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Spectrum team must once again face the inscrutable alien enemy,
the Mysterons in a battle for the very existence of Earth.
Leading the fight is Captain Scarlet; on a mission to Mars,
Scarlet and Captain Black encounter an alien city, under the
impression that they are under attack; Black launches a missile
into the city destroying it. However, the city miraculously
reassembles and a counter attack is launched and Black is
killed. Back on Earth, Black is resurrected to become the
Mysteron's agent of destruction and Scarlet is transformed
into an indestructible being. Both men are now locked into
a battle for the very existence of the human race...
The
second set of DVD releases of Gerry Anderson's New Captain
Scarlet brings the series to an end, which is a shame
as the episodes just keep getting better and better.
Contained
on these discs are episodes 14 to 26 and all are generally
sharper and more dynamic than the earlier instalments. Just
compare Instrument of Destruction (the opening two
parter) or Rain of Terror (the third episode made)
with Dominion (the final episode to be completed) and
the development is clear. The scripts are better, the animation
has gained in leaps and bounds, and the use of characters
is more complex.
Perhaps
the most impressive part of the show - at least visually -
is the shots of aircraft. Flypasts from the Angels are so
good at times you could almost think them real, and many of
the land vehicles also posses a genuine realism. CGI water
lets things down a bit so the show's boats and subs don't
meet the same level of realism, but even here it's never distracting.
However, the best part of the show is its characters. In the
original series the puppets are given little emotion and all
the secondary characters (Captains Grey and Ochre for example)
could be swapped around and no one would notice. In the remake,
the Spectrum agents are individuals with personalities of
their own.
And
now for the gripes... There is no reason why we couldn't have
had twice as many episodes on a disc. The entire 26 adventures
would have fitted across four DVDs without any problem and
yet we get twice that number. If the discs had been chock
full of extras (there are none in this second batch) then
I could have understood it but given that these are vanilla
releases there really is no excuse.
Also,
the final episode completed, Dominion, really should
have been shown last as it would have made a fantastic finale
cliff hanger... what are the Mysterons going to do next? Instead
we get Grey Skulls last, and although it's a good story
(aliens and Roswell) it doesn't pack the same punch.
These
gripes aside, Gerry Anderson's remake of Captain Scarlet
is actually very good. Oddly, in the puppet version the opening
two episodes are amongst the best while in the CGI show they're
by far the worst. And by the time we get to the end of their
runs the puppets are stiffly walking through The Inquisition
(a cheap flashback episode) while the CGI Spectrum is battling
biker gangs. The chance of any more episodes being made is
apparently zero, but the 26 CGI Captain Scarlet stories
are never less than entertaining and sometimes they're thrilling.
If you liked the first set of DVDs, you'll love the second.
Anthony
Clark
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