Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons: The Complete Series (1967-1968) (Blu-ray Review)
Director
VariousRelease Date(s)
1967-1968 (September 24, 2025)Studio(s)
Century 21 Television Productions/ITC Entertainment (Imprint Television/Via Vision Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: A-
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: A
Review
[Editor's Note: This is a Region-Free Australian Blu-ray import.]
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons (1967-1968) is a disarmingly charming and impressively elaborate puppet series produced by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson in their emblematic “Supermarionation” process. The Andersons did eight Supermarionation shows in all, from 1960-69, and in some respects Captain Scarlet is the best of these.
Lavishly produced for Lew Grade’s ITC, like all of the Andersons’s later shows (and ITC’s TV programs generally) Captain Scarlet has the polish of a big-budget feature film. Their shows were justly famous for their incredibly detailed and sometimes almost photo-real miniatures and other visual effects. These were supervised by Derek Meddings, who later worked on the Andersons’s feature film Doppelgänger (aka Journey to the Far Side of the Sun, 1969), numerous James Bond films, as well as Superman (1978).
The Andersons started modestly, producing relatively small-scale children’s shows featuring marionettes. Beginning with Supercar (1961) their programs became increasingly ambitious. The puppets gradually became more lifelike; Captain Scarlet was the first to feature realistically proportionate marionettes that, with the right lighting, looked like full-sized human beings. Equally important, the sets they inhabited became more and more detailed, and eventually were lit and photographed with the same care and aesthetic interest as full-scale sets in big-budget movies.
Thunderbirds (1965-1966), a sci-fi series about a top-secret life-saving organization called International Rescue (and their high-tech rescue vehicles and hardware), was the Andersons’ biggest hit. That program was a sensation in its native Britain, and hugely popular in many other parts of the world, particularly Japan. Its success led to the production of two feature film adaptations: Thunderbirds Are Go! (1966) and Thunderbird 6 (1968). So big was the Thunderbirds craze at the time of its release, a United Artists representative reportedly told Gerry Anderson that it might “make more money than Bond.”
Inexplicably, Lew Grade was unable to sell Thunderbirds to an American network. Rather than continue with that series, Grade instructed the Andersons to try again, with a new series that might have better luck attracting American interest. The result was Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. Compared to Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet is darker and less humorous, while the puppets themselves are significantly more realistic and less cartoonish. They even bleed and are often killed in action.
Hardcore fans of the Andersons’ programs almost invariably point to Thunderbirds as the Supermarionation high-water mark, though overall this reviewer prefers Captain Scarlet. It lacks its predecessor’s humor but also some painful English stereotypes present in Thunderbirds. (It’s also the only one of the Andersons’ shows to feature a black character in a major role.) Another big difference is that where Thunderbirds’s episodes ran a padded 50 minutes, Captain Scarlet’s are a tauter 25. The results are action-packed episodes that help hide the basic weaknesses of the teleplays. (More on this below.)
The series remained unseen in the U.S. for years, eventually turning up on VHS tape in the form of several faux feature film adaptations, compiled from reedited episodes. Later, Timeless Media’s Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons: The Complete Series was a mostly excellent DVD set of all 32 episodes plus numerous extra features on four single-sided discs, all packaged into casing the size of a regular DVD.
However, seeing the series in high-definition and on a big screen via my 4K projector was a revelation. I not only marveled at Meddings’s miniature effects, but also the extreme care and ingenuity of the puppet-inhabited sets, designed with the same level of imagination and attention to detail as those in a feature film with living, human actors. One episode, for instance, features an operating theater, complete with surgical instruments, surgical lights, heart monitoring equipment, etc., all meticulously recreated in miniature. Likewise, the costumes for the puppets, the sculpting of the faces, etc. are impressive throughout.
The series takes place in the year 2068. In the first episode, astronauts on Mars discover an automated extraterrestrial base years before abandoned by the Mysterons, beings from another part of the galaxy. Intriguingly, the earth astronauts mistake a harmless sensor device from the Mysterons’ still-operating sentient computers as an act of aggression. The humans try to destroy the base, only to watch as it effortlessly regenerates itself. The Mysterons, or rather their sentient computers, declare war on Earth, killing the astronauts and duplicating one of them, Captain Black (voiced by Donald Gray), to act as their primary fifth columnist.
Episodes revolve around the International Rescue-like Spectrum Organisation, operating from an airborne headquarters and aircraft carrier, Cloudbase, as they combat the Mysterons’ various assaults on major urban centers and plots to assassinate or assume the identities of various world leaders and scientists.
The title character, Captain Scarlet (Francis Matthews, imitating Tony Curtis imitating Cary Grant), is another Spectrum agent killed and replaced by the Mysterons. However, in the first episode the replicant Captain Scarlet is temporarily killed only to return to life with its original human consciousness, and freed from the Mysterons’ mind control. Further, he has retained the aliens’ retro-metabolism, rendering him virtually indestructible. In most episodes, he survives certain death from falls, explosions, bullet wounds, etc. only to quickly return to normal.
