Captain Scarlet

I was pleasantly surprised recently to stumble across this TV series as I was a fan of the original and am glad that the characters can now do so much more in the CGI format. The new stories are great. I bought the series 1 box set on DVD and enjoy watching and re-watching my favorite episodes! This box set only covers the first 13 episodes which aired on UK TV in 2005, but am hoping that the series 2 box set will be available before too long as they finished airing in November of 2005. I regret having missed seeing those episodes at the time as we do get that channel over here in Ireland. The DVD has some decent bonus features... I recommend checking it out! Any true Captain Scarlet/Gerry Anderson fan owes it to themselves! Cheers!

More of a "re-animation" of the original, rather than an original take on the original Captain Scarlet, Gerry Anderson is back with more of a whimper than a bang.

First of, its currently shown in a children's Saturday morning show (Ministry of Mayhem), split in two between games and with a preview at the start of the second part. Secondly the transmission times keep changing (anything from 10:30am to 11am) Thirdly, the episodes seem to be heavily edited as scenes jump from one to another without any real reason. Lastly, there is usually a fairly annoying scrolling message during the first showing of the program.

The CGI for the most part is pretty good, with detail on hair, engine thrusts etc. Unfortunately in parts its also pretty poor - lip animation seems to be very limited, with no real changes of mouth shapes, depending on what words are said.

The actual script is pretty good, although it can be a little tacky in parts.

Whether it would be better to wait until later in the year to get the DVD set, and hopefully a better transmission time, will depend on whether you can stand MoM.

Having just acquired access to the HD Animation channel through Dish Network in the US, I stumbled upon the New Captain Scarlet for the first time. So far, I have seen about 4 episodes. (It is shown daily on the HD Anime channel, followed by an episode of "Youri the Spaceman.") In 70" high definition, the New Captain Scarlet is absolutely spectacular ... the most impressive HD experience I have had so far in these past four weeks.

I am a fan of some of the early Supermarionation series (e.g. Fireball XL5, Stingray), and have always been impressed with the quality of direction and production, and of the respect that Anderson and company has apparently had for their juvenile audiences. Each series has had a level of detail and story exposition that goes far beyond any comparable juvenile adventure series here in the US at the time.

However, I was not a fan of the first Scarlet series. The puppets were just too stiff to maintain any involvement. At least Steve Zodiac and Venus went ice skating once in a while.

But I digress. The new series is impeccably detailed, and the action is superbly directed and genuinely exciting. In contrast with the original series, the characters can at least walk, and much more. The stories aren't much to speak of, but every other aspect of production is impressive.

To borrow a phrase from our American cousins, Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet 'kicks serious ass!' This 26-part CG animation epic retains the basic setup of Earth caught in a war of nerves against The Mysterons, shapeless, disembodied entities from Mars with the ability to destroy objects and people and then reconstruct them for their own ends.

The 1967 original is of course fondly remembered by fans for its air of menace and that aspect is just one of many elements the new series embraces and improves on with glee. Each week hapless humans die in spectacular 'accidents' and Mysteron agents are shot, electrocuted, blown up and flung off cliffs with impunity. In 'Skin Deep' the delightfully villainous Captain Black even shoots a woman in the face, at point blank range. This kind of deliciously dark mayhem is exactly what young and old love about the show.

The scripts (the majority of them by Phil Ford) are not only pacey, varied and imaginative but exploit aspects of the basic format that were simply beyond the abilities of the original. For example, 'Chiller', sees Scarlet so badly injured in a Mysteron explosion that his spirit literally frees itself from his mangled remains. The result is that Scarlet finds himself invisible to everyone else on Skybase. Not only invisible but insubstantial, able to walk through walls and people like a ghost. All of which poses a major problem given that Scarlet knows a traitor has carried a bomb on board. But how can a ghost warn his friends? In 'Swarm', a plague of Mysteron nanobots takes over Skybase, wrapping its human prey in spider-like cocoons. 'Mercury Falling,' features Captain Blue and Destiny piloting a nuclear powered space shuttle (a tribute to 'Fireball XL5') which has been transformed into a flying bomb aimed at Washington D.C. And 'Rat Trap' sees our heroes dispatched to a spooky Martian colony to face some killer robots on the rampage.

But for all the visceral hi-tech wizardry on display the new series also offers a satisfying emotional core. A blossoming love affair between Scarlet and Destiny Angel is a real pleasure to watch and surprisingly heartfelt in its impact. Although aimed at children this is, as Thunderbirds was before it, a show with genuine adult appeal. And if Scarlet is predictably loyal and heroic his worry about his invulnerability and the way it sets him apart from other humans adds another layer of depth to his character.

As for the photorealistic CGI animation one word sums it up and that word is 'spectacular'. Given that the original Captain Scarlet was a puppet (marionette) show - with all the inherent limitations of movement and expression that entails - the new version is nothing short of miraculous. The characters can finally move without having to be in a vehicle or stand on a conveyor belt! They can smile, look sad, angry, frustrated, and have thrilling hand to hand fights. The new series exploits all of these possibilities to the hilt.

In conclusion all I can say is that anyone who lives outside the UK should contact their local station and request them to carry this show. If you like Gerry & Sylvia Anderson's work but were horrified by Jonathan Frakes' Thunderbirds movie yet still want to see one of the old puppet shows updated with love and skill then New Captain Scarlet is a must. It's easily the best thing Anderson has done since Year One of Space:1999 and far better, IMO, than the BBC's recently relaunched Doctor Who.

Gerry Anderson's "New Captain Scarlet" began its 26 episode run on the morning of Saturday 12th February 2005 on CITV although, to be honest, I wish it wasn't part of "Ministry of Mayhem"! Why are ITV afraid to try for a bigger audience late afternoon/early evening? Also, in "MOM", the gap between the two halves of each episode is much longer than a regular commercial break would be!

I'd like to know the thinking behind changing Lt. Green from a black male to a white female especially as there are already five female characters in the shape of the Angels although, of the five, we only meet Destiny in the first episode. The suggestion is that, like Councillor Troi when "Star Trek: The Next Generation" began, she is the character through which the emotional content of an episode will be channelled.

I'm also curious about the change of name from Cloudbase to Skybase? That aside, it moved at a furious pace and, in so-doing, lost the luxuriously sedate menace of the 1967 original. The Supermarionation version was much aided by Barry Gray's music whereas the score for the new CGI series meanders rather nondescriptly, instantly forgotten. I wonder what the closing credits are like? We weren't given the chance to see or even hear them on CITV!

There was much to recommend the new show. Particularly impressive were the Angel flight sequences and Black's resurrection, fist through the coffin lid! This made him come across as some vampire-like figure and the great coat swirling behind him reminded me of "Blade Runner" though younger viewers would probably have associated it with Spike from "Buffy, The Vampire Slayer"!

What would be nice is for those younger viewers to want to discover the beauty of the original puppet series which, for all its woodenness, still felt three dimensional; something you just don't seem to get from computer generated material. Even so, I enjoyed it and will stay with the series both now and when it returns later in the year...