopes of an uprising die with him.<span style=""> </span>After Steve has spacewalked to recapture Volvo, it soon transpires that the traitor’s plan was to destroy Fireball with a bomb he planted last night.<span style=""> </span>Steve discovers that the bomb is inside Robert’s chest, and there are tense scenes as he has to extract the device from the robot and gingerly carry it to the airlock, managing to eject it into space with just seconds to spare.<span style=""> </span>Venus then dopes Volvo with knockout drops to keep him unconscious for the rest of the journey to Earth.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">
<br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Space Magnet</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">It’s night time in </span><span lang="EN-GB">Space</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">City</span><span lang="EN-GB">, and Fireball XL5 is preparing for launch the next day.<span style=""> </span>Venus is at home drinking coffee with Professor Matic.<span style=""> </span>She has a sort of weird alien pet called Zoonie, who appears to become quite agitated about something.<span style=""> </span>They can’t tell what.<span style=""> </span>Eventually Matt leaves to go back to Fireball.<span style=""> </span>(He doesn’t have his own home, but lives aboard the ship.)<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, Steve is in the control room with Lieutenant Ninety when a distress calls comes in from Fireball XL7.<span style=""> </span>It’s out of control, being pulled off course.<span style=""> </span>As contact is lost, Steve decides to bring XL5’s launch forward so he can go and investigate.<span style=""> </span>The take-off is set for moonrise – the only trouble is, the Moon doesn’t rise on schedule!<span style=""> </span>(It was this that got the sensitive Zoonie so worked up.)<span style=""> </span>When the Moon finally appears, it’s too distant – it’s being pulled out of its orbit!<span style=""> </span>(That’s an interesting idea – they should do something with that again…)<span style=""> </span>Matt wakes up to discover the emergency in progress – he’s got a great Heath Robinson apparatus in his cabin involving an alarm clock and a kettle that proceeds to make him a cup of tea.<span style=""> </span>Now, Steve comments here about Matt’s insistence on using a 100 year old alarm clock in preference to the high-tech systems aboard the ship, which is odd because it only serves to point up all the other weird anachronisms in the show.<span style=""> </span>In just this episode, we see Steve reading a newspaper, Venus sewing buttons onto clothes, and even the instrument panels in Fireball are covered in very 1960s dials.<span style=""> </span>For all the spaceships, aliens and robots, there’s very little attempt made at depicting a consistent futuristic world – it’s effectively the Sixties with better technology.<span style=""> </span>Well, Fireball sets off in pursuit of the Moon, and follows it to the planet Magneton – which as its name suggests is pulling lots of metal objects towards it.<span style=""> </span>Steve manages to break Fireball XL5 away just in time to prevent a crash.<span style=""> </span>They go down to the surface and find the wreckage of Fireball XL7 there amongst all the other debris.<span style=""> </span>It’s being fed by conveyor into an alien complex.<span style=""> </span>They go inside, where they are relieved to discover the crew of XL7 are still alive, if prisoners.<span style=""> </span>Then a voice speaks.<span style=""> </span>The aliens here are called the Solars, and they’re invisible.<span style=""> </span>They’re processing all the scrap metal they’ve attracted in order to provide the power to pull the Moon into their orbit.<span style=""> </span>And that’s their whole plan: they want the Moon to illuminate their world so they no longer live in darkness.<span style=""> </span>(Well, I don’t know where to start with the scientific errors here – are the writers really not aware that the Moon merely reflects the light of the sun?<span style=""> </span>Take it away from its orbit, and it wouldn’t have its own illumination…)<span style=""> </span>Steve doesn’t react very well to this news.<span style=""> </span>He whirls around the room, firing his gun indiscriminately until he’s managed to kill all the Solars.<span style=""> </span>Once again, it’s this gung-ho aggressive attitude that’s making it hard for me to like the show.<span style=""> </span>In something like <i>Star Trek</i> or <i>Space Patrol</i>, discovering the aliens’ plight like that would be the cue for our heroes to open up a dialogue and reach some mutually beneficial agreement.<span style=""> </span>For Steve Zodiac, the only response is to shoot the buggers.<span style=""> </span>As I said, very dodgy pulp sci-fi.<span style=""> </span>So far, <i>Fireball XL5</i> is showing little of the intelligence or wit of <i>Supercar</i> and <i>Four Feather Falls</i>.<span style=""> </span>Our heroes take the Moon back to Earth – though there’s no explanation of how they managed that feat!<span style=""> </span>Then, there’s a little moment of subtle characterization.<span style=""> </span>Looking up at the Moon, Steve comments how it’s easy to take something for granted when it’s there all the time; Venus agrees wistfully, and in that instant, there’s a suggestion of unrequited love, of how Steve is blind to the desires of the woman he serves with.<span style=""> </span>It shows me that the writers are capable of better than the schlock sci-fi they’re churning out.<span style=""> </span>There’s scope for improvement here.</span></p>
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-70413983859684772262011-08-18T01:32:00.002+01:002011-08-18T01:54:47.213+01:00Anderthon: It's the Marvel of the Age...<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Supercar series 2
<br />episodes 10-13
<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:100%;">
<br /></span></span></span></span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Jail Break</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">A contemporary crime thriller that harks back to the style of the first series, this episode begins with a terrific jazz score as we encounter the criminal Joe Anna, who’s rotting away in prison.<span style=""> </span>Nevertheless, plans are afoot in the outside world to effect his escape.<span style=""> </span>In the big city, we meet the gangster Red James, who receives his instructions from a mysterious “Mr Big” figure at the end of the telephone.<span style=""> </span>Tasked with getting Joe out of jail, Red contacts a company called Helicopter Services Inc, and proceeds to hire the use of a helicopter.<span style=""> </span>His cover story is that he wants to take aerial photographs to aid with land surveying work.<span style=""> </span>But when he arrives to make his flight the following day, he pulls a gun on Mr Weston, the pilot, and tells him that they’re going to fly low over the prison (aerial footage of a real prison, of course).<span style=""> </span>Red lets out a cable from the helicopter, which Joe ties around the bars of his cell window.<span style=""> </span>The helicopter then strains away at the end of the cable, until it pulls the bars clear from the crumbling brickwork of the prison wall.<span style=""> </span>The entire grille comes away in one piece, which is lucky as Joe’s only means of escape is to hang on to it as the helicopter lifts him away.<span style=""> </span>(It does strike me as a bit of a slapdash plan, relying on a lot of lucky chances – that the helicopter can take the strain, that the stonework is weak enough, that the bars stay together in one piece, that Joe can manage to hold on as he’s winched high into the air – still maybe that’s the best that Red could come up with at short notice.<span style=""> </span>What’s amusing about it is that it’s exactly like the jailbreaks we see in Westerns – including <i>Four Feather Falls</i>! – but translated into the modern age, with the helicopter substituting for a horse trying to pull the bars out.)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";" lang="EN-GB"></span><span lang="EN-GB">Meanwhile at the lab, Beaker has developed a new rocket-powered ejector seat for Supercar.<span style=""> </span>Again recalling the first series, we see the team going through a series of meticulous tests to perfect the mechanism – laced with humour as Mike is shot out through the roof doors, only for his seat to come to rest out in the desert stuck on top of a large cactus.<span style=""> </span>But the ejector system seems to be working fine, and Beaker elects to work through the night to make the final tweaks and adjustments (despite some interruptions from Mitch).<span style=""> </span>Demonstrating a post-modern awareness of the show’s tropes, Beaker’s got a feeling that the ejector seat is going to come in handy very soon – as he says, all his new inventions soon prove useful!<span style=""> </span>Sure enough, next day the villains’ helicopter is hovering overhead.<span style=""> </span>What’s that building down there? asks Red.<span style=""> </span>Learning that it’s the “famous Supercar lab”, he hatches a new plan.<span style=""> </span>Entering the lab, Red holds Jimmy and the scientists hostage, to force Mike to fly Joe Anna to safety across the border – reasoning that no one would suspect Supercar of ferrying an escaped con.<span style=""> </span>Once airborne, Mike uses the ejector seat – and amusingly enough ends up stuck on top of a cactus again!<span style=""> </span>Stuck in the cockpit and unable to operate the controls, Joe is scared he’s going to crash – he agrees to throw out his gun if Beaker and Popkiss will bring Supercar back to the ground by remote control.<span style=""> </span>Mitch meanwhile has already taken care of Red James by throwing a horseshoe at his head!<span style=""> </span>Jimmy then keeps him covered while the scientists deal with Joe.<span style=""> </span>(Yes, they let the ten year old kid use a gun…!)<span style=""> </span>As Supercar lands, they learn that Joe Anna has double crossed them – he’s got a second gun.<span style=""> </span>Fortunately, Mike turns up (having extricated himself from his prickly situation) and takes care of the convict.<span style=""> </span>Joe and Red are tied to chairs while they wait for the police to arrive, with Mitch holding a gun on them.<span style=""> </span>(They’re just letting anyone handle firearms now, it seems – at least they tell us that Mitch’s gun is empty.)</span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">
<br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The Day That Time Stood Still</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The voiceover man is back this week, introducing us to the stars and planets of our galaxy, before taking us to an alien world.<span style=""> </span>For a series that’s essentially grounded (bar a few odd flights of fancy) in the real world of 1960, this all seems just a bit out of step.<span style=""> </span>As I said right back at the beginning, the science fiction content of <span style="font-style: italic;">Supercar</span> has always been pretty minimal – now even given that the Andersons have been driving the show in weird and unexpected directions, suddenly throwing aliens into the mix seems like it’s taking us into another series entirely.<span style=""> </span>(Just imagine if aliens had suddenly popped up in <i>Danger Man</i> for instance.)<span style=""> </span>This planet is Mercurius, which is known as the “planet of dreams”.<span style=""> </span>Maybe they’re planning a dream right now, says voiceover man.<span style=""> </span>(Am I getting that sinking feeling…?)<span style=""> </span>So here we have two aliens, Planetimus their leader, and one of his people called Kalmus – they wear the sort of silly classical robes that tv and films liked to use to suggest an advanced society – and they’re discussing something important.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, they talk a “flob-a-dob” language, and without subtitles, we haven’t a clue what they’re on about.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile at the Supercar lab, Mike is listening to the radio as he prepares to go to bed.<span style=""> </span>(The news is reporting recent sightings of a flying saucer – I wonder if that’s going to be significant…)<span style=""> </span>Anyway, Mike goes to sleep – he’s looking forward to tomorrow, which is his birthday.<span style=""> </span>Yet when he wakes up, he has a funny moment, and seems to think he might still be asleep.<span style=""> </span>Oh no, what do you think that might mean?<span style=""> </span>Anyway, everyone seems to have forgotten his birthday.<span style=""> </span>There are no good wishes, no cards, no presents, and no one picks up on his not-so-subtle hints to them about what day it is.<span style=""> </span>Feeling a bit pissed off, Mike has to take Supercar to </span><span lang="EN-GB">Chicago</span><span lang="EN-GB">, to collect Aunt Heidi and Zizi, who are coming to visit.<span style=""> </span>He doesn’t anticipate it being a particularly long trip…<span style=""> </span>But it’s all a ruse.<span style=""> </span>Popkiss phones Heidi and tells her to keep Mike tied up as long as possible.<span style=""> </span>Of course, no one’s forgotten his birthday really – they just want him out of the way while they prepare a surprise party.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">In </span><span lang="EN-GB">Chicago</span><span lang="EN-GB">, Heidi and Zizi employ various delaying tactics, taking ages to get ready, insisting on giving Mike cups of coffee, and so on.<span style=""> </span>In fact, Mike ends up asleep in the armchair, which is surprising – with the amount of coffee they’ve forced down him, he really ought to be hyper!<span style=""> </span>While all this is going on, Popkiss is busy baking a cake; Jimmy is making Mike a model of Supercar; and Beaker is doing something mysterious in his workshop – all the while, Mitch interferes and makes a nuisance of himself, eating the cake and bursting balloons.<span style=""> </span>When Mike arrives back with Heidi and Zizi, he discovers the lab in darkness and no one answering the radio.<span style=""> </span>Fearing something is wrong, he operates the roof doors by remote control.<span style=""> </span>Of course, everyone is waiting in the dark to surprise Mike.<span style=""> </span>The party is a great success.<span style=""> </span>After the food and presents, Beaker unveils what he’s been working on: a sort of weird electronic organ he calls the Beakette.<span style=""> </span>It comes sliding out of his workshop like some demented Wurlitzer, and he proceeds to play <i>The Blue Danube</i> with loud electronic chords and crazy puffs of smoke coming out of the thing!<span style=""> </span>Then he accompanies Zizi, who sings a song about her new-found life in the </span><span lang="EN-GB">USA</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>While this is going on, time seems to freeze.<span style=""> </span>Popkiss, Heidi, Jimmy and Zizi are rendered as statues, but oddly Mike and Beaker still retain the power of movement.<span style=""> </span>A flying saucer then lands outside the lab, and Kalmus emerges.<span style=""> </span>He announces that he’s frozen time for the whole world, and is only allowing Mike and Beaker to learn of his existence (and actually, Mitch as well, though Kalmus doesn’t make any comment about that).<span style=""> </span>He tells Mike that they’ve been watching him on Mercurius, and wish to reward him for being a hero: Kalmus gives Mike a magic belt.<span style=""> </span>Once the alien has departed, time returns to normal.<span style=""> </span>Mike then demonstrates his new belt, which gives him the power to fly.<span style=""> </span>He opens the roof doors and proceeds to take off – as he says, he doesn’t need Supercar any more.<span style=""> </span>But executing various manoeuvres, Mike loses control and crashes back into the lab…<span style=""> </span>Whereupon, he wakes up and finds it was all a dream.<span style=""> </span>Then Popkiss, Beaker and Jimmy come in and wish him a happy birthday.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Now, you know I’m not going to be keen on a dream episode, but in this case, I just can’t see what the writers are trying to achieve.<span style=""> </span>The </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB"> seem to deploy this device at random whether they need to or not – <i>Supercar</i> is already a bonkers enough series.<span style=""> </span>Consider that it’s already discovered the secrets of miniaturization and invisibility, and felt no need to explain those as dreams.<span style=""> </span>A farce about keeping Mike away from the preparations for his surprise party certainly wouldn’t need to be a dream – so ultimately, the only outré thing here is the presence of the aliens and their technology.<span style=""> </span>And yet… the aliens are real!<span style=""> </span>They were there at the start of the episode before Mike went to sleep – and indeed, there’s that implication that they generated the dream in the first place.<span style=""> </span>So I’m confused.<span style=""> </span>It just doesn’t make any sense.<span style=""> </span>And I think this is what happens when you try to make a show without proper writers, or at least a script editor who could have looked at the script with an objective eye.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">
<br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Transatlantic Cable</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The voiceover man gives his final introduction this week, explaining the existence and importance of the transatlantic telephone cable – a blatant bit of exposition that could probably have been conveyed in dialogue during the course of the episode.<span style=""> </span>But at least it ensures that we’re clued into the danger posed by the two frogmen who swim into shot and start tampering with the cable.<span style=""> </span>In </span><span lang="EN-GB">New York</span><span lang="EN-GB">, Masterspy and Zarin are running a new operation: the subtly-named Mastermind Information Service.<span style=""> </span>Yes, they have managed to tap the telephone cable.<span style=""> </span>Zarin listens in to transatlantic phone calls through a set of headphones, from which he gleans sensitive business information.<span style=""> </span>Masterspy then passes this on to various clients, enabling them to steal a march on their competitors by undercutting prices and sabotaging deals.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, Mike has been called to the city by Mr Bell, the head of the Telecable Corporation.<span style=""> </span>They’re aware that the cable has been tapped, but they’ve been unable to establish where or how – and now they’re requesting the assistance of Supercar.<span style=""> </span>Back at the lab, Mike discusses it with the team.<span style=""> </span>Popkiss feels that anyone tapping the cable must be operating from a surface vessel in the vicinity, so the obvious plan is to fly Supercar over the ocean following the course of the cable, and see if they can spot any out of place ships.<span style=""> </span>But when they don’t find anything, they decide instead to dive under the waves, and follow the cable along the ocean floor to look for any signs of tampering.<span style=""> </span>At one point, the cable passes quite close to an old shipwreck, and Jimmy thinks he sees a light shining through one of its portholes – a light that’s quickly extinguished before the others see it.<span style=""> </span>Needless to say, no one believes Jimmy, thinking he must have seen a reflection of Supercar’s lamp.<span style=""> </span>Well, they should have listened, because inside the shipwreck is a chamber that’s been made watertight, wherein two villains called Forman and Johnson are ensconced.<span style=""> </span>Through their dialogue we learn that they’re working for Masterspy (clever of him to have them stuck here under the sea, while he reaps all the profits and doesn’t even get his feet wet!)<span style=""> </span>They used an ocean-going tug to dive down to the cable originally – once their wiretap was in place and they’d created this underwater base, the tug went back to port, and they could remain here undetected.<span style=""> </span>They use echo sounding equipment to detect the approach of any submarine vessels, so they can put out their lights in time.<span style=""> </span>(They were just a fraction too late when Supercar turned up before.)<span style=""> </span>Back at the lab, Beaker is slowly coming round to the idea that Jimmy might have been on to something.<span style=""> </span>He thinks that Mike needs to take Supercar back to investigate the wreck – and he’s come up with another useful invention which he fits to the vehicle.<span style=""> </span>Mike and Popkiss return to the shipwreck – to fool the echo-sounding gear, they make a show of rising back up to the surface, then cut their engines to silently drift down to the ocean floor – then they lie in wait.<span style=""> </span>Eventually, Forman and Johnson turn their light back on, giving away their position.<span style=""> </span>Mike deploys Beaker’s new gadget – a drill fitted to Supercar’s nose.<span style=""> </span>He drills a hole through the side of the shipwreck, and the secret chamber starts flooding with water.<span style=""> </span>The villains have no choice but to put on their diving gear and evacuate.<span style=""> </span>Supercar follows them back to the surface, and they’re taken prisoner.<span style=""> </span>Later, Mike phones the Mastermind Information Service, and offers Masterspy some information free of charge: the fact that the police are even now on their way to his penthouse to arrest him and Zarin. With sirens wailing ever closer, our two criminals are reducing to arguing amongst themselves as to whose fault it all was!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">
