Eyespider of Pergross

Anderthon: Welcome Home...

2011-11-22T00:10:00.002Z

Fireball XL5
episodes 21-24

Flight to Danger

The episode opens with Fireball XL5 executing a series of erratic manoeuvres. 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. 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. 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. Zero doesn’t believe the Lieutenant is ready yet, but Steve decides to let him go for it. 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. 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…) Anyway, Lieutenant Ninety successfully gets XL5 off the ground, and Commander Zero agrees that they can press on with the final test. This is the true challenge: a solo flight around the Moon in a one-man capsule. 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. 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. When Ninety’s rocket launches the next day, Fireball XL5 takes off to track the capsule on its journey. 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. (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 Andersons’ world.) 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. They’re just looking for a tragedy to happen!

As the capsule passes behind the Moon, radio contact with Lieutenant Ninety is temporarily cut off. (Hey look, a bit of accurate science. You see, they can do it…) When he comes back into contact, Ninety reports that the capsule is overheating. The heat from the fallen reactor has ignited the fuel – before long, flames are lapping around the cabin. Steve asks Matt what could have happened, Matt can only conclude that the nuclear reactor must have broken loose. (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. 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.) 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. Since you expect a nick of time rescue in this kind of show, it’s actually quite shocking. 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”. You have to wonder also whether he’s feeling guilt since he was the one who put Ninety forward for the astronaut training. What none of our heroes realizes is that Lieutenant Ninety is still alive, having managed to eject from his capsule at the last moment. It’s only a temporary respite however, as he’s got no way of contacting the others and only has one oxygen pill left. (Though I would probably imagine that a slow slide into oblivion due to oxygen starvation is preferable to being burnt alive or blown up.) In his final moments of consciousness, Ninety reflects fatalistically on his situation in a sequence that’s surprisingly mature for this kids’ series. 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. Just as well, for the mysterious blip is none other than Ninety’s unconscious body. As Steve rushes to recover him, we rather neatly fade into the Lieutenant recovering in hospital. 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. This is almost a “bottle episode”, featuring only the regular cast and mostly the existing sets and effects. 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. Terrific stuff!

Space Vacation

The planets Kemble and Olympus are ridiculously close together – to the extent that Kemble fills half the sky of Olympus 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: Olympus 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 Olympus 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 Olympus 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 Olympus 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.

On Olympus, 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.

Mystery of the TA 2

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. 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. 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. Exploring the ship, Venus and Steve enter through a hatch, while Matt floats through one of the broken windows of the cockpit. 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! Matt’s taken his thruster pack off to explore, so he’s got no way to arrest his flight. 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. (I’m not sure that was the intention though, so I won’t mark the show down for another science failure for this one.) 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. Matt plots some more vectors, and deduces that the wreckage has come from the planet Arctan. They decide to follow the trail. Steve, Matt and Venus proceed down to the surface of Arctan in Fireball Junior. It’s a frozen planet, so they wrap up in furs, and split up to explore. Some kind of seismic activity opens up a crack in the ground, into which Venus falls. 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. 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. 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. The creature merely repeats his stock phrases – needless to say, the Commander isn’t too happy about it. (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…)

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. Two aliens appear and proclaim that they know the Earthmen have come to take their king away, which seems an odd assumption to make. (As this point, I guessed where this story was going…) 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. (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! As he says, he’s going to be guilty!) The icicles start to fall, but the trial is interrupted by the arrival of the king, who demands the Earth people are released. The king is not one of the aliens’ own race – he’s clearly an elderly human, with a straggly beard down to his knees. The crew are freed just in time, Matt sitting up just as the icicle falls where his face would have been moments before. As you may have guessed, the king is the aged Colonel Denton. 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. His life is now here on Arctan. As Junior departs though, Denton 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. They are like children, and he cannot leave them. (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 Denton turned up. There’s an untold story here – of how Denton first came amongst the people of Arctan, and how he became their king, what he’s done for them in the last 50 years… 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.) 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.”

Robert to the Rescue

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! A spaceship approaches, piloted by two aliens with tall dome-shaped heads – and flies through a hatch into the metal world. Meanwhile in Space City, Professor Matic has built a new telescope, which he’s using to make astronomical observations. 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. Matt makes a real discovery however: a new planet that’s appeared in the solar system. 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. But when an unexpected solar eclipse occurs, it becomes clear that there really is something up there. 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. (What a ridiculously irresponsible thing to show in a kids' programme…) Whatever the new planet is, it can’t be detected with Space City’s radar. Zero despatches Fireball XL5 to check it out. 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. (I suspect this observation may turn out to be important later on.) 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. 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. 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 Space City. Inside the planet, Junior is floating within an eerie pitch black void, devoid of gravity. Steve, Matt and Venus explore with their thruster packs, and eventually locate a set of double doors in the void. This leads to a corridor with normal gravity – but once they’ve passed through that, they go through more doors into another void. 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. Steve reacts hostilely to the word prisoner, but finds his ray gun has been neutralized. (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. It’s all very strange…)

Matt calls the aliens “domeheads”, which seems rather personal – if not borderline racist! The aliens fetch Robert from Junior, and then declare that they’re going to make the crew part of their race. They take Venus and Matt away and strap them to a machine which erases their memory and will. (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. There is something unsettling about seeing our heroes losing their own identities however.) Realizing he’s next, Steve quickly gives Robert an order: to take Junior and crew back home. 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. 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. Meanwhile, Steve has been put in the aliens’ machine, and his mind wiped. Literally at the entrance to the furnace, Robert manages to pull himself free and climbs back up to find the crew. Steve, Matt and Venus no longer know each other, let alone what they’re doing there. When Robert re-appears, and tells them to follow him, they have to obey him, as they have no will of their own. (Rather neatly, they take on the same blind obedience that drives the robot.) Robert leads them back to Junior, telling them when to put their thruster packs back on. Eventually, Robert fires a missile to blow a hole in the side of the metal planet, and flies Junior out of there. With their minds empty, the crew are reduced to sitting on the floor, unaware of what’s going on. 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. So they take their artificial world off once again. We never do find out what they wanted. 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 Space: 1999 will pull off one day. 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. It’s a clever reversal of the usual “all a bad dream” story. 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…

So, four cracking episodes – character studies, depth and layers of complexity. Has this series found its feet at last? 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 Doctor Who, and go on to create and write many of the ITC adventure series. (Although in the interests of fairness, I should point out that he also wrote the incoherent Space Pen episode.) But I’m certainly hopeful that this is a sign of things to come…

Anderthon: Everything's Real Boss, Steve...

2011-10-31T21:46:00.004Z

Fireball XL5
episodes 17-20

Wings of Danger

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…)

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.

The Triads

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.

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.

Sabotage

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.

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.)

Prisoner on the Lost Planet

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.

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.

Anderthon: I Wish I Was a Spaceman...

2011-10-19T22:50:00.008+01:00

Fireball XL5
episodes 13-16

Space Pirates

Venus volunteers to babysit Commander Zero's son, while the Commander and his wife go out to attend an important function. (Or as we soon discover, to go to the staff bingo night! It’s important to maintain morale, he points out.) 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). 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. (I don’t know why I should be so surprised really.) Venus has given young Jonathan a storybook about pirates, but he’s not very keen on it as it seems “old timey”. (He’s clearly not averse to things of the past though, as there’s a Supercar book clearly visible on his shelf – nice to know that there’ll still be fans of archive television in the 2060s…) So Venus starts to tell him a story about pirates operating right here and now in the 21st Century. 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. 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. (Where would pulp sci-fi be without staggeringly appropriate and literal planet names? Still, as Venus is narrating this story, there’s at least a suggestion that she’s embroidering it a little.)

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. 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. 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. The book Filmed in Supermarionation reveals that there were two concepts floating around for the show that eventually became Fireball XL5. 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). 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. (And come to think of it, it makes a certain sense of the closing theme song, I Wish I Was a Spaceman. 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”…) 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. They capture Steve along the way, but stupidly manage to dump all the ship’s water overboard. Using Steve as a hostage, they demand that a supply of water is brought to Aridan. 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…) 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! This is a fun episode, and in its way, quite daring by playing fast and loose with the show’s concepts and characters. More like this, please.

The Last of the Zanadus

Kudos is the ruler of the planet Zanadu. 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…) 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!) 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. Anyway, the great enemies that Kudos is plotting against are the lazoons! It seems to the Zanadus they are no more than space rodents, pests to be eradicated. 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. Meanwhile, Space City is welcoming the arrival of the famous explorer Major Ireland, who’s been away on “space safari”. 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. 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. The plan goes slightly awry when Zoonie sneaks in during the night and eats all the sweets. In the morning, they find the poor creature suffering from the virus. 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. He’s still acting under the control of Kudos, and intends to use Fireball to spread the disease to every lazoon across the galaxy. Commander Zero believes that Ireland 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. (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.) Fortunately, Steve is able to break into the cockpit, and overpowers Ireland. 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. 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. Landing on the planet, Steve and Matt accompany Ireland into some catacombs, where they find the mummified remains of Kudos’s ancestors, and learn that he is the only survivor of his race. They locate the frozen fountain, only to run into Kudos himself. 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. His very life force is bound up in the fountain, his time frozen – when the fountain is destroyed, the last of the Zanadus dies. 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 Space: 1999. The ice from the fountain cures Zoonie, so it all ends well.

Space Pen

A space freighter approaches the Earth. 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. As the series goes on, the Commander does seem to be quite incompetent really – more interested in throwing his weight around than actually listening to his subordinates’ good advice. 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 Space City. The freighter is being flown by two criminals: in their dress, speech and mannerisms, they’re basically presented as a couple of 1940s New York gangsters. There’s no reason for this: at least the pirates were explained as products of Jonathan’s imagination – there’s no such excuse here. The crooks’ plan is to wait until dark and then burgle the living apartments of Space City. What a coincidence then that Professor Matic has just invented a new burglar alarm, which he wants to install in Steve’s apartment. 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 Space City. 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. 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. The next day, Commander Zero turns up at the control tower in mufti, and Steve’s discovered his papers missing. 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. 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. It’s a 1960s problem – they’re not thinking through how things will have changed after a hundred years.

They soon work out that the criminals have come from Conva, the penal planet – also known as the “space penitentiary”. 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. 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”. (So that’s his excuse – it doesn’t explain why the genuine 21st Century criminals are so anachronistic…) 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”. Unfortunately, the boss turns out to be Boris and Griselda Space Spy. They’ve got a whole hoard of valuables that the convicts have been stealing and stockpiling here. Really, at this point, I can’t understand how the Space Pen set-up is supposed to work. 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. Now, this might suggest that the inmates have rioted and maybe taken control of the prison. That seems feasible. 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! It doesn’t make sense. If they had ships, why not just make a run for it? – they’re convicted criminals suddenly granted the chance of freedom. The two burglars shut Steve and the crew inside a sealed chamber which they start flooding with water. Fortunately, they’re saved by the arrival of General Shand, who takes back control of the prison. He’s quite a guy, since he appears to do this single-handedly. (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…) Boris and Griselda have decided to run out on their criminal colleagues, taking all the loot with them. 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. XL5 gives chase, and Steve takes his usual action of firing a missile at the retreating Thor. 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!) They’re left vowing their revenge.

Convict in Space

The notorious alien thief, 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. He makes off in his spaceship, heading for sector 25, where fortunately Fireball XL5 is on patrol. Steve intercepts Deblis, destroying his ship with a missile, and taking the thief captive. Unfortunately, the secret plans are nowhere to be found. Deblis has managed to hide them somewhere before Steve caught up with him – and he isn’t going to reveal where they are. 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). 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. Here in 2011, we expect flashy computer graphics, moving onscreen captions, and so on – who knows what tv be doing by 2063? Steve is given the task of transporting Deblis to Conva. 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. 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. (Which only makes you wonder why space spies would have their ship’s name painted so boldly on it in the first place!) Pretending to be a ship in distress, they lure Steve into stopping to help them. 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. Steve has no choice but to comply. 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. He directs Boris and Griselda to fly to the planet Voldanda, which is the volcanic world where he hid the secret plans. Meanwhile, after futilely trying to shift the cockpit door by sheer brute force, Steve realizes that he should have ordered Robert – with his far greater mechanical strength – to do it! 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. On Voldanda, there is some sort of abandoned mining station, with a control cabin on top of a gantry tower. 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. He also reveals that he’s going to double cross Boris and Griselda and leave them on the planet too. He steals the SS Thor to make his escape. By this time, Steve has worked out where the villains went, and soon turns up in Fireball. He takes Boris and Griselda prisoner, and then takes Fireball Junior to rescue Matt from the tower. 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. Steve manages to retrieve Matt from the cabin before the tower falls. Then Fireball gives chase to Deblis. The SS Thor is no match for XL5’s speed, and they soon overtake him. 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.

Like the Complete Adventures on Facebook

2011-10-19T07:42:00.002+01:00

I'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:
Complete Adventures on Facebook

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!

Anderthon: I'm a Real Tootie

2011-09-19T00:58:00.009+01:00

Fireball XL5
episodes 9-12

Space Monster

Fireball XL2 has crashed on the planet Monotone. 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. It seems it was a flick of the creature’s tail that brought XL2 down, and now it’s out to eat the astronauts. 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. I do find it difficult to take the monster seriously – I think it’s because in my mind (fed by things like Jurassic Park), 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. 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. 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. I’ll just have to adjust my preconceptions.

Back on Earth, Venus is playing Steve another of her discs, and dancing the Twist to it. 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. (Which is interesting – perhaps I was too quick to condemn the use of contemporary 1960s music, as that comment basically acknowledges the anachronism. Maybe we should assume that Venus is a vintage record buff – after all, people today still listen to fifty year old Beatles recordings…) 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. Fireball XL5 is soon on its way to Monotone. As Steve, Venus and Matt discuss the situation in the lounge, Robert is left flying the ship with Zoonie as his “co-pilot”. The creature incessantly parrots every course correction instruction that Robert gives, driving the poor robot into letting off plenty of steam. 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. 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.

Arriving at Monotone, Steve and Venus take Fireball Junior down to the surface. After finding the wreckage of XL2, they explore on their jetmobiles, and soon find Ken and Al in the cave. While Venus attends to Al’s wounds, Ken explains to Steve about the monster. Sure enough, it soon turns up again and traps them all in the cave. When he doesn’t hear from Steve, Matt makes the decision to bring the main ship down to the surface as well. He comes out to explore, and finds himself in a comedy sequence as the monster looms up behind him without Matt noticing. 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. (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. It’s the unevenness of the whole thing that’s still spoiling it for me.) Eventually, Matt ends up trapped in the cave with the others! 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. But Steve falls and breaks his leg, and it looks as if all is lost – until the lazoon comes to the rescue. 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.

Flying Zodiac

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. (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. 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.) He’s also got a crystal ball, which used to belong to his grandmother Clara Zodiac, a world-famous clairvoyant. 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. Oh no, it’s a dreaded dream episode! In Venus’s dream, Commander Zero has given permission for a charity circus to be performed on the Space City launching ground. Most of our main characters seem to be taking part. 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! Jock the engineer is a human cannonball. 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. And Steve is rigging up a trapeze from beneath a hovering spaceship so he can recreate his ancestors’ act. There are also a couple of visiting performers: Cosmo the clown and Madame Mivea, the “Martian clairvoyant”. They turn out to be a couple of villains. Cosmo breaks into the stores and sabotages jet thruster backpacks. He also saws through the cables that will support Steve’s trapeze rig. This all coincides with the arrival at Earth of a caravan of gypsy spaceships. 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. (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.) Commander Zero sends Steve up to give the gypsies their marching orders. They can stay for a couple of days, and then move on. 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!

Anyway, Cosmo and Mivea are working for the gypsies. 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. 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. Fortunately, he falls into the safety net, and sustains only minor injuries. (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. I wonder if the part was originally written for Lieutenant Ross, and that part of the script didn’t get changed. Then again, it’s a dream, so weird things are allowed to happen, I suppose.) 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. Fortunately, Venus and Zoonie find Ninety in time, and manage to take the control tower back without much difficulty. (It was a pretty flimsy takeover plan, all things considered.) Steve’s wire gives way, and he starts to fall – but he’s saved by Commander Zero launching Jock the human cannonball. Jock catches Steve and carries him into a safety net. 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! Ah well... Like some of the previous dream episodes, part of the problem with this one is that it’s so unnecessary. 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. It makes for an ultimately unsatisfying experience.

