Reviews of New Captain Scarlet

[ray gower]

Andrew Billen- NewStatesman
Television
Andrew Billen
Monday 21st February 2005
Television - A revamped children's classic is good enough for grown-ups, writes Andrew Billen

Captain Scarlet (ITV)

At last, you may think, this paper's TV critic gets to opine on a subject he knows something about - for know about Captain Scarlet I do. I know his real name is Paul Metcalfe, his boss is Colonel White and his best friend is Captain Blue. I know he works for Spectrum on an aircraft carrier in the sky, and I know how he became indestructible. On Sunday nights in 1967 and 1968, I religiously watched all 32 episodes of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons - even the one ITV postponed that October night when someone called Clement Attlee died and they put on a tribute instead. Earth contained no one I admired more than the show's creator, Gerry Anderson, the man who made Thunderbirds.

But even with the signature of the great man (now in his seventies) attached to it, I was more than likely to hate Anderson's new Captain Scarlet. I am one of the nerds, as Mark Kermode would say, who boycotted last summer's Thunderbirds film because it messed too much with the original. But the new Scarlet is, I have to admit, probably better than the original. It is faster, slicker, glossier - yet, like the original, still sucks you into its strange, over-automated alternative future. Most of the old names and faces are there, although Spectrum's quota of female officers has increased, and Captain Green has become a woman. It remains absolutely true to the original's darkly sinister adult tone. Whereas Thunderbirds was about rescuing people, Scarlet was about damnation, the soul of a resurrected man being fought for between Captain Scarlet and the equally indestructible Captain Black. It was Anderson's Gothic period.

How I loved it then! But I remember as a child feeling gloomy about the prospects for future adult nostalgia. Anderson's science fiction seemed unimprovably sophisticated and technically advanced. It would not be like looking back, as our elders might do, on the innocence of Larry the Lamb or the Saturday-morning cinema serials. Indeed, Scarlet was superior even to all the brilliant things Anderson had already done. A special-effects breakthrough had reduced the size of the lip-synching machinery inside his puppets' heads. As a result, Scarlet and his friends were not lumbered with grotesquely large faces like the one that marred even Lady Penelope's regal beauty.

But my nine-year-old self would have been amazed by the way this revamp looks - although, with each episode costing almost £1m, compared to the £25,000 Anderson had to play with in the Sixties, it should look amazing. "Hypermarionation" has superseded "Supermarionation"; computer-generated imagery has replaced puppetry. In the old days, Anderson had a problem making his characters walk. To avoid getting their strings in a twist, he generally plonked them at desks and flight consoles. Freed by technology, his new animated actors dash about, fight and, obeying at long last the laws of science, attain weightlessness in space. Of the old effects, only the roaming green Mysteron torch-circles remain.

Yet, in a sense, I was right: Anderson's programmes were sophisticated, even adult. To take a small thing, the heroes were allowed love lives. Steve Zodiac and Venus were an item aboard Fireball XL5. In Stingray, Troy Tempest was caught in a love triangle between the commander's daughter Atlanta and the mute semi- mermaid Marina. Scott Tracy had the hots for Lady Penelope in Thunderbirds (but she was out of his league). Watching the original Captain Scarlet, I remember my pre-pubescent self becoming alarmed by an episode in which it was revealed that Captain Blue was in love with Symphony, the ravishing pilot of one of the Angel planes, and being relieved when the episode turned out to be a dream (hers not his). In the new programme, puppet love is even more complicated. Destiny Angel, who had been Captain Black's squeeze, is being "comforted" by Scarlet. By a mid-season episode that I have seen, their flirtations are positively hot.

The "dateline", we are told archly at the start of the first programme, is "the day after tomorrow", but a newspaper later shows that it is, as it always was, 2068. Now that we are almost 40 years nearer this future, it is interesting to see how the detail of the back-story has changed. In the 1968 version of 2068, there had been an atomic war in 2028. A world government was now in place, although, ominously, the "Eastern Bloc" was not part of it. The new production notes refer to the "outbreak of world terrorist wars" that killed Scarlet's parents before these programmes begin. But Anderson was on the money about one thing even in 1967 - the Mysterons do not wish to invade Planet Earth, but intend to destabilise it with acts of terrorism.

I have a few complaints. It is a shame, for instance, that Anderson has not used the original Barry Gray theme music, and it's a greater shame that ITV is airing it so early, tucked into Ministry of Mayhem, its Saturday-morning kiddy magazine show. It deserves a teatime slot, where it could go head-to-head against the new Dr Who in the spring (the grown-ups, I promise, would not be bored - at least not the dads when they watch Destiny take her tunic off). And Anderson has fixed every child's main objection to the programme: if Scarlet is indestructible, where's the excitement? Captain Scarlet, we are now told, is virtually indestructible.

Andrew Billen is a staff writer on the Times

 

[ray gower]

Shinyshelf

Gerry Anderson’s New Captain Scarlet
ITV1, Saturdays

WARNING! Article contains spoilers!

