There’s a new Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons podcast from Luke at UFOcast. As guest presenter (Captain Aubergine) on the latest podcast, I look into the episode Traitor, in which Captain Scarlet and Captain Blue travel to exotic Australia to give a morale boosting Power Point presentation while secretly investigating possible sabotage and in the process they find out just how much Koala Base can bear.

 Maynard, Captain Aubergine, reporting in from Spectrum Station, Sydney, Australia.

Man, this is a pretty exciting one set in Australia. I had to put my hand up for this one. The most exotic place that the Mysterons hardly ever go: Australia.

There’s no reporting as to how far this is from Lady Penelope’s sheep farm, Bonga Bonga. “Come in Bonga Bonga.” “Bonga Bonga to Mr Tracy. ‘Eer ladyship’s hout with the sheep.” And this quick trivia question: how many sheep at Bonga Bonga did Lady Penelope have in her flock? “There must be 200,000 animals on that station.” “200,007, sir, that’s the trouble. Her ladyship could only find 200,006.” And we know that because she had a digital ship counting meter.

But enough of that. Let’s go onto the serious, googly-eyed, spooky stuff from the Mystrerons. Or … are they? Just a word about the opening titles too. I, as a kid, and even now, I just love that first shot of Captain Blue, where he looks straight at the camera. And the shot of Colonel White: every time the Mysterons get on the blower, just look at his face. He turns around in his mobile desk: “Not this palaver again” – and you can just see that in his face.

We are going to Koala Base in Australia, where we’ll find out how much a Koala Base can bear. And the Australian accents aren’t too bad. The best accent, of course, is in the flashback sequence: Bud Tingwall, he’s the helicopter pilot. On ya Bud!

Gerry Anderson was quite prophetic because even to this day in Pitt Street, Sydney, you can’t move for the amount of hovercrafts that people use to get around in Australia.

“Spectrum will be torn apart from within”. That’s spooky. Captain Black there, dressed like an extremely over the top Goth DJ. You know he’s going home and listening to The Cure.

This thing could just be a huge suck in. I mean, you don’t have to believe what the Mysterons say. We think that’s just Spectrum that’s getting that, but imagine if they’re just annoying everybody in the entire world who’s trying to watch the final question on “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”, and that comes on. “This is the voice of the Mysterons.” Ruins the whole thing. “We know that you can hear us Earth Men.” “Boo!”

So Colonel White goes downstairs to have a chat with the guys just hanging out in the Captain Scarlet, Captain Blue Bar by the look of it. And check out that bear skin rug. “Lieutenant Green.” “Yes, Colonel White.” “Where’s your hat?” “I want to see Captain Blue and Captain Scarlet, where are they?” “In the lounge, Sir.”

Check out what is on the table! My memory might be deceiving me here, but I remember in the 60s and it is still available: I think that is nothing less than a bottle of Drambuie on the table there. Back in the 60s it was unacceptable if you did not have Drambuie in the workplace. I bet Colonel White shot that bear himself.

So they’re ready to have a bit of a Drambuie and soda before they go off on their next adventure. I mean, it’s not as if Captain Scarlet has to be careful with what he drinks. “I’m afraid the whole episode is a complete blank.” Oh, also the 1960s massive group ashtray that would normally be seen on any table. You only see that kind of ash tray student accommodation these days.

But at Koala Base, they’ve lost three hovercraft in six days. You know what they say? To lose one hovercraft is careless, to lose three is just gotta be the Mysterons. Also you can’t use a Mysteron detector yet again because it’s a traitor. So it’s someone who hasn’t been Mysteron-ed and googly-eyed. Ah, that’s a new way to get out of having to use it. Normally it has to be blown up, lost or the batteries are flat.

Oh and a great scene of the Angels being launched there too, all of them being launched with all their harp action. And about the soundtrack: this is one of the few episodes of Captain Scarlet where all the recordings have been lost of it. “Traitor” is an episode where no original tapes survive, unfortunately. But just on a side note, have a look around the web and get on and have a listen to Barry Gray’s commercial work. He did a lot of commercial work, little jingles and stabs for all sorts of things in the UK and around Europe. That guy was a genius, and his music in this is not enough jazz flute, as in “Model Spy”, but still pretty good.

Also, while the series was in production, by this time they were behind a bit, so they had to make some cuttings to get some episodes coming in on time. And in this one, that’s why we had the longer flashback sequence. But they made sure that this flashback sequence was not used with another flashback sequence that they were going to use later in the series.

This episode was directed by Alan Perry (and there were some bits that were cut out that make the story seem a bit odd), written by Tony Barwick himself. The script man for Captain Scarlet.

Plus also taking the Mysterons at their word means that they can just trick you. They can go “We’re going to bomb Puerto Rico, everybody go to Puerto Rico!” and they bomb somewhere else. It could just be a huge Mysteron suck in.

