Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons

...it's badly marred, to my mind, by the fact that the whole debacle could have been avoided if Spectrum had been the security force it claims to be.



Melody Angel is certain that she saw Goddard's plane get hit by lightning. They immediately lose radio contact for several minutes. By this time they are all well aware of the Mysterons' methods. When "Goddard" brought his plane to Cloudbase, the very first thing they should have done was scan the two men with a Mysteron detector. Actually, that should have been a standard procedure, even without those several minutes out of touch. When the delegates arrived at Cloudbase, they were all checked through Security, which presumably included a detector scan. Another point: Captain Scarlet is seated right next to "Goddard" in Cloudbase, and there's not a twitch from his "sixth sense."



It's also pretty silly that Scarlet was sent to cover the conference all by himself. In fact, he provides a fine demonstration of why they should always work in pairs.



After Melody confirms that the original plane had indeed crashed, Col. White attempts to contact Symphony, but cannot. Why? Because she's not wearing her flight helmet, with its attached radio. Apparently you can only call a Spectrum Angel when she's in full flying kit, which is rather limiting, to say the least.



The dungeon set was wonderful, with what looked like live mice playing rats. However, it seemed peculiar that there was an open grate leading to the dungeon just a few feet away from the big hall. (Perhaps the original inhabitants got a kick out of listening to their victims screaming down below while they were upstairs feasting. Nice.)



Scarlet naturally gets free and shows up in the nick of time--but when he shoots at the portrait, the man behind it shoots a wide swath with his machine gun--and only hits Scarlet (and him only once). Very poorly made gun.



The scene with Scarlet fending off Goddard while Symphony escaped with the delegates was very exciting, although I agree that Captain Blue went a little overboard with the missiles. The first one got the job done; the others not only wrecked the castle, but probably increased the difficulty of retrieving Scarlet's body. (An earlier statement from the caretaker implied that perhaps now Glengarry will become more popular with tourists, since it's become a ruin like all the other castles.)



I enjoyed the ending, where Scarlet states quite truthfully that he's indestructible, while Col. White hastens to gloss over the remark.

This episode, while not as action packed as other episodes of the series, is good as, especially when Goddard prepares to have the air comamnders killed, you really get a sense of impending doom as the clock ticks on. The Magnacopter model is a strange one however and doesn't seem very efficient in terms of interior space. Spectrum, and especially Blue, did seem quite heavy handed when he totally destroyed the castle. A bit of overkill I felt there and they rendered Morton homeless as well. of note, is the return of Scarlet's pain face for it's second and final appearance after The Mysterons when Scarlet was shot.