"We know of your pathetic attempts to discover our secrets… but you will never succeed! You will never solve the mystery of the Mysterons!"

The Mystery of the Mysterons. Jesus Lord, we’re in for a good’un this week…

Captain Scarlet, Captain Blue and Colonel White run away from their Spectrum duties to join a secret gay colony.

Er, well, no, it’s actually a lodge out in an undetermined wilderness and secretes the Spectrum Intelligence Agency (apparently headed by the World President – why on Earth that should be so, given that he didn’t even seem to know what Cloudbase was back in episode 1, I cannot for the life of me fathom), but you’ll see what I meant further down below. Anyway, they’re there for a conference during which two new anti-Mysteron devices are to be demonstrated and discussed; the Mysteron electricity gun, for use in killing Mysteron targets, and the Mysteron Detector, which uses X-rays to determine whether or not a photographed person is a Mysteron or not (the Mysterons being impervious to X-rays, if you remember). The lodge itself has a secret room underneath it, brought into formation when the entire building lowers itself fully into the ground and then raises itself again, with much use of sliding floors/ceilings. The conference is taking place inside said secret room, but is thrown into peril when the lodge’s barman is taken over by the Mysterons and activates the building lowering mechanism and escapes with the master key for the controls, effectively trapping the conference delegates – and Captain Blue and Colonel White – inside one gigantic crusher. Captain Scarlet manages to escape moments beforehand, but can he locate and capture the Mysteron agent before his friends are crushed to death?

It’s confirmed here that bullets won’t kill a Mysteron, though they will weaken one. So what happened to the Mysteron agents gunned down earlier on in the series I don’t know. Presumably that Mysteron car mechanic back in episode 4 is still selling people petrol, waiting for his chance to truly strike at the heart of our cosy suburbia. The horror, the horror.

Scarlet manages to save the day without killing himself. Give that man a medal.

Well, Spectrum security at the Intelligence Lodge must be pretty dire when any old Mysteron can walk in through the front door and assassinate their barman. And the very nature of that lodge is ludicrous beyond measure (see "Additional Notes"). Spectrum’s chief leaders being thrown into a deathly situation by its own hunting lodge does not inspire confidence.

Well, the Mysterons didn’t profess a plan, per se, though it seems as though they wanted to destroy the conference. And failed. So I suppose it’s:

Spectrum: 7 Mysterons: 2

One of the earliest scenes has two of the Angels sitting about in their quarters having a terribly casual and life-like conversation, as I think you’ll agree:

DESTINY: "Uh! Rhapsody has just landed! Mm! We’re off duty, Symphony. Ohhh, lead me to that Room of Sleep!"

SYMPHONY: "Yeah, this four-hours-on, four-hours-off is sure tiring."

DESTINY: "Ahh! Where are Meloday and Harmony?"

SYMPHONY: "I guess they’re still changing."

Corrr!!! … Um, no. Before you think that this is the first Gerry Anderson production to give us full on puppet nudity, then no, you’d be sadly mistaken. Or happily mistaken, whichever. Still, check out that dialogue, eh? Destiny telling Symphony that she’s off duty as if she hasn’t been reading a newspaper for the past ten minutes, an incisive comment on the working hours and Destiny managing to grunt and gasp at least once before every sentence. And what in Heaven’s name is this mysterious "Room of Sleep"? Isn’t it just a… bedroom?

___

DESTINY: "Things are very quiet!"

RHAPSODY: "Well, with Colonel White, Captain Blue AND Captain Scarlet away, I hope they stay quiet!"

Subtle. Very subtle.

___

What with two new anti-Mysteron devices being introduced you’d be forgiven for expecting some pithy scientific theories to explain them.

DR. GIADELLO: "A beam of electrons are produced by the electrodes."

… And you would of course be right.

GREEN: "I’ve a red indication."

Good God, man, we’re not doctors. Keep it to yourself.

___

Whilst relaxing in the sands…

BLUE: "Well, we’d better move on."

SCARLET: "Oh we’re early!… We can stay here a er… couple more minutes."

Oi, Scarlet, he’s Symphony’s man. Hands off, son.

SCARLET: "The closeness of nature… nobody around for miles…"

Stop it, Scarlet. Please.

___

COLONEL WHITE: "My name’s Tiger. I understand I can get a good lunch at the Hunting Lodge."

With a codename like Tiger I was seriously waiting for a "… If ya’ know what I mean," to round off that sentence. And I’m still not certain that I’m not going to get one.

___

WHITE: "Good morning, gentlemen."

PETERSON: "Hello, Tiger."

I may have a fit. Especially when this is followed up by:

PETERSON: "Well, gentlemen, shall we go down?"

Dear lord.

BLUE: "Well you can at least show the doubters a photo of the one that got away."

Thank you, Blue. I understand you’ll be here all week.

___

And, unfortunately, the episode ends on a joke as well.

PETERSON: "By the way, Tiger, how was the duck?"

WHITE: "Excellent!"

PETERSON: "It should be. I shot it myself this afternoon."

WHITE: "But I thought you never went hunting?"

PETERSON: "I used this! Look!"

And he’s got a photo of a duck taken with the Mysteron detector. Ha ha. Ha. Ha ha. Yes. Mmm. To add insult to injury some duck quacks are then dubbed over the scene. Ever heard a duck laughter track? Let the world of Captain Scarlet enlighten you. Still, at least the duck wasn’t a Mysteron.

Owing to the duck joke above, the usual Colonel stoic speech is jettisoned.

Rhapsody comes down from patrol:

RHAPSODY: "Hello girls! What’s the news?"