<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">King Cool</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Jimmy and Mitch are watching a tv show, in which jazz pianist Bud Hamburger introduces his sensational co-star – King Cool, a gorilla who can play the drums.<span style=""> </span>And I don’t just mean bashing them, he’s a really talented jazz drummer, playing sensitively with brushes and everything.<span style=""> </span>Jimmy decides that he could probably teach Mitch to play the drums just as well, and asks Dr Beaker if he’ll build Mitch a drumkit.<span style=""> </span>Despite claiming to be far too busy for such frivolities, Beaker ends up making a drumkit anyway.<span style=""> </span>He works through the night, and so we get a nice repeat of the running gag about Beaker keeping everyone awake as he hammers and bangs – capped off nicely here as Beaker ends up trying out the drumkit, playing a spectacular drum solo through the night!<span style=""> </span>(It’s an impressive piece of puppetry, but the sequence is made especially memorable by being shot through the open laboratory door – all we see is Beaker’s shadow cast onto the wall inside.)<span style=""> </span>Anyway, Jimmy – who can play a mean jazz piano himself – soon teaches Mitch to play the drums.<span style=""> </span>Christening him “Musical Mitch”, he presents a performance for the rest of the team.<span style=""> </span>However, tensions over Beaker’s late night working finally come to a head, and he and Popkiss end up having a row about it.<span style=""> </span>Beaker seems amazed that anyone could think he was noisy – he storms out slamming the door, causing pictures to fall off the wall!<span style=""> </span>Beaker drives into Batesville to visit his old friend Professor Harlow.<span style=""> </span>He doesn’t realize that Mitch has stowed away in the back of the truck, hoping to visit the home of Bud Hamburger and maybe further his musical career.<span style=""> </span>But round the back of Hamburger’s house, Mitch discovers that when he’s not performing, King Cool is kept locked up in a cage.<span style=""> </span>In a very silly scene, Mitch and King Cool talk to each other through the bars – they talk in ape noises of course, but fortunately we get subtitles!<span style=""> </span>The two converse in jazz slang, all “man” and “daddio” – and they come up with a plan to get King Cool free of his cage.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Meanwhile, Beaker is spending the evening at Professor Harlow’s observatory.<span style=""> </span>Weirdly though, </span><span lang="EN-GB">Harlow</span><span lang="EN-GB"> is described as an astrologer – so I don’t know what he needs an observatory for: it should be birth charts and mumbo jumbo.<span style=""> </span>Now, I know that accurate science isn’t really the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB">’ strong suit, but I find it incredible that they don’t seem to know the difference between an astronomer and an astrologer.<span style=""> </span>And it’s not just a confusion of semantics – despite the observatory and the professorial title, </span><span lang="EN-GB">Harlow</span><span lang="EN-GB"> is most definitely an astrologer, making predictions that Beaker is soon to be visited by a tall stranger.<span style=""> </span>(Beaker himself is pretty sceptical of the whole thing.<span style=""> </span>But come on, how many serious observational astronomers give any credence to astrology?)<span style=""> </span>Well, as it turns out, the prediction is accurate – for Mitch and King Cool have swapped places, and the gorilla travels back to the Supercar lab in Beaker’s truck.<span style=""> </span>When Jimmy finds King Cool asleep in Mitch’s bed the next morning, he jumps to the understandable conclusion that Mitch has somehow mutated in the night!<span style=""> </span>Smart thinking there…<span style=""> </span>(Slightly more disconcerting for me is the fact that Popkiss and Beaker take the suggestion entirely seriously, and begin to wonder what could have caused it.)<span style=""> </span>King Cool becomes disorientated in his new surroundings, and starts to smash the place up.<span style=""> </span>He seems dangerous and out of control, until Jimmy comes up with the idea of playing jazz piano.<span style=""> </span>This calms the gorilla down, and he starts to join in on drums.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, the reverse situation is happening to Bud Hamburger: finding Mitch in King Cool’s cage, he thinks that his star attraction has somehow shrunk!<span style=""> </span>By now, Jimmy has worked out the switcheroo, so the team take King Cool back to Hamburger.<span style=""> </span>He agrees that it’s probably unnecessary to keep the gorilla in a cage, and promises not to do so from now on.<span style=""> </span>That night, he introduces special guests on the King Cool show: “Musical Mitch” and the members of the “world famous Supercar team”.<span style=""> </span>And so rather bizarrely, the series bows out with our heroes playing in a jazz band – Mike it seems is a great double bass player, and Beaker can blow a killer saxophone!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">It’s an odd choice for the final episode – from a modern perspective, you’d expect a big adventure, a daring rescue mission, a final showdown with Masterspy.<span style=""> </span>Instead you get comical shenanigans with simian mistaken identity (and just a vague message about the mistreatment of animals).<span style=""> </span>It’s also very funny, and utterly bonkers.<span style=""> </span>What interests me most is the way that the series can go out on a limb like this, and yet not come out and say it was all a dream.<span style=""> </span>It doesn’t need to – this show can take surrealism in its stride.<span style=""> </span>And that, I think, shows up the failing of <i>The Day That Time Stood Still</i>.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">*******************</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">And so this schizophrenic series draws to a close.<span style=""> </span>These last four episodes really highlight the different directions that it’s trying to pull in.<span style=""> </span>We get two decent crime thrillers, much more in keeping with the first series, in which the application of science saves the day; and we get two slices of pure whimsy.<span style=""> </span>I’m still not sure which is better, as there’s much to enjoy in both approaches.<span style=""> </span>In some ways, it’s a shame that the show ends here, as I’d have been interested to see where the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB"> might have taken it next.<span style=""> </span>Would they continue in the comedy direction?<span style=""> </span>Would they take it further into sci-fi and fantasy?<span style=""> </span>(Possibly so, considering what they’re going to be making next…)</span></p>
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-49092195973537424772011-08-04T23:39:00.005+01:002011-08-15T21:40:58.225+01:00Anderthon: Roof Doors Opening...<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Supercar series 2
<br />episodes 6-9
<br />
<br /></span></span><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Space For Mitch</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Beaker’s back to working for the government.<span style=""> </span>This time, he’s designed a small, cheap space rocket that can be operated by a minimal ground crew without all the usual gantries and paraphernalia of </span><span lang="EN-GB">Cape Canaveral</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>The episode opens with our heroes inside a concrete rocket test bunker, looking out through the slit window at the rocket outside.<span style=""> </span>It’s a scene that recalls many tense cold war images of scientists and generals waiting for the latest bomb or rocket test.<span style=""> </span>Then we learn that, despite the fact we’ve never seen this area before, it’s actually built onto the side of the Black Rock lab: Mike simply goes next door to get into Supercar.<span style=""> </span>Beaker successfully launches the rocket on an unmanned test flight, separates the capsule from the launch vehicle, and then fires the retro rockets by remote control.<span style=""> </span>Everything goes according to plan: the capsule re-enters safely and parachutes into the sea.<span style=""> </span>Mike arrives in Supercar, fitted once again with Beaker’s electromagnetic grab, and successfully recovers the capsule.<span style=""> </span>With the team to observe the test is Professor Harvey from the Space Administration.<span style=""> </span>He’s very enthused by the project, and commits NASA to funding a further test – this time to be a manned flight. What I find interesting about this is how prescient it all is.<span style=""> </span>At the time it was written, space exploration was in its infancy and almost exclusively the preserve of huge government-funded organizations.<span style=""> </span>Nowadays, with funding cut to the bone, the notion of NASA turning to private contractors to provide launch vehicles doesn’t seem nearly so far-fetched.<span style=""> </span>With everything lined up for the second launch, all that remains is to find someone to fly the rocket.<span style=""> </span>Jimmy suggests his brother Bill for the job, since he is an astronaut!<span style=""> </span>Did I miss some important character development here?<span style=""> </span>The way that Bill has gone from a man in a pick-up truck, to airline flight instructor, and now to a fully-qualified astronaut in the space of a year is nothing short of miraculous.<span style=""> </span>It’s almost as if the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB"> bring in Bill whenever they need an extra character to fulfil some story-specific function.<span style=""> </span>(I don’t know, maybe they’ve run out of puppets or something…)<span style=""> </span>But it’s jarring that we’re expected to just accept whatever occupation and skills he’s supposed to have this week, and really it’s lazy writing.</span><span lang="EN-GB"></span> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Meanwhile, Mitch has been reading one of Jimmy’s magazines, and finds a photo of a chimpanzee in a space suit – one of the apes used by NASA to test their early rockets.<span style=""> </span>This obviously puts ideas in his head, as that night Mitch emerges from the lab wearing a space suit (lucky that he’s managed to locate a monkey-sized one…) – he climbs into the rocket and manages to launch it.<span style=""> </span>The noise wakes everyone up.<span style=""> </span>There’s a great piece of characterization as Mike jerks awake shouting out the Supercar launch procedure – it seems he even dreams about flying it.<span style=""> </span>With Mitch now in orbit and his air supply rapidly depleting, they’re unable to fire the retro rockets remotely, as Beaker has rewired the rocket to be operated solely by the onboard pilot.<span style=""> </span>(Which seems incredibly short-sighted – I’d have thought dual control would have been essential.<span style=""> </span>What if the pilot’s injured or blacks out?<span style=""> </span>I also don’t see why they can’t try and talk Mitch through operating the controls – we’ve seen time and again that he’s more intelligent than the average monkey.)<span style=""> </span>While Jimmy talks to Mitch to try and keep him calm and preserve his air, Mike takes Supercar up into orbit.<span style=""> </span>(Yes, finally they’ve sorted out the problems with the cockpit canopy so Supercar is able to fulfil the promise of theme song that it can travel in space.)<span style=""> </span>Mike overtakes the capsule and uses Supercar’s jets to tip it onto its re-entry trajectory.<span style=""> </span>Then he follows it down and recovers it from the sea, saving Mitch in the nick of time.<span style=""> </span>Which just leaves Bill to wake up in the morning, unaware of what’s been going on – astronauts are so calm, they can sleep through the most extreme of disasters.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">
<br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The Sky’s the Limit</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Masterspy and Zarin are literally rolling in money.<span style=""> </span>They’ve bought skyscrapers and cars and yachts.<span style=""> </span>They live in a massive house with a huge long banqueting table – sitting at opposite ends, they’re so far apart that Masterspy has installed a two way radio so that they can talk to each other without the need to shout.<span style=""> </span>We soon discover how they’ve made their new fortune – they’re running a counterfeiting operation.<span style=""> </span>There is however one thing that money (real or fake) cannot buy: Supercar!<span style=""> </span>Masterspy even tries writing a letter to Popkiss, posing as an eccentric millionaire prepared to pay a huge sum for the chance to own Supercar, but he gets a polite letter back turning the offer down.<span style=""> </span>So there’s only one thing for it – they’ll have to steal Supercar.<span style=""> </span>They recruit a couple of </span><span lang="EN-GB">New York</span><span lang="EN-GB"> gangsters, Bud and Jaz, to help with the heist.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile at the lab, Beaker has developed a new kind of paint that will confer adamantine strength onto any object coated with it.<span style=""> </span>However, he’s made some error with his formula, as instead it turns objects invisible.<span style=""> </span>(And once again, the writers are deploying magic and pretending it’s science.<span style=""> </span>I’m sorry, but I can’t buy it.<span style=""> </span>It would be perfectly possible to devise some pseudoscience technobabble explanation for making something invisible – but just saying it’s invisibility paint doesn’t cut it.<span style=""> </span>It’s only coating the exterior surfaces after all, it could perhaps reflect light back, but it couldn’t allow light to pass through the solidity of the object.)<span style=""> </span>While all this is going on, the team have been informed that some census officials will be arriving soon to carry out a population check.<span style=""> </span>This leads to a fantastic sequence in which Jimmy walks past the lab window, while the light aeroplane carrying the officials lands on the desert outside – it’s an amazing combination of the puppet and set in the foreground with the model desert and aircraft in the background, all done in the one shot.</span><span lang="EN-GB"></span> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The census officials are bogus of course – they turn out to be Masterspy and Zarin and their new henchmen.<span style=""> </span>The first our heroes realize is when the villains open fire on the lab – the windows shatter, and everyone dives for cover.<span style=""> </span>The gangsters cut the phone lines and even shoot down the radio mast, so the lab is completely cut off.<span style=""> </span>Realizing that they’re under siege, Mike tells Beaker to fetch the guns.<span style=""> </span>Now, I realize that America has a different attitude to firearms ownership than this country, but when I heard that, I expected to see a hunting rifle and maybe a couple of hand guns – not the two tommy guns that Mike and Beaker start brandishing to shoot back at the villains!<span style=""> </span>Mike attempts to launch Supercar to go and fetch help, but Masterspy has thought of this, and rigged a bomb to the roof doors.<span style=""> </span>So the team are definitely trapped and isolated in the lab.<span style=""> </span>They’re also almost entirely out of food, as Popkiss had been due to go shopping just before the siege started.<span style=""> </span>So it becomes a question of how long they can hold out.<span style=""> </span>Eventually, Mike comes up with a plan.<span style=""> </span>They wave a white flag, and tell Masterspy that they’re surrendering.<span style=""> </span>But when they open the doors, Masterspy enters to discover that Supercar is not in the building.<span style=""> </span>It’s been sent over to </span><span lang="EN-GB">England</span><span lang="EN-GB"> for repairs to its electronic systems.<span style=""> </span>Masterspy doesn’t believe it, as he heard the engines powering up earlier.<span style=""> </span>But Mike bluffs him by playing a tape recording of the engine noise, and explaining that they were trying to deceive him earlier.<span style=""> </span>Eventually, Masterspy buys the story, as there’s clearly nowhere in the building when they could be hiding Supercar.<span style=""> </span>He demands to know where in </span><span lang="EN-GB">England</span><span lang="EN-GB"> he will find the vehicle.<span style=""> </span>(Amusingly, Mike gives the name of the outside contractors as A.P. Electronics of </span><span lang="EN-GB">Slough</span><span lang="EN-GB">!)<span style=""> </span>Like me, you’ve probably guessed by now that Supercar is still in the building, but has been coated with Beaker’s invisibility paint.<span style=""> </span>As Masterspy and his cohorts leave in their plane, Mike and Beaker take off in the now invisible Supercar to give chase.<span style=""> </span>This basically means the two of them are apparently suspended in mid air.<span style=""> </span>Mike comments that it’s like they’re really flying, empty space around them and no visible means of suspension – apart from all the dirty great strings holding them up, that is!<span style=""> </span>(And yes, I realize it’s a cheap shot to point out the strings in a puppet show, but honestly if they’re going to draw such attention to them with comments like that, I think it’s fair game…)<span style=""> </span>Diving the invisible Supercar into Masterspy’s plane, Mike slices off the wing; the plane spirals out of control and crashes into the ground with an almighty explosion.<span style=""> </span>Nevertheless, as before, Masterspy and Zarin escape with hardly a scratch – and at last! the team tie them up and are going to hand them over to the police.<span style=""> </span>Why didn’t they think of that sooner? <span style=""> </span>Another oddity is the fact that they turn Supercar invisible here, and don’t use this ability again in the subsequent episodes.<span style=""> </span>There must be plenty of situations where it would be pretty useful…</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">
<br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">70-B-Lo</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Popkiss wakes up with stabbing pains in his side, and Beaker diagnoses appendicitis.<span style=""> </span>They call an ambulance to take the Professor into Batesville hospital.<span style=""> </span>(Mike wants to take him in Supercar – any excuse to fly it! – but Beaker thinks the Prof needs to stay lying flat.)<span style=""> </span>At the hospital, Dr Maslin concurs with Beaker’s diagnosis, whilst noting that Beaker is not actually a medical doctor.<span style=""> </span>(Weirdly, I thought he was in the first series – didn’t he treat Bill and Jimmy after their plane crash ordeal?)<span style=""> </span>There’s no cause for worry, as a simple operation should see Popkiss alright.<span style=""> </span>Beaker admires an x-ray machine in Dr Maslin’s office, and asks if he can borrow it to x-ray some electronic components.<span style=""> </span>Maslin is happy to lend it – anything to help the Supercar team (so there are some advantages to becoming globally famous, it seems).<span style=""> </span>Back in Black Rock, Beaker demonstrates the x-ray machine to Jimmy, and is slightly perturbed to discover that he appears to have an additional rib bone – fortunately, it’s only his pipe which he’s left in his breast pocket.<span style=""> </span>Beaker reacts to this with such excessive hilarity that I had to wonder whether he’d taken rather more than an x-ray machine from the hospital – he does seem to have been at the “happy pills”.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, there’s bad news about Popkiss: there have been complications to his operation, and he desperately needs a blood transfusion.<span style=""> </span>The problem is: Popkiss has a very rare blood type, and there aren’t supplies available.<span style=""> </span>In fact, the only possible donor that Maslin knows about is a Professor Karzinski, and he’s currently out of contact on a scientific expedition to the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Arctic</span><span lang="EN-GB">. (Surely it’s a bit risky having to rely simply on one doctor’s personal knowledge of available blood donors – shouldn’t they have a central database of such things?<span style=""> </span>Then they could probably find a donor a bit closer to home.<span style=""> </span>I don’t think there’s any blood type that’s so rare, there’s only one other donor in the world…<span style=""> </span>Of course, that would mean Mike wouldn’t have to set out on a perilous mission to the North Pole.)<span style=""> </span>So Mike and Dr Maslin put on arctic gear and set off in Supercar.<span style=""> </span>In an amusing sequence, Mike lifts off through the roof, then immediately brings Supercar back down into the lab – and kicks out Mitch, who’s trying to stow himself aboard again (and dressed in a fur coat and astrakhan hat!)</span><span lang="EN-GB"></span> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Meanwhile, at the North Pole, Professor Karzinski and his assistant Jason have discovered uranium deposits beneath the ice cap.<span style=""> </span>Watching with a modern eye, I’m struck by the fact that Karzinski is a dead ringer for the late former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook.<span style=""> </span>Jason, on the other hand, is played by the most sinister-looking puppet they could find, so it’s really no surprise when he turns out to be a bad guy.<span style=""> </span>He plans to kill/abandon the Professor, and return to civilization with the news of the uranium deposits.<span style=""> </span>Karzinski assumes that Jason is a foreign agent, but actually he’s just in it for self-interest, intending to sell the information to whichever government pays best – it could even be the </span><span lang="EN-GB">USA</span><span lang="EN-GB"> if they meet his price.<span style=""> </span>Supercar’s arrival advances Jason’s plans, and he sees it as a chance to get back three months earlier than he planned.<span style=""> </span>Holding the others at gunpoint, he plans to force them to take him to </span><span lang="EN-GB">Switzerland</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>Mike advises him to strap on his safety belt, but he refuses, thinking that it’s an attempt to restrain him so they can overpower him.<span style=""> </span>So Mike flies low, skimming Supercar across the snow field, and eventually crashing the nose into a drift.<span style=""> </span>Jason is catapulted over the seats, and ends up stuck headfirst beneath the dashboard – it’s a stark warning of the need for passengers to use rear seatbelts.<span style=""> </span>Back in Batesville, Popkiss makes a full recovery – Professor Karzinksi is happy to help out the famous Supercar team.<span style=""> </span>As everyone gathers around Popkiss’s bed, Beaker has the x-ray machine right there in the hospital room, for no other reason than to provide the punchline to a weak joke – he claims to have lost his pen, which Jimmy finds by switching on the machine to show it’s been in Beaker’s pocket all along.<span style=""> </span>Beaker dissolves into paroxysms of forced laughter again, and it’s all rather paniful – it wasn’t that funny the first time round.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">
<br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Atomic Witch Hunt</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">An interesting idea behind this episode: small nuclear devices are being hidden in American cities, tucked away in warehouses and office buildings.<span style=""> </span>So far, the devices have been located through geiger counter readings, but there must be a fear that some could remain undetected.<span style=""> </span>It’s fascinating as it’s another moment when <i>Supercar</i> predicts something that seems more real and relevant in the modern age.<span style=""> </span>We’ve all heard of the fear of terrorist groups being able to utilize so-called “suitcase bombs”.<span style=""> </span>For Mike and Beaker, it seems more likely that the culprits are a hostile nation, which I suppose reflects the thinking of the cold war era – they suspect it is a smaller country trying to attack the US by stealth, rather than one of the big communist nations that could simply deploy its nuclear arsenal.<span style=""> </span>Nevertheless, Beaker takes it upon himself to commit the team to dealing with the problem.<span style=""> </span>They take themselves off to Batesville library, to read through back issue newspapers.<span style=""> </span>In this way, they discover that at the times the previous bombs were located, there had been mysterious and unexplained sightings of a submarine near the coastal town of </span><span lang="EN-GB">Temport</span><span lang="EN-GB"> – Beaker thinks this is how the bombs are being smuggled into the country.<span style=""> </span>(I love the way that the team are able to find this evidence and make these deductions.<span style=""> </span>You have to wonder what the </span><span lang="EN-GB">US</span><span lang="EN-GB"> is paying CIA analysts for – the State Department should just get on the phone to Black Rock whenever anything untoward happens.)<span style=""> </span>So they all pile into Supercar, and head to Temport to investigate.<span style=""> </span>I don’t know…<span style=""> </span>It’s impressive they’ve been able to put all this together, but you’d think now would be the time to call the proper authorities, rather than the five of them trying to sort it out themselves – it’s like they’re starting to believe their own legend.<span style=""> </span>There’s some interesting camerawork here, as we see Supercar lifting off from a different angle than usual.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, it then leads to a visual continuity error: we cut to a model shot showing Supercar from above, lifting up towards the camera with the laboratory in the background.<span style=""> </span>It’s a very impressive miniature effect, but sadly it doesn’t match up with the previous interior shot.<span style=""> </span>Instead of emerging through the open roof doors, Supercar appears to be lifting off from the desert sand in front of the building.</span><span lang="EN-GB"></span> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Nevertheless, the modelwork in this episode is some of the most impressive in the series so far, with terrific shots of Supercar landing on the sea; exploring an underwater tunnel after they spot the enemy submarine entering it; and finally surfacing in a subterranean cavern.<span style=""> </span>(There’s also a brief semi-educational interlude as the team admire the aquatic life around them whilst lying in wait for the submarine to reappear – allowing Jimmy to marvel at film of a real octopus and the like.)<span style=""> </span>When Mike and Beaker explore the cavern, they find a stash of the nuclear bombs, and the transmitter that will send the detonation signal.<span style=""> </span>But they step onto a concealed pressure pad in the floor, and manage to get themselves caught in the crossfire of three machine guns that will fire if they try to step off the pad.<span style=""> </span>Worried that Mike and Beaker have been gone too long, Popkiss sends Jimmy to fetch the local sheriff, unaware that he’s really the ringleader of the whole operation.<span style=""> </span>There’s a trap door in his office that leads down into the cavern.<span style=""> </span>The sheriff sends his two cohorts down to capture Mike and Beaker – but fortunately, they’ve got themselves out of the machine gun trap thanks to Mitch pushing a packing crate over to them, which they use to maintain the weight on the pressure pad as they jump off.<span style=""> </span>Then they pull their guns and succeed in capturing the two villains </span><span lang="EN-GB">–</span><span lang="EN-GB"> and for poetic justice, leave them standing on the pressure pad, caught in their own trap.<span style=""> </span>So it’s Mike and Beaker who emerge back up into the sheriff’s office and bring the errant lawman to justice.