Spy in Space

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. (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…) 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. 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. 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. When they arrive, Steve has to turn off the ship’s artificial gravity to stop Fireball crashing into the station. (This is an interesting idea. 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. 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.) To compensate for the lack of gravity, they strap magnetic plates to the soles of their boots. Steve, Venus and Matt spacewalk across to the station – unfortunately represented by some out-of-scale back projection – and find the S.S. Thor parked outside. However, they can find no sign of anyone inside the vessel. (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? There they are, in vacuum and therefore no transmission medium for sound, carrying on perfectly normal conversations with each other!) They enter the space station to find the crew completely missing.

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. 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. We’re just expected to accept their villainous status, and it would seem that our heroes have had run-ins with them before. (And then I suddenly realized – they were Cosmo and Mivea in Venus’s dream sequence last week. 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… I’m suspecting that the episodes are not on the DVD in the correct order.) 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. They are effectively Pedro and Fernando or Masterspy and Zarin reimagined in a new setting. 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. The spies’ plan is simple: they want to take control of Fireball XL5. Steve goes to refuel the ship with Boris guarding him, while Griselda holds Venus and Matt hostage. (The refuelling is amusingly low-tech, Steve carrying effectively a fuel hose across with him and using it to top up Fireball’s tank!) On the way back, he surreptitiously loosens the straps holding on Boris’s magnetic sole plates. Back in the control room, the plates work loose and Boris finds himself rising into the air and ends up stuck on the ceiling. (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.) Griselda demands that Matt and Steve rescue Boris and fix his sole plates. 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. It takes ages, but Griselda doesn’t suspect anything. With Boris back on the ground, they make their way out of the station, intending to leave our heroes to die there. Steve operates the boot jets, and Boris is shot right through the wall of the space station and out into space. (What was it made of, cardboard?) Boris goes into a wide elliptical orbit around Companion 12, leaving Griselda struggling to get S.S. Thor going so she can rescue him. In the confusion, our heroes make it back to Fireball and escape. 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.

XL5 to H₂0

This week we visit the planet Zolfite, where the entire civilization has been wiped out by invading Aquaphibians. (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. 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.) Now there are only two survivors left – Rald and Jenek – and the Aquaphibian is stalking them. He advances on their building, and uses his gun to shine a bright beam of light at it. This shatters their windows. The gun then produces a poisonous smoke which starts to fill the building up. 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. Receiving the distress call, Commander Zero sends Fireball XL5 to investigate. This is an interesting development, showing the World Space Patrol acting more as a sort of police force, assisting other worlds in trouble. It’s a bit more like the later Star Trek 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. Hopefully, we’ll continue in this direction. Arriving at Zolfite, Fireball Junior comes under attack from the Aquaphibian, and his light beam punches a hole in the glass of the cockpit. (To me, this only serves to highlight a weakness of the design – all that glass in a spaceship cockpit is asking for trouble. That’s a hostile environment out there – do you ever wonder why submarines don’t have windows?) Steve manages to return to Fireball before the poison can get at them, and sets Matt to work making the glass beam-proof. (Which gives us some amusing Dr Beaker-like scenes of scientific experimentation.) Finally, with the glass replaced, Steve and Venus go back down. The Aquaphibian opens fire again, but this time is unable to puncture Fireball Junior. Steve retaliates by firing a missile at the creature, causing it to… duck back behind some rocks. 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. Fortunately, Junior is rigged for undersea operation. 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. Fireball Junior surfaces inside a cavern – and there's some really good modelwork in this sequence – and Steve and Venus set out to explore. They find an underground survival chamber where Rald and Jenek are hiding out. (It was they who closed the doors.) Unfortunately, the Aquaphibian has gained access to the cavern, and starts trying to pump his poison smoke in there. The two Zolfites pass out, and Steve and Venus have to carry them back on their jetmobiles. Steve manages to fight off the Aquaphibian long enough for them to get Fireball Junior under way. They get back to the surface, and join up with Fireball to take the two survivors safely back to Earth. I do wonder though what happened about the planet. Was it just abandoned to the Aquaphibians? Did aggression win out in the end? Did the Aquaphibians get away with genocide? Presumably in a later episode, we’ll see full scale military intervention, followed by war crimes tribunals…

Anderthon: Professor, Put the Kettle On!

2011-09-04T10:12:00.003+01:00

Fireball XL5
episodes 5-8

The Doomed Planet

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! Steve is able to get out of its way just in time. (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. 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…) Well, after that dramatic if implausible opening, Matt determines that the rogue planet is heading straight for the planet Membrono. They fly there to check out the planet – it’s apparently uninhabited, but Steve wants to make sure. Fireball Junior lands in a very impressive bubbling swamp set, and Steve explores on his jetmobile. The sense of otherworldliness is really sold by Barry Gray’s background atmosphere, all weird juddery electronic noises. As Steve explores, he gets the feeling he’s being watched – but he sees nobody and dismisses the sensation. But once he’s gone by, we see a mysterious shadow and a trail of weird alien footprints. After Steve returns to Fireball, a flying saucer lifts off from the surface of Membrono. Steve glimpses it from the cockpit, but the others think he must have imagined it. Back on Earth, Commander Zero is equally dismissive about the existence of flying saucers. 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. They’re just not really constructing a consistent worldview.

Steve drives Venus home in his hovercar, because she wants to play him a new disc she’s picked up. (Another anachronism? Well, we don’t see it, so conceivably it could be some future HD format, a couple of generations beyond bluray… Oh, who am I kidding? You know it’s going to be a record on a turntable!) She’s also been teaching her lazoon to talk. He greets them with a raucous cry of “Welcome Home!” Strangely though, he keeps saying it throughout the evening. 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. 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. This time, the control tower are tracking the flying saucer. Fireball XL5 is launched, and follows it back to Membrono. Steve and Matt go down to the planet, guns drawn, and demand that the mysterious alien show himself. It turns out that, oddly-shaped feet aside, the alien is a kindly-looking, bearded old man. He cannot speak to them directly, but uses some sort of telepathy to speak through Robert’s loudspeaker. 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. His civilization is the oldest in the universe, and has been observing Earth for centuries. (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 Space: 1999. I’ll also be interested to see whether this encounter might lead to our heroes losing some of their belligerent attitude…) The alien explains that his race live on Membrono’s moon. 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. Steve agrees to use Fireball’s missiles to try and destroy the rogue planet. But the first impact does only minimal damage. 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. It works, and the planet starts to go up in flames. (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.) 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.

Plant Man from Space

We discover a planet covered in rich vegetation, and then a row of greenhouses in the middle of it. Inside is a man-sized, walking, talking plant creature (evidently the titular character) – as well as lots of smaller plants growing under glass. (I wonder, are they his children?) The plant man announces his intention to destroy Space City – 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. There’s some unsettling juddering musical effects backing these scenes which really add to the strangeness of it. Meanwhile at Space City, the team are preparing for the test of a new ejector seat system. Professor Matic is entertaining a visitor, Dr Howard Roots, a botanist whom he used to know at Universe University. (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…) They’re looking around Space City’s nuclear power station, which is maintained by Jock, the Scottish engineer. 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 Space City, leaving the Earth completely defenceless. Carrying a candle, Jock investigates. (A candle? What, they don’t even have torches?) He discovers that a pellet of radioactive retardant has been placed inside the reactor – it’s deliberate sabotage! Realizing the culprit must still be in Space City, Commander Zero orders a security lockdown – no one is allowed in or out. (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!)

When Jock finally gets the power back on, the missile has come a lot closer. They need to get a ship up to intercept it. Unfortunately, Fireball XL5 is in for repairs, and the only other ship available is Fireball XL1 Alpha. 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. 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. (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.) 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). 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. Fortunately, Ross survives thanks to the new ejector seat system.

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. Matt and Steve inspect it, and decide it looks harmless enough. (They don’t seem to notice the whacking great door in the side.) During the night, it opens and a virulent strain of ivy starts growing out of it. By morning, it’s covered most of Space City, including clogging the launch track and Fireball XL5. It’s deduced that they need to obtain a hormone to destroy the creeper before it infests the whole planet. 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. They clear the ivy away from XL5, and take off on this mission. 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. He seems to have an unhealthy admiration for plant life – Matt decides he’s been working away in space for too long! Roots’ plan is to force XL5 to turn back to Earth – but Steve decides to press on to Hedera. 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. (There’s no explanation of how a ship that heavy could be left floating in the air.) Entering the greenhouses, they meet the plant man, whom Roots identifies as the “Chloro-Form”! It would appear that he created the creature by injecting a poor luckless human victim with plant hormone. 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. Steve has Robert smash up the Chloro-Form, and they return to Earth with the hormone to destroy the ivy. Howard Roots is admitted to psychiatric hospital, but appears to show some remorse for his actions – he sends Venus some giant flowers!

The Sun Temple

Space City’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. (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 burns up in a planet’s atmosphere.) 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. Matt assures Venus that the planet is well outside the radioactive blast area. (In which case, where’s the hazard to navigation? 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.) On Rajusca, we discover a strange domed building in the middle of a desert. 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. The building is inhabited by a high priest called Karzak, and his acolyte Zodan. They worship their sun, Miras (a fact which explains the dual temple/observatory nature of the building). 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. 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. The temple is able to concentrate the light of the sun into an energy beam, which they transmit towards the Earth. It shines down on the region of Space City (which we thus discover for the first time is on an island in the Pacific, off the coast of South America) and destroys the missile launch site. 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. Steve decides they need to go and set them straight! Venus takes her lazoon on the journey – she’s been teaching him new phrases, such as “Follow me” and “Howdy folks”. Arriving at Rajusca, Steve and Venus head for the temple building on their jetmobiles. They’re knocked out by a blast from the sun ray – when Steve recovers, Venus has gone. He guesses she’s inside the temple, but is unable to find a way inside. Zoonie becomes agitated and keeps saying, “Follow me.” 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. He takes Steve to a secret trap door located in the desert, which leads into a tunnel. 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. Realizing Steve is coming along their tunnel, they activate a collapsing roof section. Steve is almost crushed, but manages to get himself clear just in time. Finally arriving in the temple, he shoots out their control console, which causes a chain reaction of explosions. He frees Venus, and they escape along the tunnel. Karzak and Zodan are trapped when the door to their escape chamber jams, and are inside as the entire temple blows up. This seems a harsh fate considering that the whole thing was a misunderstanding – Steve seems to be reverting to his gung-ho ways. 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.

Space Immigrants

Poor Lieutenant Ross is the unluckiest pilot in the World Space Patrol. Not only has he lost Fireball XL7, and crashed XL1 Alpha, now he’s been taken prisoner by a couple of Lillispacians. As the name suggests, they’re basically a spin on the Lilliputians of Gulliver’s Travels, 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). 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. 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. Ross is to wait for the colonists’ ship to arrive. What he hasn’t bargained for are the Lillispacians. 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. 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. They are basically a lazy and indolent people. Their plan is to wait for the colonists to arrive, and then ensnare them into becoming a slave labour force. They ration Ross’s access to oxygen pills to maintain control over their prisoner, and intend to do the same with the newcomers. Back on Earth, the colony ship Mayflower 3 is being readied for departure. It’s a much more down to Earth design than Fireball, basically various cylindrical pods and modules bolted together with some engines. 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. 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!

The Lillispacians have various technological means to carry out their plan: a voice imitator that enables them to make positive reports to Space City with Ross’s voice – and a beam that enables them to take control of Robert. They send the robot to the sick bay, where he destroys the Mayflower’s entire supply of medicines – including the crucial oxygen pills. (I notice that the Lillispacians explicitly state that Earth is 632 light years away. 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. 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.) The Mayflower 3 gets under way, but it’s not long before trouble strikes: Jock goes down with appendicitis. Venus decides that she must operate at once. Discovering that the medicines have gone, they try to call Space City for advice – but the Lillispacians jam their transmissions to Earth. 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. When the Mayflower arrives on New Earth, they find only the Lillispacians waiting for them. 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. However, worried by the lack of contact with Mayflower 3, Steve has decided to fly out in Fireball – and overhears the Lillispacians’ broadcast. 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. (The producers seem to have mistaken low gravity for reverse gravity, if there were such a thing…) That night, Steve lands on the planet – since he has his own supply of oxygen pills, he’s able to move around. He sneaks into the Mayflower, and takes Zoonie with him. 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.

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 Space Immigrants really make it the best episode so far, 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 Supercar and Four Feather Falls.

Anderthon: OK, Venus?

2011-08-27T12:21:00.003+01:00

Fireball XL5
episodes 1-4

And so we blast off into outer space! After Supercar’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. The only trouble is: Fireball XL5 is not actually very good sci-fi – or at least, it seems horrendously old fashioned – and I don’t just mean from a modern viewpoint. I’ve heard it said that television and film science fiction tends to lag behind the written form by a good ten years or so – whereas Fireball XL5 seems like something from 20 or 30 years earlier. It’s very much in the pulp sci-fi tradition: heroic adventurers patrol the galaxy in a spaceship with wings and rocket exhaust, thwarting the plans of would-be alien conquerors. I think it’s fair to say, at least based on these opening instalments, that the scripts lack the sophistication of Supercar. The whole setting of the show is confusing. Fireball XL5 is based on Earth, and operated by the World Space Patrol, whose very name suggests a parochial Earth-centric interest. 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. And yet, the ship seems able to visit various alien planets after just a few days of rocket travel. It’s as if the entire galaxy has contracted somehow, and various other star systems are now encroached on the edges of our own. It’s probably fair to say that science is not the Andersons’ strong suit, and that they really do underestimate the distances involved in interstellar travel.

The puppets have come along a little way since Supercar. There are less grotesque caricatures now – instead, characters are designed to appear more realistically human (albeit stylized with their big heads and hands). Our hero Steve Zodiac is square-jawed, blond and clean cut. Professor Matthew Matic has thick pebble-lensed spectacles, behind which he appears as an avuncular quirky older character (he’s less a Dr Beaker substitute, and more a sort of spiritual ancestor of Victor Bergman). And we also get an innovation: the first proper female lead character in an Anderson show (Ma Jones aside): Venus, the Doctor of space medicine. Again, she’s stylized and exaggerated, but she looks like a real person. (You only need to think of characters like Zizi or Princess Caroline in Supercar, who basically looked like dolls.) 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. Another thing to notice is that the producers are still concerned with the fact that puppets can’t be made to walk convincingly. 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! This does lead to the oddity which we see in the opening titles, as Steve and Venus use their jetmobiles to actually board Fireball XL5. They fly up, past the tailplane, along the fuselage, before descending through an open roof hatch. It just seems to me the most insanely convoluted method of entry, when surely an underside hatch and a ladder would be a lot more sensible and economical. (And you’ve got to worry – what would happen if their jetmobiles broke down on some alien surface? Would they be unable to get back into Fireball?)

With the show being set in outer space and in the future, miniature effects work starts to take a more prominent role. Whereas I was impressed with the model work in the later episodes of Supercar, here some of the effects work is a little bit ropey – possibly a result of Derek Meddings having to spread his budget more thinly. The most obvious example of this is the launch sequence of Fireball XL5 itself: despite being the show’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. The scale of the ship is also confusing. Placed next to the control tower of Space City, it appears to be massive – yet it’s operated by a crew of three people and a robot. 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. The interior design is also quite minimalist, with the bare metal girders of the ship’s skeleton visible – all of which suggests a fairly small patrol ship. 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.

Planet 46

Someone is attacking the Earth with planatomic missiles. (Fireball XL5 seems to delight in sticking different words together to create new terminology that hopefully sounds a bit futuristic. I’m assuming this is meant to be an atomic missile that can take out a whole planet.) Space City sends Fireball XL5 to investigate as it’s the ship in the relevant patrol sector – Sector 25. (There only appear to be three sectors on Commander Zero’s map however.) 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. Anyway, Fireball tracks down the missile and is able to destroy it before it can become a danger to Earth. Space City determines that the missile came from Planet 46, and Fireball is despatched to check it out. It’s several days’ journey time to get there. On arrival, Steve and Venus travel down to the planet’s surface in the ship’s detachable nose section, nicknamed Fireball Junior. I do like the idea of the ship having its own integrated shuttlecraft – it makes it more than just a static model. 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! 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. At least that would make sense, if the size and scale of Fireball XL5 wasn’t handled so inconsistently throughout the series. 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 When Worlds Collide) to take off from Earth, it doesn’t seem to have the same requirements to lift off from any alien surface.