SYMPHONY: "Hi, Rhapsody."

DESTINY: "Hello, Rhapsody."

Ah. You just don’t get dialogue like that nowadays.

___

WARDEN: "You know this is a private game reserve?"

SCARLET: "Yes. My name is Panther. And this is Mr Bear."

… Nurse! NURSE!!!

___

WHITE: "I can’t wait to see it in action!"

DR. GIADELLO: "Well, Colonel, I can give you a practical demonstration of the Mysteron Detector…"

"… for you see, I am a Mysteron!… Ha ha, just kidding! I love that gag…"

___

DR. GIADELLO: "Captain Indigo: bring down the Mysteron Detector."

You mean you didn’t take it down with you at the beginning?! So now you’re going to have to play silly buggers lowering and raising the house again just to retrieve a small piece of electronic equipment? Say it ain’t so. Please, say it ain’t so…

Well, on the face of things only Scarlet, Blue and Colonel White go out to the secret meeting, though it turns out that the barman at the lodge is a one Captain Indigo. Captain Indigo?! Your guess is as good as mine as to who he is, especially as he gets killed and duplicated just before the advert break. All I can gather is that his powers include, and total, being a bartender. Um, great. A valuable addition to Spectrum’s forces and no mistake.

Captain Black wastes no time in this episode, shooting a hole through Captain Indigo’s chest a split second after being introduced into the episode. We’re obviously back to having Mysteron assassins here, rather than Mysterons influencing various vehicles or mechanical objects to kill off key figures. Shame, really. I was looking forward to seeing Indigo getting murdered by a drinks’ mixer.

I’m really hoping they’ll scrap that bloody lodge and get themselves a sensible security base, but I bet they won’t. Still, they’re going to have to replace all the crushed furniture. And hire a new barman.

No cliffs.

No explosions.

No first names.

And no smiley Colonel. Nope, I’ve saved everything up for…

Ah, here we go.

The Mysteron Detector looks like a cross between an old fashioned camera and a Rolls Royce’s bonnet. I’d question this but it’s probably the least of this episode’s problems…

Seeing Scarlet and Blue dressed out in colour-coded safari togs and shades is quite a sad spectacle. And when Scarlet says "Ah, peace!" he appears to be making a clumsy movement at holding Blue’s hand. And shortly after blathering on about how wonderful nature is and urging Blue to listen to "those birds", he tilts his head back slowly whilst closing his eyes in a way that rather unsettlingly looks like he’s climaxing. I wish I were making this up. (And see visual proof further below)

The bloke in the hat who points a sniper rifle at Scarlet and Blue appears to be voiced by Gary Files, who also voices Captain Magenta (and Captain Indigo). I’m only guessing at this because he says "Hold it right there!" in exactly the same way that Magenta said the very same line in the last episode.

I can’t quite fathom out where this episode is meant to be set. It’s somewhere sunny and vaguely tropical, hence Scarlet and Blue having a laze out in the Sun. There’s also a close-up on some primitive masks when we cut to the lodge, and half the episode is played out to a tribal musical beat. Yet no tribes of angry villagers do we see. In fact – oh my God, I’ve just seen Colonel White driving his car. Oh God. My lungs, my lungs…

In fact the Colonel in his very first scene drives up to what looks like the most pointless and arbitrary tollbooth I’ve ever seen, stuck out in the middle of the wilderness where no sod lives. I mean look at it!

Who the Hell approved that little bit of local planning? … A security post, you say? Securing what? Augh!

And the Colonel in one shot appears to be intimating to a guard that he’s a wanker.

The delights of this episode never cease, do they?

Right, OK, that lodge. I still can’t work it out. First Indigo presses a switch and the entire building descends underground. Then another switch is pressed and seemingly only Indigo, his drinks bar and the outside walls rise up again, leaving the "floor" (which holds all the tables and chairs that the Captains and scientists are sitting at) about however-many-feet-the-height-of-the-lodge-is underground. When the outside of the building has completely raised itself above ground, a fake floor shifts across at the top, becoming the "roof" of the secret room underneath where the committee is now sitting. Now, um, call me stupid, but wouldn’t it have been a Hell of a lot easier to have just had something else installed to reach a secret room rather than having the entire building raising and lowering itself. Something like, I dunno, stairs?

And then it’s all revealed as the major plot contrivance that it is when the Mysteron Indigo gets down there in an elevator. Sigh. Just… sigh.

The script really leaps through hoops to try and create this awful "perilous" situation. Not withstanding the illogical nature of this lodge, the lift – which would be the obvious escape route - apparently doesn’t function when the lodge lowering mechanism is activated. Um, why not? And the controls, for some reason, are only located in the room above ground; it can’t be stopped from the secret room itself. Sweet kittens in Atlantis above, why on Earth was this episode ever made?

And why in all the four corners of Hades does the Mysteron Captain Indigo stand around and allow himself to be photographed by the Mysteron Detector that has just that moment been demonstrated to everybody in the room? Why did he even take the Detector down there anyway? Since he launches his fiendish plan to kill them all a few minutes later, what was the point?! Arghh!!!!

I can’t give it the lowest score due to the sheer mind-bending nature of the plot and all the unintentional comedy I’ve been joyously able to extract from it for this guide. But, please, take it away, I beg you. I never want to see it again.

Please.

The Lodge that Dripped Blood

He is. Just look at him. He is, isn’t he? He just… is.

Man pretends to be Rolls Royce automobile; up next, on BBC2.

"Call that a knife? This is a knife…"

"And now for something completely different…"

"Dear Diary; my stay with the Borrowers is not going well."