<br /></span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-64361217096215085582011-07-30T12:35:00.003+01:002011-08-15T21:38:30.123+01:00Anderthon: Through the Heavens' Mighty Rage...<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Supercar series 2
<br />episodes 2-5</span>
<br />
<br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Precious Cargo</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">After playing it fairly safe with last week’s episode, the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB"> now begin to lead the series into new and unexpected directions.<span style=""> </span>What we’ve lost perhaps is the sense of cutting edge technological development that the Woodhouses brought to the format; on the other hand, we’re now getting a more eclectic, freewheeling approach – less emphasis on straightforward well-plotted thrillers, and more on spectacle, wacky humour and sheer mind-bending “we’re making this up as we go along” bravado.<span style=""> </span>I’m not sure which is better, as both have their merits.<span style=""> </span>You can certainly cite other examples of cult shows that go off the deep end in subverting their own formats – not least among them <i style="">The Prisoner</i> and <i style="">Gangsters</i>, so you could say that <i style="">Supercar</i> is blazing quite a trail here.<span style=""> </span>This week’s episode starts with Popkiss and Jimmy visiting </span><span lang="EN-GB">Chicago</span><span lang="EN-GB"> (via film of the real city of course – you know how these things work by now), where they’ve been staying with Aunt Heidi, whom I presume is the Professor’s sister – she certainly speaks with the same mittel-European accent.<span style=""> </span>Popkiss has been particularly enthused with the wine she’s been serving, so before they leave he gets the name of the vineyard, planning to order a case for himself.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, back at the lab, humour is derived from Popkiss’s absence, as Beaker tries to cope without the Professor’s culinary skills.<span style=""> </span>Yes, it turns out that Popkiss does all the cooking for the team – I can’t say that I was really cognizant of this fact previously (although I recall him cooking his breakfast in <i style="">Crash Landing</i>), so I guess it never figured very prominently in the scripts.<span style=""> </span>Here though we see Beaker and Mitch desperately trying to clear up Popkiss’s beloved kitchen before the Prof gets back – a situation made worse when Beaker accidentally blows up the oven.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Anyway, Popkiss sends off his wine order to Monsieur Laval’s vineyard in </span><span lang="EN-GB">France</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>At this point, the episode switches its focus to the vineyard, and picks up the story of Zizi, a young French girl who lives there.<span style=""> </span>We learn that Monsieur Laval took Zizi from an orphanage, but instead of providing her with a loving new home, he works her like a slave.<span style=""> </span>She has to do all the domestic chores about his house, and he expects her to work to a precise timetable and have his dinner ready on the dot.<span style=""> </span>A seering indictment of child exploitation and the abuse of the French adoption system?<span style=""> </span>Well, not exactly, because the story doesn’t really go anywhere with the idea, beyond making </span><span lang="EN-GB">Laval</span><span lang="EN-GB"> a pantomime wicked villain.<span style=""> </span>What’s interesting is that Zizi dreams of being rescued by Supercar.<span style=""> </span>She’s got a comic book that actually has a <span style="font-style: italic;">Supercar</span> adventure in it.<span style=""> </span>(So there we go – Popkiss’s security concerns are right out of the window, and the team have released their own range of tie-in comics.<span style=""> </span>In fact, Zizi might even be reading the <span style="font-style: italic;">Supercar</span> strip in <span style="font-style: italic;">TV Comic</span>.<span style=""> </span>It’s something bizarrely metatextual, the series acknowledging the existence of its own spin-offs.)<span style=""> </span>Reading the comic in bed, Zizi drifts off into a dream sequence, in which she telephones the “Supercar Rescue Service” – manned by Jimmy and Mike in matching uniform caps.<span style=""> </span>Jimmy then pilots Supercar out to rescue her.<span style=""> </span>The pointlessness of dream sequences aside, this is all an interesting departure for the show, letting us see our heroes as others view them.<span style=""> </span>Waking up back to reality, Zizi manages to effect her own escape from the life of drudgery, by hiding herself inside Popkiss’s wine crate and getting delivered to the Black Rock lab.<span style=""> </span>This leaves the team with the problem of what to do about her – she and Jimmy have to sit outside the control room as Mike and scientists are seen arguing inside.<span style=""> </span>(They didn’t seem to have any problem taking in Jimmy and his monkey, but a French girl seems to be a step too far!)<span style=""> </span>But all is neatly resolved at the end, with Zizi being taken in by Aunt Heidi and going to live in </span><span lang="EN-GB">Chicago</span><span lang="EN-GB">.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">
<br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Operation Superstork</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">An episode that places our heroes in some real jeopardy, yet juxtaposes the threat with some frankly bizarre humour.<span style=""> </span>We start with a new innovation, a voice-over introducing us to the lab – quite why this was thought necessary this late into the series is anyone’s guess.<span style=""> </span>(Interestingly, the voice-over refers to “Mike Mercury and his team”.<span style=""> </span>I thought it was Professor Popkiss’s team, and that Mike worked for him.<span style=""> </span>That certainly seems to be the implication in the first series, although the idea that Mike is in charge was probably part of Gerry Anderson’s original conception – after all, it’s Mike who gets the starring credit in the opening titles – before the Woodhouses placed the scientists more to the forefront.)<span style=""> </span>Anyway, the lab is currently a hive of activity, as we see Popkiss at work in the kitchen – so that’s something consistent with what we learnt last week – I do wonder though why the Andersons are depicting Popkiss as a chef rather than an experimental aircraft designer.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, Beaker is busy at work on some new engineering project.<span style=""> </span>This keeps him sequestered in his laboratory, leaving the team to wonder what he could be creating in there.<span style=""> </span>The sounds of banging and drilling continue well into the night, keeping the others awake.<span style=""> </span>Popkiss’s increasing frustration is played up to comic effect.<span style=""> </span>Come morning, the noise seems to have stopped, and Popkiss ends up sleeping in.<span style=""> </span>Mike and Jimmy drive into town to buy supplies – a place called Batesville this time.<span style=""> </span>(I couldn’t find it on the map, but one presumes it’s a small town a bit closer to the lab than </span><span lang="EN-GB">Carson City</span><span lang="EN-GB"> is.)<span style=""> </span>In the local supermarket (which is actually a foreground counter in front of a back projected photograph!) we’re subjected to a comedy sequence as the shopkeeper Andy (who appears to have learning difficulties) struggles with a temperamental cash register that seems to shake the building to its foundations every time he uses it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">When they get back to Black Rock, Mike and Jimmy discover what Beaker’s been up to.<span style=""> </span>His fabulous new invention is… a hot air balloon.<span style=""> </span>It seems he only wants to indulge a passion for ballooning.<span style=""> </span>Mike’s not particularly impressed – for him, nothing can compare to Supercar.<span style=""> </span>I think though that Beaker is being a bit more inventive than he’s given credit for here – I’ve described it as a “hot air balloon”, but there’s no burner in evidence – rather he seems to have created a sealed, self-contained unit filled with a lighter-than-air gas.<span style=""> </span>He’s not yet fitted a valve to allow him to release the pressure inside the balloon, which means there’s no way to check the balloon’s ascent – so obviously the thing isn’t ready for a flight yet.<span style=""> </span>Despite this, he rather foolishly invites Mike and Jimmy into the basket to experience the sensation of floating for themselves.<span style=""> </span>You can probably see where this is leading.<span style=""> </span>Mitch the monkey decides to untether the balloon, and up it goes.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps realizing what he’s done, Mitch tries to alert the recently-risen Popkiss to the situation, but he can’t get his meaning across.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, with the balloon still climbing, Beaker explains that when they reach the upper atmosphere, the low air pressure outside will cause the balloon to burst, whereupon the basket will tumble to the ground and they’ll all be killed.<span style=""> </span>He’s brought some emergency equipment with him – an oxygen cylinder and a parachute – not enough for all three of them though.<span style=""> </span>It’s decided that Mike should use the parachute, as he’s the one with the best chance of reaching the ground and being able to fetch help.<span style=""> </span>(Some film of a real man jumping and opening his ‘chute is cut in here.)<span style=""> </span>Landing in the desert, Mike eventually makes it to Batesville, and wanders into another incongruous slapstick sequence involving Andy’s cash register.<span style=""> </span>Using the supermarket’s phone, he manages to alert Popkiss, who flies out there in Supercar.<span style=""> </span>Mike then takes the vehicle up to search for the balloon, while Popkiss co-ordinates search planes with the Air Force.<span style=""> </span>But too late!<span style=""> </span>The balloon bursts, and the basket plummets to Earth.<span style=""> </span>Mike manages to swoop in at the last moment, and snag the basket’s ropes on Supercar’s nose, carrying Beaker and Jimmy to safety.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">
<br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Hi-Jack</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The voice-over narrator is back, this time introducing us to the episode’s location, the island of Bantonga, which he says only exists in the “realms of fantasy”, which seems a rather post-modern way of acknowledging the show’s fictionality – I wonder what kids watching at the time would have thought.<span style=""> </span>Anyway, Bantonga is a South American banana republic ruled by President Gomez, the usual dictator with an over-elaborate uniform.<span style=""> </span>His main worry at the moment is that his presidential aircraft is not fitting for his station – it’s a clapped-out old triplane he has to pilot himself.<span style=""> </span>He wants to replace it with a Boeing 707, though as Bantonga can’t possibly afford one, his plan is to steal one.<span style=""> </span>To that end, he has an American pilot called Captain Ross kidnapped.<span style=""> </span>He intends one of his men, Lieutenant Swarb, to return to the </span><span lang="EN-GB">US</span><span lang="EN-GB"> impersonating Ross – he’ll then enrol on a 707 pilot’s training course, and steal the plane in the process.<span style=""> </span>Foolproof!<span style=""> </span>Gomez has employed a couple of foreign advisers to help with kidnapping Captain Ross – yes, it’s Masterspy and Zarin! – and now it’s time to pay them off.<span style=""> </span>The President invites them to his yacht that night, where he has his own private casino.<span style=""> </span>He encourages Masterspy to play the roulette wheel, which is crooked.<span style=""> </span>At the touch of a secret button, the agent starts to lose heavily, and before they know it, Masterspy and Zarin have lost all their ill-gotten gains.<span style=""> </span>No honour among thieves, it seems.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Back at the Supercar lab, Bill Gibson is visiting.<span style=""> </span>He announces that he’s about to start as an instructor on a Boeing 707 training course.<span style=""> </span>There’s a surprise.<span style=""> </span>(But is Bill qualified to do this?<span style=""> </span>All we’ve ever seen him operating before is a light aircraft and a pick-up truck.<span style=""> </span>When did he become an expert airline pilot?)<span style=""> </span>Beaker meanwhile is back developing spy gadgets – this time a secret transmitter in his bowtie. <span style=""> </span>Jimmy and Beaker decide to accompany Bill as passengers on his 707 training flight – Bill’s first pupil being none other than “Captain Ross”.<span style=""> </span>(It just writes itself…)<span style=""> </span>We’re treated to film of a real airport, and a real 707 taxiing and taking off; but once airborne, it becomes a model shot.<span style=""> </span>In flight, Lieutenant Swarb pulls a gun and demands that Bill changes course for Bantonga.<span style=""> </span>With his brother and Beaker as potential hostages, Bill doesn’t have much choice.<span style=""> </span>He tries to warn Mike and Popkiss what’s going on when they radio in, by getting the Prof’s name wrong, and rather pointedly saying “Hi, Jack!”<span style=""> </span>Despite this most obvious of clues, neither Mike nor Popkiss pick up on it.<span style=""> </span>It’s left to Beaker to use his bowtie radio to alert them that something’s wrong.<span style=""> </span>Mike launches Supercar to try and investigate, but even though he catches up with the 707, he can’t do anything to stop Swarb while he holds the others at gunpoint.<span style=""> </span>But help comes from an unexpected quarter.<span style=""> </span>To get back at Gomez for ripping him off, Masterspy phones the lab and explains what’s happening.<span style=""> </span>The 707 is too heavy to land on Bantonga’s muddy airstrip, so Swarb is taking it to another island – meanwhile, Gomez is piloting his presidential triplane there to rendezvous.<span style=""> </span>Armed with this knowledge, Mike intercepts Gomez’s plane, and “buzzes” it with Supercar.<span style=""> </span>The slipstream from the jets causes Gomez to go into an uncontrollable tail spin – fortunately, the President is able to pull out just before he crashes into the sea.<span style=""> </span>(Mike doesn’t<span style=""> </span>seem to have considered what they’ll do if Gomez is killed…)<span style=""> </span>Under this threat, Gomez is forced to order Swarb to turn the plane back to the </span><span lang="EN-GB">US</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>He’s not prepared though for Mike “hijacking” him; and Supercar escorts the triplane back to </span><span lang="EN-GB">America</span><span lang="EN-GB">, where presumably Gomez will face justice.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">
<br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Calling Charlie Queen</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The team are all out in Supercar, leaving Mitch alone in the lab.<span style=""> </span>He’s enjoying a quiet cigar (yes, really!) when a radio message comes in: “Calling Charlie Queen!”<span style=""> </span>A desperate voice is asking for help, and saying: “He’s coming back!”<span style=""> </span>When the others return, Mitch is unable to tell them what he’s heard – but fortunately, the message is repeated. <span style=""> </span>We cut away to see the fellow transmitting – he appears to be standing in a giant-sized room, perhaps a workbench in a laboratory, surrounded by giant-sized apparatus.<span style=""> </span>But then we realize perhaps it’s not the room that’s big, perhaps it’s him who’s small – for a man who appears to be a giant enters the room, picks up the desperate man in his hand, and tells him he’s going to be put back in his cage.<span style=""> </span>(It’s quite an impressive shot featuring a puppet and a full-sized actor together in a full sized set.)<span style=""> </span>Overhearing all this, the team can’t decide whether it’s a hoax or not, but think they have to investigate.<span style=""> </span>(“Calling Charlie Queen” being a generic distress call to all stations listening.)<span style=""> </span>Beaker manages to trace the signal’s source, so he and Mike fly out there in Supercar.<span style=""> </span>They land near an isolated house, which has a radio mast on the roof – it must be the place they’re looking for.<span style=""> </span>They ring the bell, and the door is answered by the sinister-looking Professor Karloff.<span style=""> </span>Beaker tries to bluff his way in by saying they’re conducting a survey of amateur radio stations in the area – but Karloff cuts through all this by saying he knows why they’re really here.<span style=""> </span>If they come in, he’ll explain the mysterious radio message over a cup of coffee.<span style=""> </span>It all seems reasonable enough.<span style=""> </span>Mike and Beaker are startled by a shape behind a curtain, but it turns out to be Mitch, who’s must have snuck into Supercar’s trunk to accompany them.<span style=""> </span>Karloff comes back with coffee, but it’s a trap.<span style=""> </span>The coffee is drugged, and pretty soon Mike, Beaker and Mitch are unconscious.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">They wake up in Professor Karloff’s lab, and discover that they’ve been miniaturized!<span style=""> </span>They also meet the man who sent the distress call: Karloff’s assistant, Hopkins, who’s been similarly shrunk and is locked in a cage on the workbench.<span style=""> </span>He explains that Karloff has invented a formula that will reduce people to one third of their normal size.<span style=""> </span>He plans to introduce it into the water supply of every city, and turn </span><span lang="EN-GB">America</span><span lang="EN-GB"> into a nation of miniature people, over which he will rule.<span style=""> </span>I can’t even begin to address the scientific impossibility of all this.<span style=""> </span>(Actually Beaker does all that for me!)<span style=""> </span>But you can’t reduce people – where does all their mass go?<span style=""> </span>Why does their metabolism stay at the same rate?<span style=""> </span>And how does ingesting this chemical formula cause their clothes to shrink with them?<span style=""> </span>It just won’t do!<span style=""> </span>They might just as well have said it was magic.<span style=""> </span>At least then they’d have some plausible self-consistency.<span style=""> </span>And once again, the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB"> give us a villain whose only motivation is that he’s crazy – at least Mike acknowledges this fact.<span style=""> </span>They find the radio on the bench, but Karloff has put it out of action.<span style=""> </span>Beaker climbs inside to repair it, and Mike manages to radio back to the lab.<span style=""> </span>But too late!<span style=""> </span>Having not hear from then, Popkiss and Jimmy have already left in the truck, driving all through the night to try and find their friends.<span style=""> </span>Arriving at Karloff’s house, Popkiss tries to bluff his way in by saying they’re conducting a survey of amateur radio stations in the area!<span style=""> </span>Inevitably, they’re invited in for a cup of coffee.<span style=""> </span>In the laboratory, Beaker has discovered Karloff’s notebook containing the formula for an antidote – but he can’t understand all of Karloff’s notations, and therefore can’t find all the right ingredients for the mix.<span style=""> </span>Good job they’ve got Mitch then: he serendipitously knocks a bottle over into the mixing bowl, and there’s a flash!<span style=""> </span>Beaker’s finger, which was in the bowl, is restored to normal size.<span style=""> </span>(A miniature Beaker with one normal-sized finger is certainly an amusing image.)<span style=""> </span>The formula found, our heroes are able to restore themselves to proper size, and save Popkiss and Jimmy from drinking the coffee.<span style=""> </span>They leave Karloff in </span><span lang="EN-GB">Hopkins</span><span lang="EN-GB">’s care until the police can arrive – that’s to say, the miniaturized Karloff now locked in the cage on the workbench.<span style=""> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Hopkins</span><span lang="EN-GB"> does seem to rather relish taunting him, but I guess that’s understandable given what he’s been through.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">One of the things to notice about this episode is how the ideas, and indeed some of the visual imagery – such as the puppets representing miniaturized people inserted into a real-sized environment – prefigure those we’ll see in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Secret Service</span> in a few years’ time.<span style=""> </span>In fact, given the way that <i>Supercar</i> often uses real film of locations, vehicles and backgrounds, integrated with the puppet characters in the close-ups, <i>The Secret Service</i> doesn’t seem quite as much of the far-out departure/innovation (delete according to your point of view) as is often claimed.<span style=""> </span>They’ve done most of it already…</span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-76990761576971743032011-07-25T17:58:00.004+01:002011-08-06T16:06:21.822+01:00Anderthon: Lean Forward, Masterspy!<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Supercar series 2<br />episode 1</span><br /><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">When a programme is renewed for a second series, what’s the worst thing they can do to it?<span style=""> </span>Sack the head writers?<span style=""> </span>Lose or replace characters without explanation?<span style=""> </span>Completely alter the style?<span style=""> </span>No, it’s changing the theme music!<span style=""> </span>OK, so I’m not being entirely serious – the other things mentioned are probably far worse crimes.<span style=""> </span>It’s a tricky business revamping a show between seasons – producers are just concerned to make the show appeal to the biggest audience possible, but whatever changes they make risk alienating the existing fanbase.<span style=""> </span>Compared to what's going to happen in the mid-seventies, the changes to <span style="font-style: italic;">Supercar</span> might seem quite minor, yet there is a distinct change in the style of the show which I’ll be examining as we go on.</span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">But that theme music!<span style=""> </span>I’m going to make a shocking confession here: I don’t really like the music for <span style="font-style: italic;">Supercar</span>.<span style=""> </span>Now I’m normally a huge fan of Barry Gray’s work, but I hardly ever put the <span style="font-style: italic;">Supercar</span> CD on for enjoyment.<span style=""> </span>I don’t feel he’s quite hit his stride yet – giving us a rather simplistic march for Supercar in action, and “comedy” children’s music for Beaker and Mitch – though there are the first hints of weird electronic “outer space” music, and some of the lush orchestrations that will later be used to depict tropical islands and exotic alien worlds.<span style=""> </span>As for the theme song itself, with its overly literal lyrics describing Supercar’s abilities, it’s very kids tv, isn’t it?<span style=""> </span>Can you imagine if the <span style="font-style: italic;">Thunderbirds</span> theme had similar words?</p><span lang="EN-GB"></span> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB">Thunderbird 2<br />It’s big and fat and green<br />Thunderbird 2<br />Got a pod with cool stuff in</span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB">OK, maybe not…<span style=""> </span>Despite the lyrics, what the <span style="font-style: italic;">Supercar</span> theme has going for it is that it’s big, bold and dramatic, with the vocalist giving it his all!<span style=""> </span>And that impact is completely lost in the second series version – the instrumentation is weak and insipid, and the performance of the vocal group completely lacking in power (and the words are less clear too.)<span style=""> </span>I wonder why they felt the need to change it…?</span></p><p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB">The Runaway Train</span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB">Interestingly, it’s not immediately apparent that there’s been a change in the writing staff.<span style=""> </span>This episode starts out much like a first series tale.<span style=""> </span>Beaker is working with the army, trying to devise a new method for transporting tanks over difficult terrain.<span style=""> </span>He goes into his lab, and gets to work.<span style=""> </span>Eventually, after some false starts, he comes up with a powerful electromagnet, which he demonstrates to Mike and Popkiss.<span style=""> </span>Beaker has done his work too well, and the magnet is so powerful that it attracts every metal object in the building, including things like belt buckles.<span style=""> </span>Much hilarity ensues…<span style=""> </span>I have to say, Mike is somewhat brusque in his reactions to Beaker’s invention, and maintains a rather offhand attitude towards the good Doc throughout the rest of the episode.<span style=""> </span>Maybe a flying metal object did him some rather sensitive damage that he doesn’t tell us about?<span style=""> </span>Beaker fits the new magnet to the underside of Supercar, and demonstrates to the army its use to pick up tanks and deliver them across rivers and other tricky terrain.