Using their jetmobiles, Steve and Venus explore some caves, and discover a mysterious set of doors. Unfortunately, they’re on the far side of a lake of volcanic lava. 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. He tries to tell Venus to hightail it back to Fireball, but she gets captured too on her way out of the caves. Steve wakes up in a secret control room, where the aliens are planning to launch another missile at Earth. 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. They’ve got Venus tied up inside the missile, to force Steve to order Fireball XL5 down to land on the planet. But they direct the ship to a deep pit filled with volcanic ash – as soon as it touches down it starts to sink. Then they fire the missile off with Venus inside it anyway (and a Subterrain pilot on a kamikaze mission)! 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. Then they set off after the missile. 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. 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. 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. 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 Space City – 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!

Hypnotic Sphere

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. 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. (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.) Professor Matic then detects something odd on his spacemograph. 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. Ah well… What Matt’s detected turns out to be a tanker ship from Earth. It appears to be adrift. Steve and Matt take their oxygen pills, and spacewalk across to the tanker. (They use a sort of jetpack to propel themselves – so why do they need to make those swimming motions with their legs? There’s nothing to kick against in a vacuum! It’s like the puppeteers felt they had to be doing something to indicate motion.) 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 Supercar). They find the pilot cowering inside the ship, having apparently been hypnotized. 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. 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. Steve starts to follow suit, but somehow realizing what’s happening, tells Robert to maintain the present course. The confusion of the conflicting orders causes the robot to let off steam again, and he responds by karate-chopping Steve in the throat! With the crew unconscious, the ship continues on its course – unfortunately, it’s ultimately heading straight for Mirana, the planet of fire. At the last moment, the heat revives Steve and he manages to pull Fireball away from certain destruction. Backtracking to the hypnotic sphere, Fireball follows the course of the tanker. The crew black out their windows and turn off the electronic systems to avoid getting hypnotized again. Arriving at Sevenna, they discover a whole fleet of the hypnotic spheres waiting on the surface. Entering a building, they encounter the alien responsible – basically a pulsating brain in a glass tank, with a creepy magnified eye. (I think it might actually have been quite disturbing for kids.) 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. 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. The extreme cold kills the brain, which is a physically delicate creature. 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. 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. It’s like a sort of Middle East situation, with lots of rogue states sabre-rattling, and the Western powers sending in a gunboat to make a few threatening gestures.

Planet of Platonia

A friendly planet this week – well, sort of. Platonia has vast deposits of platinum, but is lacking in many essential resources. President Barzan wants to initiate a trade agreement with Earth. However, he’s opposed by Jinerva, the leader of a more militant/fundamentalist faction. Again, it reminds me of countries in the Middle East where a progressive president wants to cosy up to the West, but faces danger from hardliners. 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. 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. The trade talks are considered important enough that Fireball XL5 is despatched to collect Barzan and bring him safely to Earth. 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! 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. He finds that Volvo has incapacitated Robert and got aboard the vessel. So Steve shoots him, with some sort of stun gun that puts Volvo in a coma! But don’t worry, Venus is able to bring the traitor round with “anti-coma drugs”. 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”). 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. 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. (Or maybe they just used some stock footage from Planet 46!) 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. 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. 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. 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. Venus then dopes Volvo with knockout drops to keep him unconscious for the rest of the journey to Earth.

Space Magnet

It’s night time in Space City, and Fireball XL5 is preparing for launch the next day. Venus is at home drinking coffee with Professor Matic. She has a sort of weird alien pet called Zoonie, who appears to become quite agitated about something. They can’t tell what. Eventually Matt leaves to go back to Fireball. (He doesn’t have his own home, but lives aboard the ship.) Meanwhile, Steve is in the control room with Lieutenant Ninety when a distress calls comes in from Fireball XL7. It’s out of control, being pulled off course. As contact is lost, Steve decides to bring XL5’s launch forward so he can go and investigate. The take-off is set for moonrise – the only trouble is, the Moon doesn’t rise on schedule! (It was this that got the sensitive Zoonie so worked up.) When the Moon finally appears, it’s too distant – it’s being pulled out of its orbit! (That’s an interesting idea – they should do something with that again…) 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Steve manages to break Fireball XL5 away just in time to prevent a crash. They go down to the surface and find the wreckage of Fireball XL7 there amongst all the other debris. It’s being fed by conveyor into an alien complex. They go inside, where they are relieved to discover the crew of XL7 are still alive, if prisoners. Then a voice speaks. The aliens here are called the Solars, and they’re invisible. They’re processing all the scrap metal they’ve attracted in order to provide the power to pull the Moon into their orbit. And that’s their whole plan: they want the Moon to illuminate their world so they no longer live in darkness. (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? Take it away from its orbit, and it wouldn’t have its own illumination…) Steve doesn’t react very well to this news. He whirls around the room, firing his gun indiscriminately until he’s managed to kill all the Solars. Once again, it’s this gung-ho aggressive attitude that’s making it hard for me to like the show. In something like Star Trek or Space Patrol, discovering the aliens’ plight like that would be the cue for our heroes to open up a dialogue and reach some mutually beneficial agreement. For Steve Zodiac, the only response is to shoot the buggers. As I said, very dodgy pulp sci-fi. So far, Fireball XL5 is showing little of the intelligence or wit of Supercar and Four Feather Falls. Our heroes take the Moon back to Earth – though there’s no explanation of how they managed that feat! Then, there’s a little moment of subtle characterization. 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. It shows me that the writers are capable of better than the schlock sci-fi they’re churning out. There’s scope for improvement here.

Anderthon: It's the Marvel of the Age...

2011-08-18T01:32:00.002+01:00

Supercar series 2
episodes 10-13

Jail Break

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. Nevertheless, plans are afoot in the outside world to effect his escape. 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. Tasked with getting Joe out of jail, Red contacts a company called Helicopter Services Inc, and proceeds to hire the use of a helicopter. His cover story is that he wants to take aerial photographs to aid with land surveying work. 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). Red lets out a cable from the helicopter, which Joe ties around the bars of his cell window. 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. 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. (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. What’s amusing about it is that it’s exactly like the jailbreaks we see in Westerns – including Four Feather Falls! – but translated into the modern age, with the helicopter substituting for a horse trying to pull the bars out.)

Meanwhile at the lab, Beaker has developed a new rocket-powered ejector seat for Supercar. 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. 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). 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! Sure enough, next day the villains’ helicopter is hovering overhead. What’s that building down there? asks Red. Learning that it’s the “famous Supercar lab”, he hatches a new plan. 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. Once airborne, Mike uses the ejector seat – and amusingly enough ends up stuck on top of a cactus again! 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. Mitch meanwhile has already taken care of Red James by throwing a horseshoe at his head! Jimmy then keeps him covered while the scientists deal with Joe. (Yes, they let the ten year old kid use a gun…!) As Supercar lands, they learn that Joe Anna has double crossed them – he’s got a second gun. Fortunately, Mike turns up (having extricated himself from his prickly situation) and takes care of the convict. Joe and Red are tied to chairs while they wait for the police to arrive, with Mitch holding a gun on them. (They’re just letting anyone handle firearms now, it seems – at least they tell us that Mitch’s gun is empty.)

The Day That Time Stood Still

The voiceover man is back this week, introducing us to the stars and planets of our galaxy, before taking us to an alien world. 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. As I said right back at the beginning, the science fiction content of Supercar 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. (Just imagine if aliens had suddenly popped up in Danger Man for instance.) This planet is Mercurius, which is known as the “planet of dreams”. Maybe they’re planning a dream right now, says voiceover man. (Am I getting that sinking feeling…?) 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. Unfortunately, they talk a “flob-a-dob” language, and without subtitles, we haven’t a clue what they’re on about. Meanwhile at the Supercar lab, Mike is listening to the radio as he prepares to go to bed. (The news is reporting recent sightings of a flying saucer – I wonder if that’s going to be significant…) Anyway, Mike goes to sleep – he’s looking forward to tomorrow, which is his birthday. Yet when he wakes up, he has a funny moment, and seems to think he might still be asleep. Oh no, what do you think that might mean? Anyway, everyone seems to have forgotten his birthday. 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. Feeling a bit pissed off, Mike has to take Supercar to Chicago, to collect Aunt Heidi and Zizi, who are coming to visit. He doesn’t anticipate it being a particularly long trip… But it’s all a ruse. Popkiss phones Heidi and tells her to keep Mike tied up as long as possible. Of course, no one’s forgotten his birthday really – they just want him out of the way while they prepare a surprise party.

In Chicago, Heidi and Zizi employ various delaying tactics, taking ages to get ready, insisting on giving Mike cups of coffee, and so on. 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! 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. When Mike arrives back with Heidi and Zizi, he discovers the lab in darkness and no one answering the radio. Fearing something is wrong, he operates the roof doors by remote control. Of course, everyone is waiting in the dark to surprise Mike. The party is a great success. After the food and presents, Beaker unveils what he’s been working on: a sort of weird electronic organ he calls the Beakette. It comes sliding out of his workshop like some demented Wurlitzer, and he proceeds to play The Blue Danube with loud electronic chords and crazy puffs of smoke coming out of the thing! Then he accompanies Zizi, who sings a song about her new-found life in the USA. While this is going on, time seems to freeze. Popkiss, Heidi, Jimmy and Zizi are rendered as statues, but oddly Mike and Beaker still retain the power of movement. A flying saucer then lands outside the lab, and Kalmus emerges. 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). 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. Once the alien has departed, time returns to normal. Mike then demonstrates his new belt, which gives him the power to fly. He opens the roof doors and proceeds to take off – as he says, he doesn’t need Supercar any more. But executing various manoeuvres, Mike loses control and crashes back into the lab… Whereupon, he wakes up and finds it was all a dream. Then Popkiss, Beaker and Jimmy come in and wish him a happy birthday.

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. The Andersons seem to deploy this device at random whether they need to or not – Supercar is already a bonkers enough series. Consider that it’s already discovered the secrets of miniaturization and invisibility, and felt no need to explain those as dreams. 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. And yet… the aliens are real! 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. So I’m confused. It just doesn’t make any sense. 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.

Transatlantic Cable

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. 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. In New York, Masterspy and Zarin are running a new operation: the subtly-named Mastermind Information Service. Yes, they have managed to tap the telephone cable. Zarin listens in to transatlantic phone calls through a set of headphones, from which he gleans sensitive business information. Masterspy then passes this on to various clients, enabling them to steal a march on their competitors by undercutting prices and sabotaging deals. Meanwhile, Mike has been called to the city by Mr Bell, the head of the Telecable Corporation. 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. Back at the lab, Mike discusses it with the team. 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. 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. 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. Needless to say, no one believes Jimmy, thinking he must have seen a reflection of Supercar’s lamp. 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. 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!) 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. They use echo sounding equipment to detect the approach of any submarine vessels, so they can put out their lights in time. (They were just a fraction too late when Supercar turned up before.) Back at the lab, Beaker is slowly coming round to the idea that Jimmy might have been on to something. 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. 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. Eventually, Forman and Johnson turn their light back on, giving away their position. Mike deploys Beaker’s new gadget – a drill fitted to Supercar’s nose. He drills a hole through the side of the shipwreck, and the secret chamber starts flooding with water. The villains have no choice but to put on their diving gear and evacuate. Supercar follows them back to the surface, and they’re taken prisoner. 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!

King Cool

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. And I don’t just mean bashing them, he’s a really talented jazz drummer, playing sensitively with brushes and everything. 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. Despite claiming to be far too busy for such frivolities, Beaker ends up making a drumkit anyway. 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! (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.) Anyway, Jimmy – who can play a mean jazz piano himself – soon teaches Mitch to play the drums. Christening him “Musical Mitch”, he presents a performance for the rest of the team. However, tensions over Beaker’s late night working finally come to a head, and he and Popkiss end up having a row about it. Beaker seems amazed that anyone could think he was noisy – he storms out slamming the door, causing pictures to fall off the wall! Beaker drives into Batesville to visit his old friend Professor Harlow. 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. 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. 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! 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.

Meanwhile, Beaker is spending the evening at Professor Harlow’s observatory. Weirdly though, Harlow is described as an astrologer – so I don’t know what he needs an observatory for: it should be birth charts and mumbo jumbo. Now, I know that accurate science isn’t really the Andersons’ strong suit, but I find it incredible that they don’t seem to know the difference between an astronomer and an astrologer. And it’s not just a confusion of semantics – despite the observatory and the professorial title, Harlow is most definitely an astrologer, making predictions that Beaker is soon to be visited by a tall stranger. (Beaker himself is pretty sceptical of the whole thing. But come on, how many serious observational astronomers give any credence to astrology?) 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. 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! Smart thinking there… (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.) King Cool becomes disorientated in his new surroundings, and starts to smash the place up. He seems dangerous and out of control, until Jimmy comes up with the idea of playing jazz piano. This calms the gorilla down, and he starts to join in on drums. 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! By now, Jimmy has worked out the switcheroo, so the team take King Cool back to Hamburger. He agrees that it’s probably unnecessary to keep the gorilla in a cage, and promises not to do so from now on. That night, he introduces special guests on the King Cool show: “Musical Mitch” and the members of the “world famous Supercar team”. 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!

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. Instead you get comical shenanigans with simian mistaken identity (and just a vague message about the mistreatment of animals). It’s also very funny, and utterly bonkers. 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. It doesn’t need to – this show can take surrealism in its stride. And that, I think, shows up the failing of The Day That Time Stood Still.

*******************

And so this schizophrenic series draws to a close. These last four episodes really highlight the different directions that it’s trying to pull in. 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. I’m still not sure which is better, as there’s much to enjoy in both approaches. In some ways, it’s a shame that the show ends here, as I’d have been interested to see where the Andersons might have taken it next. Would they continue in the comedy direction? Would they take it further into sci-fi and fantasy? (Possibly so, considering what they’re going to be making next…)

Anderthon: Roof Doors Opening...

2011-08-04T23:39:00.005+01:00

Supercar series 2
episodes 6-9

Space For Mitch

Beaker’s back to working for the government. 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 Cape Canaveral. The episode opens with our heroes inside a concrete rocket test bunker, looking out through the slit window at the rocket outside. It’s a scene that recalls many tense cold war images of scientists and generals waiting for the latest bomb or rocket test. 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. 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. Everything goes according to plan: the capsule re-enters safely and parachutes into the sea. Mike arrives in Supercar, fitted once again with Beaker’s electromagnetic grab, and successfully recovers the capsule. With the team to observe the test is Professor Harvey from the Space Administration. 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. At the time it was written, space exploration was in its infancy and almost exclusively the preserve of huge government-funded organizations. 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. With everything lined up for the second launch, all that remains is to find someone to fly the rocket. Jimmy suggests his brother Bill for the job, since he is an astronaut! Did I miss some important character development here? 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. It’s almost as if the Andersons bring in Bill whenever they need an extra character to fulfil some story-specific function. (I don’t know, maybe they’ve run out of puppets or something…) 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.

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. 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. The noise wakes everyone up. 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. 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. (Which seems incredibly short-sighted – I’d have thought dual control would have been essential. What if the pilot’s injured or blacks out? 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.) While Jimmy talks to Mitch to try and keep him calm and preserve his air, Mike takes Supercar up into orbit. (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.) Mike overtakes the capsule and uses Supercar’s jets to tip it onto its re-entry trajectory. Then he follows it down and recovers it from the sea, saving Mitch in the nick of time. 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.

The Sky’s the Limit

Masterspy and Zarin are literally rolling in money. They’ve bought skyscrapers and cars and yachts. 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. We soon discover how they’ve made their new fortune – they’re running a counterfeiting operation. There is however one thing that money (real or fake) cannot buy: Supercar! 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. So there’s only one thing for it – they’ll have to steal Supercar. They recruit a couple of New York gangsters, Bud and Jaz, to help with the heist. Meanwhile at the lab, Beaker has developed a new kind of paint that will confer adamantine strength onto any object coated with it. However, he’s made some error with his formula, as instead it turns objects invisible. (And once again, the writers are deploying magic and pretending it’s science. I’m sorry, but I can’t buy it. 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. 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.) 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. 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.

