Spectrum Headquarters Forum

Another excellent episode today, just as good if not better than Circles of Doom a couple of weeks back.

It had all the things I like to see in the series - continuous life-like character movement, excellent visuals (check out the explosion of the truck near the beginning, probably better than the one at the end of Circles of Doom, also the cloud formation and rain - brilliant stuff) good story and plenty of action.

In one way I'm surprised how good it was considering it was only the 3rd episode in production. I'm sure we all get the feeling that as the series develops each episode gets better, but this seems like it could have been one of the later episodes in the first 13. My least favourite episode 'Swarm' was the 8th one produced, and I don't think it came anywhere near as good as this one.

All TV series have their good and not so good episodes. I guess when a production team is on a tight schedule it becomes difficult to achieve the same high standard week in week out, but in my opinion the last 2 episodes have been amongst the best so far. I give this one 9/10.

Aegis said:
In answer to Marion's point about Destiny getting over Conrad pretty quickly, bear in mind that the order the shows are screened in isn't necessarily the order in which they were written or made (in fact, the original episode 3, Rain of Terror has Scarlet flirting with Susan Todd which is going to make Scarlet look a bit of a cad when it's aired

I don't think he looked like a cad - because if that's his idea of flirting he needs to get out more.... . His admission at the end that what he felt for her 'might have been more' than just liking - hardly seemed borne out by what we saw in the episode - except, perhaps, for the colonel's observation that he volunteered to go on the mission immediately after he saw Susan Todd.
Anyway - Professor Todd looked enough like Destiny to account for that, if he ever has to explain himself to the Angel Pilot...

Maybe it would have had more impact if it had been broadcast in the order of production?

We saw some more of Captain Black in this episode - and he is rapidly turning into the best thing in the show... and for once the Mysterons did arrange a fatal accident for someone - but a someone who played no further part in the story. Susan Todd was 'drugged' by the rain and what happened on Cloudbase -(Sorry!) Skybase - did not seem to have any relevence to the Mysteron plot beyond alerting Spectrum to what was likely to happen. Presumably as the Mysterons don't issue a threat any more, there has to be some way to explain to the audience what's going on?

I liked it a lot.

Scarlet's flirting really bad, though did provide some unintentional humor.

Black is excellent, he actually gets stuck in doing stuff.

Yeah why the heck can't the other Angels get a look in?

It would actually have made more sense from a character development perspective to have put this episode in place of Swarm..then it would have been more reasonable to assume that Scarlet took a possible romantic interest in Destiny..after he had lost his ..love...
and speaking of Susan Todd..who yes..bore a remarkable resemblance to Destiny..(what Freudian possibilties there if the airing had been reversed... )
And, for two people who were supposedly so enamoured of one another it took long enough to get round to using their first names (Very Jane Austen..)
So far.. it seems to me that CGI is incapable of creating hair that isn't short or in a ponytail- so the women all look very samey..the caucasian ones anyway..or maybe there's another reason..?
Well..enough of that...
As to the episode itself..not bad..but not my fave..certainly the body movements were good but parts of the plotline were a bit obtuse...if Black had the power to seed the death clouds why did he choose to kill one person (White) instead of thousands??? Mind you I rather like Black too..he is very sardonic..and and the Colonel has a real wicked wit.
Strangely enough..my fave so far IS Swarm..not sure why..perhaps
a) got to see a lot of the other characters..b) we had insinuations of relationships..(Green/Blue) and the easy cameradie amongst the crew c) we got to see a lot of Skybase..

I agree with Marion, there's something about this series that's not making me overly excited. It has had its moments, but I'm not taken. It could be the time length, the time slot or having MOM interrupt halfway into it. But sometimes, originals should be left alone. Like Galactica, Italian Job etc...not the same thing and perhaps I'll come under fire for this, so be it.

Yeah do agree with you there.

Purely on it's own merits the show isn't bad. But compared to the original there is something lacking.