<span style=""> </span>He also says that he’s going to leave this new device on Supercar, which leads me to suspect that it’s going to become important later on.</span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB">People who notice these things will spot a new name on the end credits: Derek Meddings, now permanently installed as special effects wizard.<span style=""> </span>And one thing I noticed straight away is an improvement in the modelwork, with helicopters, tanks, cars and buildings.<span style=""> </span>Even the laboratory, previously represented by a painting, is now a complete model building.<span style=""> </span>There are some problems of scale however.<span style=""> </span>When Supercar picks up the tanks, it just looks wrong to my eye: Supercar is too big in comparison to the tank.<span style=""> </span>Previously, we’ve seen that the cockpit of Supercar is no bigger than the interior of a small car like a Mini (which is really obvious when all the team have to cram into it) – so even with its elongated nose and tail, the vehicle really shouldn’t be any bigger than the average saloon car.<span style=""> </span>And yet here it dwarfs a tank!<span style=""> </span>Later in the episode, Supercar actually picks up a car – which should obviously be about the same size – but again, Supercar is much larger than it should be.<span style=""> </span>And since we can see the figure of Mike sitting in the cockpit, this makes him look like a giant!<span style=""> </span>(And in fact, if you compare the two sequences, you’d get the impression that the car is as big as a tank as well!)</span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB">Anyway, what’s all this got to do with the episode title?<span style=""> </span>Well, a new atomic-powered train has been built in </span><span lang="EN-GB">England</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>Those very words tell us that, despite the early sixties setting, the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB"> are starting to lead us into their vision of the future, the whizz-bang labour-saving nuclear-powered utopia that we’ll see more of over the coming decade.<span style=""> </span>(It seems hopelessly naïve and optimistic now – like the hover cars and personal jet packs we were all supposed to have by the year 2000 – but the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB"> really buy into that <span style="font-style: italic;">Look and Learn</span> vision that must have seemed so exciting to young boys then.)<span style=""> </span>It turns out that Dr Beaker has become so famous that he’s been asked to drive the train on its inaugural journey.<span style=""> </span>(So he’s a qualified engine driver too?<span style=""> </span>There’s no end to his talents.)<span style=""> </span>This highlights another subtle change to the series format – after all Popkiss’s efforts to keep the Supercar project top secret in the first series, the team are now globally renowned.<span style=""> </span>Indeed, Mike is referred to by a hotel receptionist as “the famous test pilot”.</span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB">The team decamp to </span><span lang="EN-GB">London</span><span lang="EN-GB">, represented naturally enough by real live action film of people walking past Big Ben.<span style=""> </span>What they don’t realize is that staying in the same hotel as them are none other than Masterspy and Zarin.<span style=""> </span>You’ll remember how much I was missing them by the end of the first series, so it’s good to see them back.<span style=""> </span>To avoid detection, Masterspy books in under a cunningly fiendish alias: “Mr Masterspoon”!<span style=""> </span>That night, he and Zarin break into the engine shed where the atomic train is being kept – there’s film of a real railway marshalling yard, real tracks and real engines, and yet bizarrely enough an unconvincing model shot of the Moon to indicate night-time.<span style=""> </span>(What, there wasn’t any stock footage available of the Moon in the sky?<span style=""> </span>Crazy!)<span style=""> </span>On behalf of the hostile foreign power which employs them, they sabotage the atomic motor.<span style=""> </span>So, the train sets off the next day with Beaker and Popkiss aboard, and pretty soon the engine runs out of control.<span style=""> </span>I can’t be sure, but the back projection in the cab may well be the famous BBC interlude film </span><span style="font-style: italic;" lang="EN-GB">London</span><span style="font-style: italic;" lang="EN-GB"> to </span><span style="font-style: italic;" lang="EN-GB">Brighton</span><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="font-style: italic;"> in Four Minutes</span>.<span style=""> </span>As the train hurtles towards </span><span lang="EN-GB">Brighton</span><span lang="EN-GB">, Masterspy and Zarin drive there hoping to see the big explosion it will cause.<span style=""> </span>(As with <span style="font-style: italic;">The Lost City</span>, the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB"> really seem ignorant of all the health dangers associated with proximity to a nuclear detonation – even allowing that Masterspy wouldn’t be foolish enough to actually be standing at ground zero.<span style=""> </span>If I knew that a nuclear bomb was about to go off in </span><span lang="EN-GB">Brighton</span><span lang="EN-GB">, I’d be making all haste to somewhere like </span><span lang="EN-GB">Edinburgh</span><span lang="EN-GB">…)</span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB">Beaker is unable to stop the train, so calls Mike on the radio.<span style=""> </span>The time scale of the episode seems to stretch out here somewhat.<span style=""> </span>Despite there being only minutes to impact, Mike has time to question the receptionist about “Mr Masterspoon” – then to track Masterspy’s car.<span style=""> </span>And here, Beaker’s electromagnet finally comes into its own, as Mike uses it to pick up the car and deposit it on the top of a tv transmitter mast, where he leaves the villains to cool off.<span style=""> </span>Thus precariously balanced, Masterspy and Zarin are left having to lean backwards and forwards to try and keep the car from toppling.<span style=""> </span>Supercar then races after the train, and Mike again uses the electromagnet to grab hold of the engine.<span style=""> </span>Then he fires reverse thrust, and manages to draw the train to a halt just as it pulls up to the buffers in </span><span lang="EN-GB">Brighton</span><span lang="EN-GB"> station.</span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB">So overall, a good start to series 2.<span style=""> </span>Despite some slight changes in style and outlook, we’re not really feeling the absence of the Woodhouses yet.<span style=""> </span>Masterspy and Zarin come back in an espionage plot, and get a suitably comical comeuppance; and the carefully demonstrated application of science saves the day.<span style=""> </span>Let’s see where we go from here...</span></p><p class="MsoPlainText"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-89845871389465629842011-06-28T00:27:00.003+01:002011-06-28T00:35:10.493+01:00Anderthon: Satisfactory... Most Satisfactory...<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Supercar<br />episodes 23-26<br /></span><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The Lost City</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">It's another script from the pens of Gerry and Sylvia, and this one demonstrates perhaps most clearly how their approach differs to that of the Woodhouses. It's no dream sequence or jungle comedy, this is a straight down the line adventure story - but unlike the Woodhouses' reasonably well thought-out crime and espionage tales, what we get here is tacky pulp sci-fi. I wonder if this is how the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB"> saw their creations – not worth expending any thought on, at least not on the scripting side of things? Far more interested in the visuals and technical innovations, and seeing the story as merely a framework to hang all that wizardry on. (And here, once again, I'm reminded of how writers seem to be very minor cogs in the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Anderson</span><span lang="EN-GB"> machine, and often overlooked by the fandom.) I'm also interested by the fact that, despite working for a civilian outfit, Mike suddenly and without explanation seems to have acquired a uniform. He's now kitted out with a huge peaked cap, complete with a Supercar logo badge fixed to the front. Actually, it makes him look like a milkman, but it does seem to establish the sort of futuristic military look that will typify the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB">' creations for the next several years.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Anyway, Mike and Beaker are off to the Antarctic on a scientific expedition, with Mitch and Jimmy along for the ride. Flying over </span><span lang="EN-GB">South America</span><span lang="EN-GB">, Supercar goes out of control and into a dive. Fortunately Mike regains control just before hitting the ground. They find themselves amid the ruins of an ancient city, which fascinates Beaker enough that he doesn't seem to mind missing </span><span lang="EN-GB">Antarctica</span><span lang="EN-GB">. Mike and Beaker stumble upon a hidden lift, which whisks them down into a secret base beneath the ruins, manned by some rather flimsy-looking robots. At the heart of it all is a man Beaker recognizes – an English scientist called Professor Watkins who disappeared about ten years before. He's a sort of wannabe Bond villain, and true to form, he locks Mike and Beaker up and proceeds to explain his operation to them. Somehow he's built himself this base, an army of robots and a collection of nuclear missiles. His masterplan is to fire one of these at </span><span lang="EN-GB">Washington</span><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">DC</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>Quite apart from glossing over how he could afford to do all this, the script offers no clue whatsoever about his motivations. He's just a nutcase. (At least Blofeld was out to blackmail the world powers with the <i>threat</i> of nuclear destruction.)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Watkins sends a robot to the surface to capture Jimmy and Mitch – but they're able to destroy it with Popkiss's radioed assistance, by charging Supercar's engines to overload and catching the robot in the blast of the jets. Meanwhile, Mike and Beaker realize that the robots only respond to Watkins's voice, so Beaker reveals another of his myriad talents: mimicry. He impersonates the Professor perfectly, and gets the robots to release them. As they make their escape in Supercar, the writers at least allow Beaker to use science to save the day – realizing that it was the radio guidance beams for the missiles that originally jammed Supercar's controls, he's able to use the vehicle's radio to deflect the nuclear missile from its original course, and send it crashing back on top of the lost city – presumably destroying Watkins, robots, base and all. (And yes, needless to say, there’s stock footage of a mushroom cloud.)<span style=""> </span>Supercar is bathed in a very harsh white light, effectively suggesting the flash of the explosion – I’m rather surprised our heroes aren’t blinded in fact.<span style=""> </span>I'd also be rather worried by the ecological effects of a nuclear detonation in the middle of the Amazon, but where would an </span><span lang="EN-GB">Anderson</span><span lang="EN-GB"> show be without a gratuitious big bang? Hey, at least </span><span lang="EN-GB">Washington</span><span lang="EN-GB"> was saved...</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The Magic Carpet</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Beaker has come up with two new inventions – a hand-held miniaturized control console, which enables them to operate Supercar by remote control; and an engine noise suppressor which means the jets can fire with little more than a rush of air. I've got the feeling that both of these are going to come in useful in the next 25 minutes. Mike and Beaker are testing these outside the lab when Popkiss comes out waving a newspaper – the news is that Prince Nurid Hassan of Karrakhan is grievously ill. His country is almost cut off from civilization, and only Supercar can reach the Prince with life-saving medicines. Jimmy seems excited by the thought of flying off on a mercy mission to help a distressed foreign noble. If you recall, he wanted to do the exact same thing for the Princess Caroline of Bavania, and Popkiss flatly refused, saying it wasn't their business to interfere in the affairs of other nations – and forcing Jimmy into the dreaded dream sequence. I wonder what's happened to change the Professor's tune on this occasion.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">As the episode unfolds, we actually see that this episode bears more than a passing resemblance to <i>Flight of Fancy</i>. Again there's a corrupt official trying to get rid of the rightful ruler and claim the throne for himself. The regent, Alif Bey, is simply waiting for Prince Hassan to die, relying on Karrakhan's remoteness to ensure that no outside help can reach him in time. It seems that there's nothing wrong with Hassan that modern antibiotics can't cure, but Alif claims the medicines simply aren't available. To legitimize his claim to the throne, he's planning to marry Hassan's sister, Princess Medina, the next day. What's interesting here is to note the choices this episode makes differently.<span style=""> </span>Rather than a fairy-tale European kingdom, we get an isolated Middle Eastern sultanate, the sort of realm that would still have existed in 1960 (and familiar to viewers from things like <i>Danger Man</i>) – and the adventure is resolved with the usual mixture of science and ingenuity.<span style=""> </span>It's as if the Woodhouses are subtly winding their employers up, saying this is how to do the story properly, without resorting to dream sequences and wise-cracking monkeys.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Arriving in Karrakhan, Supercar is initially mistaken for a magic carpet by a superstitious guard. Mike and the team are locked up by Alif Bey to prevent them from helping Prince Hassan. Using the remote control and the noise suppressor, they're able to get Supercar to lift off in the courtyard and hover across to the Prince's window. Princess Medina then takes the medical supplies from the cockpit and uses them to treat her brother. (see, I said those gadgets would prove important – the writers taking giving us a real Chekhov’s gun here.)<span style=""> </span>The only witness to all this is the comedy guard: hearing the gentle whoosh of the suppressed engines, he thinks the foreigners have escaped on their magic carpet – but every time Alif looks into the cell, he can clearly see Mike and Beaker sitting down playing chess! With Hassan on the road to recovery, Mike sets about getting them free. Mitch climbs out through the bars and tries to find a file in Supercar's toolkit – cue some comedy business as the monkey repeatedly picks up the wrong tool. (Strangely, he seems to have reverted to being a dumb animal this week.) Mike and Beaker take turns filing through the bars, and then use knotted sheets to make an escape rope. In the morning, there's a tense stand-off between Mike and Alif Bey before the recovering Prince Hassan arrives to have his treacherous regent arrested.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The White Line</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Rather a neat little crime thriller, albeit with a few gaping plot holes.<span style=""> </span>Scotland Yard are baffled by some armoured car robberies occurring on a quiet stretch of road, with deliveries of gold bullion being snatched.<span style=""> </span>Now I don’t know about you, but that sentence conjures up in my mind a huge van with reinforced sides, wire mesh over the windows, and a couple of hulking blokes in body armour and crash helmets driving it – and the robbery something like the opening scene in the movie <i>Heat</i>.<span style=""> </span>Well, it seems in 1960s </span><span lang="EN-GB">Britain</span><span lang="EN-GB">, an armoured car was a normal family saloon being driven at night by a lone guy in an ordinary suit – but at least he’s got a (slightly) strong box on the front seat containing the gold.<span style=""> </span>It’s emblazoned with the logo “Safe T Cars”, presumably the name of the company offering this courier service.<span style=""> </span>Somehow I don’t think they’re going to be driving Securicor out of business.<span style=""> </span>Once we get past the fact that the victims are leaving themselves wide open, the plan here is rather ingenious.<span style=""> </span>The opening shots are of a look-out waiting beside a phone box, watching real film of a car’s headlights going past – with some lovely camerawork and a groovy jazz soundtrack.<span style=""> </span>The look-out sends up a flare, and the villains up ahead go to work.<span style=""> </span>They roll out special carpets that cover the road markings, and another that lays down fake markings leading to the edge of a ravine.<span style=""> </span>Since a man driving on an unlit road at night will follow the white line, they’re leading the bank couriers to their doom.<span style=""> </span>(Well, actually no one dies – after the cars plunge into the ravine, the villains capture the driver and lock him up in their hideout, an abandoned country house.)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Scotland Yard call in the Supercar team.<span style=""> </span>As soon as he’s heard the tale, Mike instantly guesses it must be the work of the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Chicago</span><span lang="EN-GB"> gangsters Joe and Maxie Hoyle.<span style=""> </span>(I’m not quite sure how he came to this conclusion – it turns out he’s right of course – maybe he reads a lot of true crime magazines…)<span style=""> </span>Mike and Beaker agree to help by transferring some bullion across </span><span lang="EN-GB">London</span><span lang="EN-GB"> in Supercar – I’m not sure why, given the original robberies didn’t happen in </span><span lang="EN-GB">London</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>When they arrive at the Bank of Kensington, they take the gold down in the lift to the vault, only to discover the Hoyles waiting for them inside.<span style=""> </span>They take the gold, and leave Mike and friends locked inside the vault.<span style=""> </span>(And there’s the gaping plot hole I mentioned – not only do there appear to be no guards in the bank, apart from a single police inspector, but if the Hoyles could get into the vault so easily, why didn’t they come back later and take the gold when there was no one else about?)<span style=""> </span>Anyway, after this little upset, Mike decides to go back to a more sensible plan – following the routes of the armoured cars and finding out how the villains are doing it.<span style=""> </span>So with Beaker driving the route, Mike, Mitch and Jimmy scout ahead in Supercar.<span style=""> </span>Seeing the lookout’s flare going up, Mike uses the “clear view” system to watch the false road markings being laid out.<span style=""> </span>He’s unable to warn Beaker though as the Hoyles appear and shoot off Supercar’s radio aerial with their tommy-guns.<span style=""> </span>Mitch gets out of Supercar and decoys the gangsters into a chase around the woods, giving Mike time to get airborne again.<span style=""> </span>Then Mitch leaps from a tree onto the back of Supercar, hanging on as Mike races to stop Beaker going over the ravine.<span style=""> </span>Eventually, Mike has to land Supercar in Beaker’s path, and the scientist manages to pull up just in time.<span style=""> </span>Realizing the game is up, the Hoyles try to make a getaway with their bullion – unfortunately, they fall into their own trap, following the fake white lines into the ravine!<span style=""> </span>(And amusingly, it’s not their truck that goes over the cliff in the model shot, it’s a repeat of the car from the opening sequence – it’s a bit like ITC’s infamous white Jag…)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Supercar “Take One”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Professor Popkiss is away on holiday, but Beaker feels he can operate the console perfectly well on his own.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, as Mike launches on one of his test flights, Beaker forgets to open the roof doors, resulting in a lot of wreckage falling into the lab, and amusingly a Supercar shaped hole in the roof.<span style=""> </span>Supercar itself is made of sterner stuff, and only requires a bit of repainting.<span style=""> </span>Later, Beaker takes delivery of a movie camera, which he’s planning to use to make film records of his experiments.<span style=""> </span>But Jimmy persuades him to make a sort of home movie about Supercar.<span style=""> </span>Beaker turns out to be a bit of a </span><span lang="EN-GB">Stanley</span><span lang="EN-GB"> Kubrick-style perfectionist, making Mike go through 104 takes of charging up Supercar’s engines.<span style=""> </span>Jimmy is the clapper-loader and Mitch acts as sound man.<span style=""> </span>Beaker really gets into it, filming action sequences of Supercar in flight, and even underwater.<span style=""> </span>(He’s wearing a full diving suit to operate the camera of course.)<span style=""> </span>Beaker sends the film away to be developed, but when it comes back, the team are shocked to find it contains film of naval manoeuvres and secret plans for a nuclear power source.<span style=""> </span>They’ve been sent the wrong film by the developers!<span style=""> </span>The film has come from Satellite Film Productions in </span><span lang="EN-GB">New York</span><span lang="EN-GB">, which Beaker realizes must be a front for an foreign spy ring.<span style=""> </span>They decide to fly to </span><span lang="EN-GB">New York</span><span lang="EN-GB"> to investigate – but first Beaker insists on changing into a bowler hat and grabbing an umbrella.<span style=""> </span>I’d say he was trying to emulate John Steed, but <i>The Avengers</i> had barely started by this time.<span style=""> </span>As they prepare for take-off, Mitch reminds Beaker to open the roof doors this time.<span style=""> </span>Worth his weight in gold, that monkey.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Arriving in </span><span lang="EN-GB">New York</span><span lang="EN-GB">, they land on top of the skyscraper that contains the film company’s offices.<span style=""> </span>Beaker goes down to pay a visit, with Mike preparing to follow if he doesn’t return within half an hour.<span style=""> </span>I was slightly disappointed, given the similarity of the setting, to discover that the villains of the piece weren’t Masterspy and Zarin – it might have been fun to see them again for the last episode of the series – and indeed, I realized then that (aside from the dream episode) they haven’t been seen for a whole thirteen episodes now.<span style=""> </span>Instead, we meet Herman Gredenski and his glamorous assistant Miss Devenish, who are running the spy ring.<span style=""> </span>Miss Devenish tricks Beaker into sitting in a certain chair, which is on top of a trap door – which deposits him via a chute into a strong room below.<span style=""> </span>Inside, he finds the secret files of the spy ring.<span style=""> </span>When Mike comes looking for Beaker, he’s also tricked into sitting in the booby-trapped chair.<span style=""> </span>(Miss Devenish is so ridiculously insistent that it has to be that particular chair, you wonder why neither of them was the slightest bit suspicious of her motives.)<span style=""> </span>Nevertheless, as Mike is deposited down the chute, he comes face to face with Beaker’s coolest moment in the entire series: leaning nonchalantly on a filing cabinet, he tells Mike he’s late.<span style=""> </span>(“I expected you seven minutes ago.”)<span style=""> </span>Now we discover that Beaker’s costume is not merely for decoration.<span style=""> </span>The crown of his bowler hat conceals a radio (as indeed did John Steed’s some years later – I wonder if the writers of <i>The Avengers</i> took any pointers from this episode?)<span style=""> </span>He calls Jimmy – who says Beaker sounds like he talking through his hat! – and tells him to call the police.<span style=""> </span>Then Gredenski tries to kill his visitors by pumping deadly gas into the strong room.<span style=""> </span>Fortunately, Beaker’s umbrella conceals a drill which he uses to drill out the lock.<span style=""> </span>The two rush back up to the office, where Miss Devenish is being menaced by Mitch, whom she believes is an escaped gorilla.<span style=""> </span>Beaker tells her that he’s in fact a very intelligent chimpanzee.<span style=""> </span>So there we are – one thing Beaker’s not good at is primatology, if he can’t recognize the difference between a chimp and a monkey.<span style=""> </span>(Come on, Mitch has got a tail!)<span style=""> </span>With the police on their way, Gredenski and Miss Devenish announce they have a secret way out of the building – but Mitch activates the trap door and deposits them down into the strong room!<span style=""> </span>(Except, wait a minute, Beaker drilled the lock out – so they’ll be able to escape and make use of their secret exit…)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">This final episode is another script by the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB">. <span style=""> </span>It’s probably the best of their episodes so far. <span style=""> </span>Aside from the incongruity of the secret agent version of Beaker, it’s certainly entertaining and amusing, although it does rely on convenient use of gadgets rather than the well-reasoned application of science and technology that the Woodhouses tended to employ.