Captain Scarlet

What a welcome return for Cap Scarlet.What a shock it was for me to switch on the TV with a huge hang over to see such a welcome spectacle up on screen It does the original show great justice and brings Scarlet at Hyper drive into the 'Naughties'.

I guess its a bit of a gripe that we have to put up with MOM,but I'm sure its a good show caser for the first run shows just to get it out there noticed .Take note ITV .... you have a potential Monster of a hit here ...be brave .. a Tea time spot on Sunday will be cult viewing for old and young .

The Icing on the cake would be to spice up the Score ...bring back the Bary Gray Bongs and strings and this show will be near perfect .

Last Summer I thought Mr Anderson was being a bit of a grumpy Old Man,complaining the way Thunderbirds the Movie was going . Now I understand where he was coming from . So bring it on . Lets have all the Classics in 'HYPOMARRIANATION'....'Thunderbirds , Stingray ....the lot ..

More of a "re-animation" of the original, rather than an original take on the original Captain Scarlet, Gerry Anderson is back with more of a whimper than a bang.

First of, its currently shown in a children's Saturday morning show (Ministry of Mayhem), split in two between games and with a preview at the start of the second part. Secondly the transmission times keep changing (anything from 10:30am to 11am) Thirdly, the episodes seem to be heavily edited as scenes jump from one to another without any real reason. Lastly, there is usually a fairly annoying scrolling message during the first showing of the program.

The CGI for the most part is pretty good, with detail on hair, engine thrusts etc. Unfortunately in parts its also pretty poor - lip animation seems to be very limited, with no real changes of mouth shapes, depending on what words are said.

The actual script is pretty good, although it can be a little tacky in parts.

Whether it would be better to wait until later in the year to get the DVD set, and hopefully a better transmission time, will depend on whether you can stand MoM.

Gerry Anderson's "New Captain Scarlet" began its 26 episode run on the morning of Saturday 12th February 2005 on CITV although, to be honest, I wish it wasn't part of "Ministry of Mayhem"! Why are ITV afraid to try for a bigger audience late afternoon/early evening? Also, in "MOM", the gap between the two halves of each episode is much longer than a regular commercial break would be!

I'd like to know the thinking behind changing Lt. Green from a black male to a white female especially as there are already five female characters in the shape of the Angels although, of the five, we only meet Destiny in the first episode. The suggestion is that, like Councillor Troi when "Star Trek: The Next Generation" began, she is the character through which the emotional content of an episode will be channelled.

I'm also curious about the change of name from Cloudbase to Skybase? That aside, it moved at a furious pace and, in so-doing, lost the luxuriously sedate menace of the 1967 original. The Supermarionation version was much aided by Barry Gray's music whereas the score for the new CGI series meanders rather nondescriptly, instantly forgotten. I wonder what the closing credits are like? We weren't given the chance to see or even hear them on CITV!

There was much to recommend the new show. Particularly impressive were the Angel flight sequences and Black's resurrection, fist through the coffin lid! This made him come across as some vampire-like figure and the great coat swirling behind him reminded me of "Blade Runner" though younger viewers would probably have associated it with Spike from "Buffy, The Vampire Slayer"!

What would be nice is for those younger viewers to want to discover the beauty of the original puppet series which, for all its woodenness, still felt three dimensional; something you just don't seem to get from computer generated material. Even so, I enjoyed it and will stay with the series both now and when it returns later in the year...

Eliminated the closing song. noooooo. its gritty. love the vehicles stuff. recommended. I guess the rights for the closing song was too expensive or not available. Miss it

Did you know the only show the BBC cancelled because of inappropriate content on the night of 9/11 was Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons? Obvious why when you think about it.

Twelve years after seeing this on scratchy analogue TV I found the DVD in a charity shop and watched it again in jaw dropping digital clarity. It hasn't dated and retains the compelling sense of dark threat.

Everything about this works, the action, the characters and of course the tech stuff. Cleverly it makes no direct reference to the internet, which was still a bit new and shiny in 2005, thus future proofing itself in a way the 60's puppet series didn't.

There are some minor 'update irritations' from the original puppets, which I saw first time round BTW, the the music is disappointing and the drum sting (paradiddle?) between scenes is not the same or as good. I would have preferred Leutenant Green to have become a black woman, if only because of its currency with the transgender debate and Captain Blue borders on the prissy at times.

But look, this is as good and probably better than the Thunderbirds are Go! reboot. Enjoyable expertly made Gerry Anderson magic.

It was just a shame our great TV companies were a little too scared of the subject matter to not hide it away in a younger kids show topped and tailed with embarrassed and diminishing comments.

"incoming on the holo-screen Colonel" "What is it Leutenant?" "Looks like a full scale HD Blue Ray release, ETA September 2017, sir" "Alert all agents, telly binge round at mine!" "SIG!"