The census officials are bogus of course – they turn out to be Masterspy and Zarin and their new henchmen. The first our heroes realize is when the villains open fire on the lab – the windows shatter, and everyone dives for cover. The gangsters cut the phone lines and even shoot down the radio mast, so the lab is completely cut off. Realizing that they’re under siege, Mike tells Beaker to fetch the guns. 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! Mike attempts to launch Supercar to go and fetch help, but Masterspy has thought of this, and rigged a bomb to the roof doors. So the team are definitely trapped and isolated in the lab. They’re also almost entirely out of food, as Popkiss had been due to go shopping just before the siege started. So it becomes a question of how long they can hold out. Eventually, Mike comes up with a plan. They wave a white flag, and tell Masterspy that they’re surrendering. But when they open the doors, Masterspy enters to discover that Supercar is not in the building. It’s been sent over to England for repairs to its electronic systems. Masterspy doesn’t believe it, as he heard the engines powering up earlier. But Mike bluffs him by playing a tape recording of the engine noise, and explaining that they were trying to deceive him earlier. Eventually, Masterspy buys the story, as there’s clearly nowhere in the building when they could be hiding Supercar. He demands to know where in England he will find the vehicle. (Amusingly, Mike gives the name of the outside contractors as A.P. Electronics of Slough!) Like me, you’ve probably guessed by now that Supercar is still in the building, but has been coated with Beaker’s invisibility paint. As Masterspy and his cohorts leave in their plane, Mike and Beaker take off in the now invisible Supercar to give chase. This basically means the two of them are apparently suspended in mid air. 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! (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…) 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. 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. Why didn’t they think of that sooner? Another oddity is the fact that they turn Supercar invisible here, and don’t use this ability again in the subsequent episodes. There must be plenty of situations where it would be pretty useful…

70-B-Lo

Popkiss wakes up with stabbing pains in his side, and Beaker diagnoses appendicitis. They call an ambulance to take the Professor into Batesville hospital. (Mike wants to take him in Supercar – any excuse to fly it! – but Beaker thinks the Prof needs to stay lying flat.) At the hospital, Dr Maslin concurs with Beaker’s diagnosis, whilst noting that Beaker is not actually a medical doctor. (Weirdly, I thought he was in the first series – didn’t he treat Bill and Jimmy after their plane crash ordeal?) There’s no cause for worry, as a simple operation should see Popkiss alright. Beaker admires an x-ray machine in Dr Maslin’s office, and asks if he can borrow it to x-ray some electronic components. Maslin is happy to lend it – anything to help the Supercar team (so there are some advantages to becoming globally famous, it seems). 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. 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”. Unfortunately, there’s bad news about Popkiss: there have been complications to his operation, and he desperately needs a blood transfusion. The problem is: Popkiss has a very rare blood type, and there aren’t supplies available. 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 Arctic. (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? Then they could probably find a donor a bit closer to home. I don’t think there’s any blood type that’s so rare, there’s only one other donor in the world… Of course, that would mean Mike wouldn’t have to set out on a perilous mission to the North Pole.) So Mike and Dr Maslin put on arctic gear and set off in Supercar. 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!)

Meanwhile, at the North Pole, Professor Karzinski and his assistant Jason have discovered uranium deposits beneath the ice cap. 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. 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. He plans to kill/abandon the Professor, and return to civilization with the news of the uranium deposits. 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 USA if they meet his price. Supercar’s arrival advances Jason’s plans, and he sees it as a chance to get back three months earlier than he planned. Holding the others at gunpoint, he plans to force them to take him to Switzerland. 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. So Mike flies low, skimming Supercar across the snow field, and eventually crashing the nose into a drift. 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. Back in Batesville, Popkiss makes a full recovery – Professor Karzinksi is happy to help out the famous Supercar team. 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. Beaker dissolves into paroxysms of forced laughter again, and it’s all rather paniful – it wasn’t that funny the first time round.

Atomic Witch Hunt

An interesting idea behind this episode: small nuclear devices are being hidden in American cities, tucked away in warehouses and office buildings. So far, the devices have been located through geiger counter readings, but there must be a fear that some could remain undetected. It’s fascinating as it’s another moment when Supercar predicts something that seems more real and relevant in the modern age. We’ve all heard of the fear of terrorist groups being able to utilize so-called “suitcase bombs”. 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. Nevertheless, Beaker takes it upon himself to commit the team to dealing with the problem. They take themselves off to Batesville library, to read through back issue newspapers. 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 Temport – Beaker thinks this is how the bombs are being smuggled into the country. (I love the way that the team are able to find this evidence and make these deductions. You have to wonder what the US is paying CIA analysts for – the State Department should just get on the phone to Black Rock whenever anything untoward happens.) So they all pile into Supercar, and head to Temport to investigate. I don’t know… 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. There’s some interesting camerawork here, as we see Supercar lifting off from a different angle than usual. 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. It’s a very impressive miniature effect, but sadly it doesn’t match up with the previous interior shot. Instead of emerging through the open roof doors, Supercar appears to be lifting off from the desert sand in front of the building.

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. (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.) When Mike and Beaker explore the cavern, they find a stash of the nuclear bombs, and the transmitter that will send the detonation signal. 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. 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. There’s a trap door in his office that leads down into the cavern. 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. Then they pull their guns and succeed in capturing the two villains – and for poetic justice, leave them standing on the pressure pad, caught in their own trap. So it’s Mike and Beaker who emerge back up into the sheriff’s office and bring the errant lawman to justice.

Anderthon: Through the Heavens' Mighty Rage...

2011-07-30T12:35:00.003+01:00

Supercar series 2
episodes 2-5

Precious Cargo

After playing it fairly safe with last week’s episode, the Andersons now begin to lead the series into new and unexpected directions. 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. I’m not sure which is better, as both have their merits. You can certainly cite other examples of cult shows that go off the deep end in subverting their own formats – not least among them The Prisoner and Gangsters, so you could say that Supercar is blazing quite a trail here. This week’s episode starts with Popkiss and Jimmy visiting Chicago (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. 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. Meanwhile, back at the lab, humour is derived from Popkiss’s absence, as Beaker tries to cope without the Professor’s culinary skills. 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 Crash Landing), so I guess it never figured very prominently in the scripts. 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.

Anyway, Popkiss sends off his wine order to Monsieur Laval’s vineyard in France. 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. 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. 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. A seering indictment of child exploitation and the abuse of the French adoption system? Well, not exactly, because the story doesn’t really go anywhere with the idea, beyond making Laval a pantomime wicked villain. What’s interesting is that Zizi dreams of being rescued by Supercar. She’s got a comic book that actually has a Supercar adventure in it. (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. In fact, Zizi might even be reading the Supercar strip in TV Comic. It’s something bizarrely metatextual, the series acknowledging the existence of its own spin-offs.) 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. Jimmy then pilots Supercar out to rescue her. The pointlessness of dream sequences aside, this is all an interesting departure for the show, letting us see our heroes as others view them. 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. 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. (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!) But all is neatly resolved at the end, with Zizi being taken in by Aunt Heidi and going to live in Chicago.

Operation Superstork

An episode that places our heroes in some real jeopardy, yet juxtaposes the threat with some frankly bizarre humour. 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. (Interestingly, the voice-over refers to “Mike Mercury and his team”. I thought it was Professor Popkiss’s team, and that Mike worked for him. 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.) 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. Meanwhile, Beaker is busy at work on some new engineering project. This keeps him sequestered in his laboratory, leaving the team to wonder what he could be creating in there. The sounds of banging and drilling continue well into the night, keeping the others awake. Popkiss’s increasing frustration is played up to comic effect. Come morning, the noise seems to have stopped, and Popkiss ends up sleeping in. Mike and Jimmy drive into town to buy supplies – a place called Batesville this time. (I couldn’t find it on the map, but one presumes it’s a small town a bit closer to the lab than Carson City is.) 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.

When they get back to Black Rock, Mike and Jimmy discover what Beaker’s been up to. His fabulous new invention is… a hot air balloon. It seems he only wants to indulge a passion for ballooning. Mike’s not particularly impressed – for him, nothing can compare to Supercar. 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. 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. Despite this, he rather foolishly invites Mike and Jimmy into the basket to experience the sensation of floating for themselves. You can probably see where this is leading. Mitch the monkey decides to untether the balloon, and up it goes. 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. 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. He’s brought some emergency equipment with him – an oxygen cylinder and a parachute – not enough for all three of them though. 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. (Some film of a real man jumping and opening his ‘chute is cut in here.) Landing in the desert, Mike eventually makes it to Batesville, and wanders into another incongruous slapstick sequence involving Andy’s cash register. Using the supermarket’s phone, he manages to alert Popkiss, who flies out there in Supercar. Mike then takes the vehicle up to search for the balloon, while Popkiss co-ordinates search planes with the Air Force. But too late! The balloon bursts, and the basket plummets to Earth. 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.

Hi-Jack

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. Anyway, Bantonga is a South American banana republic ruled by President Gomez, the usual dictator with an over-elaborate uniform. 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. He wants to replace it with a Boeing 707, though as Bantonga can’t possibly afford one, his plan is to steal one. To that end, he has an American pilot called Captain Ross kidnapped. He intends one of his men, Lieutenant Swarb, to return to the US impersonating Ross – he’ll then enrol on a 707 pilot’s training course, and steal the plane in the process. Foolproof! 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. The President invites them to his yacht that night, where he has his own private casino. He encourages Masterspy to play the roulette wheel, which is crooked. 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. No honour among thieves, it seems.

Back at the Supercar lab, Bill Gibson is visiting. He announces that he’s about to start as an instructor on a Boeing 707 training course. There’s a surprise. (But is Bill qualified to do this? All we’ve ever seen him operating before is a light aircraft and a pick-up truck. When did he become an expert airline pilot?) Beaker meanwhile is back developing spy gadgets – this time a secret transmitter in his bowtie. Jimmy and Beaker decide to accompany Bill as passengers on his 707 training flight – Bill’s first pupil being none other than “Captain Ross”. (It just writes itself…) 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. In flight, Lieutenant Swarb pulls a gun and demands that Bill changes course for Bantonga. With his brother and Beaker as potential hostages, Bill doesn’t have much choice. 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!” Despite this most obvious of clues, neither Mike nor Popkiss pick up on it. It’s left to Beaker to use his bowtie radio to alert them that something’s wrong. 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. But help comes from an unexpected quarter. To get back at Gomez for ripping him off, Masterspy phones the lab and explains what’s happening. 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. Armed with this knowledge, Mike intercepts Gomez’s plane, and “buzzes” it with Supercar. 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. (Mike doesn’t seem to have considered what they’ll do if Gomez is killed…) Under this threat, Gomez is forced to order Swarb to turn the plane back to the US. He’s not prepared though for Mike “hijacking” him; and Supercar escorts the triplane back to America, where presumably Gomez will face justice.

Calling Charlie Queen

The team are all out in Supercar, leaving Mitch alone in the lab. He’s enjoying a quiet cigar (yes, really!) when a radio message comes in: “Calling Charlie Queen!” A desperate voice is asking for help, and saying: “He’s coming back!” When the others return, Mitch is unable to tell them what he’s heard – but fortunately, the message is repeated. 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. 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. (It’s quite an impressive shot featuring a puppet and a full-sized actor together in a full sized set.) Overhearing all this, the team can’t decide whether it’s a hoax or not, but think they have to investigate. (“Calling Charlie Queen” being a generic distress call to all stations listening.) Beaker manages to trace the signal’s source, so he and Mike fly out there in Supercar. They land near an isolated house, which has a radio mast on the roof – it must be the place they’re looking for. They ring the bell, and the door is answered by the sinister-looking Professor Karloff. 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. If they come in, he’ll explain the mysterious radio message over a cup of coffee. It all seems reasonable enough. 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. Karloff comes back with coffee, but it’s a trap. The coffee is drugged, and pretty soon Mike, Beaker and Mitch are unconscious.

They wake up in Professor Karloff’s lab, and discover that they’ve been miniaturized! 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. He explains that Karloff has invented a formula that will reduce people to one third of their normal size. He plans to introduce it into the water supply of every city, and turn America into a nation of miniature people, over which he will rule. I can’t even begin to address the scientific impossibility of all this. (Actually Beaker does all that for me!) But you can’t reduce people – where does all their mass go? Why does their metabolism stay at the same rate? And how does ingesting this chemical formula cause their clothes to shrink with them? It just won’t do! They might just as well have said it was magic. At least then they’d have some plausible self-consistency. And once again, the Andersons give us a villain whose only motivation is that he’s crazy – at least Mike acknowledges this fact. They find the radio on the bench, but Karloff has put it out of action. Beaker climbs inside to repair it, and Mike manages to radio back to the lab. But too late! 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. 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! Inevitably, they’re invited in for a cup of coffee. 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. Good job they’ve got Mitch then: he serendipitously knocks a bottle over into the mixing bowl, and there’s a flash! Beaker’s finger, which was in the bowl, is restored to normal size. (A miniature Beaker with one normal-sized finger is certainly an amusing image.) The formula found, our heroes are able to restore themselves to proper size, and save Popkiss and Jimmy from drinking the coffee. They leave Karloff in Hopkins’s care until the police can arrive – that’s to say, the miniaturized Karloff now locked in the cage on the workbench. Hopkins does seem to rather relish taunting him, but I guess that’s understandable given what he’s been through.

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 The Secret Service in a few years’ time. In fact, given the way that Supercar often uses real film of locations, vehicles and backgrounds, integrated with the puppet characters in the close-ups, The Secret Service doesn’t seem quite as much of the far-out departure/innovation (delete according to your point of view) as is often claimed. They’ve done most of it already…

Anderthon: Lean Forward, Masterspy!

2011-07-25T17:58:00.004+01:00

Supercar series 2
episode 1

When a programme is renewed for a second series, what’s the worst thing they can do to it? Sack the head writers? Lose or replace characters without explanation? Completely alter the style? No, it’s changing the theme music! OK, so I’m not being entirely serious – the other things mentioned are probably far worse crimes. 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. Compared to what's going to happen in the mid-seventies, the changes to Supercar 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.

But that theme music! I’m going to make a shocking confession here: I don’t really like the music for Supercar. Now I’m normally a huge fan of Barry Gray’s work, but I hardly ever put the Supercar CD on for enjoyment. 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. As for the theme song itself, with its overly literal lyrics describing Supercar’s abilities, it’s very kids tv, isn’t it? Can you imagine if the Thunderbirds theme had similar words?

Thunderbird 2
It’s big and fat and green
Thunderbird 2
Got a pod with cool stuff in

OK, maybe not… Despite the lyrics, what the Supercar theme has going for it is that it’s big, bold and dramatic, with the vocalist giving it his all! 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.) I wonder why they felt the need to change it…?

The Runaway Train

Interestingly, it’s not immediately apparent that there’s been a change in the writing staff. This episode starts out much like a first series tale. Beaker is working with the army, trying to devise a new method for transporting tanks over difficult terrain. He goes into his lab, and gets to work. Eventually, after some false starts, he comes up with a powerful electromagnet, which he demonstrates to Mike and Popkiss. 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. Much hilarity ensues… 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. Maybe a flying metal object did him some rather sensitive damage that he doesn’t tell us about? 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. 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.

People who notice these things will spot a new name on the end credits: Derek Meddings, now permanently installed as special effects wizard. And one thing I noticed straight away is an improvement in the modelwork, with helicopters, tanks, cars and buildings. Even the laboratory, previously represented by a painting, is now a complete model building. There are some problems of scale however. When Supercar picks up the tanks, it just looks wrong to my eye: Supercar is too big in comparison to the tank. 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. And yet here it dwarfs a tank! 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. And since we can see the figure of Mike sitting in the cockpit, this makes him look like a giant! (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!)

Anyway, what’s all this got to do with the episode title? Well, a new atomic-powered train has been built in England. Those very words tell us that, despite the early sixties setting, the Andersons 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. (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 Andersons really buy into that Look and Learn vision that must have seemed so exciting to young boys then.) It turns out that Dr Beaker has become so famous that he’s been asked to drive the train on its inaugural journey. (So he’s a qualified engine driver too? There’s no end to his talents.) 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. Indeed, Mike is referred to by a hotel receptionist as “the famous test pilot”.