<span style=""> </span>So it’ll be interesting to see how the second series develops, as sadly we’ve seen the last of the Woodhouses.<span style=""> </span>Having discovered they can write their own scripts, Gerry and Sylvia don’t bother to invite them back.<span style=""> </span>(I’m not sure if there’s any pattern in these things, but it’s odd how the chief writers seem to drop out of these shows – remember how Phil Wrestler disappeared before the end of </span><i><span lang="EN-GB">Four</span></i><i><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></i><i><span lang="EN-GB">Feather</span></i><i><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></i><i><span lang="EN-GB">Falls</span></i><span lang="EN-GB">?)<span style=""> </span>If it weren’t for the DVD documentary, I doubt I’d even be aware of the major contribution that Hugh and Martin made to the series.<span style=""> </span>(They get precisely one mention in Gerry Anderson’s authorized biography for example.)<span style=""> </span>But it’s more than that: as I said before, by demonstrating what these fabulous machines could be used for in a civilian context (impossible rescue missions and the like) – rather than just employing them for military use as the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB"> will do in many of their subsequent shows – the Woodhouses have practically set up the premise of <i>Thunderbirds</i>.</span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-71397017436994326442011-06-01T18:11:00.002+01:002011-06-01T18:51:14.387+01:00Anderthon: It Can Journey Anywhere...<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Supercar<br />episodes 18-22<br /></span><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Hostage</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Our tour of ITC national clichés continues: this week we’re in </span><span lang="EN-GB">Ireland</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>It’s that same </span><span lang="EN-GB">Ireland</span><span lang="EN-GB"> that Simon Templar or John Drake would have visited – a country pub (called the Shamrock Inn naturally enough) with its sign swaying in the wind, a landlord who still believes in the “little people” with a no-nonsense daughter who hasn’t got time for all that, and dodgy goings-on in the countryside.<span style=""> </span>Instead of the Saint though, it’s Doctor Beaker who’s come here on holiday.<span style=""> </span>He’s watching from a booth as two unsavoury characters enter the pub and start to demand food and supplies from the landlord, Mr O’Farrell. It’s pretty clear that this has happened before – and although O’Farrell is reticent to comply, he doesn’t seem to have much choice. These two are working for “The Big Man”, who apparently runs everything criminal between </span><span lang="EN-GB">Dublin</span><span lang="EN-GB"> and </span><span lang="EN-GB">Tralee</span><span lang="EN-GB">. It should perhaps come as no surprise that the two villains are Harper and Judd – who seem to be the only criminals allowed to operate in the whole of the </span><span lang="EN-GB">British Isles</span><span lang="EN-GB">. What’s interesting to me is to trace Harper’s descent into the criminal world – from industrial sabotage to theft and now this: they appear to be involved in a smuggling operation on behalf of “The Big Man”. Judd in particular is very uneasy about this, saying it’s not in his usual line at all. Is it just me, or is there a definite subtext here? They’re smuggling for a mysterious “Big Man” who’s only at the end of the telephone, and operating out of a run-down isolated farmhouse in the middle of nowhere – what this says to me is: they’re running guns for the IRA! (Of course, this being a children’s show, they can’t come out and actually say this.) In order to ensure O’Farrell’s compliance, Harper and Judd decide to take his daughter Eileen with them as a hostage. Once they’ve departed, Beaker wastes no time in phoning the lab and calling in Supercar.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Mike has got himself a natty new flying jacket, which is just as well as it’s going to be a long flight – five hours, flying into the dawn. (As Popkiss explains to Jimmy about crossing time zones Eastwards – for once, the kid’s questions elicit some helpful scientific information.) Mike and Beaker decide to use a briefcase with a radio transmitter to track Judd and Harper to their base. They stuff it full of money, so when the villains arrive to collect from O’Farrell, they can’t resist taking that with them as well. Unfortunately, the case is fitted with a two-way transmitter and Mike accidentally knocks the switch over to “transmit”. Which means Harper and Judd hear them discussing their plans. Taking advantage of this, Harper announces a fake rendezvous with a helicopter, luring Mike into a trap. (Despite the crooks reciting this staged conversation in the most obvious over-dramatic way imaginable, Mike still falls for it.) He races out to their farmhouse hideout in Supercar, unaware that Judd has buried a load of dynamite under the landing site. (See, they’ve got plenty of dynamite stashed away in the farmhouse – more evidence for who they’re working for, in my opinion.) Mike gets the last laugh though – not wanting Supercar to fall into their hands, he’s arranged for Popkiss to fly the craft back to the lab by remote control if he’s not back in the cockpit within a certain time. There’s a rather tense scene – with again, some really moody lighting – as Mike has to bluff the villains into not detonating the dynamite until he knows Supercar’s been removed from the scene. The explosion is huge and they believe that Supercar has been destroyed. In reality, Popkiss brings it back to the lab, refuels and then flies back to </span><span lang="EN-GB">Ireland</span><span lang="EN-GB"> – meaning that Mike and Eileen are held prisoner in the farmhouse for over ten hours, while Beaker keeps watch from amidst the bracken outside. When Supercar returns, Judd and Harper go to investigate – and fall into the crater caused by the dynamite! Popkiss has brought back-up: Mitch the monkey, armed with a truncheon, which he uses to keep the villains insensible in a splendid display of cartoon violence!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-weight: bold;" lang="EN-GB">The Sunken Temple</span><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Beaker is visited by Professor Terman, a tall athletic chap, who’s a classical history scholar. Mike expresses his surprise, saying he assumed Terman to be a football player – which is a nice touch, neatly illustrating that academics can come in all shapes and sizes, and not just the usual “mad professor” stereotypes and caricatures. Terman is also an accomplished diver, and he’s busy excavating underwater sites in the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Mediterranean</span><span lang="EN-GB">. He believes he’s discovered the location of the lost </span><span lang="EN-GB">Temple</span><span lang="EN-GB"> of </span><span lang="EN-GB">Poseidon</span><span lang="EN-GB">, but it’s too deep to make careful exploratory dives – his air supply just won’t last long enough. It sounds like a job for Supercar. So the team all bundle into the vehicle, and fly out to Terman’s campsite. They make a big thing of Mitch having to travel the whole journey in the trunk, as there’s only space for four in the cockpit, which seems rather cruel to me – I also don’t recall this being an issue the last time they all went out together. Mitch certainly doesn’t seem happy about the prospect – but he cheers up later on, and gives an impromptu display of dancing to Terman’s harmonica playing.<span style=""> </span>That night, the camp is visited by a local, Antonio the gypsy.<span style=""> </span>Mitch seems suspicious of him – he’s no fool, that monkey! – but the others entertain the gypsy reading their fortunes in the flames of the campfire.<span style=""> </span>Antonio prophesies mortal danger if they should disturb the ancient gods.<span style=""> </span>Mike, trusting only in science and reason of course, thinks it’s a load of baloney.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The next day, Mike and Beaker take Supercar under the sea to seek out the lost temple. <span style=""> </span>(They seem to have sorted out the problems with the leaking hull now – and they’ve obviously done something to alter the way the ballast tanks are filled, since they’re now able to dive straight into the sea from the air.) <span style=""> </span>They’ve also installed a jack socket in the hull enabling Terman to plug in a telephone cable so he can talk to them from inside his diving helmet.<span style=""> </span>Once they locate the temple, they’re able to carry Terman there, riding on Supercar’s wing – thus preserving his air supply for the examination of the site.<span style=""> </span>Oddly, beneath a semi-collapsed statue of Poseidon, Terman finds what seems to be a strongbox.<span style=""> </span>Back on the surface they discuss this find, unaware that Antonio the gypsy is eavesdropping – except it turns out, he’s not a gypsy – he’s really Spiros the bandit and the strongbox is hiding some diamonds he’s stolen.<span style=""> </span>To try and prevent the team discovering this, he empties one of the air tanks on Terman’s suit – Mitch actually sees him doing this, but his urgent attempts to warn the others are just seen as so much monkey-screeching and ignored.<span style=""> </span>So Terman soon finds himself out of air, and has to quickly surface – lucky he doesn’t get the bends.<span style=""> </span>Later, he goes back down on his own.<span style=""> </span>Spiros escalates his threat by unleashing some home-made depth charges – basically, sticks of dynamite fired from a catapult.<span style=""> </span>The huge stock footage explosions dislodge the statue of Poseidon, which falls trapping Terman beneath it.<span style=""> </span>Mike and Beaker set off to search for the source of the explosions, whilst Popkiss takes Supercar down to rescue Terman, using the jets to move the statue clear of him.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, Mike tracks down Spiros amongst the rocks – by shooting at his crate of dynamite, he catches the bandit in a comedy explosion that blows him through the air to land dazed on top of an outcrop.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, Mitch has been left to take care of bandaging Terman’s broken leg.<span style=""> </span>The only problem now is: who’s going to go down on the next dive?<span style=""> </span>The episode ends with Mitch suiting up!<span style=""> </span>They should just let that monkey run the whole show.<span style=""> </span>If they’d listened to him in the first place, most of this trouble could have been avoided.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Trapped in the Depths</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">A bit of a change of pace – this is a mostly serious episode.<span style=""> </span>The US Navy are conducting tests with a new bathysphere, diving down into a deep ocean trench off the coast of </span><span lang="EN-GB">New Zealand</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>It’s a big news story – cue stock footage of printing presses!<span style=""> </span>Jimmy and Popkiss are listening to the story on the car radio, and Jimmy asks some of his usual questions – but as this gives Popkiss the chance to explain how bathyspheres and ASDIC transmitters work for the benefit of the young audience, it’s again acceptable here.<span style=""> </span>The bathysphere is lowered from the USS Mistral, part of a naval flotilla represented by stock footage of real ships again.<span style=""> </span>Something inevitably goes wrong, and it ends up stuck on the ocean floor with two men trapped inside, and the Navy unable to get down deep enough to retrieve them.<span style=""> </span>Oddly, all this seems to happen whilst Popkiss and Jimmy are driving along, as we next see them listening to news of the disaster on the car radio – it’s like only a few minutes have passed.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, Beaker has invented an ultrasonic gun which he’s fitted to Supercar’s nose.<span style=""> </span>He and Mike are testing it in the lab – amusingly, Beaker sets up a coconut shy as a target.<span style=""> </span>But this attracts the attention of Mitch, who gets into the line of fire just as the gun is building up to fire.<span style=""> </span>There’s no time to stop it!<span style=""> </span>Luckily, Mitch leaps out of the way in time, and is found swinging from the roof beams.<span style=""> </span>(The ultrasonic gun is a bit of a step into more far-fetched sci-fi, since it seems to be some sort of disintegrator weapon.)<span style=""> </span>Just then Popkiss and Jimmy return, and Popkiss suggests that Supercar be used to rescue the trapped bathysphere.<span style=""> </span>(He’s changed his tune a bit – usually he wants to keep everything under wraps.)<span style=""> </span>Mike and Beaker race off to </span><span lang="EN-GB">New Zealand</span><span lang="EN-GB">.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Inside the bathysphere, Fraser and Commander Keefe are running out of options.<span style=""> </span>They’ve dropped the ballast, but they still can’t surface.<span style=""> </span>They’re not sure if the float is holed, or if it’s just that they’re jammed between some rocks.<span style=""> </span>They resort to desperate measures, such as trying to lighten the sphere by dropping all but one of their power batteries.<span style=""> </span>This causes further problems though, as the strain on the remaining battery causes it to overheat, and acid fumes fill the cabin.<span style=""> </span>Keefe tries to clear it out by releasing some of the air supply – not realizing that it’s the reserve supply, all they’ve got left.<span style=""> </span>This is a terrific depiction of two men under immense pressure – pretty stark stuff for a kids show – showing them losing track of time, making irrational decisions, trying to lighten the mood with gallows humour.<span style=""> </span>As the air starts to run out, they also think they’re suffering from delusions.<span style=""> </span>When Supercar arrives outside, they initially refuse to believe it can be real.<span style=""> </span>But as the truth dawns, there’s a fantastic and uplifting moment of hope.<span style=""> </span>Amazingly, despite the immense depth, Supercar manages to withstand the pressure just fine – obviously, those extensive deep sea trials really paid off.<span style=""> </span>At one point they’re attacked by a large and aggressive fish, and destroy it with the ultrasonic gun – which seems a bit harsh and violent.<span style=""> </span>(Previously, you may recall, Beaker was able to scare off a big fish by broadcasting white noise from the radio.)<span style=""> </span>Mike discovers that one of the floats is holed, but the others seem to be alright – the damage probably being caused by that same fish.<span style=""> </span>The bathysphere is still trapped, but Mike thinks he can use Supercar’s nose to nudge it free.<span style=""> </span>He asks Beaker if it will work, and is faced with the scientist’s usual prevarication as he tries to calculate the odds.<span style=""> </span>“Just guess!” Mike snaps.<span style=""> </span>Fortunately, Beaker guesses right, and the bathysphere is safely floated to the surface.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Crash Landing</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Mike and Beaker have taken Supercar out for another test flight, with Jimmy and Mitch as passengers.<span style=""> </span>Everything seems to have gone well – when suddenly the starboard engine blows out and it goes into a dive.<span style=""> </span>Completely out of control, they’re going to crash into the jungle below.<span style=""> </span>At the last moment, Beaker recommends firing the air brakes at ground level, which cushions the impact enough for them to make it down in one piece.<span style=""> </span>This is an odd script, once more from the pen of Gerry and Sylvia – but this time, they seem to have taken a leaf out of the Woodhouses’ book by making Supercar an unpredictable and dangerous experimental vehicle that throws our heroes into danger.<span style=""> </span>Yet what follows is all fairly light-hearted – with a running gag of Popkiss back in the lab being woken up or interrupted at his breakfast by the team radioing in – and comedy squabbling between Mike, Beaker and Jimmy as they try to sleep together in a tent.<span style=""> </span>As Beaker works to repair Supercar, they face random dangers such as a really neat puppet snake.<span style=""> </span>Mitch volunteers to stay on guard for the night, but he’s grabbed from behind by a mysterious figure and disappears.<span style=""> </span>The next day, Jimmy thinks they should look for Mitch, but Mike and Beaker don’t seem bothered, suggesting that Mitch has probably just decided to return to his natural habitat.<span style=""> </span>(So I guess this is their chance to get rid of the monkey at last!) <span style=""> </span>Beaker has lost his hat, and improvises by tying a hanky round his head.<span style=""> </span>He repairs Supercar’s engines, but inadvisedly tests them in the confined jungle clearing and burns down a tree.<span style=""> </span>They decide to have Popkiss test fly Supercar on remote, all the way up to supersonic speed.<span style=""> </span>Everything seems to be fine now – but the sonic boom startles a herd of stock footage elephants which stampedes towards our heroes.<span style=""> </span>(It’s quite amusing to see puppet characters reacting to film of real elephants – never in shot at the same time of course – rather like used to happen in old Tarzan movies.)<span style=""> </span>They resolve the problem by having Supercar fly low over the elephants so a second sonic boom drives them in the opposite direction.<span style=""> </span>With still no sign of Mitch, Jimmy resorts to faking an illness so that they don’t have to leave – which backfires somewhat when Beaker diagnoses him as suffering from an unusual tropical disease.<span style=""> </span>Then they hear a rare sound, a monkey mating call, which ultimately leads them to find out what happened to Mitch.<span style=""> </span>He’s found himself a mate – although we dip into fantasy somewhat as we find her rocking him in a hammock – and you can tell she’s a lady monkey because she has pouty lips and long eyelashes!<span style=""> </span>Mike says they’re leaving and gives Mitch the chance to come or stay behind with his girlfriend.<span style=""> </span>And just for a moment, it looks like Mitch might remain – but eventually he leaves a lovelorn female monkey behind…<span style=""> </span>Or does he?<span style=""> </span>Back at the lab, the team find that the lady monkey has stowed away (presumably in Supercar’s trunk) and now they’ve got two primates on their hands!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The Dragon of Ho Meng</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Mike, Jimmy and Mitch are out in Supercar, when it’s caught in a<span style=""> </span>typhoon, and Mike decides to seek a safe landing until the storm has passed.<span style=""> </span>They’re somewhere round the Chinese border.<span style=""> </span>What are they doing out there?<span style=""> </span>They never say.<span style=""> </span>Still, there’s a great potential for adventure here – a secret, experimental American aircraft forced down inside a Communist country – might they be arrested as spies? – how would they stop the Chinese getting their hands on Supercar?<span style=""> </span>No, I’m kidding.<span style=""> </span>It’s a load of cultural stereotypes again.<span style=""> </span>They land on an island in the middle of a lake, where they find an ancient Buddhist temple.<span style=""> </span>Investigating, they discover that the temple is the home of Ho Meng, who appears to be an ancient-style Chinese mandarin.<span style=""> </span>(Did any of those still exist by the 1960s?<span style=""> </span>I wouldn’t have thought they’d be tolerated under Chairman Mao…)<span style=""> </span>He lives here with his daughter Lotus Blossom, and initially thinks that Supercar is a dragon, which is a bad omen.<span style=""> </span>Mike takes him up for a flight (Ho Meng is at least aware of the concept of aircraft or “mechanical kites” as he calls them) – but he still believes that the presence of a dragon in the temple is prophesied to spell disaster.<span style=""> </span>And sure enough, a villainous type called Mr Fang turns up at that moment.<span style=""> </span>It seems that Mr Fang wants to destroy the temple, because he believes that a treasure is buried beneath it.<span style=""> </span>Taking Ho Meng prisoner, he locks the others inside the temple with Supercar, and proceeds to place dynamite around the building.<span style=""> </span>Armed with a last message from Ho Meng: “Look for the fish”, Mike and the others find a fish motif in the temple decorations, pressing which triggers a secret trapdoor.<span style=""> </span>They get into Supercar and descend into a series of tunnels beneath the temple.<span style=""> </span>Eventually getting back to the surface, Mike is able to confront Mr Fang, while Mitch sneaks around unplugging the detonators from the explosives.<span style=""> </span>(I’m finally convinced that the monkey is the real brains of this outfit.)<span style=""> </span>I don’t know, it’s all a bit inconsequential really – proof that even the Woodhouses could write nonsense on occasion.<span style=""> </span>Aside from the “ah so” stereotyping, there’s also the question of Mr Fang’s villainy, seeking to destroy the temple on the vague and unsubstantiated belief that it conceals a treasure.<span style=""> </span>It just seems like a real filler of an episode, and was a bit of a disappointment for me.<br /></span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-1081368001870944552011-05-26T00:19:00.002+01:002011-05-26T00:25:37.178+01:00Martin Woodhouse RIPSadly, Martin Woodhouse, one of the creative forces behind <span style="font-style: italic;">Supercar</span>, died last week. With his brother Hugh, he wrote the majority of the scripts for the first season - and if you've been following the blog, you'll have seen how much enjoyment I've been getting from them. And really I think that's the best legacy that any writer can leave.<br /><br />I can't think of any better tribute than to continue celebrating the man's work, so be assured that "Anderthon" will be back very soon.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-46668500151354143712011-05-16T08:25:00.001+01:002011-05-16T08:28:37.291+01:00Normal service will be restored soonFor those of you wondering where the next part of <span style="font-style: italic;">Supercar</span> has got to, don't worry. I'm just off on holiday at the moment, and largely out of contact. Expect something in about a week's time.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-81209872829959718002011-05-08T19:39:00.003+01:002011-05-11T01:28:34.651+01:00Anderthon: Full Boost Vertical<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Supercar<br />episodes 14-17</span><br /><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Phantom Piper</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Moorlands, heather, a creeky old castle, a cantankerous laird, a dour retainer who doesn't hold with new-fangled technology, and the legend of a ghostly piper: yes, we're in </span><span lang="EN-GB">Scotland</span><span lang="EN-GB"> this week. Or rather, that version of Scotland that tends to pop up in sixties adventure television, where everyone still wears kilts and not much has changed since the Battle of Culloden - never mind that Scotland is a modern, industrialized nation with major shipbuilding and oil industries. It's another clear example of how this series (like most from the ITC stable) is being made primarily for export, and showing the American audience the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Britain</span><span lang="EN-GB"> they only think exists. The characters depicted here are entertainingly silly, and normally I wouldn't mind the clichés - but I suppose here they're just a bit too familiar and grating. (Still that's a criticism of ITC adventure shows as a whole, rather than Supercar itself. I suppose the writers have to work within that world.) Anyway, why are we in </span><span lang="EN-GB">Scotland</span><span lang="EN-GB">? Beaker's cousin Felicity Farnsworth has come back from </span><span lang="EN-GB">Malaya</span><span lang="EN-GB">, and is currently staying at the castle of her great uncle Angus, who's the McCrail of McCrail, the local laird. He's got wild hair and mad eyebrows and looks alarmingly like Private Frazer from Dad's Army (which hadn't been made then, of course, although John Laurie was already well known as a Scottish actor - he used to do readings of Burns poetry - so it seems possible the puppet was deliberately based on him). He's also got a bandaged foot because of the gout afflicting him - caused, says Felicity by his habit of adding a "wee dram" to everything he drinks!