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Captain Scarlet

Captain Scarlet is a 1960s hit British Science-fiction series that has reached cult status around the world after airing in over fourty different countries. Originally filmed in "Supermarionation" and combined with scale model special effects, the characters are presented as marionette puppets in a filming technique technology that incorporated internal solenoid motors as a means of producing mouth movements synchronised with pre-recorded dialogue.

Set in the future, the series charts a race of martians called the Mysterons and their desire to go to war with the Earth following a misunderstanding resulting in the humans obliterating their base. The Mysterons launch wave after wave of counter attacks that only Spectrum, the Earth's international security organisation battles valiantly to defend.

Spectrum's top agent, Captain Scarlet, now in possession of "retro-metabolism" - a mysterious Mysteron healing power - has the ability to return to life, even after suffering life-threatening injuries and accidents, making him "indestructible". Unlike the Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet was the first series to animate the actual puppets and had a "darker" tone and was less-suited to younger audiences due to it's increased violence level and alien malevolence and conflict.

In the first episode, a team of astronauts investigating the surface of Mars in the late 21st century discover a space base after following an unidentified radio signal. Unfortnuately they mistake a sensor for a weapon of destruction which was owned by the Mysterons, a sentient collective of computers linked together to form a sinuglar consciousness. They are the remnants of the original Mysteron race, extraterrestrial life forms that originated in a galaxy other than the Milky Way and maintained their colony on Mars for 3,500 years before abandoning the planet at the turn of the 20th century. They possess partial control over matter, allowing them to draw on their power of "reversing matter" to rebuild the complex before vowing revenge for the unwarranted aggression on the humans.


Reversing matter, also described as "retro-metabolism", allows the Mysterons to re-create the likeness of a person or object in the form of a facsimile that is under their control. This ability is used to conduct a "war of nerves" against Earth, in which the Mysterons issue threats against specific targets (from world leaders and military installations to whole cities and continents) and then destroy and reconstruct whatever instruments are required (whether human or machine) to execute their plans. The presence of the Mysterons is indicated by two circles of green light (the "Mysteron rings") that trail across scenes of destruction and reconstruction. Although the Mysterons are able to manipulate events from Mars, their actions on Earth are usually performed by their replicated intermediaries.

Spectrum's head of operations is cloudbase, an airbourne headquaters positioned high in the sky above the Earth and has other bases in most major Earth cities. Spectrum employs many operatives from all over the world and is headed by Captain White. Cloudbase is the home of the Angels, a female-piloted squadron of Angel Interceptors and White Falcons on the ground the defending duties are the responsibility of the SPVs (Spectrum Pursuit Vehicles) which are spread out and hidden in secret locations around the Earth. The also use Cheetah cars and Spectrum cars

Captain Scarlet becomes Spectrum's foremost weapon in its fight against the Mysterons after the events of the pilot episode, in which the Mysterons threaten to assassinate the World President[n 5] as their first act of retaliation. The original Captain Scarlet is killed in a car accident organised by the Mysterons and is cloned and replaced by a Mysteron operative. Although when this clone Captain Scarlet is killed by Captain Blue, he returns to life as a human and Mysteron control is broken. Because of his Mysteron beginnings, he possesses two important capabilities; the ability to detect other Mysterons and retro-metabolsim (the ability to regenerate). Unusually for a super hero, because of this special ability he often employs suicidal missions safe in the knowledge that he can regenerate and live to fight another battle tomorrow.

Following a discovery that Mysterons are vunerable to electricity and detectable by using X-rays, Spectrum invent the "Mysteron gun" and "Mysteron detector" to help in their ongoing battle. This battle continues for the entire series until the penultimate episode depicts a Mysteron assault on Cloudbase with the use of armed spacecraft, that is ultimately revealed to be a nightmare dreamt by one of the Angel pilots. The finale is a flashback episode that ends inconclusively with regards to the war between Earth and Mars and the fate of Spectrum and the Mysterons.