The team decamp to London, represented naturally enough by real live action film of people walking past Big Ben. What they don’t realize is that staying in the same hotel as them are none other than Masterspy and Zarin. You’ll remember how much I was missing them by the end of the first series, so it’s good to see them back. To avoid detection, Masterspy books in under a cunningly fiendish alias: “Mr Masterspoon”! 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. (What, there wasn’t any stock footage available of the Moon in the sky? Crazy!) On behalf of the hostile foreign power which employs them, they sabotage the atomic motor. So, the train sets off the next day with Beaker and Popkiss aboard, and pretty soon the engine runs out of control. I can’t be sure, but the back projection in the cab may well be the famous BBC interlude film London to Brighton in Four Minutes. As the train hurtles towards Brighton, Masterspy and Zarin drive there hoping to see the big explosion it will cause. (As with The Lost City, the Andersons 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. If I knew that a nuclear bomb was about to go off in Brighton, I’d be making all haste to somewhere like Edinburgh…)

Beaker is unable to stop the train, so calls Mike on the radio. The time scale of the episode seems to stretch out here somewhat. Despite there being only minutes to impact, Mike has time to question the receptionist about “Mr Masterspoon” – then to track Masterspy’s car. 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. Thus precariously balanced, Masterspy and Zarin are left having to lean backwards and forwards to try and keep the car from toppling. Supercar then races after the train, and Mike again uses the electromagnet to grab hold of the engine. Then he fires reverse thrust, and manages to draw the train to a halt just as it pulls up to the buffers in Brighton station.

So overall, a good start to series 2. Despite some slight changes in style and outlook, we’re not really feeling the absence of the Woodhouses yet. 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. Let’s see where we go from here...

Anderthon: Satisfactory... Most Satisfactory...

2011-06-28T00:27:00.003+01:00

Supercar
episodes 23-26

The Lost City

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 Andersons 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 Anderson 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 Andersons' creations for the next several years.

Anyway, Mike and Beaker are off to the Antarctic on a scientific expedition, with Mitch and Jimmy along for the ride. Flying over South America, 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 Antarctica. 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 Washington DC. 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 threat of nuclear destruction.)

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.) 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. I'd also be rather worried by the ecological effects of a nuclear detonation in the middle of the Amazon, but where would an Anderson show be without a gratuitious big bang? Hey, at least Washington was saved...

The Magic Carpet

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.

As the episode unfolds, we actually see that this episode bears more than a passing resemblance to Flight of Fancy. 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. 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 Danger Man) – and the adventure is resolved with the usual mixture of science and ingenuity. 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.

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.) 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.

The White Line

Rather a neat little crime thriller, albeit with a few gaping plot holes. Scotland Yard are baffled by some armoured car robberies occurring on a quiet stretch of road, with deliveries of gold bullion being snatched. 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 Heat. Well, it seems in 1960s Britain, 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. It’s emblazoned with the logo “Safe T Cars”, presumably the name of the company offering this courier service. Somehow I don’t think they’re going to be driving Securicor out of business. Once we get past the fact that the victims are leaving themselves wide open, the plan here is rather ingenious. 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. The look-out sends up a flare, and the villains up ahead go to work. They roll out special carpets that cover the road markings, and another that lays down fake markings leading to the edge of a ravine. Since a man driving on an unlit road at night will follow the white line, they’re leading the bank couriers to their doom. (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.)

Scotland Yard call in the Supercar team. As soon as he’s heard the tale, Mike instantly guesses it must be the work of the Chicago gangsters Joe and Maxie Hoyle. (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…) Mike and Beaker agree to help by transferring some bullion across London in Supercar – I’m not sure why, given the original robberies didn’t happen in London. 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. They take the gold, and leave Mike and friends locked inside the vault. (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?) 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. So with Beaker driving the route, Mike, Mitch and Jimmy scout ahead in Supercar. Seeing the lookout’s flare going up, Mike uses the “clear view” system to watch the false road markings being laid out. He’s unable to warn Beaker though as the Hoyles appear and shoot off Supercar’s radio aerial with their tommy-guns. Mitch gets out of Supercar and decoys the gangsters into a chase around the woods, giving Mike time to get airborne again. Then Mitch leaps from a tree onto the back of Supercar, hanging on as Mike races to stop Beaker going over the ravine. Eventually, Mike has to land Supercar in Beaker’s path, and the scientist manages to pull up just in time. 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! (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…)

Supercar “Take One”

Professor Popkiss is away on holiday, but Beaker feels he can operate the console perfectly well on his own. 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. Supercar itself is made of sterner stuff, and only requires a bit of repainting. Later, Beaker takes delivery of a movie camera, which he’s planning to use to make film records of his experiments. But Jimmy persuades him to make a sort of home movie about Supercar. Beaker turns out to be a bit of a Stanley Kubrick-style perfectionist, making Mike go through 104 takes of charging up Supercar’s engines. Jimmy is the clapper-loader and Mitch acts as sound man. Beaker really gets into it, filming action sequences of Supercar in flight, and even underwater. (He’s wearing a full diving suit to operate the camera of course.) 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. They’ve been sent the wrong film by the developers! The film has come from Satellite Film Productions in New York, which Beaker realizes must be a front for an foreign spy ring. They decide to fly to New York to investigate – but first Beaker insists on changing into a bowler hat and grabbing an umbrella. I’d say he was trying to emulate John Steed, but The Avengers had barely started by this time. As they prepare for take-off, Mitch reminds Beaker to open the roof doors this time. Worth his weight in gold, that monkey.

Arriving in New York, they land on top of the skyscraper that contains the film company’s offices. Beaker goes down to pay a visit, with Mike preparing to follow if he doesn’t return within half an hour. 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. Instead, we meet Herman Gredenski and his glamorous assistant Miss Devenish, who are running the spy ring. 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. Inside, he finds the secret files of the spy ring. When Mike comes looking for Beaker, he’s also tricked into sitting in the booby-trapped chair. (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.) 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. (“I expected you seven minutes ago.”) Now we discover that Beaker’s costume is not merely for decoration. The crown of his bowler hat conceals a radio (as indeed did John Steed’s some years later – I wonder if the writers of The Avengers took any pointers from this episode?) He calls Jimmy – who says Beaker sounds like he talking through his hat! – and tells him to call the police. Then Gredenski tries to kill his visitors by pumping deadly gas into the strong room. Fortunately, Beaker’s umbrella conceals a drill which he uses to drill out the lock. The two rush back up to the office, where Miss Devenish is being menaced by Mitch, whom she believes is an escaped gorilla. Beaker tells her that he’s in fact a very intelligent chimpanzee. 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. (Come on, Mitch has got a tail!) 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! (Except, wait a minute, Beaker drilled the lock out – so they’ll be able to escape and make use of their secret exit…)

This final episode is another script by the Andersons. It’s probably the best of their episodes so far. 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. So it’ll be interesting to see how the second series develops, as sadly we’ve seen the last of the Woodhouses. Having discovered they can write their own scripts, Gerry and Sylvia don’t bother to invite them back. (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 Four Feather Falls?) 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. (They get precisely one mention in Gerry Anderson’s authorized biography for example.) 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 Andersons will do in many of their subsequent shows – the Woodhouses have practically set up the premise of Thunderbirds.

Anderthon: It Can Journey Anywhere...

2011-06-01T18:11:00.002+01:00

Supercar
episodes 18-22

Hostage

Our tour of ITC national clichés continues: this week we’re in Ireland. It’s that same Ireland 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. Instead of the Saint though, it’s Doctor Beaker who’s come here on holiday. 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 Dublin and Tralee. 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 British Isles. 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.

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 Ireland – 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!

The Sunken Temple

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 Mediterranean. He believes he’s discovered the location of the lost Temple of Poseidon, 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. That night, the camp is visited by a local, Antonio the gypsy. 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. Antonio prophesies mortal danger if they should disturb the ancient gods. Mike, trusting only in science and reason of course, thinks it’s a load of baloney.

The next day, Mike and Beaker take Supercar under the sea to seek out the lost temple. (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.) 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. 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. Oddly, beneath a semi-collapsed statue of Poseidon, Terman finds what seems to be a strongbox. 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. 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. So Terman soon finds himself out of air, and has to quickly surface – lucky he doesn’t get the bends. Later, he goes back down on his own. Spiros escalates his threat by unleashing some home-made depth charges – basically, sticks of dynamite fired from a catapult. The huge stock footage explosions dislodge the statue of Poseidon, which falls trapping Terman beneath it. 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. 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. Meanwhile, Mitch has been left to take care of bandaging Terman’s broken leg. The only problem now is: who’s going to go down on the next dive? The episode ends with Mitch suiting up! They should just let that monkey run the whole show. If they’d listened to him in the first place, most of this trouble could have been avoided.

Trapped in the Depths

A bit of a change of pace – this is a mostly serious episode. The US Navy are conducting tests with a new bathysphere, diving down into a deep ocean trench off the coast of New Zealand. It’s a big news story – cue stock footage of printing presses! 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. The bathysphere is lowered from the USS Mistral, part of a naval flotilla represented by stock footage of real ships again. 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. 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. Meanwhile, Beaker has invented an ultrasonic gun which he’s fitted to Supercar’s nose. He and Mike are testing it in the lab – amusingly, Beaker sets up a coconut shy as a target. But this attracts the attention of Mitch, who gets into the line of fire just as the gun is building up to fire. There’s no time to stop it! Luckily, Mitch leaps out of the way in time, and is found swinging from the roof beams. (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.) Just then Popkiss and Jimmy return, and Popkiss suggests that Supercar be used to rescue the trapped bathysphere. (He’s changed his tune a bit – usually he wants to keep everything under wraps.) Mike and Beaker race off to New Zealand.

Inside the bathysphere, Fraser and Commander Keefe are running out of options. They’ve dropped the ballast, but they still can’t surface. They’re not sure if the float is holed, or if it’s just that they’re jammed between some rocks. They resort to desperate measures, such as trying to lighten the sphere by dropping all but one of their power batteries. This causes further problems though, as the strain on the remaining battery causes it to overheat, and acid fumes fill the cabin. 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. 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. As the air starts to run out, they also think they’re suffering from delusions. When Supercar arrives outside, they initially refuse to believe it can be real. But as the truth dawns, there’s a fantastic and uplifting moment of hope. Amazingly, despite the immense depth, Supercar manages to withstand the pressure just fine – obviously, those extensive deep sea trials really paid off. 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. (Previously, you may recall, Beaker was able to scare off a big fish by broadcasting white noise from the radio.) 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. The bathysphere is still trapped, but Mike thinks he can use Supercar’s nose to nudge it free. He asks Beaker if it will work, and is faced with the scientist’s usual prevarication as he tries to calculate the odds. “Just guess!” Mike snaps. Fortunately, Beaker guesses right, and the bathysphere is safely floated to the surface.

Crash Landing

Mike and Beaker have taken Supercar out for another test flight, with Jimmy and Mitch as passengers. Everything seems to have gone well – when suddenly the starboard engine blows out and it goes into a dive. Completely out of control, they’re going to crash into the jungle below. 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. 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. 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. As Beaker works to repair Supercar, they face random dangers such as a really neat puppet snake. Mitch volunteers to stay on guard for the night, but he’s grabbed from behind by a mysterious figure and disappears. 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. (So I guess this is their chance to get rid of the monkey at last!) Beaker has lost his hat, and improvises by tying a hanky round his head. He repairs Supercar’s engines, but inadvisedly tests them in the confined jungle clearing and burns down a tree. They decide to have Popkiss test fly Supercar on remote, all the way up to supersonic speed. Everything seems to be fine now – but the sonic boom startles a herd of stock footage elephants which stampedes towards our heroes. (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.) They resolve the problem by having Supercar fly low over the elephants so a second sonic boom drives them in the opposite direction. 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. Then they hear a rare sound, a monkey mating call, which ultimately leads them to find out what happened to Mitch. 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! Mike says they’re leaving and gives Mitch the chance to come or stay behind with his girlfriend. And just for a moment, it looks like Mitch might remain – but eventually he leaves a lovelorn female monkey behind… Or does he? 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!

The Dragon of Ho Meng

Mike, Jimmy and Mitch are out in Supercar, when it’s caught in a typhoon, and Mike decides to seek a safe landing until the storm has passed. They’re somewhere round the Chinese border. What are they doing out there? They never say. 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? No, I’m kidding. It’s a load of cultural stereotypes again. They land on an island in the middle of a lake, where they find an ancient Buddhist temple. Investigating, they discover that the temple is the home of Ho Meng, who appears to be an ancient-style Chinese mandarin. (Did any of those still exist by the 1960s? I wouldn’t have thought they’d be tolerated under Chairman Mao…) He lives here with his daughter Lotus Blossom, and initially thinks that Supercar is a dragon, which is a bad omen. 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. And sure enough, a villainous type called Mr Fang turns up at that moment. It seems that Mr Fang wants to destroy the temple, because he believes that a treasure is buried beneath it. Taking Ho Meng prisoner, he locks the others inside the temple with Supercar, and proceeds to place dynamite around the building. 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. They get into Supercar and descend into a series of tunnels beneath the temple. Eventually getting back to the surface, Mike is able to confront Mr Fang, while Mitch sneaks around unplugging the detonators from the explosives. (I’m finally convinced that the monkey is the real brains of this outfit.) I don’t know, it’s all a bit inconsequential really – proof that even the Woodhouses could write nonsense on occasion. 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. It just seems like a real filler of an episode, and was a bit of a disappointment for me.

Martin Woodhouse RIP

2011-05-26T00:19:00.002+01:00

Sadly, Martin Woodhouse, one of the creative forces behind Supercar, 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.

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.

Normal service will be restored soon

2011-05-16T08:25:00.001+01:00

For those of you wondering where the next part of Supercar 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.

Anderthon: Full Boost Vertical

2011-05-08T19:39:00.003+01:00

Supercar
episodes 14-17

Phantom Piper

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 Scotland 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 Britain 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 Scotland? Beaker's cousin Felicity Farnsworth has come back from Malaya, 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!

The castle is being haunted by the phantom piper of Inverlachen - as is the way of these things, he walks the battlements at midnight 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 Scotland. 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 midnight 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.

It's interesting to see the returning characters in this instalment. 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.

Deep Seven

Mike and Beaker are on the Californian coast, testing Supercar's performance underwater. (It's been submerged before, in Island Incident - 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.

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 Island Incident.) 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!

Pirate Plunder

Mike finds the notion of piracy in the modern age extremely unlikely, which suggests that he’s never taken Supercar anywhere near Somalia. (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.) 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. Beaker is intrigued by the pirate’s name, wondering whether he could be a descendant of the original Henry (“Bloody”) Morgan. 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. (“It’s a point of view,” says Mike.) On the other hand, Mike decides that they need to do something about Black Morgan, and Supercar is the vehicle to do it. So the whole team set off for the Pacific. Mike has contacted the millionaire V. Jason Monroe and asked for his assistance – basically, Monroe will let it be known around the Pacific harbours that he’s got a huge priceless diamond aboard his yacht, the Argosy. Then he’ll put out to sea and wait for Black Morgan to be lured by the bait. Meanwhile, Supercar is waiting submerged beneath the Argosy, ready to pursue Morgan’s ship back to its base. From studying charts, Beaker postulates that Morgan is operating from one of several uninhabited Pacific islands. He keeps in touch with Supercar using communications equipment installed aboard the Argosy. Under the water, Mike encounters the light bulb fish again, though he doesn’t seem to recognize it. Nor does the fish attack Supercar again – obviously it learnt its lesson last week.