Given the resounding apathy with which the recent ‘Thunderbirds’ movie was greeted, this might seem like the worst possible time to launch a new version of its 1960s stable-mate ‘Captain Scarlet’. However, the new ‘Scarlet’ has been so well done that it’s actually the perfect time to launch it, because the contrast with ‘Thunderbirds’ does it so many favours. The creator of both series, Gerry Anderson, was frustrated at not being involved with the ‘Thunderbirds’ movie and has been openly critical of the result. His new ‘Captain Scarlet’ demonstrates that this was more than just bitterness, since it strongly suggests that he could have done a better job.

Many creators are over-protective of their past glories, and their involvement with any revival sometimes results in something that feels a little over-considered, constricted or dated. However, the ideas and aesthetics behind Anderson’s Supermarionation series have appealed to so many generations (in spite of the primitive mode of their production) that it’s obvious much of this is worth preserving in any hi-tech version. However, Anderson has not been so precious as to have every aspect slavishly re-created, and the result is a series that has every chance of reaching a new generation.

There are a number of differences in the first episode which improve upon the original. For example, Scarlet and Black are together on the Mars mission when they encounter the Mysterons, whereas the 1960s version just had Black on that mission: it therefore makes more sense that Scarlet and Black are the two chosen to become Mysteron agents. There’s also a slight movement towards naturalism, with the characters given names in addition to their designations, and hints of their lives beyond Spectrum (Destiny Angel and Captain Black are a couple at the beginning of the episode, only to be split apart by the Mysterons’ intervention).

However, the series feels very much like an evolution of the original ‘Captain Scarlet’. The decision to remake an old puppet show with CG animation is inspired (rather charmingly, it’s heralded as a ‘Hypermarionation’ production), because this kind of quasi-realistic CG work bears more resemblance to a puppet show than to traditional cell animation. The result is that the characters in the new ‘Captain Scarlet’ are recognisably those from the original, but obviously move much better and are consequently more engaging.

There’s also a sort of Anderson logic to how everything works. At one point Scarlet goes to a small country house, which turns out to be a disguised garage for his awesome scarlet car. As he drives out, the gate – rather than opening outwards – automatically drops into the ground and he just drives over it. That sums up how Anderson’s series work: things inside other things, deceptive appearances, technology that works smoothly but also surprisingly. The subsequent chase sequence takes place in a British rural setting which both recalls the original ‘Scarlet’ and makes the series visually distinctive from the American and Japanese cartoons with which it must compete. Scarlet is pursued by Captain Blue, who has a motorbike that flies. I don’t care what generation you grew up in, a motorbike that flies is way cool.

The first episode is fast-paced and smartly scripted: there’s a need for a few more explanations (why have the Mysterons lost control of Scarlet?) but this is the first part of a two-part story, so there’s time to fill things out. In fact, my biggest complaint is that ITV haven’t found a repeat slot where the older audience might catch it, but this is unsurprising given that the deal for its current slot – in the latter half of the Saturday morning kids’ show ‘Ministry of Mayhem’ – was only made about a month ago (until then, Anderson Entertainment was aiming for a late 2005 premiere).

And anyway, it’s not the older audience that matters. The slot it’s found is a great one from a viewpoint of reaching kids, and I hope they enjoy it (assuming they’re not all watching Dick and Dom). If ‘Captain Scarlet’ does well, Anderson Entertainment plans to work on new, original projects – which could give British animation a shot in the arm.

 

[ray gower]

My Take

Not a lot I can add to the published comments. But know I have seen an episode:-

Far Too Good For Children!

This is very much Captain Scarlet of old in new threads, a sort of quasi-realistic James Bond.

As far as animation goes, Hypermarionation is no where near the class of Lord of the Rings or even Final Fantasy. Little things like a few facial expressions do not work quite right and characters walk like muscle bound hulks (which strangely smooths out during action scenes, the episode I saw started with a sword duel which was very slick). So the moment it starts it is different and there is the feeling that all other TV animation is as flat as the characters they draw.

After that it gets better!

I honestly do not know what it is that makes a show step up from 'Something to keep the kids quiet', to a point of keeping adults quiet too. I put it down to heart, which every pixel in the characters has and shows. Whatever it is, Anderson knows how to find and use it, with the result it feels more real than a certain recently cancelled American space opera.

All it needs is the return of Barry Grays big band signature tune and perhaps be a little longer to smooth out the cuts between scenes.

Otherwise the only question is. Why burry it in one of the most gormless childrens shows on UK television?

 

[Dave]

Re: My Take

Originally posted by ray gower
Otherwise the only question is. Why bury it in one of the most gormless childrens shows on UK television?

That's one of the reasons why I have only seen one and a half of them

Mind you, 'Dick and Dom in da Bungalow' on BBC1 is much worse than 'Ministry of Mayhem' on ITV.

I'm often working Saturday mornings, and if I'm not and if I don't have something better to do than watch childrens TV, my kids prefer 'Dick and Dom'.

What I saw looked okay, but not enough for me to video it, and they seem to alter the time it shows too. I can't believe anyone would sit through the rest of that show just to catch it.

 

[ray gower]

I struck lucky. Sky actually gave a time for it to start and I didn't have to go to work until I felt like it