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A top-secret meeting is held with the World President and two Spectrum Intelligence Agency officers to showcase the new Mysteron electrical gun and detector. Following the inexplicable events with the late Doctor Magnus, who attempted to kill General Tiempo, the meeting takes place in the shooting grounds of an African private game reserve.

Colonel White and Captains Scarlet and Blue find themselves in a treacherous hunting sport when the Mysterons attempt to prevent Spectrum from introducing their new and innovative mobile weapons in the fight against them.

But, unbeknown to the group of men the security officer-in-charge, Captain Indigo, has been murdered in cold-blood by Captain Black and is now threatening the lives of everyone at the meeting. Can Scarlet stop him in time and save everyone?moreless

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  • Spectrum gets some new kit.

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    The best parts of this episode are clearly the two new anti-Mysteron devices that are introduced here. Going along with them is the continuity with Operation Time, which inspired both of them. The Mysteron Detector would go be the one that would reappear in later episodes while the gun seems to disappear after this. Quite right to, as the electricity kills Mysterons doesn't make much sense anyway. How many Mysterons have been killed by simple gunshots? The Mysteron Gun isn't needed when any old gun/explosion/car crash will do. Mysterons are no more vulnerable to electricity than humans it seems. One of the silliest aspects of the episode, and probably the series, is that hunting lodge. Such an over engineered, dangerous and slow way to downstairs. It's even clearly show to be pointless when Captain Indigo takes a lift to get up and down! Speaking of Captain Indigo, it's a shame was killed so early on and that we didn't get to see him in Spectrum uniform.

    An episode that, while not it itself a fantastic episode, does have repurcussions for the rest of the series due to aforementioned Mysteron Detetcor.moreless
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  • TRIVIA (15)

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    • The Score: The conference goes ahead. Spectrum: 7 Mysterons: 2.

    • Mysteron Reconstructions: Captain Indigo (shot by Black/shot by guard, electrocuted by Scarlet).

    • Spectrum Losses: Captain Indigo is killed, reconstructed as a Mysteron and killed again.

    • Collateral Damage: Hunting lodge furniture.

    • Dr. Giadello has Captain Indigo bring the Mysteron Detector downstairs to the meeting, yet the whole purpose of the meeting was to discuss the detector and the gun, so it seems odd that he would forget one of the 'stars' of the show.

    • The design of the hunting lodge seems rather ridiculous. Instead of lowering the whole building down into the ground, a lift or even a flight of stairs would have sufficed to get into the basement offices. Captain Indigo even uses a lift to get down into those offices later on. A flight of stairs or that lift wouldn't have tried to crush everybody either.

    • Apparently the lift in the hunting lodge can't be used while the lodge lowering mechanism is in motion, but Scarlet manages to get up to the lodge via the lift after Indigo had already set it in motion and taken the key.

    • Captain Scarlet gets nauseous when the Park Ranger aims his gun at him, but the nausea has only ever been caused by the presence of a Mysteron. The Park Ranger wasn't a Mysteron as far as we know.

    • The establishing shot of Cloudbase shows three Angels on the flight deck, but as Rhapsody returns there are only two, with her aircraft making three.

    • The Mysteron detector has a vertical lens, but all shots with the camera looking through the viewfinder (the user's eye view), the image seen through the lens is horizonal. This would also be the case in later episode featuring the detector.

    • After killing Captain Indigo with the Mysteron Gun, Scarlet says to the Park Ranger: "This is the only gun that can kill a Mysteron". This means that every other Mysteron discovered up to this point (excluding Dr. Magnus from the previous episode) were not killed properly, such as the garage mechanic from "Manhunt" and Ensign Soames in "White as Snow". Given the Mysteron healing abilities demonstrated by Scarlet, these Mysterons could well still be at large.

    • The prop gun, used in the close-up shot of Captain Black firing his gun doesn't use a proper special-effect to fire, and instead just uses a light flashing effect.

    • When the original Captain Indigo returns to the ground level of the hunting lodge, the grided lines of the interior don't line up with the original ones.

    • After the Mysteronised Captain Indigo shouts to Captain Scarlet, "Come and get me, Earthman", he fires two shots, and after he does so, a shot of him resting and waiting for Scarlet to come and get him shows him fire another shot, but his body movement doesn't suggest this, as his gun is pointing in the wrong direction, and his arms are not moving like they did before.

    • In a life-saving attempt to hit the lift mechanism control console, Captain Blue fires 14 bullet shells into the descending ceiling, but later on, only 8 bullet holes can be found.

  • QUOTES (2)

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    • Mysterons: This is the voice of the Mysterons. We know that you can hear us Earthmen. We know of your pathetic attempts to discover our secrets, but you will never succeed. You will never solve the mystery of the Mysterons.

    • Captain Blue: This is a priority message, Codeword Ark - Captain Indigo is in the hands of the Mysterons.

  • NOTES (5)

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    • The Captain Indigo puppet previously appeared as Macey in "Big Ben Strikes Again" and would go to play Mervin Brand in "The Launching".

    • The working title of this episode was "Spectrum Strike Back", which is grammatically incorrect.

    • Colonel White's codename "Tiger" is possibly a reference to the White Tiger of India, which shares it's colour with the Colonel's usual codename.

    • This episode is a sequel of sorts to the previous episode "Operation Time" as both incidents that inspired the development of the anti-Mysteron devices occured in that episode.

    • First U.K. (BBC2) Network Airdate: Friday 3 December, 1993 - 6:00PM Official ITC Recommended Broadcast-Order Number: 9

  • ALLUSIONS (0)

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