All goes according to plan, and before too long Morgan turns up in his ship, the Cuttlefish. 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. 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. It’s down to Mitch to stop him – demonstrating his intelligence and understanding once again – by throwing a cup at Morgan’s head. The pirate is distracted and gets on with the business of stealing the diamond. As he takes his leave, he tells his victims not to try following him, as the Cuttlefish is equipped with homing torpedoes. But Mike has already started his pursuit. Spotting Supercar through his telescope, Morgan thinks that the Argosy has somehow managed to launch a plane to follow him. (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.) Morgan lets off his torpedoes against the Argosy, but luckily Beaker manages to turn the communications equipment into a radio jammer to block their guidance systems – just in the nick of time. Meanwhile Mike dives towards the Cuttlefish as Morgan unleashes a hail of cannon-fire against him. (It seems that Mike has given up his plan of finding the pirate’s base and now just wants to take out his ship.) He’s had a bazooka fitted to Supercar’s nose just for this mission, and fires off a shell. The resulting explosion is spectacular, as you might expect from an Anderson show, but ridiculously over the top. You can quite clearly see that the upper cabins of the ship are blown clean off. In the next shot however, there’s just some smoke and Mike reports the Cuttlefish holed below the waterline. 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!

Flight of Fancy

Oh God, it's the dream episode... You probably know me well enough by now to realize that I’m not going to find much to enjoy here. Basically, Jimmy is reading a magazine in bed which has a picture of the Princess Caroline of Bavania. (That’s one of those mittel-European states that pop up in ITC shows that’s no one’s ever actually heard of…) She’s apparently disappeared, and there are rumours that her father King Rudolf is about to be deposed. 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. Good for them! So, Jimmy falls asleep and starts to dream. (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.) In the dream, Jimmy wakes up and decides to use Supercar to search for Princess Caroline. 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 New York beatnik, amusingly enough. They fly to Bavania, and find Princess Caroline locked up in a castle. Inside the castle are Marjak, the Prime Minister of Bavania, and his aide Hertz. They’re dressed in Napoleonic style uniforms, and look suspiciously like Masterspy and Zarin. 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.

Searching the castle, Jimmy and Mitch find the missing genealogy scroll, and the key to Caroline’s cell. Meanwhile, Marjak and Hertz have left for the capital. The declaration of their coup d’état has to be made at precisely 12 noon to be legal and binding. Freeing Caroline, Jimmy and Mitch set off for the capital in Supercar – the only vehicle that can get there in time. 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. 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. Marjak and Hertz are locked up (the guard on their cell looks oddly like Mike Mercury) and Jimmy is made a prince. Mitch though is unable to accept an honour from the King, as he suddenly loses the ability to talk! 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.

It’s sporadically amusing, but ultimately this episode is a complete load of nonsense. 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. 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. 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. 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. I also note that Dr Beaker doesn’t appear in this episode at all, either in reality or in Jimmy’s dream. I like to think that he has more integrity.

Anderthon: Watch It Flying through the Air...

2011-04-30T21:36:00.003+01:00

Supercar
episodes 9-13

High Tension

Dr Beaker has gone shopping in Carson City, which is basically a bit of back projected film. 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. Behind Beaker, we can see a jewellers’ shop and a branch of Woolworths. (I wonder if he went in for the Pick ’n’ Mix.) Anyway, Beaker is hailed by a passing motorist, who asks him for directions. It’s pretty obviously Masterspy – but as usual, Beaker is completely taken in by his disguise of a deerstalker cap and a fake moustache. Beaker foolishly agrees to get in the car and ride a short way, so that he can point out the directions properly. (And they’re always telling kids not to get into cars with strangers – what sort of an example is this setting? Then again, the fact that the driver turns out to be Masterspy might be seen as a sort of cautionary tale.) Once Beaker’s in the car, Masterspy reveals his plan. He’s kidnapped Beaker to exchange him for Supercar.

Back at the lab, Supercar is in a state of some disrepair. Beaker’s been working on the electrics, and has left loads of wires hanging out of the dashboard. 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. It doesn’t look like they’ve got any choice – once again, Popkiss is dead set against calling the police. (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?) Mike takes off, being careful of all the unfinished wiring that Beaker’s left behind. 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. 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. (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. The Andersons seem to realize this after Supercar, which is why we don’t get another child lead character for a good few years.) 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.

Green Ghost Wells is a series of mysterious holes in the desert. They may be extinct volcanoes or meteor craters – no one knows. Zarin is scared of the place, seemingly for no other reason than its name! 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. But Mike foils him by flying over at high altitude and using the “clear view” system to spot which well Beaker is inside. Then he lands some distance away and quickly jumps out. While Mike continues on foot, Popkiss is able to fly Supercar on to the rendezvous by remote control. 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. It looks like Masterspy might have successfully captured Supercar however. 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. Switching it on produces an electric current through the hull, which leaves Masterspy and Zarin quivering with electric shocks! (Time to hand them over to the police now, perhaps?)

A Little Art

Beaker has bought a painting from the Steindorf Gallery. 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. As a gallery owner, naturally Steindorf has a little goatee beard. 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. Jody Maddern has just been released from the state penitentiary, and strangely he’s come looking for one of Steindorf’s paintings. His old cellmate, Bud Hassler, has died in chokey after serving thirty-odd years for counterfeiting bank notes. His printing plates – supposedly the best counterfeit plates ever made – were never discovered. 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”. Unfortunately, Steindorf has just recently sold the work the work in question. Guess who to! 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. Beaker though is not Steindorf’s usual customer – the material value of painting is immaterial to him. He actually appreciates it for its artistic qualities. They try increasing the offer, but he’s quite adamant that he wants to hang onto the painting. His attempts to teach art appreciation to Mitch don’t meet with too much success however. “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. Whether Mitch’s lack of interest is the producers’ comment on the value of surrealist art, I couldn’t say.

Steinforf’s interest has made everyone suspicious about the painting. Mike is sure he recognizes the terrain depicted. 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). And Beaker begins to wonder whether there might be another painting underneath – a stolen old master that Hassler has painted over to hide it. He sprays on a special solvent which will dissolve the paint overnight. That night, Steindorf and Maddern break into the lab and steal the painting, cutting it right out of its frame. 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.

Steindorf and Maddern head out to Mexico, where they locate the scene in the painting. The meaning of the picture becomes clear now. 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. Unfortunately, they can’t find the cactus – it’s obviously died or been uprooted in the intervening three decades. 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. The two villains fall out and give up their quest. A few moments later, Supercar arrives. 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. (A nice continuity reference back to episode 2.) 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. (Don’t worry, they’re going to hand them over to the US Treasury.) Beaker is a little upset to have lost his painting, but Mike reveals that Mitch is painting a new one for him. Mitch appears to be an exponent of the action painting school – either that, or he’s just chucking paint randomly onto the canvas.

Ice-Fall

The team are getting ready for a day out. 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. (So who’s manning the control console today then? I guess maybe they don’t need it when they’re not actually having an adventure…) What amazes me most about this little jaunt though is that they’re going out for a joyride in a top secret experimental vehicle. What about the security implications? I don’t know, Popkiss seems very lax about it all. (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?) They land on a desert plain, near the entrance to some caves and settle down for a picnic. All except Beaker, who it turns out is a keen potholer – speleology being another of his many disciplines. He wants to investigate the caves straight away, as there’s an interesting feature he wants to see. He says he’ll only be half an hour – just enough to locate the feature – then he’ll be back for lunch. 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.

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. It’s like a return to the glory days of Four Feather Falls and a welcome respite from all the back projection. The cave set that Beaker explores is also really impressive, complete with real dripping stalactites. What Beaker doesn’t realize is that Mitch has followed him into the caves, untying and then gathering up the string as he goes. Someone really needs to keep an eye on that monkey! (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! That said, he does seem to understand Beaker’s warnings that the cave roof is unstable, and therefore he needs to keep quiet.) Beaker has found what he’s seeking: a rare phenomenon, a completely frozen waterfall. Stepping behind it, he finds a paleolithic painting on the cave wall. Excited by his find, he raises his voice and causes the waterfall to collapse, burying him behind a solid wall of ice! 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. 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. The tension is nicely drawn out, and again seems like a precursor to the “race against time” action of Thunderbirds.

Island Incident

The team are sitting down to breakfast – all except Beaker who’s in his lab making the toast. 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. (I’ll be generous and assume he’s testing a new piece of equipment and simply killing two birds with one stone. It’s also a very funny sequence.) When Mike calls for more toast, he’s not so happy with the charred piece that Beaker produces. Meanwhile, Mike’s reading the newspaper: there have been several UFO sightings in Wyoming. (At Devil’s Tower, perhaps?) He wonders if they could have been Supercar. So they must have been doing test flights over in Wyoming – which seems odd when they’ve got plenty of empty space right here in Nevada. 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. (Time for a UN resolution and some air strikes then? It’s funny how such a tale sounds relevant to my contemporary ears – I guess some things never change.) Just then Beaker receives a phone call, asking Supercar to come to a secret rendezvous in Southern California – the call apparently coming from President Laguava. Mike is immediately suspicious, remembering that the last time they answered an unexpected distress call, it turned out to be Masterspy. (A nice bit of continuity back to episode 4.) Popkiss though doesn’t believe Masterspy would try the same trick twice, and thinks that Mike ought to go.

At the rendezvous, it turns out that Mike’s contact is indeed President Laguava. 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. He’s heard of Supercar, and wants their help to get his country back. (So much for Popkiss’s security concerns then.) Mike and the President fly back to Pelota, and attempt to get to the presidential palace. But Colonel Humberto orders his men to open fire on the mysterious flying machine. (Maybe he thinks it’s a UFO – or a UN-sanctioned air strike coming in…) This results in Mike trying to negotiate his way through stock footage of real anti-aircraft guns, complete with real soldiers firing them! It’s another moment when the intrusion of reality shatters the consistency of the puppet realm, and it jars terribly. On Beaker’s advice, Mike pretends that Supercar has been hit and crashes it into the sea. Then they proceed towards the island underwater. 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. The guards will be getting drunk, and this will be the perfect moment to get to the palace. 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. At the palace, they encounter Humberto, and a shootout ensues. 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. As Sebastian Laguava takes control of his country once more, Mike finds himself awarded the Supreme Order of the Golden Star of Pelota.

The Tracking of Masterspy

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. Popkiss though denies that any such thing is happening – Supercar is top secret after all. 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. (But hang on a minute! Mike took the supposedly top secret Supercar into town? Where did he park it? And presumably Popkiss didn’t have a problem with that.) As it turns out, the Greyburn News Agency is a front for Masterspy. He’s had Zarin following Mike, to find out where his base is. (But Masterspy knows where the lab is – he’s been there, as long ago as episode 3. I’d also quite like to know how Zarin managed to follow Mike when he was piloting an airborne supersonic vehicle!) 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. 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. 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!

Fortunately things pick up once Masterspy gets to work. 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. 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. 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. He causes a small explosion to cover his escape, forcing the team to combat the flames rather than giving pursuit. It soon transpires that Beaker has been smarter than the others have given him credit for. (So, now who’s a fool?) His machine is actually a new tracking device – Mike will be able to follow the signal straight back to Masterspy’s lair. Soon, Supercar is flying over New York (though they just call it “the city” ) – and lands on the roof of Masterspy’s building. Mike bursts into the villains’ office, catching them off guard. 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. Masterspy would rather give up the stolen plans than fall into the hands of the police. (So, I guess Mike leaves him at liberty once again…!)

Anderthon: Now who's a fool?

2011-04-25T12:22:00.004+01:00

Supercar
episodes 5-8

What Goes Up

I still can’t work out who our heroes work for. 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. 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. (But who decides the levels of clearance? It implies there’s some higher authority they answer to…) Colonel Lewis’s people have sent up a high altitude balloon carrying lots of atmospheric measuring equipment. It seems Beaker is an expert in this field as well, and that’s why he’s helping out by studying the instrument readings. 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. Jimmy asks the most obvious question: why don’t they bring the canister down again, by parachute? But they can’t do this as it contains a quantity of explosive rocket fuel. The jolt of landing would be enough to cause an explosion. So, despite the cost of losing the expensive instruments, they’ve got to detonate it by remote control. (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. Without it, why couldn’t they have brought the canister down safely? Have the Air Force thought this through properly – perhaps they just want to see a big bang?) 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). 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.

There’s only one thing for it. Someone has to go up and blow the thing up while it’s still high enough not to cause any damage. Conventional aircraft can’t climb high enough, so there’s no option but for Mike to take Supercar up. (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.) 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. 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. Beaker is worried that the seals on Supercar’s pressurized cockpit won’t hold up, and insists that Mike does a manual check. Just as well – there’s a small hole in the canopy that’s letting out air. 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.) 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. 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. It’s a moment of selfless courage (exactly the sort of thing we’ll be seeing from the Tracy boys in a few years – once again it seems like Supercar is a dry run for Thunderbirds). 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. They’ll send Colonel Lewis the bill for a new paint job.

Keep It Cool

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. 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. Keeping it all in the family, Beaker employs Jimmy’s brother Bill to drive it for him. 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. 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. Despite Beaker’s best efforts at navigation, the truck gets lost in the desert. As it turns out, this is because the signposts have been altered and moved by none other than Masterspy and Zarin. Their next trick is to leave a large rock in the road that wrecks Bill’s suspension and leaves the truck stranded. Bill has to turn off the refrigerator to save the battery, as he’ll need all the power left to keep the radio going. 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. But then Masterspy and Zarin reveal themselves, and tie Bill and Beaker up. They want to steal Beaker’s new fuel – presumably to sell to an oil company or foreign power. Zarin fetches a can of the fuel from the refrigeration unit, and smashes the truck’s radio. 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. 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. Then the fuel can explodes, sending up a massive plume of smoke that serves to guide Mike to the area. 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. (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. We shouldn’t forget that this is still very much a children’s programme, full of daft humour and its own surreal internal logic.)

Grounded

Beaker has invented a new guidance system, and they’ve brought Supercar to an electronics firm in England to have it built and installed. (This is apparently to help maintain secrecy, because Supercar is becoming too well known back in America. Are they worried about industrial espionage, some other manufacturer stealing a march on them? That’s if Supercar is the prototype for a new kind of vehicle eventually to be marketed. Or is it a secret research project with ultimately military applications? All this concern for security, and yet they think nothing of taking Supercar out on joyrides and rescue missions. It’s yet another instance of the rather nebulous and unexplained backstory.) This trip to England gives the excuse for lots of jokes and stereotyping – Mike grumbles about the weather and says he’d rather be back in the desert. 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. 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. (“Rather bad form, what?”) 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. 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 Slough!

Harper’s plan for revenge is to steal Beaker’s new circuit boards and sell them to an unspecified foreign buyer. (An enemy agent perhaps? Hey, maybe it’s Masterspy!) 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. (Is it just me, or does the firm’s logo look just like the APF symbol with the letters slightly changed?) 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. 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. Then Beaker gets a phone call from Harper, calling from a phone box. (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 England!) He tells Beaker that they’ve stolen the circuits and even the location of the airfield they’re heading for. 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. It takes some time before Mike can take off however, as Professor Popkiss needs to rig up a temporary ground control console. (Now this implies that Supercar can only be operated properly when Mike’s in communication with the console. Obviously the controls are too complex for one man to handle alone.)

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. Supercar loses lift and crashes back to the ground. If this had happened at normal cruising height, Mike could have been a goner. The broken wing amusingly looks just like someone’s snapped a balsa wood model (which is in fact the case!) 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. 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. (I don’t know – is this a responsible attitude for our upright heroes to be demonstrating?) 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. 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. 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). Mike is able to beat Judd and Harper to the airfield – especially since the villains manage to miss their motorway exit!

Jungle Hazard

Masterspy is trying on a new jungle hat, because he and Zarin are off to Malaya. They’ve just heard that an estate there has recently passed to a English spinster, Miss Felicity Farnsworth. 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. (I don’t know – as villainous schemes go, it’s not exactly big league stuff – why does he call himself Masterspy again?) Out in Mayala, and calling himself Mr Smith, Masterspy tries to convince Miss Farnsworth that the estate needs too much work to be profitable. She agrees, and so offers him a job working for her on the estate! Despite this setback, Masterspy decides to stick around and try to talk her into selling.

Meanwhile at the lab, Beaker is working on some dangerous-looking concoction – more of his rocket fuel perhaps? 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. 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. 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. (Damn, they didn’t think of a pseudonym for Zarin! Poor planning there, Masterspy!) The name alerts Beaker to what’s going on, and he and Mike plan to set out for Malaya in Supercar right away. 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.