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The castle is being haunted by the phantom piper of Inverlachen - as is the way of these things, he walks the battlements at </span><span lang="EN-GB">midnight</span><span lang="EN-GB"> playing the pipes and foretelling doom upon the McCrails. Felicity phones Beaker and gets him to come and investigate. So the whole team bundle into Supercar and fly to </span><span lang="EN-GB">Scotland</span><span lang="EN-GB">. They land some way from the castle, and disguise the vehicle with bracken and heather. (Despite a photographic backdrop of rolling hills, the moorland itself is another impressively deep and spacious set.) The idea is that Mike and Beaker will hide out there at </span><span lang="EN-GB">midnight</span><span lang="EN-GB"> and keep watch on the battlements. If the ghostly piper appears, they'll turn on the "clear view" system. If the piper shows up on the tv screen, then he can't be a real ghost. It's a nice example of how this series champions scientific rationalism as the answer to problems. When the phantom appears on the screen, it's clear that he's no ghost. The team decide that the piping is a cover for some illicit activities in the castle. A quick investigation reveals that the target is the Great Cairngorm of McCrail, a piece of quartz crystal that's the symbol of the clan. It's been coveted by their arch rivals the McBlaines since the time of the clan wars centuries ago. The Cairngorm has been set into a barred alcove in the foundations of the castle - but it's clear that the bars have been partially filed through. The sound of the piper is to cover the noise of this work. That night, they intend to catch the villains in the act. So when the piper appears on the battlements, Mike flies Supercar low over his head. They quickly capture the villain, who turns out to be our old friend Harper. (Yes, the disgruntled electronics engineer who tried to steal Beaker's circuits.) Meanwhile his accomplice Judd is down below sawing through the bars. With the villains apprehended, the only mystery is how Harper learnt to play the bagpipes - Mike reveals that he's been miming to tape recordings of Great Uncle Angus's own piping! The episode ends with Mitch playing the instrument.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">It's interesting to see the returning characters in this instalment.<span style=""> </span>Felicity's presence serves to give some plausibility to the Supercar team's involvement. I was a little bit surprised to see Harper again, branching out from his original opportunistic crime into full-blown villainy. (Judd on the other hand we can suppose is an habitual criminal.) It's as if the writers, having established one set of UK-based villains don't want to complicate things by adding any more.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Deep Seven</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Mike and Beaker are on the Californian coast, testing Supercar's performance underwater. (It's been submerged before, in <span style="font-style: italic;">Island Incident</span> - but that was at shallow periscope depth - this time Mike's going down to the ocean floor.) Bill Gibson has also come along, seemingly because they used his truck to carry Beaker's equipment to the coast. As the test proceeds, we learn that Supercar has ballast tanks just like a submarine, which need to be flooded so it can submerge - which seems like a believable process and indicates that the writers have thought about the scientific principles concerned. (It does seem at odds with the sudden and dramatic dive into the water that Supercar executes in the opening titles - but I suspect those were designed foremost to be spectacular, and probably filmed long before the Woodhouses started to work the details out.) There are a few problems as the test proceeds: the engines won't charge and fire at full capacity underwater; and the cockpit canopy can't stand up to the increased pressure and starts to spring a leak. I rather like the fact that Supercar doesn't function perfectly, but has a number of teething problems for our heroes to sort out - it makes it seem more like a real experimental test-bed prototype (and probably not the wonder machine that Gerry Anderson originally envisaged). Again this is the Woodhouses treating scientific advances in a realistic fashion. Disaster strikes when Supercar becomes snagged on the tether cable of an old sea mine.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Fortunately, Bill Gibson has brought an old-fashioned diving suit with him, and volunteers to go down and have a look. In a nice realistic character moment, he says categorically that he's no hero and won't put himself at risk tangling with a mine - but if he can do so safely, he'll try to get Mike free. Meanwhile down below, Mike's having trouble with a huge scary-looking fish that takes an instant dislike to Supercar: lots of teeth and what appears to be a light bulb suspended from its head - from which detail, Beaker deduces it's a deep ocean fish. He recommends that Mike retunes his radio frequencies to send out an ultrasonic signal that ultimately deters the fish's attacks. Bill turns up and manages to cut through the cable - and the mine floats to the surface. By now, Mike is worried that the water in the cockpit will short out the electrics, so he's shut down Supercar's systems. He plans to blow the ballast tanks and let the vehicle float to the surface. But Beaker is worried that he'll still collide with the now free-floating mine. Fortunately, it turns out that marksmanship is another of Beaker's myriad skills, and he uses Bill's rifle to shoot at and explode the mine on the surface. (Courtesy of some stock footage of a real mine and explosion - again, it's like a clash of reality with the puppet world, but not as bad as the anti-aircraft gunners in <span style="font-style: italic;">Island Incident</span>.) Mike risks restarting Supercar and gets back safely to the surface - but asks if he can borrow Bill's diving suit for the next sea trial!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Pirate Plunder</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Mike finds the notion of piracy in the modern age extremely unlikely, which suggests that he’s never taken Supercar anywhere near </span><span lang="EN-GB">Somalia</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>(Seriously though, it does sound odd to the modern ear to hear a character sceptical of the existence of pirates, considering how much it’s been in the news in recent years.)<span style=""> </span>Nevertheless, the newspapers are full of tales of Black Morgan, a pirate using a modern fast vessel to pray on millionaires’ yachts in the Pacific.<span style=""> </span>Beaker is intrigued by the pirate’s name, wondering whether he could be a descendant of the original Henry (“Bloody”) Morgan.<span style=""> </span>He also comes over all Daily Mail reader by suggesting that anyone who takes their jewels and valuables with them yachting is looking for trouble.<span style=""> </span>(“It’s a point of view,” says Mike.)<span style=""> </span>On the other hand, Mike decides that they need to do something about Black Morgan, and Supercar is the vehicle to do it.<span style=""> </span>So the whole team set off for the Pacific.<span style=""> </span>Mike has contacted the millionaire V. Jason Monroe and asked for his assistance – basically, </span><span lang="EN-GB">Monroe</span><span lang="EN-GB"> will let it be known around the Pacific harbours that he’s got a huge priceless diamond aboard his yacht, the Argosy.<span style=""> </span>Then he’ll put out to sea and wait for Black Morgan to be lured by the bait.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, Supercar is waiting submerged beneath the Argosy, ready to pursue Morgan’s ship back to its base.<span style=""> </span>From studying charts, Beaker postulates that Morgan is operating from one of several uninhabited Pacific islands.<span style=""> </span>He keeps in touch with Supercar using communications equipment installed aboard the Argosy.<span style=""> </span>Under the water, Mike encounters the light bulb fish again, though he doesn’t seem to recognize it.<span style=""> </span>Nor does the fish attack Supercar again – obviously it learnt its lesson last week.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">All goes according to plan, and before too long Morgan turns up in his ship, the Cuttlefish.<span style=""> </span>With guns turned upon the Argosy, there’s nothing to stop him coming aboard, leaving Beaker with just enough time to hide the communications equipment.<span style=""> </span>However, due to Beaker’s spectacular inability to act innocent, Morgan begins to suspect that they’ve covering something up and begins searching the cabin.<span style=""> </span>It’s down to Mitch to stop<span style="font-size:100%;"> him</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" lang="EN-GB"> – </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">demonstrating his intelligence and understanding once again – by throwing a cup at Morgan’s head.<span style=""> </span>The pirate is distracted and gets on with the business of stealing the diamond.<span style=""> </span>As he takes his leave, he tells his victims not to try following him, as the Cuttlefish is equipped with homing torpedoes.<span style=""> </span>But Mike has already started his pursuit.<span style=""> </span>Spotting Supercar through his telescope, Morgan thinks that the Argosy has somehow managed to launch a plane to follow him.<span style=""> </span>(It’s interesting to note that this idea of an aircraft hiding beneath the waves, and then launching into the sky at a 45 degree angle to engage the enemy is like a dry run for the concept of Skydiver ten years later.)<span style=""> </span>Morgan lets off his torpedoes against the Argosy,<span style=""> </span>but luckily Beaker manages to turn the communications equipment into a radio jammer to block their guidance systems – just in the nick of time.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile Mike dives towards the Cuttlefish as Morgan unleashes a hail of cannon-fire against him.<span style=""> </span>(It seems that Mike has given up his plan of finding the pirate’s base and now just wants to take out his ship.)<span style=""> </span>He’s had a bazooka fitted to Supercar’s nose just for this mission, and fires off a shell.<span style=""> </span>The resulting explosion is spectacular, as you might expect from an </span><span lang="EN-GB">Anderson</span><span lang="EN-GB"> show, but ridiculously over the top.<span style=""> </span>You can quite clearly see that the upper cabins of the ship are blown clean off.<span style=""> </span>In the next shot however, there’s just some smoke and Mike reports the Cuttlefish holed below the waterline.<span style=""> </span>Morgan is taken into custody, where he laments the fact that Mike and he should be on opposing sides – what a team they’d make!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><br /><span lang="EN-GB"></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Flight of Fancy</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Oh God, it's the dream episode...<span style=""> </span>You probably know me well enough by now to realize that I’m not going to find much to enjoy here.<span style=""> </span>Basically, Jimmy is reading a magazine in bed which has a picture of the Princess Caroline of Bavania.<span style=""> </span>(That’s one of those mittel-European states that pop up in ITC shows that’s no one’s ever actually heard of…)<span style=""> </span>She’s apparently disappeared, and there are rumours that her father King Rudolf is about to be deposed.<span style=""> </span>Jimmy wonders if Supercar can go and look for her, but Mike and Popkiss tell him they can’t just go rushing around interfering with other country’s affairs.<span style=""> </span>Good for them!<span style=""> </span>So, Jimmy falls asleep and starts to dream.<span style=""> </span>(The picture starts to spin round – so I’ll at least give credit to the producers that they signpost this is all a dream right at the beginning of the story, rather than wait to pull the rug out from under an interesting storyline in the usual unsatisfying way.)<span style=""> </span>In the dream, Jimmy wakes up and decides to use Supercar to search for Princess Caroline.<span style=""> </span>He needs someone to operate the ground control console, so it’s fortunate that Mitch can now speak – he has the accent and speech patterns of a </span><span lang="EN-GB">New York</span><span lang="EN-GB"> beatnik, amusingly enough.<span style=""> </span>They fly to Bavania, and find Princess Caroline locked up in a castle.<span style=""> </span>Inside the castle are Marjak, the Prime Minister of Bavania, and his aide Hertz.<span style=""> </span>They’re dressed in Napoleonic style uniforms, and look suspiciously like Masterspy and Zarin.<span style=""> </span>Jimmy and Mitch overhear their plan: they’ve stolen the one document that proves King Rudolf’s hereditary right to the throne, and plan to declare Bavania a republic with Marjak as president – and they’ve got Caroline captive to ensure that Rudolf doesn’t try to oppose them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Searching the castle, Jimmy and Mitch find the missing genealogy scroll, and the key to Caroline’s cell.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, Marjak and Hertz have left for the capital.<span style=""> </span>The declaration of their coup d’état has to be made at precisely </span><span lang="EN-GB">12 noon</span><span lang="EN-GB"> to be legal and binding.<span style=""> </span>Freeing Caroline, Jimmy and Mitch set off for the capital in Supercar – the only vehicle that can get there in time.<span style=""> </span>At the palace, Marjak tells King Rudolf (who strangely looks just like Professor Popkiss) about Caroline being held hostage, and prepares to make his declaration.<span style=""> </span>Arriving just in the nick of time, Jimmy is able to switch the declaration scroll (which Hertz has conveniently left lying on a table) for the genealogy scroll – so that when Marjak starts to read it out, he inadvertently declares Rudolf’s right to the throne before he realizes what he’s doing.<span style=""> </span>Marjak and Hertz are locked up (the guard on their cell looks oddly like Mike Mercury) and Jimmy is made a prince.<span style=""> </span>Mitch though is unable to accept an honour from the King, as he suddenly loses the ability to talk!<span style=""> </span>And so Jimmy wakes up, to find that it was all a dream – but never mind, because today’s papers say that Princess Caroline has been found.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">It’s sporadically amusing, but ultimately this episode is a complete load of nonsense.<span style=""> </span>Even allowing how much I hate the “it was all a dream” episodes, the point is that usually what they do is stretch the status quo of the series format, placing the characters in unusual situations and showing how they would react.<span style=""> </span>So, an episode in which, say, Mike has been incapacitated and Jimmy dreams that he has to take control of Supercar to fly some vital and desperate mission would have been acceptable within the usual limitations – not some rubbish with fairy tale Princesses trapped in Ruritanian castles.<span style=""> </span>Despite the end credits, the behind the scenes documentary on the DVD reveals that Hugh and Martin Woodhouse didn’t write a word of this claptrap – they were bitterly opposed to it in fact – and the script instead comes from Gerry and Sylvia Anderson.<span style=""> </span>I think this fact (as well as the way the Woodhouses have given Anderson’s super vehicle various technical limitations in recent episodes) might demonstrate one of the differences between producers and writers: the former concerned with spectacle, style over substance, and the latter thinking more of the characters and the internal logic of the series.<span style=""> </span>I also note that Dr Beaker doesn’t appear in this episode at all, either in reality or in Jimmy’s dream.<span style=""> </span>I like to think that he has more integrity.</span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-25699698435920270852011-04-30T21:36:00.003+01:002011-04-30T21:54:56.738+01:00Anderthon: Watch It Flying through the Air...<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Supercar<br />episodes 9-13</span><br /><span lang="EN-GB"><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">High Tension</span></span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Dr Beaker has gone shopping in </span><span lang="EN-GB">Carson City</span><span lang="EN-GB">, which is basically a bit of back projected film.<span style=""> </span>It’s another jarring example of the clash between real location backgrounds and puppet foregrounds, but taken to extremes in this case: despite being in Nevada, Carson City looks alarmingly like a British high street to me.<span style=""> </span>Behind Beaker, we can see a jewellers’ shop and a branch of Woolworths.<span style=""> </span>(I wonder if he went in for the Pick ’n’ Mix.)<span style=""> </span>Anyway, Beaker is hailed by a passing motorist, who asks him for directions.<span style=""> </span>It’s pretty obviously Masterspy – but as usual, Beaker is completely taken in by his disguise of a deerstalker cap and a fake moustache.<span style=""> </span>Beaker foolishly agrees to get in the car and ride a short way, so that he can point out the directions properly.<span style=""> </span>(And they’re always telling kids not to get into cars with strangers – what sort of an example is this setting?<span style=""> </span>Then again, the fact that the driver turns out to be Masterspy might be seen as a sort of cautionary tale.)<span style=""> </span>Once Beaker’s in the car, Masterspy reveals his plan.<span style=""> </span>He’s kidnapped Beaker to exchange him for Supercar.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Back at the lab, Supercar is in a state of some disrepair.<span style=""> </span>Beaker’s been working on the electrics, and has left loads of wires hanging out of the dashboard.<span style=""> </span>Masterspy phones up with his demand: Mike is to take Supercar to a place called Green Ghost Wells, where he can hand the vehicle over in exchange for Beaker.<span style=""> </span>It doesn’t look like they’ve got any choice – once again, Popkiss is dead set against calling the police.<span style=""> </span>(I’m really starting to believe that Supercar is some sort of black-ops project that no one, not even the authorities, is allowed to know about – but surely the cat’s out of the bag by now?)<span style=""> </span>Mike takes off, being careful of all the unfinished wiring that Beaker’s left behind.<span style=""> </span>It’s at this point that Jimmy Gibson starts to become really irritating, as he constantly asks Popkiss what’s going on and has to have the storyline laboriously explained to him.<span style=""> </span>Now, I’m aware that part of the point of having a character like Jimmy in the show is to provide an audience identification figure who can ask questions to clarify the plot.<span style=""> </span>(Although it has to be said, kids don’t necessarily like watching other children in their tv shows, and are just as likely – if not more – to want to watch shows with older teenagers or adults as the protagonists.<span style=""> </span>The </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB"> seem to realize this after <i>Supercar</i>, which is why we don’t get another child lead character for a good few years.)<span style=""> </span>In this particular instance however, Jimmy’s questions seem to be there just to pad out the episode, as everything he asks about has already been explained.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Green Ghost Wells is a series of mysterious holes in the desert.<span style=""> </span>They may be extinct volcanoes or meteor craters – no one knows.<span style=""> </span>Zarin is scared of the place, seemingly for no other reason than its name!<span style=""> </span>But for Masterspy, it’s the ideal location: he has Beaker hidden inside one of the wells, and he can keep watch on Supercar’s arrival, to make sure Mike doesn’t try anything.<span style=""> </span>But Mike foils him by flying over at high altitude and using the “clear view” system to spot which well Beaker is inside.<span style=""> </span>Then he lands some distance away and quickly jumps out.<span style=""> </span>While Mike continues on foot, Popkiss is able to fly Supercar on to the rendezvous by remote control.<span style=""> </span>So, while Masterspy and Zarin are emerging from their hiding place to approach the landed Supercar, Mike is already sneaking into the well to free Beaker.<span style=""> </span>It looks like Masterspy might have successfully captured Supercar however.<span style=""> </span>But then Beaker reveals the reason for all the rewiring: he’s installed a new defence system in Supercar to keep wild animals away when its out in the field.<span style=""> </span>Switching it on produces an electric current through the hull, which leaves Masterspy and Zarin quivering with electric shocks!<span style=""> </span>(Time to hand them over to the police now, perhaps?)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p><span lang="EN-GB"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;" lang="EN-GB">A Little Art</span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Beaker has bought a painting from the Steindorf Gallery.<span style=""> </span>What he doesn’t know is that Steindorf is a bit of conman, selling bad paintings by lesser artists at inflated prices to pretentious types with more money than artistic judgement.<span style=""> </span>As a gallery owner, naturally Steindorf has a little goatee beard.<span style=""> </span>Before he got into the art game, he used to be a proper crook – as he’s reminded when one of his former acquaintances turns up at the gallery.<span style=""> </span>Jody Maddern has just been released from the state penitentiary, and strangely he’s come looking for one of Steindorf’s paintings.<span style=""> </span>His old cellmate, Bud Hassler, has died in chokey after serving thirty-odd years for counterfeiting bank notes.<span style=""> </span>His printing plates – supposedly the best counterfeit plates ever made – were never discovered.<span style=""> </span>Hassler was also an artist, and before he died, he told Maddern that the location of the plates was hidden in one of his paintings “Mexican Plain”.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, Steindorf has just recently sold the work the work in question.<span style=""> </span>Guess who to!<span style=""> </span>They try phoning Beaker, telling him that what he thought was a genuine Hassler has actually turned out to be a fake, and offer to buy the painting back, plus something extra for the inconvenience.<span style=""> </span>Beaker though is not Steindorf’s usual customer – the material value of painting is immaterial to him.<span style=""> </span>He actually appreciates it for its artistic qualities.<span style=""> </span>They try increasing the offer, but he’s quite adamant that he wants to hang onto the painting.<span style=""> </span>His attempts to teach art appreciation to Mitch don’t meet with too much success however.<span style=""> </span>“Mexican Plain” is a sort of pastiche of Salvador Dali’s “Persistence of Memory” showing a desolate desert view with some mountains in the distance, a cactus and a clock face prominently featured in the foreground.<span style=""> </span>Whether Mitch’s lack of interest is the producers’ comment on the value of surrealist art, I couldn’t say.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Steinforf’s interest has made everyone suspicious about the painting.<span style=""> </span>Mike is sure he recognizes the terrain depicted.<span style=""> </span>Popkiss remembers the name of the artist, Bud Hassler, as his arrest for counterfeiting was a big news story back when he first came to America in 1929 (which they say was about thirty years ago – so that confirms for the first time the contemporary early sixties setting for the series).<span style=""> </span>And Beaker begins to wonder whether there might be another painting underneath – a stolen old master that Hassler has painted over to hide it.<span style=""> </span>He sprays on a special solvent which will dissolve the paint overnight.<span style=""> </span>That night, Steindorf and Maddern break into the lab and steal the painting, cutting it right out of its frame.<span style=""> </span>They get in and out with such apparent ease that I have to wonder whether Popkiss has bothered to install any sort of alarm system (or locks come to that!) – especially odd considering his usual concerns for the security of Supercar.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Steindorf and Maddern head out to </span><span lang="EN-GB">Mexico</span><span lang="EN-GB">, where they locate the scene in the painting.<span style=""> </span>The meaning of the picture becomes clear now.<span style=""> </span>The shadow of the cactus resembles a pointing human finger, and the clock face shows the appropriate time: the counterfeit plates are buried at the tip of the cactus’s shadow.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, they can’t find the cactus – it’s obviously died or been uprooted in the intervening three decades.<span style=""> </span>They try to look at the painting to determine where it might have been – but by now, Beaker’s solvent has done its work and there’s nothing left but a messed-up blur of paint on the canvas.<span style=""> </span>The two villains fall out and give up their quest.<span style=""> </span>A few moments later, Supercar arrives.<span style=""> </span>Mike and Beaker have remembered where they’ve seen the location depicted in the painting: they flew over it on their way to the Amazon.<span style=""> </span>(A nice continuity reference back to episode 2.)<span style=""> </span>Fortunately, Beaker has kept a photograph of the painting, and he’s able to ascertain where the cactus originally stood – he has the bemused Mike stand on the spot and imitate the cactus’s pose, so that they can find where the plates are buried.<span style=""> </span>(Don’t worry, they’re going to hand them over to the US Treasury.)<span style=""> </span>Beaker is a little upset to have lost his painting, but Mike reveals that Mitch is painting a new one for him.<span style=""> </span>Mitch appears to be an exponent of the action painting school – either that, or he’s just chucking paint randomly onto the canvas.