Marion wrote:Sage might have hit the nail on the head there.
If the CGI show was brand new and a stand alone transmission - it would be okay - but, with the history of the original series behind it, it carries expectations it doesn't meet and it does lack a certain something.
No-one's claiming the original was perfect - Jeez, it had plot gaps you could drive a Unitron through in places - but it had a charm that is lacking in this new version.
There were criticisms of the classic show - that making the puppets more human-like in appearance lost the charm of the caricatures in Fireball, Stingray, Thunderbirds, et al.; and that the realistic appearance meant their lack of mobility was more noticable and that rendered them charmless.
Well, here we have perfect human-like characters, will full mobility - and yet they talk like automatons and have all the charm of dry biscuits! Oh, there are occaisonal flashes, when you think - YES! - but they are few and far between, it seems to me.
I honestly don't think ITV have done the series any favours by sticking it in the abysmal dross that is MoM, or effectively wasting the initial enthusiasm of fans by airing it before the back-up merchandise was ready to go; but if the series was so all-fire brilliant, it would rise above these problems.
I want to like it.... I desperately want to like it... and I have to say - with a great deal of disappointment - I don't.

Well I have to say I disagree with you Marion - the series is as much to today's audience what the original may have been in its own time. I would say the level of in-series characterisation is actually a bit better. What is different is your perspective. You saw one as a child, and one as an adult. Suppose the two series were transposed in time - which one would mean more to you, having had nearly thirty years to mull on it?

I for one have no objection to feeling like an absolute child with the new series. It runs rings around the original in purely in-series spectacle and potential. Yes, it possibly has some flaws, as did the original, but I'm glad the series is 'back' (in a loose context), and want to see more...

The thing is that the new show isn't aimed at pleasing watchers of 'old'.... it's aimed quite squarely towards the younger audience I think.... something that isn't always evident from the finished shows as we make them. I actually missed the last two shows on MoM. Did they cut the bit in skindeep when Black shoots the Bad Destiny character at close range in the face? I kind of assumed they would....deeming it a little 'hardcore' for young MoM viewers.... maybe someone could clarify that for me?

I think when coupled to the fact that expectations are higher by viewers for cool impressive action & eyecandy..... means keeping an ideal balance to please new and old viewers alike is almost impossible.

I personally am not old enough to have remembered the original scarlet, and have indeed never seen an episode....so I can't make educated comparisons myself on that score,

Cheers!

Shaqui says:
What is different is your perspective. You saw one as a child, and one as an adult. Suppose the two series were transposed in time - which one would mean more to you, having had nearly thirty years to mull on it?

I never saw all the episodes as a child - we did not always have a television. I read the TV21 comic and Lady P comic and I saw some episodes at friends' houses. I saw them all for the first time when the BBC aired them in the 1990s - when I was in my mid-late thirties. It was that re-sparked my interest.
I understand that the new series is aimed at young children - but I thought the original was too - maybe not as young, perhaps?
I understand that puppets are limited in the quality of action scenes they can do - especially compared to the gymnastics of the CGI characters.
I never cared what the puppets drove or flew in - and I don't care in the new series either.
I liked the original series enough - as an adult - to reinvestigate it, buy the tapes and books and get involved with internet groups.
If all I had seen was the new CGI series - I doubt I'd have done any of those...
The new series has some wonderful aspects and I'm sure it is very clever. I just like the original one best. I don't even know that I can explain why in a way that would mean anything to anyone else.

CAClark wrote:I actually missed the last two shows on MoM. Did they cut the bit in skindeep when Black shoots the Bad Destiny character at close range in the face? I kind of assumed they would....deeming it a little 'hardcore' for young MoM viewers.... maybe someone could clarify that for me?

Definitely cut - and the first instance where I went 'huh?' as Scarlet activated the camera flash - and the next instance 'bad Destiny' was lying on the floor surrounded by Scarlet and the technicians.

Left us bemused as we were going 'did the flash do that'?