When Mike and Beaker get to Malaya, they find Miss Farnsworth gone. The houseboy tells them that she set out overland to the nearest town to buy some supplies, and her two visitors accompanied her. 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. He seizes the chance when she uses a native rope-bridge to cross a swamp. Masterspy saws through the ropes with a machete, and Felicity falls into the swamp where she gets sucked down into quicksand. 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. 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. Good job she’s wearing a long skirt. Beaker has to hide his eyes behind his umbrella. (But do they hand Masterspy and Zarin over to the authorities? What do you think?)

Anderthon: Engines Charging, Interlock On...

2011-04-23T12:18:00.006+01:00

Supercar
episodes 1-4

For years, I believed that Supercar was the first Anderson/supermarionation series. Not that I’d ever seen it, but I remember reading features in Look-In about the Andersons’ work, and they always seemed to start with Supercar. Poor old Four Feather Falls always seemed to get missed out, quite undeservedly as I’ve recently discovered. But I can see why Supercar is seen by some as the start of a trend: just like the next few shows the Andersons will produce, it is centred around (and indeed even named after) a fantastic vehicle. Now, I know that for a lot of people, the vehicles and the technology are what the Anderson shows are all about – that’s why for instance there are a lot of scratch model builders involved in the fandom. I have to say, it’s never really been my primary focus. I prefer stories and characters. Supercar is of course a children’s puppet show, so I don’t expect gritty adult drama, but as my appreciation of Four Feather Falls demonstrated, there can be can still be an appeal to the adult viewer, through inventive plotting and especially knowing humour.

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. Now, it’s often said that Supercar is the start of the run of science fiction shows the Andersons produced. (That’s probably another reason why Four Feather Falls sometimes gets overlooked.) There are very few clues in this first batch of episodes, but it seems as if Supercar 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. 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 Danger Man. 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 Knight Rider.

In terms of visual look, very little has changed since Four Feather Falls. 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 amazingly prominent chin. Perhaps they didn’t want the haunted look of another Tex Tucker type. Suffice it to say, I’m not reading much emotional baggage into Mike. He’s also got a silly adventurous-sounding surname, as will several of his successors!

One thing I have noticed – and I had been warned about this – is the use of back projection. 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. It was a common technique in sixties television, so one imagines that at the time, it would have seemed perfectly normal. It’s a little jarring to the modern eye though, and never really looks real. That said, I watch a lot of sixties tv shows, so I’m used to it and usually I can dial it out. Why it doesn’t really work here is that we’re seeing real backdrops behind artificial characters and settings. In Four Feather Falls, 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. Here, there’s a real clash of visual inputs, reality and the puppet realm competing with each other.

Rescue

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. There’s a thick sea mist, and air sea rescue helicopters are unable to locate the survivors in their life-raft. Things get really bad when Mitch accidentally throws the survival rations into the sea! Meanwhile, Professor Popkiss is putting the finishing touches to his invention, Supercar. It’s an odd machine really. Why do they call it Supercar? 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. It’s got a bubble canopy like an aircraft’s cockpit, and they call Mike the pilot rather than the driver. It seems more like an advanced amphibious aircraft than a car. The episode doesn’t make clear just what Supercar was built for, nor who funded it. Is it a government project? Is it funded by industry? One imagines that the developmental costs of such a vehicle would be quite prohibitive – did it all come from Popkiss’s own pocket? But if so, why? Is he hoping to market the technology? (It’s not good enough – I want some proper background!)

Professor Popkiss is a kindly-looking scientist type with a pronounced Eastern European accent and round glasses. Also on the team is Doctor Beaker, whose role is undefined. Sometimes, he seems to be a medical man, sometimes a scientist, sometimes an engineer – so, a real multi-disciplinarian. 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. (He does seem to be a spiritual ancestor of Brains from Thunderbirds.) I like him, and I suspect he’s going to be one of the real stars of the show.

Hearing about the Gibsons’ plight, Mike persuades Popkiss to bring Supercar’s test flight forward, so he can go and rescue them. 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. They bring the Gibsons and Mitch back to their laboratory to recover. (Wouldn’t it have made more sense to take them to a hospital? Especially since Bill has a broken leg? Well, I guess Beaker can handle it.) 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. “I think we’ve found a co-pilot,” says Beaker. I presume he’s taking the piss.

Amazonian Adventure

Mitch the monkey falls ill, and Beaker ascertains that he’s suffering from a disease known to be peculiar to his particular species. 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. As Mitch falls into a catatonic state, Mike determines that they need to take Supercar to the Amazon to collect some of the plant. Popkiss seems reluctant to allow this use of the vehicle, until Mike reminds him forcefully that Mitch is one of the outfit. (Hang on! When did that happen? Last week, Jimmy was just a kid they’d rescued and Mitch was wrecking the place. Now suddenly, they’ve joined the Supercar team. But what happened to Jimmy’s brother? They don’t mention him. And should they be taking a kid away to work on a research project like that? What about his schooling? Is he going to be home-tutored by Popkiss and Beaker? They also don’t mention what Jimmy’s parents think about the arrangement – in fact, I don’t know if there are any parents. 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. I’m just speculating wildly here. Did the writers even think about any of this? Just like with the lack of background given in the first episode, it’s like some of the exposition has been missed out.)

Well anyway, Mike and Beaker take off for the Amazon. 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. Landing in a clearing in the rainforest, Beaker dons a pith helmet, and they set out to look for the clogai plant. Before very long, they’re captured by some natives and imprisoned in a hut. 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. 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. Mike manages to escape by working a hole in the back of the hut, and gets back to Supercar. 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. This reduces them to abject fear, and they give Beaker the required clogai plant as a tribute. (Presumably for budgetary reasons, the Twarka tribe seems to consist of only a witch doctor and a tribal chief. And was that chief actually Red Scalp from Four Feather Falls? It certainly looked a lot like him…) Presenting the tribe as silly superstitious savages is a little galling after the magic realism and sympathetic portrayal of the Indians in Four Feather Falls.

The Talisman of Sargon

The series format is being developed as they go along. So far, it looks like Supercar is just going to be employed to run the occasional errand of mercy. But here we get a bit more complexity added with the introduction of some proper villains. I say introduction, but actually Masterspy and Zarin are just thrown at us as if we’re expected to know who they are. Again, it’s like the writers forgot to give us the necessary exposition. (Which is possibly the case. Hugh and Martin Woodhouse were writing these things ridiculously fast – at a rate of about one a week!) Without a proper introduction, it’s hard to work out exactly who they are. 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. 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. But wait a minute! He’s actually called Masterspy – it’s not exactly the most undercover of names, is it? 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. 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. Still, I’m prepared to overlook some of these anomalies as the two characters are amusing. 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.

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. He can’t translate the cuneiform inscription however – so he heads off to the Supercar lab to consult Dr Beaker. It seems palaeography is another of the Doc’s skills. Needless to say, Masterspy has to adopt one of his amazing disguises. 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. (Indeed, it’s not too long after he leaves that Beaker realizes who his visitor was!) Armed with the translation – “in my mouth lies the door to power” – Masterspy and Zarin rush off to the desert kingdom of Mustapha Bey. (He’s just the sort of sunglasses-wearing, hookah-smoking sheikh that appeared in Danger Man and similar shows.) They persuade him that they’re archaeologists interested in the tomb of the ancient ruler Sargon, and he grants them access. 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.

By this time, Mike and co have arrived in Supercar - but Masterspy seals them inside the tomb. 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. 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. It’s another example of how we’ve substituted science and deduction for the magic of Four Feather Falls. 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. (At least, Masterspy has some practical objective in all this: he's really after the oil wealth to be found under the desert sands.)

False Alarm

Masterspy says that the Supercar team have thwarted him numerous times now (so they must have had plenty of off-screen encounters). He’s got a scheme though: he and Zarin are going to steal Supercar. 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. Masterspy relies on the fact that Supercar is always answering distress calls. (So that seems at least to give some foundation to what the team actually do – they’re like a prototype version of International Rescue.) 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. (Yes, that’s right – you can just phone Supercar up and ask for help. Why didn’t International rescue have their own phone line? – they wouldn’t have needed to muck around with a space station. I might consider this question again when I get to Thunderbirds.) Anyway, Mike and Beaker fly out to the desert. 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. Masterspy and Zarin drug them and tie them up, and then proceed to steal Supercar. Zarin is terrified of both the machine, and Masterspy’s inexpert attempts to work out the controls. But worse is to come. Back at base, Mitch the monkey hears Masterspy’s voice over the radio, and starts to muck around with the remote control for Supercar. (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. I’ll keep an eye on Mitch’s antics and see if I can determine just how smart he actually is.) Soon, Masterspy has had enough of the erratic flying he’s being subjected to and gives up. 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! (So didn’t they think of… I don’t know… handing them over to the police or anything sensible like that?)

Anderthon: Sacramento California!

2011-04-17T22:57:00.006+01:00

Four Feather Falls
episodes 34-39

Teething Troubles

Rocky’s off his feed, and Tex can’t understand why – but eventually, he gets the horse to explain that he’s suffering from toothache. When Doc Haggerty comes to have a look, Rocky refuses to open his mouth. It seems he’s very attached to his teeth, and doesn’t want to have one extracted, no matter how painful it is. No amount of promises, bribes or cajolery (not even unlimited free candy) can get Rocky to open his mouth. Meanwhile, Mr Jackson is coming back from doing business in Silver City, and is bringing the travelling dentist with him – but Rocky runs away to seek the attention of the Indian medicine man. This doesn’t achieve anything, as he’s unable to get the medicine man to understand him. (It might be Indian magic, but as we were quite specifically told, only Tex can actually speak to Rocky.) Back in town, Rocky agrees to have his tooth extracted, as long as Tex does the same. Fortunately, the sheriff has an old wisdom tooth that Doc says should come out. But when Rocky follows him into the dentist’s wagon, his toothache miraculously goes away and he doesn’t need an extraction after all – leaving poor Tex in pain, minus a tooth and with a bandage wrapped around his jaw. This was quite a disappointing episode, as nothing much happened. Obviously it was intended as a jokey episode, but the punchline was predictable and disappointing – and without any bandits or other villainy for Tex to combat, it’s like there’s something missing.

Fancy Shooting

The most exciting thing to happen in town since Ma Jones had a sale: the saloon is playing host to Buck Reevers, a gunslinger renowned for his fancy shooting – “the fastest and bestest in the Westest” as the advertising banner has it! Tex is concerned that such a reputation will attract maverick gunslingers to the town, eager to prove themselves against Buck. He’s also convinced that Buck is nothing more than a showman, and wouldn’t be much use in a confrontation with a real gunfighter. Big Ben has already been slagging him off. But as ever, the bandit proves himself to be all mouth – when he encounters Buck Reevers outside town, he’s all deferential to him. Later that day, Ben gets an unexpected visitor at his shack – the gunfighter called Lightning Lew, who’s come to challenge Buck Reevers. Looks like Tex’s prediction is going to prove right. While Buck Reevers is giving his demonstration that night (shooting clay pipes out of racks, holes through playing cards, that sort of thing) Big Ben lifts one of his bullets for Lightning Lew to examine. It turns out to have only one quarter of the charge of a real bullet – so the gun has almost no kick, enabling Buck to keep his aim steady – but he’d be nothing in a real gunfight. As soon as the challenge is issued, Buck goes to pieces and begs Tex for help. Tex has already agreed to take part in Buck’s show (volunteering to have a cigarette shot out of his mouth) and tells Buck that he’s going to have to go through with the show as if he isn’t afraid. When Lightning Lew bursts into the saloon, the magic guns come to the rescue, shooting the gun from Lew’s hand and the fag from Tex’s mouth – which feat Tex then attributes to Buck, who was so fast on the draw no one even saw his guns move. (What’s strange is not that people buy this, so much as they don’t wonder that Tex had something to do with it – after all, the entire town knows about the magic guns by now.) It seems odd that Tex seeks to preserve Buck’s reputation, when he’d earlier expressed such disapproval – but as he explains to Rocky, he wouldn’t want to deprive a man of his living. And more importantly, he’d rather that guns were used for entertainment than for violence. It’s interesting to hear such sentiments from a man who uses guns as part of his everyday work, but it does seem to be Tex’s belief. He’s aware that the nature of frontier life means it’s necessary for him to use his guns to enforce the law, but he looks forward to the day when they’ll no longer be necessary. It’s a lesson that perhaps the pro-gun lobby in America today ought to take to heart.

Ride ‘em Cowboy

There’s a terrific shot at the beginning of this episode, with Pedro and Fernando framed in extreme close-up with the jailhouse in the background. They proceed to spy on Tex as he’s presented with a new pair of boots by the townsfolk. Tex is going to be riding in the forthcoming rodeo against Bart Stevens of Silver City. Pedro and Fernando are currently in the employ of Stevens, who needs their help to knobble the opposition. So while Tex is distracted, Pedro steals Tex’s new boots and throws them down a well. Unfortunately for Tex, he’s already given his old boots away to a passing drifter. He can’t possibly ride without boots! The rodeo gets under way with a shooting competition. Grandpa Twink is representing Four Feather Falls – but Fernando has fixed his gun, so it blows up in his face (harmlessly!). Bart Stevens lends Twink his own gun, but that just fires a flag saying BANG! Luckily, Tex turns up and lends Twink his own rifle – and grandpa goes on to prove that his old reputation as a sharpshooter is still deserved. Next up is the rodeo riding, which Tex has to do without his boots. Needless to say, he can’t keep his balance on Rocky’s back and comes a cropper. Help is at hand though: Chief Kalamakooya has magicked the boots out of the well, and Tex is able to complete the rodeo events. Bart Stevens now believes that Pedro has double crossed him, and decides to take care of things himself. He dopes Rocky before the final buggy race. This doesn’t have quite the effect intended however – although Rocky becomes sluggish and looks like dropping out of the race, once he realizes what Stevens has done to him, he seems to find new reserves of strength and determination, overcoming the doping to pull ahead and win. Tex then catches Stevens arguing with Pedro and Fernando (villains falling out as ever!) – Stevens pulls his gun and a stand-off follows, but once again the magic guns settle the day. The villains are arrested, with the sheriff of Silver City taking custody of the disgraced Stevens.

Ambush

A nice bit of continuity following the building of the railroad a few weeks ago – now, money shipments no longer have to be brought in by buggy, at risk from thieves and bandits. The latest delivery is coming in from Dallas by train, accompanied by one William J Hatton, a senior clerk from the bank there. Mr Jackson gives Tex a letter of authority to meet the train and take charge of the money. As it turns out, almost the entire population of Four Feather Falls are riding back on the train with Mr Hatton, having been attending a fair in Dallas. The train is ambushed by Indians led by Red Scalp. (I expressed my surprise a few episodes back when Tex was able to catch a locomotive up on horseback, but here the Indians have no difficulty keeping pace with the train – maybe I’ve over-estimated the speed of steam trains in this period…) Everyone draws their guns, and starts trying to fight the Indians off – yes, even Ma Jones, who seems quite bloodthirsty about it! But the Indians stop the train, and demand that Hatton and the money are handed over – after which, the others can go free. Hatton agrees to give himself up for the sake of the others. But it’s all a put-up job. Hatton has done a deal with Red Scalp to split the money with him. When the train finally gets in to Four Feather Falls and the passengers tell Tex what’s occurred, he sets off in pursuit immediately. Red Scalp has been cunning though, and left multiple confusing trails which Tex is unable to follow. Needless to say, Red Scalp double crosses Hatton. However, he allows him one chance to escape: as the Indians bed down for the night, they leave Hatton barefoot inside a ring of fire. If Hatton can walk across the flames, then he can go free. Tex soon turns up, Dusty having caught the scent of the smoke from the fire. He ties strips of blanket round his boots to enable him to cross the flames to Hatton, who comes clean about his conspiracy with Red Scalp. Rocky, proudly mentioning his descent from prime showjumping stock, then leaps over the flames to carry Tex, Hatton and the money to safety. With the money safe in the bank, Tex takes Hatton back to Dallas under arrest – by train.