Colonel White (Donald Gray) leads Spectrum from Cloudbase, aided by five female “Angel” fighter pilots: squadron leader Destiny (Liz Morgan), plus Harmony (Lian-Shin), Melody (Sylvia Anderson), Rhapsody (Liz Morgan), and Symphony (Janna Hill). Other agents include Captain Blue (Ed Bishop), and Lt. Green (Cy Grant).
The biggest problem with all of the Anderson shows is that their extraordinary technical virtuosity trump all else. The limited, even frozen expressiveness of the puppets’ facial features and the general sameness of their standard heroic features render them pretty interchangeable, especially for more casual viewers. (Why not give one an eye patch, or maybe a distinctive limp?) In Captain Scarlet, this is true of all of the Angel pilots, who have virtually no individual personalities at all, nor do the captains and lieutenants serving under Colonel White.
Indeed, when on occasion they do exhibit a little personality it can be jarring or even unintentionally amusing. In one episode, for instance, Lt. Green continuously begs Col. White to let him join the search for a Mysteron agent, while Col. White keeps turning that request down. That one puppet would pester another, who becomes irritated and annoyed, somehow comes off as weirdly funny.
Though full of visually arresting action, almost never is there an attempt in any of the Anderson-produced shows to flesh out its main characters in any kind of meaningful, lasting way. When they gave up puppets for human actors on their later shows, U.F.O. and Space: 1999, those programs had exactly the same problems. Visually, they looked spectacular, better than any science fiction show on television (including Star Trek), better even than most feature films. And yet the human characters that populated those shows were like cardboard, as unreal as the Andersons’ earlier puppets. On Space: 1999, co-star Barbara Bain even moved like a marionette, with less emotional range than Thunderbirds’ Lady Penelope. No wonder their shows were such an easy target for parody.
Also, more than other Andersons shows, Captain Scarlet, amusing though it is, clearly wasn’t thought through well. Captain Scarlet himself was originally conceived as something like RoboCop, more android than human, but abandoned in favor of a more relatable character. Yet... despite his incredible recuperative powers, that he’s asked to die horribly again and again begs questions. Even if you knew you’d always recover from bullet wounds and explosions, wouldn’t the pain of those experiences make it unbearable? And why and how did he survive but not Captain Black? If the original attack on the Mysteron base was a mistake, why doesn’t SPECTRUM try to negotiate a truce? Why are the Mysterons so unforgiving?
Yet, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, partly because of that shorter running time, partly because its visual ingenuity is so captivating, holds up better than some of their others. (For this reviewer it’s still the best overall from a technical perspective, though personally I like 1962-63’s Fireball XL5 best. That more lighthearted series gently and affectionately spoofs all the genre clichés of 1950s science-fantasy without ever mocking it. For genre fans it remains delightful.) The Andersons never seemed to realize their programs’ weaknesses in terms of the writing, but they were inexhaustibly imaginative in just about every other respect.
First released to Blu-ray by the now-defunct Network in the U.K. in 2018 (and reissued by Spirit Entertainment in 2024), Australia’s Imprint label has its own Region-Free boxed set, limited to 1,500 copies. The sturdy box contains five Blu-ray discs contained in two Blu-ray cases. The 32 half-hour shows are on the first four discs with disc five devoted to scads of extra features.
I last saw these programs on DVD and there’s simply no comparison: the Blu-ray transfers are phenomenal, especially when viewed on big screens and via a 4K projector. Yes, the wires supporting the marionettes are more visible than ever (though cleverly hidden much of the time) but the detail now visible in terms of the costumes, props, sets, and miniatures is incredible. Colors also noticeably pop way more than ever before. The LPCM 2.0 mono is equally impressive in its own way.
The supplements, mostly culled from the Network release, consist of the following: Retrometabolism: The Story of Captain Scarlet and Captain Scarlet Deconstructed, 2018 documentaries; Spectrum Briefing and Mysteron Briefing, 2018 featurettes; ad bumpers and adverts; alternate opening and closing titles; photo galleries; The Spectrum: Portobello Road—a promotional film; Joe 90: Most Special Agent—the pilot episode of that 1968 series; five TV21 Audio Adventures; and audio commentaries on four episodes.
Also included is a hardcover, full-color companion book. It contains several good essays but mostly is a rather bland, not terribly informative episode guide.
A very enjoyable series whose technical accomplishments still impress, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons is Highly Recommended for those that don’t already have the Network release.
BAUM BAUM, BAUM BAUM-BAUM-BAUM-BAUM!
- Stuart Galbraith IV