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <span lang="EN-GB"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;" lang="EN-GB">Ice-Fall</span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The team are getting ready for a day out.<span style=""> </span>It’s a bit of a squeeze for the five of them all in Supercar, especially with the picnic basket and a load of equipment that Beaker wants to bring.<span style=""> </span>(So who’s manning the control console today then?<span style=""> </span>I guess maybe they don’t need it when they’re not actually having an adventure…)<span style=""> </span>What amazes me most about this little jaunt though is that they’re going out for a joyride in a top secret experimental vehicle.<span style=""> </span>What about the security implications?<span style=""> </span>I don’t know, Popkiss seems very lax about it all.<span style=""> </span>(Actually though, it’s only when someone suggests calling in the police that the Professor gets all jittery about the need to maintain secrecy – do you think he’s got some reason for avoiding the cops?)<span style=""> </span>They land on a desert plain, near the entrance to some caves and settle down for a picnic.<span style=""> </span>All except Beaker, who it turns out is a keen potholer – speleology being another of his many disciplines.<span style=""> </span>He wants to investigate the caves straight away, as there’s an interesting feature he wants to see.<span style=""> </span>He says he’ll only be half an hour – just enough to locate the feature – then he’ll be back for lunch.<span style=""> </span>To ensure he doesn’t get lost, he takes a leaf out of Ariadne’s book and ties the end of a ball of string to the cave entrance, unwinding it as he goes.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">One thing that really stands out about this episode (and indeed the previous few) are the fantastic desert sets, really open plains with a great sense of depth to them.<span style=""> </span>It’s like a return to the glory days of <i>Four Feather Falls</i> and a welcome respite from all the back projection.<span style=""> </span>The cave set that Beaker explores is also really impressive, complete with real dripping stalactites.<span style=""> </span>What Beaker doesn’t realize is that Mitch has followed him into the caves, untying and then gathering up the string as he goes.<span style=""> </span>Someone really needs to keep an eye on that monkey!<span style=""> </span>(I’m not seeing much evidence of his supposed intelligence in this last couple of episodes, I have to say – unless he knows exactly what he’s doing and is out to wind Beaker up!<span style=""> </span>That said, he does seem to understand Beaker’s warnings that the cave roof is unstable, and therefore he needs to keep quiet.)<span style=""> </span>Beaker has found what he’s seeking: a rare phenomenon, a completely frozen waterfall.<span style=""> </span>Stepping behind it, he finds a paleolithic painting on the cave wall.<span style=""> </span>Excited by his find, he raises his voice and causes the waterfall to collapse, burying him behind a solid wall of ice!<span style=""> </span>Once the others realize what’s happened, Mike decides the only way to help Beaker is to take Supercar into the caves and use the jets to melt the ice.<span style=""> </span>It’s a tricky job to manoeuvre through the narrow passages and turns of the cave system, not to mention the risk that they might bring more of the roof down on top of them.<span style=""> </span>The tension is nicely drawn out, and again seems like a precursor to the “race against time” action of <i>Thunderbirds</i>.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p><p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Island Incident</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The team are sitting down to breakfast – all except Beaker who’s in his lab making the toast.<span style=""> </span>Being Beaker, he’s incapable of actually using a toaster, and is subjecting each slice individually to 25,000 watts of electricity using a massive machine.<span style=""> </span>(I’ll be generous and assume he’s testing a new piece of equipment and simply killing two birds with one stone.<span style=""> </span>It’s also a very funny sequence.)<span style=""> </span>When Mike calls for more toast, he’s not so happy with the charred piece that Beaker produces.<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, Mike’s reading the newspaper: there have been several UFO sightings in </span><span lang="EN-GB">Wyoming</span><span lang="EN-GB">. (At Devil’s Tower, perhaps?)<span style=""> </span>He wonders if they could have been Supercar.<span style=""> </span>So they must have been doing test flights over in </span><span lang="EN-GB">Wyoming</span><span lang="EN-GB"> – which seems odd when they’ve got plenty of empty space right here in </span><span lang="EN-GB">Nevada</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>He also reads about the president of the island nation of Pelota, General Sebastian Laguava, who’s previously seemed a benevolent ruler, but recently has been arresting political opponents and the like.<span style=""> </span>(Time for a UN resolution and some air strikes then?<span style=""> </span>It’s funny how such a tale sounds relevant to my contemporary ears – I guess some things never change.)<span style=""> </span>Just then Beaker receives a phone call, asking Supercar to come to a secret rendezvous in </span><span lang="EN-GB">Southern California</span><span lang="EN-GB"> – the call apparently coming from President Laguava.<span style=""> </span>Mike is immediately suspicious, remembering that the last time they answered an unexpected distress call, it turned out to be Masterspy.<span style=""> </span>(A nice bit of continuity back to episode 4.)<span style=""> </span>Popkiss though doesn’t believe Masterspy would try the same trick twice, and thinks that Mike ought to go.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">At the rendezvous, it turns out that Mike’s contact is indeed President Laguava.<span style=""> </span>He reveals that the news stories coming from his country are true in all but one detail – he’s been usurped by his brother, Colonel Humberto Laguava, and it’s he who’s turning the country into a police state.<span style=""> </span>He’s heard of Supercar, and wants their help to get his country back.<span style=""> </span>(So much for Popkiss’s security concerns then.)<span style=""> </span>Mike and the President fly back to Pelota, and attempt to get to the presidential palace.<span style=""> </span>But Colonel Humberto orders his men to open fire on the mysterious flying machine.<span style=""> </span>(Maybe he thinks it’s a UFO – or a UN-sanctioned air strike coming in…)<span style=""> </span>This results in Mike trying to negotiate his way through stock footage of real anti-aircraft guns, complete with real soldiers firing them!<span style=""> </span>It’s another moment when the intrusion of reality shatters the consistency of the puppet realm, and it jars terribly.<span style=""> </span>On Beaker’s advice, Mike pretends that Supercar has been hit and crashes it into the sea.<span style=""> </span>Then they proceed towards the island underwater.<span style=""> </span>Upon landing, they hear the sounds of a big party, and Laguava realizes that his brother has ordered a fiesta to celebrate repelling the attack.<span style=""> </span>The guards will be getting drunk, and this will be the perfect moment to get to the palace.<span style=""> </span>He doesn’t want to kill Humberto however – though he’s proved himself unfit to wear an officer’s uniform, he’s still his brother.<span style=""> </span>At the palace, they encounter Humberto, and a shootout ensues.<span style=""> </span>Mike demonstrates shooting skills of which Tex Tucker would be proud, shooting the gun from the Colonel’s hand, and even shooting the epaulettes from his uniform.<span style=""> </span>As Sebastian Laguava takes control of his country once more, Mike finds himself awarded the Supreme Order of the Golden Star of Pelota.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <span lang="EN-GB"></span><span style="font-weight: bold;" lang="EN-GB">The Tracking of Masterspy</span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Mike returns to the lab, and announces that he met a representative of the Greyburn News Agency in town, who are coming to do a feature on Supercar.<span style=""> </span>Popkiss though denies that any such thing is happening – Supercar is top secret after all.<span style=""> </span>Mike just assumed that Popkiss had decided it was time to lift the veil – considering the Professor’s lax and inconsistent attitude to security over the last few episodes, it’s no wonder that Mike’s got confused by it all.<span style=""> </span>(But hang on a minute!<span style=""> </span>Mike took the supposedly top secret Supercar into town?<span style=""> </span>Where did he park it?<span style=""> </span>And presumably Popkiss didn’t have a problem with that.)<span style=""> </span>As it turns out, the Greyburn News Agency is a front for Masterspy.<span style=""> </span>He’s had Zarin following Mike, to find out where his base is.<span style=""> </span>(But Masterspy knows where the lab is – he’s been there, as long ago as episode 3.<span style=""> </span>I’d also quite like to know how Zarin managed to follow Mike when he was piloting an airborne supersonic vehicle!) <span style=""> </span>Masterspy soon turns up at the lab, and again acts as if he’s never been there – and as if he’s never seen Supercar before, completely forgetting that he’s already stolen it once before, and very nearly a second time.<span style=""> </span>It’s just annoying that after the accurate continuity references in the previous few episodes, here it seems as if the writers have forgotten almost everything they’ve previously established.<span style=""> </span>This episode is so inconsistent that I almost find myself hoping that this one will turn out to be a dream episode – and you know how much I hate those!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Fortunately things pick up once Masterspy gets to work.<span style=""> </span>He opens a fuel valve and spills aviation spirit all over the floor, then starts waving a lighter around, threatening to burn the place down and destroy Supercar into the bargain.<span style=""> </span>In this way, he manages to steal all the plans and drawings for Supercar, which is probably more sensible and convenient than trying to steal the vehicle itself.<span style=""> </span>Just then Beaker enters with some new gizmo he’s built – Masterspy demands to know what it is, and the others watch amazed as Beaker explains that it’s a new guidance system for Supercar – so Masterspy steals that too.<span style=""> </span>He causes a small explosion to cover his escape, forcing the team to combat the flames rather than giving pursuit.<span style=""> </span>It soon transpires that Beaker has been smarter than the others have given him credit for.<span style=""> </span>(So, now who’s a fool?)<span style=""> </span>His machine is actually a new tracking device – Mike will be able to follow the signal straight back to Masterspy’s lair.<span style=""> </span>Soon, Supercar is flying over </span><span lang="EN-GB">New York</span><span lang="EN-GB"> (though they just call it “the city” ) – and lands on the roof of Masterspy’s building.<span style=""> </span>Mike bursts into the villains’ office, catching them off guard.<span style=""> </span>He reveals the truth about the tracking device, but then bluffs them into believing it’s also a radio transmitter – he reports his location and calls for the police to be sent.<span style=""> </span>Masterspy would rather give up the stolen plans than fall into the hands of the police.<span style=""> </span>(So, I guess Mike leaves him at liberty once again…!)</span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-63550266318072296382011-04-25T12:22:00.004+01:002011-05-11T01:29:37.921+01:00Anderthon: Now who's a fool?<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Supercar<br />episodes 5-8</span><br /><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">What Goes Up</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">I still can’t work out who our heroes work for.<span style=""> </span>This week, the team are collaborating on a research project with Colonel Lewis of the US Air Force, which seems to suggest that they have some sort of government connection.<span style=""> </span>But when, as is the way of these things, the project inevitably goes wrong and Supercar is the only thing that can save the day, they’re almost reticent to show it to the Colonel, as it’s top secret and he doesn’t have security clearance.<span style=""> </span>(But who decides the levels of clearance?<span style=""> </span>It implies there’s some higher authority they answer to…)<span style=""> </span>Colonel Lewis’s people have sent up a high altitude balloon carrying lots of atmospheric measuring equipment.<span style=""> </span>It seems Beaker is an expert in this field as well, and that’s why he’s helping out by studying the instrument readings.<span style=""> </span>Once all the measurements have been taken, the test canister is to be blown up – hence the whole operation is called Project Fourth of July.<span style=""> </span>Jimmy asks the most obvious question: why don’t they bring the canister down again, by parachute?<span style=""> </span>But they can’t do this as it contains a quantity of explosive rocket fuel.<span style=""> </span>The jolt of landing would be enough to cause an explosion.<span style=""> </span>So, despite the cost of losing the expensive instruments, they’ve got to detonate it by remote control.<span style=""> </span>(Which all sounds fine in principle – but what doesn’t make sense is why the volatile fuel is inside the test canister in the first place – its only purpose surely is to cause a bloody big explosion.<span style=""> </span>Without it, why couldn’t they have brought the canister down safely?<span style=""> </span>Have the Air Force thought this through properly – perhaps they just want to see a big bang?)<span style=""> </span>So they count down to a remote detonation. Interestingly, Mitch seems able to follow this, as he cheekily bursts an inflated paper bag when it gets to zero (and earlier he seemed to understand what Jimmy was saying to him).<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, the actual canister fails to detonate, and Beaker calculates that it’s likely to fall to Earth and explode smack in the middle of a city.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">There’s only one thing for it.<span style=""> </span>Someone has to go up and blow the thing up while it’s still high enough not to cause any damage.<span style=""> </span>Conventional aircraft can’t climb high enough, so there’s no option but for Mike to take Supercar up.<span style=""> </span>(Though they haven’t tested it at high altitude yet, so they’re taking a bit of a risk – it seems the theme song’s promise that it can travel in space is a little bit premature.)<span style=""> </span>Colonel Lewis provides a rocket launcher which is quickly fitted to Supercar’s nose – but there’s only one rocket, so Mike has to get it right first time.<span style=""> </span>As Mike will be ascending to the edge of space, he needs an oxygen mask and a foil suit to protect him against cosmic radiation.<span style=""> </span>Beaker is worried that the seals on Supercar’s pressurized cockpit won’t hold up, and insists that Mike does a manual check.<span style=""> </span>Just as well – there’s a small hole in the canopy that’s letting out air.<span style=""> </span>Fortunately, Beaker’s had the foresight to pack a puncture repair kit (yes, just like the sort you’d use to mend your bicycle tyre – as he sticks a rubber patch over the hole, even Mike comments it’s like repairing a tyre from inside the tube.)<span style=""> </span>Because of the thin atmosphere at this height, Mike can’t trim Supercar properly using the wings, which means he can’t aim the rocket accurately. <span style=""> </span>To be sure of hitting his mark, he has to fly in closer than the recommended safe distance, and risk being caught in the explosion himself.<span style=""> </span>It’s a moment of selfless courage (exactly the sort of thing we’ll be seeing from the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Tracy</span><span lang="EN-GB"> boys in a few years – once again it seems like <i>Supercar</i> is a dry run for <i>Thunderbirds</i>).<span style=""> </span>Of course, Mike succeeds and manages to get Supercar away from the explosion – that’s why he’s our hero – but not without charring the bodywork.<span style=""> </span>They’ll send Colonel Lewis the bill for a new paint job.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Keep It Cool</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">It seems that Beaker’s been inspired by the antics of the Air Force last week, because now he’s developed a ridiculously powerful and volatile new rocket fuel.<span style=""> </span>It’s so dangerous that Popkiss won’t let him make it in the lab, so he has to have it brought in by truck.<span style=""> </span>Keeping it all in the family, Beaker employs Jimmy’s brother Bill to drive it for him.<span style=""> </span>It seems Bill runs a company called Gibson’s Transport – on the evidence presented here, it could just be a “one man and a van” outfit.<span style=""> </span>The dangerous nature of the fuel means it has to be kept at a temperature below zero, so transporting it at night is the best option – even so, they have a refrigeration unit rigged up on the back of the truck.<span style=""> </span>Despite Beaker’s best efforts at navigation, the truck gets lost in the desert.<span style=""> </span>As it turns out, this is because the signposts have been altered and moved by none other than Masterspy and Zarin.<span style=""> </span>Their next trick is to leave a large rock in the road that wrecks Bill’s suspension and leaves the truck stranded.<span style=""> </span>Bill has to turn off the refrigerator to save the battery, as he’ll need all the power left to keep the radio going.<span style=""> </span>Beaker doesn’t seem too worried by this, as the freezing night-time temperatures in the desert will keep the fuel safe until morning, by which time Supercar will have found them – Mike being able to home in on the signal from the truck’s radio.<span style=""> </span>But then Masterspy and Zarin reveal themselves, and tie Bill and Beaker up.<span style=""> </span>They want to steal Beaker’s new fuel – presumably to sell to an oil company or foreign power.<span style=""> </span>Zarin fetches a can of the fuel from the refrigeration unit, and smashes the truck’s radio.<span style=""> </span>Bill and Beaker manage to flatter Masterspy’s ego, and so delay the villains’ departure until after dawn – by which time the increase in heat starts to have an effect on the can of fuel, which starts bubbling angrily even as Zarin holds it on his lap.<span style=""> </span>Supercar is already airborne by this time, but without the radio signal from the truck, Mike can only make a very general wide area search.<span style=""> </span>Then the fuel can explodes, sending up a massive plume of smoke that serves to guide Mike to the area.<span style=""> </span>Masterspy and Zarin are unharmed of course – despite finding themselves sitting amid the devastated wreckage of their van, they themselves only end up with blackened faces.<span style=""> </span>(Realism goes completely out of the window here – but then these are cartoon villains, it seems quite appropriate that they should come out of these mishaps no worse off than Wile E Coyote.<span style=""> </span>We shouldn’t forget that this is still very much a children’s programme, full of daft humour and its own surreal internal logic.)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Grounded</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Beaker has invented a new guidance system, and they’ve brought Supercar to an electronics firm in </span><span lang="EN-GB">England</span><span lang="EN-GB"> to have it built and installed.<span style=""> </span>(This is apparently to help maintain secrecy, because Supercar is becoming too well known back in </span><span lang="EN-GB">America</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>Are they worried about industrial espionage, some other manufacturer stealing a march on them?<span style=""> </span>That’s if Supercar is the prototype for a new kind of vehicle eventually to be marketed.<span style=""> </span>Or is it a secret research project with ultimately military applications?<span style=""> </span>All this concern for security, and yet they think nothing of taking Supercar out on joyrides and rescue missions.<span style=""> </span>It’s yet another instance of the rather nebulous and unexplained backstory.)<span style=""> </span>This trip to </span><span lang="EN-GB">England</span><span lang="EN-GB"> gives the excuse for lots of jokes and stereotyping – Mike grumbles about the weather and says he’d rather be back in the desert.<span style=""> </span>Still, at least Beaker seems happy to be back in his native land for a while, and it’s intimated that this may be the real reason for choosing JFP Ltd for this work.<span style=""> </span>The managing director, J Farleigh Prothero, is a completely over-the-top depiction of a public school chinless wonder, with a little moustache and ridiculously high-pitched cut glass accent.<span style=""> </span>(“Rather bad form, what?”)<span style=""> </span>Similarly exaggerated are the villains of the piece: Judd is an expert safecracker with flat cap, a fag stuck in the side of his mouth, and “Blimey Guvnor” dialogue – his partner is Harper, a weasely disgruntled employee of JFP, who thinks he’s been passed over for promotion.<span style=""> </span>It's just the sort of Americanized vision of what the British are like common to Hollywood films, that it’s odd to think this was shot by Englishmen in </span><span lang="EN-GB">Slough</span><span lang="EN-GB">!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Harper’s plan for revenge is to steal Beaker’s new circuit boards and sell them to an unspecified foreign buyer.<span style=""> </span>(An enemy agent perhaps?<span style=""> </span>Hey, maybe it’s Masterspy!)<span style=""> </span>The episode opens with a rather lovely night-time tracking shot through model scale sets, past a warehouse to a van parked outside the offices of JFP Ltd.<span style=""> </span>(Is it just me, or does the firm’s logo look just like the APF symbol with the letters slightly changed?)<span style=""> </span>Inside, Judd and Harper crack the safe – but before they make their getaway, Harper enters the warehouse where Supercar is being stored and sabotages the vehicle.<span style=""> </span>The theft is discovered the next day – Mr Prothero wants to call the police, but the team are dead set against this because of the secrecy of their project.<span style=""> </span>Then Beaker gets a phone call from Harper, calling from a phone box.<span style=""> </span>(Of course he’s in a phone box – they have to stick a red phone box in just in case American viewers have forgotten we’re in </span><span lang="EN-GB">England</span><span lang="EN-GB">!)<span style=""> </span>He tells Beaker that they’ve stolen the circuits and even the location of the airfield they’re heading for.<span style=""> </span>Beaker believes that Harper has a psychological desire to brag about his crime, but really he just wants to goad them into using Supercar to give chase – that’s why he sabotaged the vehicle earlier.<span style=""> </span>It takes some time before Mike can take off however, as Professor Popkiss needs to rig up a temporary ground control console.<span style=""> </span>(Now this implies that Supercar can only be operated properly when Mike’s in communication with the console.<span style=""> </span>Obviously the controls are too complex for one man to handle alone.)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Because he’s not launching through the laboratory roof for once, Mike is able to extend the stabilizing wings while Supercar is still on the ground – this is fortunate since it’s one of the wings that Harper has sabotaged.<span style=""> </span>Supercar loses lift and crashes back to the ground.<span style=""> </span>If this had happened at normal cruising height, Mike could have been a goner.<span style=""> </span>The broken wing amusingly looks just like someone’s snapped a balsa wood model (which is in fact the case!)<span style=""> </span>With flight denied to Supercar, it looks like the villains are going to get away with it – but Mike decides that he can drive along the motorway to catch them.<span style=""> </span>It will of course mean breaking the speed limit – but no one will be able to catch them to give them a speeding ticket, and they’ll be out of the country before the law can catch up with them.<span style=""> </span>(I don’t know – is this a responsible attitude for our upright heroes to be demonstrating?)<span style=""> </span>So Mike races along a back projected motorway – film of a real motorway with real cars – this is another really glaring example of the way that back projection clashes with the puppets/models in the foreground, and takes the characters out of their own self-contained world.<span style=""> </span>Interestingly, Supercar isn’t actually driving (still no wheels!) but is in fact flying at a very low altitude – so it’s functioning as a ground effect vehicle.<span style=""> </span>It’s also made clear that this is the first time they’ve tried to do this (so again the theme song’s assertion that “it travels on land” is a little over-optimistic).<span style=""> </span>Mike is able to beat Judd and Harper to the airfield – especially since the villains manage to miss their motorway exit!