Marion wrote:The new series has some wonderful aspects and I'm sure it is very clever. I just like the original one best. I don't even know that I can explain why in a way that would mean anything to anyone else.

Go on, try. I'm curious...

Oh, all right then - just for you!
I said before:

I really wish I could fathom what it is about it that leaves me cold....because then I could discount it and enjoy the show.

I have been trying to work it out ever since the shows started.
All I can say is that - in my opinion - the new show lacks ‘ambience’.
I accept that my impressions of the Classic CS are coloured by the additional information I gleaned from supporting merchandise – on the TV show they didn’t tell you much about the characters (although I didn’t know that in the 60s) but that is one reason I lament the paucity of information on the CGI website. Surely – whatever the reason for the early transmission and the difficulty in rushing out toys to accompany it – they could have beefed up the website at least?
The Classic CS shows - of which, as a child, I can’t have seen more than half a dozen – seem far more menacing. The opening credits are brilliant – they set the tone, they explain the premise for the action to follow and the threat is revealed – leaving the rest of the programme time to solving the riddle and trying to defeat the scheme. Spectrum didn’t always succeed either, so it wasn’t always a forgone conclusion the Mysterons would fail.
The opening of the CGI series explains nothing. Destiny’s shout of ‘ he’s alive!’ only makes sense if you knew Scarlet was supposed to be dead… The sequence doesn’t mention the Mysterons at all.
The Mysterons have changed too. In the Classic series there was an ambiguity about what happened on Mars. Black panicked and fired - but, at that point, the Mysterons had not shown themselves to be hostile. In the new CS - they fired a missile of some sort at the 'Mars rover'. They were the aggressors. I think that detracts from the new show; it has the much less complex situation of: aliens bad- humans good. However, the all-out aggression of the Mysterons might explain why they don't issue threats anymore... I suppose?
Not stating the threat means they have to devote time to that in the episode which can make the denouement seem rushed – as it did in ‘Skin Deep’. I liked ‘Mercury Falling’ – it was better paced.
I liked the puppets – if you are talking eye-candy they are far more attractive than the CGI characters. Some stills of them look almost real – the CGI faces don’t. But again, I accept that this is a 48 year old woman talking and the target audience for the show probably doesn’t think – or care – so much about that. Incidentally, the fact that the puppets were solid and so were the sets, does give a ‘depth’ to the appearance of the show that the flat CGI lacks.
I liked the original voices. I think they all did an excellent job at making the inexpressive faces of the puppets ‘show emotion’. You can read an awful lot into the slightest turn of the head if the inflection of the voice is right.
All of the voices in the Supermarionation series – certainly from Stingray on – were excellent and – for me – they gave depth and warmth to the characters. I don’t experience that response to the CGI voices. Maybe it is assumed that the facial expressions of the characters will be all that’s needed to convey ‘emotion’ or reactions – but for me – it isn’t enough and the flatness of the dialogue performance detracts a lot from the show.
The actual dialogue in both series can be pretty creaky – so that’s about even – but I think the Classic show has the edge – as the scripts had to contain more information, simply due to the fact that they couldn’t do all the leaping about the CGI does.
Some of the ‘leaping about’ by the CGI characters makes me giggle – I feel sure it’s only there because they can do it. Although, I have been impressed by the CGI – some of the images are stunning – again ‘Mercury Falling’ springs to mind. I loved the images of the Earth from the shuttle – they’ll stay with me for a long time.
I expect most of this comes down to a purely emotional response to the different programmes – and that has to be a complex thing. I cannot divorce my memory of the original show and what I read about it as a child from my reaction to it as an adult – neither can I discount that from my reaction to the CGI series. I wanted to be impressed – as I had been with the Classic CS – I accepted that things would change and I tried not to pre-judge it.
Ultimately, what I think doesn’t matter – it’s not meant for me – but I can’t help feeling disappointed. It’s rather like seeing an old friend who’s changed out of all recognition and isn’t at all like you remember them – so that what connection you once shared has gone.

And I did warn you it might not make much sense....