Horse Thieves

Pedro and Fernando are once again bemoaning their lack of money, but unable to come up with a plan to make any – when Big Ben turns up at their shack with a proposition. He wants them to steal horses, as he’s got a buyer lined up who’ll pay for as many as they can get. In Four Feather Falls, Tex is in the saloon, where he’s once again been enticed into singing for his friends. This time, Twink asks to hear Tex’s own song – in other words the end title theme, “Two Gun Tex of Texas”. It’s a somewhat strange idea to have Tex singing the theme music, especially as it’s about himself! Meanwhile, Pedro and Fernando sneak into town, and steal all the horses in the stables – including Rocky. Dusty comes to raise the alarm, but it’s too late. The bandits are already riding out of town. It turns out that everyone’s horse was in the stables that night, so there are no horses left in the whole of Four Feather Falls! Tex is unable to mount a pursuit. Dusty sets off on his own initiative, and manages to track the stolen horses to where Pedro and Fernando have made camp. They corral the horses and await the arrival of Big Ben with their money. Dusty encourages Rocky to jump over the corral fence. (He didn’t need any encouragement to leap over fire last week, but here he seems uncertain that he can do it…) On the way back to find Tex, they spot Big Ben heading for his rendezvous. Dusty tracks the bandit, while Rocky fetches Tex to catch Ben up. When Pedro and Fernando see Big Ben approaching, they drop their guard – which is foolish of them, since it’s really Tex on Ben’s horse and wearing Ben’s hat. Holding them at gunpoint, he takes them in for being “no-good horse thieves”. Pedro objects – they’ve very good horse thieves. They just stole the wrong horse this time! This is the last appearance of our three regular villains, so it’s nice that they get to team up one final time.

Happy Birthday

It’s Tex’s birthday, and the whole episode revolves around the preparations for his party. As a finale, this is something of a damp squib: no danger, no jeopardy. You want Tex Tucker to go out on a high, upholding the law and sorting out the bandits once and for all. In that regard, the previous instalment would have made a better conclusion. I suppose I’m thinking in modern terms here, where you expect a series finale to be a grand adventure that sums up the ethos of the show in glorious style. Where are Pedro, Fernando and Ben coming into town for a final showdown with their arch-enemy? Instead, what we get here is Martha baking a cake. Chief Kalamakooya uses his magic to help Makooya grow some flowers on the prairie, then conjures up a pair of riding gauntlets for the townsfolk to give Tex as a present. There’s a slight moment of jeopardy when an eagle snatches the gauntlets from the back of Twink’s cart, but Makooya spots it and fires an arrow to frighten the eagle into dropping them. Finally, everyone gets together for Tex’s party. He blows out all the candles on his cake – save the last two which he manages to pick off with his magic guns. (I’m just amazed that he fires his guns at a cake on the table, around which all his friends are sitting. How he doesn’t actually hit anyone, I’ll never know. Still, I suppose they are magic guns…) Tex has a great birthday, and the episode ends as Dusty tries to get some cake off the table - he pulls the tablecloth and ends up with the cake falling on top of him!

***********

I’ve been a bit disparaging about some of the final episodes, I know, but overall I really enjoyed Four Feather Falls. As I’ve pointed out previously, there’s a lot to praise about the show: the sets are extraordinary for a children’s puppet show of the period – especially the Main Street and the prairies. The cinematography and lighting has been excellent. Generally speaking, the puppetry has been to a high standard too – occasionally wires are visible, but realistically no one would expect puppets not to have wires operating them. Compared to other programmes, such as Bill and Ben, the wires are quite unobtrusive. Walking is always a problem for puppets though – they seem basically to just hop along the ground. On the other hand, travelling shots of characters on horseback have been well achieved. Perhaps that’s the answer: they need to have some sort of vehicle for the puppets to travel around in…

One thing I’ve noticed about Anderson fans is that they’re often very aware of the names on the credits – people like Reg Hill, Bob Bell, John Read, Derek Meddings and Barry Gray are very familiar – and yet there never seems to be much discussion of the writers. I think the unsung hero of Four Feather Falls is the entertainingly-named Phil Wrestler, who wrote two thirds of the episodes, and really understood what made the series work. The balance between surreal humour and realistic drama really comes across in his work – those episodes I’ve especially singled out (such as A Sheriff Rides Alone, Gun Play, Gun Fight on Main Street) are his. Yet Wrestler seems to have left the series before the end – and his name never crops up in the Anderson fold again, which is a shame. Later episodes are written by Jill Allgood, and frankly they’re not as good – most of those I’ve really had bones to pick with (Bandits Abroad, Teething Troubles, Happy Birthday) have been hers. I think the difference is Allgood was writing children’s television, whereas Wrestler was writing for a general audience – child-friendly but with appeal to adults. (There are also a couple of decent scripts by Hugh and Martin Woodhouse towards the end of the run, a fact which will become important very soon…)

Anderthon: Far Away in the Mountains in Good Old Western Times...

2011-04-15T00:17:00.011+01:00

Four Feather Falls
episodes 27-33

Bandits Abroad

Pedro and Fernando are looking at a new wanted poster, for a bandit called Pancho Gomez. For once, Pedro isn’t too upset about another bandit having a higher price on his head – because he can see a way to make money out of the situation. He realizes that, give or take a bit of facial hair, Pancho Gomez is a dead ringer for Fernando. This leads to a splendidly silly moment when Pedro looks at Fernando, and sees him turn into a large sack of gold. The plan is simple: Fernando dresses up as Gomez, Pedro takes him in and claims the reward, then later he breaks Fernando out of jail. (It’s more or less the same plan he used in the episode Jail Break – it didn’t work then… Will these men never learn?) This time, things go well. Pedro hands “Gomez” over to Tex, gets the reward – then bursts in while Tex is cleaning his guns – even magic guns are no use whilst they’re unloaded. Pedro has a bandana covering his face, and speaks with a squeaky voice, so Tex will never know it was him! The bandits tie Tex up and then split up to make their escape. Unfortunately for Pedro, he meets the real Pancho Gomez on the road, and naturally thinks it’s Fernando. He ends up tied up himself, and Gomez makes off with the reward money (which seems fair really, since it was on his head…) By now, Tex has got free. He captures Gomez, and subsequently catches up with Pedro and Fernando. So the jail contains one Pedro and two Panchos – both of whom are now claiming to be Fernando.

Just when you think it can’t get any dafter, Fernando wakes up – the whole thing was a dream he was having. Now, I’ve already expressed my dislike of the “it was all a dream” episodes that litter the Anderson series. I think probably this is because I prefer drama to feature characters and situations that develop and grow, to acknowledge changes and deal with the consequences of them. And of course, most tv shows have a continuing narrative which allows this to happen. The sort of film series the Andersons were making were the opposite, designed to have no “story arcs” as we now call them, for episodes to be self-contained and largely interchangeable – which meant you had to return to the status quo at the end of each instalment. By implication, anything really game-changing (such as major characters dying) would have to turn out to be a dream. I can almost accept that argument – but what niggles me is that often the dream ending just seems to be unnecessary, and therefore disappointing for the viewer – sometimes it’s just a lazy conclusion when a little bit of inventiveness of the part of the writer might have produced something more satisfactory. This episode is a real case in point. Four Feather Falls is a crazy enough series that this particular narrative could have easily been played as real. Nothing that happens here seems far-fetched or silly compared to many of Pedro’s previous plans – so having it all being a dream seems completely superfluous. (Unlike for instance the episode where Jake becomes sheriff.)

Safe As Houses

A trader called Missouri Mike turns up in town. For some reason, Tex doesn’t like the look of him, but he seems friendly enough. After ingratiating himself with the folks in the saloon, Mike goes to his room to freshen up. A few moments later, a masked man starts to shoot up the windows of the bank – but makes off when Tex turns up on the street. The masked man is so clearly Missouri Mike wearing a bandana over his face, that even a child could spot it. It’s quite refreshing then that they don’t try to drag any mystery out of this – instead, Tex tells Mike he knows it was him at the first opportunity. What Mike’s trying to do is make the bank appear vulnerable, because what he’s selling are small household safes. Despite Mr Jackson’s assurances that Tex has recovered all money ever stolen from the bank (eventually!) the townsfolk are swayed by the argument. Everyone buys a safe and takes their money out of the bank to keep it at home. Even Tex buys a safe for the jailhouse. In a twist I saw coming miles off, Missouri Mike has a duplicate key to all the safes he’s sold, and that night he goes around robbing the townsfolk of their money and valuables. (I wonder if any kids watching at the time would have worked it out. I’d like to think so. It’s nicely signposted without being too obvious.) What Mike hasn’t bargained on is that Tex has wired for information on him, and knows that Mike has pulled this scam in several towns. So Tex pretends to be asleep when Mike tries to open the jailhouse safe - inside he finds not money but the magic guns. They keep him covered as the mock-sleepy Tex orders Mike to lock himself in the cell!

Gold is Where You Find It

The camera is tracking down Main Street (supposedly representing the viewer’s point of view) when Martha stops it. “I know Twink usually tells you the story,” she says, which seems odd since Grandpa hasn’t done that for weeks now. Anyway, Martha’s going to relate this week’s tale, as Twink is involved in it and is probably embarrassed by it! The tale starts with Pedro and Fernando worrying what they’re going to do with their land at Yellow Gulch. (Which unusually for a film series is a neat bit of continuity going all the way back to episode 2.) Pedro’s got a new plan for disposing of the land at a vast profit. He coats a large rock with gold, and then takes it in to the saloon, where he fools many of the townsfolk into believing it is a huge lump of gold ore he dug up at Yellow Gulch. With this incentive, he offers strips of the land for sale – Twink is one of the first to buy, and soon everyone is following suit. The next day, Ma Jones has sold out of picks and shovels as everyone is setting off for Yellow Gulch – there’s a gold rush on! Tex is suspicious, but he can’t actually arrest Pedro for selling his own land to folks gullible enough to buy it. So he has Martha “accidentally” let slip to Pedro that a telegraph message has come in from the assay office, confirming that there really is a rich seam of gold in Yellow Gulch. Falling for the trick, Pedro asks Tex to help him get his land back, on some spurious pretext that his grandmother has died, and his family tradition insists she needs to be buried in his land. Tex is happy enough to go along and give Pedro a taste of his own medicine – he organizes an auction of the various strips of land, forcing Pedro to buy it all back at grossly inflated prices.

Gold Diggers

Pedro and Fernando are repairing the roof of their shack, which was damaged back when Pedro set fire to it. (Which is another nice piece of continuity, going back to episode 13. It’s nice to see the writers actually remember these things – mind you, I’ve got to wonder why the bandits have put up with this state of disrepair for so long.) The beams collapse, and Fernando falls through the roof – but in the wreckage he finds a treasure map. (Wonder who left it there?) It shows where some gold is buried in the land where Four Feather Falls now stands. With a real sense of inevitability, the gold is now underneath the jailhouse! (I say inevitability, because the buried loot that’s had a police station built on top of it is an idea I’ve seen more than once before: the Sid James movie The Big Job is the most obvious, but then the same thing happened in an episode of Hustle this year. Of course, this episode of Four Feather Falls predates both those examples.) Dusty overhears the bandits plotting and warns Tex, but the sheriff is prepared to let them get on with it – the jailhouse needs a new floor, and he’s happy for Pedro to do the excavation work for him! So Pedro gets himself arrested, Fernando passes him tools through the bars of the cell window, and Pedro gets to work. This all coincides with Mr Jackson breaking the key to the bank vault, meaning he can’t get out the gold which needs to be taken to one of the big ranches to pay the cowboys – the sort of men who are likely to cause trouble if they don’t get paid on time. A locksmith has been sent for, but he won’t arrive in time. So when Pedro starts pulling sacks of gold out of the hole in the cell floor, Tex realizes that the bandit has somehow managed to tunnel under the street and into the bank vault without realizing it. He passes the sacks out through the window bars, unaware that Fernando has fallen asleep and that Tex is the one collecting the gold from him. Mr Jackson is able to load it up on his buggy to take to the ranchers. So thanks to Pedro, problem solved!

First Train Through

It’s a big day – the Canyon Railroad company has built a line to Four Feather Falls. Tex predictably sings the Rick-Rackety Train song, and we’re treated to something significant: probably the first proper miniature effects in an Anderson series, as a rather fine model train puffs its way through a model landscape. That night there’s a huge storm and a landslide buries the track. Tex finds some frayed rope at the top of the hill, and begins to suspect that the rocks were shifted by human agency. It turns out that the track foreman and his men are secretly in the employ of the rival Overland Railroad company, their mission to drive the Canyon Railroad out of business. When the day comes for the first train to arrive at Four Feather Falls, Tex discovers that the track has been damaged where it goes over a ravine and the train is headed for disaster. And just to make it personal, Twink is on board. The whole runaway train motif is a familiar one from Westerns, and is excitingly played out here. Tex has to ride Rocky hard to catch up with the train, then keep pace alongside as he shouts warnings across to Twink. (Yes, a horse that can outpace a train – well, I suppose early steam trains were slower than what we’re used to today…) Once the alarm is raised, it’s a tense and nerve-racking sequence as the brakes are applied and the train agonizingly slows as the gap comes nearer and nearer. (It is, I suppose, a precursor of the jeopardy that will become the stock in trade of Thunderbirds.) With the train safe, Tex exposes the crooked foreman and his men, and the future of rail travel is assured.

A Bad Name

Big Ben is being pursued into town by a rancher called Joe “Lucky” Chance, and his ranch foreman Matt Aimes. They’re accusing him of rustling their cattle. Ben begs help from Tex, swearing that he didn’t do it. Lucky Chance has a reputation for taking the law into his own hands, and wants to string Ben up. He tells Tex that Matt Aimes saw Ben and Red Scalp stealing the cattle with his own eyes (although Red Scalp was able to escape.) Tex warns Lucky off, telling him the law can deal with any alleged rustlers. With Ben locked up, he decides to find Red Scalp and find out what’s really going on. But he’s aware that Lucky might try to come back and have another go at Ben, so he sends Dusty to fetch Twink and Doc Haggerty. (It’s all very well sending Dusty off on an errand when you can talk to him, but I’d like to see how exactly the dog was able to pass Tex’s massage along – he can only talk to Tex, remember…) Tex asks Doc and Twink to stay in the jail and guard Ben until he gets back. On the prairie, Tex finds Red Scalp in possession of some branding irons, such as might be used to change the identification on stolen cattle – and he demands that the Indian tell him what’s been going on. Meanwhile, Lucky and Matt Aimes have returned to town and demand that Big Ben be given up. When Twink and Doc refuse, a gunfight ensues. It’s a great sequence that neatly uses many of the traditional Western shoot-out tropes: Doc and Twink firing from the windows, mirrors and pictures breaking or being shot off the walls, and so on. Tex gets back with Red Scalp, and the truth comes out. The Indian had been hired by Matt Aimes to help with the disposition of the stolen cattle – the foreman was ripping off his employer. As for Big Ben, he really is an innocent scapegoat – Aimes trading on Ben’s bad name to make his involvement seem plausible. Tex once again demonstrates that he gives a fair chance to everyone, regardless of their reputation, if they haven’t actually done wrong.

Kidnapped

Strangely, Twink is back to telling the story this week. Even more strangely, he starts by recapping the tale of how Tex got his magic feathers, complete with brief flashbacks to episode 1. (I wasn’t really sure why this was felt necessary. 33 episodes in, if the audience haven’t grasped the backstory yet, there really is no hope.) However, this week’s story is all about the time that Chief Kalamakooya needed white man’s medicine. Which kinds of flies in the face of the Chief’s assertion a few weeks ago that medicine men served Indians whilst doctors served the needs of the white man. But this week, Makooya is sick, so perhaps in his desperation, the chief will try anything and his belief in his own cultural traditions is wavering a bit. Even though he’s still got very real magical powers and can teleport himself into Tex’s jailhouse to ask for help. Unfortunately, Tex is unable to locate Doc Haggerty because he’s just been kidnapped by Pedro and Fernando. It’s their latest money-making scheme. Instead of robbing the bank, they plan to take someone the town needs and demand a ransom. Luckily, Dusty saw Doc leaving with Fernando, so Tex is able to go and rescue him, then take him to Makooya. (Who’s still a little boy, despite it being said that Tex encountered him in the wilderness “all those years ago” – you know, that really has irritated me, because it seems to have ignored something really obvious. I wonder if the child audience of the day noticed.) Anyway, Doc is able to cure Makooya of whatever’s wrong, and then Kalamakooya, his grandson and even their tent fade away, leaving Tex and Doc alone in the wilderness.