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Jungle Hazard</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Masterspy is trying on a new jungle hat, because he and Zarin are off to </span><span lang="EN-GB">Malaya</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>They’ve just heard that an estate there has recently passed to a English spinster, Miss Felicity Farnsworth.<span style=""> </span>The estate is a bit run down, so Masterspy is hoping to con her into selling it to him for a low asking price – because really it’s a prime rubber plantation and with a bit of work could be really profitable.<span style=""> </span>(I don’t know – as villainous schemes go, it’s not exactly big league stuff – why does he call himself Masterspy again?)<span style=""> </span>Out in Mayala, and calling himself Mr Smith, Masterspy tries to convince Miss Farnsworth that the estate needs too much work to be profitable.<span style=""> </span>She agrees, and so offers him a job working for her on the estate!<span style=""> </span>Despite this setback, Masterspy decides to stick around and try to talk her into selling.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Meanwhile at the lab, Beaker is working on some dangerous-looking concoction – more of his rocket fuel perhaps?<span style=""> </span>Mike is alarmed when Beaker emerges from the test chamber with a great steaming pot of the stuff, but it turns out to be a curry made to an old family recipe – Curry Farnsworth.<span style=""> </span>Yes, Felicity Farnsworth is none other than Beaker’s cousin – that would explain why she basically looks like Beaker in a dress, and speaks in the same drawn-out way as well.<span style=""> </span>Beaker has a letter from his cousin where she tells him about her visitors who are looking to buy the plantation – Mr Smith and Mr Zarin.<span style=""> </span>(Damn, they didn’t think of a pseudonym for Zarin!<span style=""> </span>Poor planning there, Masterspy!)<span style=""> </span>The name alerts Beaker to what’s going on, and he and Mike plan to set out for </span><span lang="EN-GB">Malaya</span><span lang="EN-GB"> in Supercar right away.<span style=""> </span>Mitch the monkey demonstrates yet again that he can understand English and knows what’s going on, as he brings Beaker his pith helmet unbidden.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">When Mike and Beaker get to </span><span lang="EN-GB">Malaya</span><span lang="EN-GB">, they find Miss Farnsworth gone.<span style=""> </span>The houseboy tells them that she set out overland to the nearest town to buy some supplies, and her two visitors accompanied her.<span style=""> </span>As Supercar won’t be able to follow them through the jungle, Beaker elects to track them on foot, while Mike follows overhead, guided by radio. Masterspy’s plan is to murder Miss Farnsworth en route.<span style=""> </span>He seizes the chance when she uses a native rope-bridge to cross a swamp.<span style=""> </span>Masterspy saws through the ropes with a machete, and Felicity falls into the swamp where she gets sucked down into quicksand.<span style=""> </span>But Beaker arrives just in time, knocking Masterspy and Zarin out with his umbrella – and Mike is able to lower a harness with which to pull Miss Farnsworth out of the swamp.<span style=""> </span>Felicity thanks her cousin for saving the honour of the family – just as the elastic snaps in her bloomers and they fall down round her ankles.<span style=""> </span>Good job she’s wearing a long skirt.<span style=""> </span>Beaker has to hide his eyes behind his umbrella.<span style=""> </span>(But do they hand Masterspy and Zarin over to the authorities?<span style=""> </span>What do you think?)</span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-370251464050760393.post-42619132790530709232011-04-23T12:18:00.006+01:002011-05-11T01:30:03.567+01:00Anderthon: Engines Charging, Interlock On...<span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Supercar<br />episodes 1-4<br /></span><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:applybreakingrules/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> </w:Compatibility> <w:browserlevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id="ieooui"></object> <style> st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } </style> <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman";} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">For years, I believed that <i>Supercar</i> was the first Anderson/supermarionation series.<span style=""> </span>Not that I’d ever seen it, but I remember reading features in <i>Look-In</i> about the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB">’ work, and they always seemed to start with <i>Supercar</i>.<span style=""> </span>Poor old <i>Four Feather Falls</i> always seemed to get missed out, quite undeservedly as I’ve recently discovered.<span style=""> </span>But I can see why <i>Supercar</i> is seen by some as the star</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHXY__5j9CSCT3iRiiexxdrQTeNl7qNAo0Obf8Re6fMjUGS6l_iRRcXe-lrhhcr3ZYnfuH_0axWHU3u4SMHeRKefbhXeHRwfiTB9tYk1FCMxsrqu_orVXv__WkZfcxL68jaSl6EYDTwJTX/s1600/supercar.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 188px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHXY__5j9CSCT3iRiiexxdrQTeNl7qNAo0Obf8Re6fMjUGS6l_iRRcXe-lrhhcr3ZYnfuH_0axWHU3u4SMHeRKefbhXeHRwfiTB9tYk1FCMxsrqu_orVXv__WkZfcxL68jaSl6EYDTwJTX/s320/supercar.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5598746464400445090" border="0" /></a><span lang="EN-GB">t of a trend: ju</span><span lang="EN-GB">st like the next few shows the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB"> will produce, it is centred around (and</span><span lang="EN-GB"> indeed even named after) a fantastic vehicle</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>Now, I know that for a lot of people, the vehicles and the technology are what the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Anderson</span><span lang="EN-GB"> shows are all about – that’s why for instance there are a lot of scratch model builders involved in the fandom.<span style=""> </span>I have to say, it’s never really been my primary focus.<span style=""> </span>I prefer stories and characters.<span style=""> </span><i>Supercar</i> is of course a children’s puppet show, so I don’t expect gritty adult drama, but as my appreciation of <i>Four Feather Falls</i> demonstrated, there can be can still be an appeal to the adult viewer, through inventive plotting and especially knowing humour.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">One thing that’s struck me from watching these initial episodes: I’m finding it very hard to get a handle on the setting of the series.<span style=""> </span>Now, it’s often said that <i>Supercar</i> is the start of the run of science fiction shows the </span><span lang="EN-GB">Andersons</span><span lang="EN-GB"> produced.<span style=""> </span>(That’s probably another reason why <i>F</i></span><span lang="EN-GB"><i>our Feather Falls</i> sometimes gets overlooked.)<span style=""> </span>There are very few clues in this first batch of episodes, but it seems as if <i>Supercar</i> is set in the present day (the early 1960s) – as aside from Supercar itself, all the vehicles shown appear to be contemporary, as do the character’s costumes.<span style=""> </span>There have also been few science fiction elements in the storylines so far – they’re mostly adventure and espionage tales, like a junior version of </span><i><span lang="EN-GB">Danger</span></i><i><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></i><i><span lang="EN-GB">Man</span></i><span lang="EN-GB">.</span><span lang="EN-GB"><span style=""> </span>If the high-tech car is our only futuristic element, I guess that makes the series about as much of a science fiction piece as <i>Knight Rider</i>.</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggbdfRUaqxn65ldQnKbdnPayPMp9VrElbQAvI6u_9p-s_LqRh43sF2XYT94oC2O9NihxwJXLVuvFSLXUKctw9qTMFzxzlfSK_XbcY-z3TWi2CM-JbjXr88NGPJ_hf7Enj4w3BZ52vASIjQ/s1600/mike.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 188px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggbdfRUaqxn65ldQnKbdnPayPMp9VrElbQAvI6u_9p-s_LqRh43sF2XYT94oC2O9NihxwJXLVuvFSLXUKctw9qTMFzxzlfSK_XbcY-z3TWi2CM-JbjXr88NGPJ_hf7Enj4w3BZ52vASIjQ/s320/mike.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5598747060227320754" border="0" /></a></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">In terms of visual look, very little has changed since </span><span style="font-style: italic;" lang="EN-GB">Four Feather Falls</span><span lang="EN-GB">.<span style=""> </span>The puppets are still mainly grotesques and caricatures – interestingly, this time even the hero Mike Mercury has rather an exaggerated appearance with his long nose, Dennis Healey eyebrows and</span><span lang="EN-GB"> a</span><span lang="EN-GB">mazingly prominent chin.<span style=""> </span>Perhaps they didn’t want the hau</span><span lang="EN-GB">nted look of another Tex Tucker type.<span style=""> </span>Suffice it to say, I’m not reading much emotional baggage into Mike.<span style=""> </span>He’s also got a silly adventurous-sounding surname, as will several of his successors!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">One thing I have noticed – and I had been warned about this – is the use of back projection.<span style=""> </span>Nearly all the scenes of Supercar in flight (and also, for instance, the backdrop of an airfield seen from the control tower windows) are done with back projected film of real sky or locations.<span style=""> </span>It was a common technique in sixties television, so one imagines that at the time, it would have seemed perfectly normal.<span style=""> </span>It’s a little jarring to the modern eye though, and never really looks real.<span style=""> </span>That said, I watch a lot of sixties tv shows, so I’m used to it and usually I can dial it out.<span style=""> </span>Why it doesn’t really work here is that we’re seeing real backdrops behind artificial characters and settings. <span style=""> </span>In <i>Four Feather Falls</i>, the prairie locations were all done for real (in puppet scale of course) which gave the whole thing a real depth – but also it meant that it was a self-contained, consistent world.<span style=""> </span>Here, there’s a real clash of visual inputs, reality and the puppet realm competing with each other.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Rescue</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Bill Gibson is flying a light plane, with his little brother Jimmy and Mitch the monkey as passengers, when the engine packs up and he’s forced to ditch in the sea.<span style=""> </span>There’s a thick sea mist, and air sea rescue helicopters are unable to locate the survivors in their life-raft.<span style=""> </span>Things get really bad when Mitch accidentally throws the survival rations into the sea!<span style=""> </span>Meanwhile, Professor Popkiss is putting the finishing touches to his invention, Supercar.<span style=""> </span>It’s an odd machine really.<span style=""> </span>Why do they call it Supercar?<span style=""> </span>It’s not really a car – it hasn’t got wheels for a start – and (at least in these episodes) it doesn’t travel on land either.<span style=""> </span>It’s got a bubble canopy like an aircraft’s cockpit, and they call Mike the pilot rather than the driver.<span style=""> </span>It seems more like an advanced amphibious aircraft than a car.<span style=""> </span>The episode doesn’t make clear just what Supercar was built for, nor who funded it.<span style=""> </span>Is it a government project?<span style=""> </span>Is it funded by industry?<span style=""> </span>One imagines that the developmental costs of such a vehicle would be quite prohibitive – did it all come from Popkiss’s own pocket?<span style=""> </span>But if so, why?<span style=""> </span>Is he hoping to market the technology?<span style=""> </span>(It’s not good enough – I want some proper background!)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Professor Popkiss is a kindly-looking scientist type with a pronounced Eastern European accent and round glasses.<span style=""> </span>Also on the team is Doctor Beaker, whose role is undefined.<span style=""> </span>Sometimes, he seems to be a medical man, sometimes a scientist, sometimes an engineer – so, a real multi-disciplinarian.<span style=""> </span>He has a spectacular Bobby Charlton style comb-over, and a peculiar drawn-out way of speaking, with long pauses for thought – and never uses one-syllable words when he can use twenty words instead.<span style=""> </span>(He does seem to be a spiritual ancestor of Brains from <i>Thunderbirds</i>.)<span style=""> </span>I like him, and I suspect he’s going to be one of the real stars of the show.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Hearing about the Gibsons’ plight, Mike persuades Popkiss to bring Supercar’s test flight forward, so he can go and rescue them.<span style=""> </span>Fortunately, Beaker has invented a system called “Clear View”, a tv monitor system that can look through fog and smoke, so Mike will be able to locate the life-raft where the search helicopters have failed.<span style=""> </span>They bring the Gibsons and Mitch back to their laboratory to recover.<span style=""> </span>(Wouldn’t it have made more sense to take them to a hospital?<span style=""> </span>Especially since Bill has a broken leg?<span style=""> </span>Well, I guess Beaker can handle it.)<span style=""> </span>Having a monkey running around the research base may not be such a good idea though, especially as Mitch gets into Supercar and starts fiddling with the controls.<span style=""> </span>“I think we’ve found a co-pilot,” says Beaker.<span style=""> </span>I presume he’s taking the piss.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Amazonian Adventure</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Mitch the monkey falls ill, and Beaker ascertains that he’s suffering from a disease known to be peculiar to his particular species.<span style=""> </span>Beaker reads up on the subject and learns that in their native Amazon, the monkeys are sometimes seen to cure themselves after eating the leaves of the clogai plant that grows there.<span style=""> </span>As Mitch falls into a catatonic state, Mike determines that they need to take Supercar to the Amazon to collect some of the plant.<span style=""> </span>Popkiss seems reluctant to allow this use of the vehicle, until Mike reminds him forcefully that Mitch is one of the outfit.<span style=""> </span>(Hang on!<span style=""> </span>When did that happen?<span style=""> </span>Last week, Jimmy was just a kid they’d rescued and Mitch was wrecking the place.<span style=""> </span>Now suddenly, they’ve joined the Supercar team.<span style=""> </span>But what happened to Jimmy’s brother?<span style=""> </span>They don’t mention him.<span style=""> </span>And should they be taking a kid away to work on a research project like that?<span style=""> </span>What about his schooling?<span style=""> </span>Is he going to be home-tutored by Popkiss and Beaker?<span style=""> </span>They also don’t mention what Jimmy’s parents think about the arrangement – in fact, I don’t know if there <span style="font-style: italic;">are</span> any parents.<span style=""> </span>Maybe they’re dead and Bill is Jimmy’s legal guardian – in which case, you can understand why a young go-getting chap like that wouldn’t want to be saddled with a kid brother to bring up, and would happily accept the first people to want to take Jimmy off his hands.<span style=""> </span>I’m just speculating wildly here.<span style=""> </span>Did the writers even think about any of this?<span style=""> </span>Just like with the lack of background given in the first episode, it’s like some of the exposition has been missed out.)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Well anyway, Mike and Beaker take off for the Amazon.<span style=""> </span>This seems to be Beaker’s first trip in Supercar, as he’s initially quite nervous about the prospect – but he soon calms down and decides that Mike is a fairly competent pilot.<span style=""> </span>Landing in a clearing in the rainforest, Beaker dons a pith helmet, and they set out to look for the clogai plant.<span style=""> </span>Before very long, they’re captured by some natives and imprisoned in a hut.<span style=""> </span>In addition to botany, Beaker displays his knowledge of anthropology when he concludes that their captors are members of the Twarka tribe, long thought to be extinct.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, they’re known to be a tribe of headhunters – rather amusingly, there are some mummified puppet heads displayed at the back of the hut.<span style=""> </span>Mike manages to escape by working a hole in the back of the hut, and gets back to Supercar.<span style=""> </span>He then flies low over the native village, while down below Beaker calls out incantations to make the tribesmen think he’s some kind of god calling down a sky chariot.<span style=""> </span>This reduces them to abject fear, and they give Beaker the required clogai plant as a tribute.<span style=""> </span>(Presumably for budgetary reasons, the Twarka tribe seems to consist of only a witch doctor and a tribal chief.<span style=""> </span>And was that chief actually Red Scalp from </span><i><span lang="EN-GB">Four</span></i><i><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></i><i><span lang="EN-GB">Feather</span></i><i><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></i><i><span lang="EN-GB">Falls</span></i><span lang="EN-GB">?<span style=""> </span>It certainly looked a lot like him…)<span style=""> </span>Presenting the tribe as silly superstitious savages is a little galling after the magic realism and sympathetic portrayal of the Indians in <i>Four Feather Falls</i>.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The Talisman of Sargon</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The series format is being developed as they go along.<span style=""> </span>So far, it looks like Supercar is just going to be employed to run the occasional errand of mercy.<span style=""> </span>But here we get a bit more complexity added with the introduction of some proper villains.<span style=""> </span>I say introduction, but actually Masterspy and Zarin are just thrown at us as if we’re expected to know who they are.<span style=""> </span>Again, it’s like the writers forgot to give us the necessary exposition.<span style=""> </span>(Which is possibly the case.<span style=""> </span>Hugh and Martin Woodhouse were writing these things ridiculously fast – at a rate of about one a week!)<span style=""> </span>Without a proper introduction, it’s hard to work out exactly who they are.<span style=""> </span>They operate from an office possibly somewhere in New York state (there's a view over some water to what appears to be Manhattan Island) and would appear to be freelance villains out for their own gain rather than espionage agents employed by an unsympathetic foreign power.<span style=""> </span>So the name Masterspy is a bit of a misnomer, given that he’s not actually spying for anyone – though his services could be for hire, I suppose.<span style=""> </span>But wait a minute!<span style=""> </span>He’s actually <i>called</i> Masterspy – it’s not exactly the most undercover of names, is it?<span style=""> </span>And Beaker recognizes him – since we’ve never had any indication that they’ve met before, this implies that Masterspy is famous enough that his face has been in the newspapers.<span style=""> </span>So internationally famous and using a name that’s a dead giveaway – when it comes to his chosen profession, he hasn’t really thought it through.<span style=""> </span>Still, I’m prepared to overlook some of these anomalies as the two characters are amusing.<span style=""> </span>Masterspy is fat and bossy, Zarin is stupid and cowardly, and both are clearly incompetent comedy villains – let’s face it, they’re basically Pedro and Fernando updated to the James Bond era – so I hope they’re going to provide as much entertainment as the Mexican bandits did.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Masterspy has come into possession of an ancient tablet that apparently reveals the location of the fabled Talisman of Sargon, which he believes will grant him great power.<span style=""> </span>He can’t translate the cuneiform inscription however – so he heads off to the Supercar lab to consult Dr Beaker.<span style=""> </span>It seems palaeography is another of the Doc’s skills.<span style=""> </span>Needless to say, Masterspy has to adopt one of his amazing disguises.<span style=""> </span>Here’s an example of the show having a bit of fun with the adult viewer, since Masterspy’s false moustache and eyepatch is not in the least convincing.<span style=""> </span>(Indeed, it’s not too long after he leaves that Beaker realizes who his visitor was!)<span style=""> </span>Armed with the translation – “in my mouth lies the door to power” – Masterspy and Zarin rush off to the desert kingdom of Mustapha Bey.<span style=""> </span>(He’s just the sort of sunglasses-wearing, hookah-smoking sheikh that appeared in <i>Danger Man</i> and similar shows.)<span style=""> </span>They persuade him that they’re archaeologists interested in the tomb of the ancient ruler Sargon, and he grants them access.<span style=""> </span>Masterspy works out the meaning of the inscription – there’s a hidden catch inside the mouth of Sargon’s effigy that opens the sarcophagus to reveal a hidden chamber beneath, where the talisman is located.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">By this time, Mike and co have arrived in Supercar - but Masterspy seals them inside the tomb.<span style=""> </span>Beaker though works out that there’s a second meaning to the inscription – a secret speaking tube built into the sarcophagus that would have enabled a priest to hide in the chamber and issue proclamations apparently through the mouth of Sargon.<span style=""> </span>They use this to call to Mitch, who’s been left up top, and the curious monkey reaches inside the effigy and triggers the release catch.<span style=""> </span>It’s another example of how we’ve substituted science and deduction for the magic of <i>Four Feather Falls</i>.<span style=""> </span>Our heroes are delayed clearing sand out of Supercar’s air intakes, but eventually they catch up with Masterspy, who’s trying to use his possession of the talisman to take control of Mustapha Bey’s realm – he believes that Mustapha’s superstitious subjects will obey whoever wields the power of Sargon.<span style=""> (At least</span>, Masterspy has some practical objective in all this: he's really after the oil wealth to be found under the desert sands.)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></p> <p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">False Alarm</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Masterspy says that the Supercar team have thwarted him numerous times now (so they must have had plenty of off-screen encounters).<span style=""> </span>He’s got a scheme though: he and Zarin are going to steal Supercar.<span style=""> </span>The lighting in this scene is incredibly well done, very film-noirish with lots of shadows – it really makes our incompetent villains seem quite sinister for a moment.<span style=""> </span>Masterspy relies on the fact that Supercar is always answering distress calls.<span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span>(So that seems at least to give some foundation to what the team actually do – they’re like a prototype version of International Rescue.)<span style=""> </span>Here, Masterspy phones the laboratory pretending to be a policeman, and reports that two geologists out in the desert have had an accident and that it’s proving difficult to get aid to them – Supercar could be their only hope.<span style=""> </span>(Yes, that’s right – you can just phone Supercar up and ask for help.<span style=""> </span>Why didn’t International rescue have their own phone line? – they wouldn’t have needed to muck around with a space station.<span style=""> </span>I might consider this question again when I get to <i>Thunderbirds</i>.)<span style=""> </span>Anyway, Mike and Beaker fly out to the desert.<span style=""> </span>From their landing site, they haven’t got time to reach the geologists’ purported location before it gets dark, so they make camp for the night.<span style=""> </span>Masterspy and Zarin drug them and tie them up, and then proceed to steal Supercar.<span style=""> </span>Zarin is terrified of both the machine, and Masterspy’s inexpert attempts to work out the controls.<span style=""> </span>But worse is to come.<span style=""> </span>Back at base, Mitch the monkey hears Masterspy’s voice over the radio, and starts to muck around with the remote control for Supercar.<span style=""> </span>(Now, it’s not clear if Mitch is deliberately doing this to thwart Masterspy, or if he’s just fiddling indiscriminately with the controls – they do tell us he’s a very intelligent monkey, and I suppose it would follow in the tradition of Rocky and Dusty to have clever animals saving the day.<span style=""> </span>I’ll keep an eye on Mitch’s antics and see if I can determine just how smart he actually is.)<span style=""> </span>Soon, Masterspy has had enough of the erratic flying he’s being subjected to and gives up.<span style=""> </span>Popkiss steers Supercar back to where Mitch and Beaker are (they’ve managed to get themselves free in the meantime) – and they depart, leaving Masterspy and Zarin to have to walk back to civilization!<span style=""> </span>(So didn’t they think of… I don’t know… handing them over to the police or anything sensible like that?)</span></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">Andrew Kearley
Eyespider</div>Andrew Kearleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04930551753364949478noreply@blogger.com2