As an Australian, I’ve got a problem with the dirt used in this. That is not what the Australian Outback looks like. Well, it doesn’t really look like a Lady Penelope’s sheep farm either, that was extremely lush and green. I think there’s been some of the soil used from the “Lunarville 7” episode, that’s ex-moon stuff they’ve used there. Koala Base looks like a very lush moonscape. But still, if you order a lot of orangey kind of coloured sand for your “Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons” set where else are you going to use it?

So Colonel White sends Captain Blue and Captain Scarlet to do a red hot PowerPoint presentation for the Cadets, because that’ll really increase morale. “The recruits are looking forward to your lectures.”

“I’m sure you’d like me to thank Captain Scarlet on your behalf for that most interesting lecture. Now if there are any questions?” “Captain Scarlet?” “Yeah, yeah, that lecture was really great and everything, but could you tell us about that time you died, and try not to leave out any of the really painful personal details? Could you tell us the time you died? You know, the big fall, and don’t leave out the bit with Bud Tingwell.”

Then we flash back to the footage of that fateful day, where it seems they did want to capture the World President alive once again. If you’d parked your car in that car station that day, and then Spectrum came along and completely knocked it down, you’d be just slightly irked. “Yeah, I’ll be home to pick up the kids. What? The car, what? What? The whole parking station’s gone? Oh, that’d be that Spectrum mob again, wouldn’t it? Them and their bloody helicopter.” “Spectrum Helicopter A42, what is your position?” “I’m already heading for London Car View. Will rendezvous in one minute.” Bud Tingwell!

Fashion wise, one of the only faults I can spot in this episode, “Traitor”, is that Captain Blue and Captain Scarlet don’t have matching blue and scarlet pajamas. That’d be cool!

And just on the whole Captain Scarlet sleeping issue, I’m surprised that guy can get any sleep with the amount of trauma he’s continually getting, being killed at least once or twice a week and coming back and getting killed again and coming back and he can sleep? He can close his eyes and go la-la-la… Come on! “Yes, I’m all right.”

But then in their sleeping quarters, fire breaks out in their quarters. It’s like someone left a Patchouli candle a bit too close to the curtain or something. Again in the crew huts, no smoke detectors. I guess it was the 60s, if you put a smoke detector in the hut, it’d be going off all the time because everyone would be having a puff on a Rothmans.

Also, in this episode, we get a rare, rare occurrence of Captain Scarlet cracking a funny: “Well, let’s hope spontaneous combustion doesn’t break out in here.”

And so now the episode “Traitor” changes from a search for a possible traitor to a whodunnit. Of course Trainee Machin suspects Captain Scarlet. Why would you suspect Captain Scarlet? Just because he’s a duplicate of the original person who’s died, made by the Mysterons, and had a mysterious, whoops, fall off a car park, and since then has been working with Spectrum as an exact copy of the original, not the original, and is no longer in the Mysteron’s power for some reason that doesn’t seem to happen to anyone else when they fall off a car park. I don’t know why you’d suspect him at all. That’s just silly. “Captain Scarlet would have access to all sections of Spectrum, including the plant where the hovercraft were made.” “What are you driving at?” “Just thinking.”

As it was originally filmed, it was intended to have a bit of a shadowy person moving around near the curtain, so it might give you a bit of a thought that, ah, who’s that? But that had to be cut for time. So after the mysterious fire the night before, they hop on for their hovercraft mission, and the temperature outside is 120 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 48.9 degrees Celsius. Hovercraft? You think they’d be designing for that. I bet you it never gets that hot at Lady Penelope’s sheep station.

“Well, if anything’s going to happen, now’s the time.” Everything’s going well until, uh oh, that hovercraft goes bung too. “We’re losing control!” And Machin gets the gun out on Captain Scarlet because there’s no reason you’d suspect him of being a traitor like I said. But interestingly enough, Captain Blue becomes the voice of reason: “Wait a minute, you’re jumping to conclusions. I might be the traitor, or anyone on the base.” “You’re trying to confuse me.” Then they get into it. “He’s a traitor.” “No, he’s the traitor.” Sort of a reverse “I’m Spartacus” situation going on here.

Captain Blue has the voice of reason, gets in between the whole thing and breaks the whole thing up because really it’s gonna go boom soon, everybody’s got to get out of the emergency exit. “Captain Blue, take these two to the escape hatch and get cleared. I’ll get the instrument recorder.” And some great hand modelling work there from Captain Scarlet, as he pulls the black box off the wall so they can find out what happened to this hovercraft. Did anybody think of looking at the other hovercrafts’ black boxes …? Don’t worry, don’t worry. “Time’s running out.”

“Well gentlemen.” “There’s our traitor: one tiny valve from the hovercraft hydraulic system caused all the trouble.” “Yes, Major.” “We have seen how the Mysterons play on the weaknesses of men.” Some philosophy there with Colonel White at the end. No apology. No well, sorry about the whole wanting to shoot you thing, it’s just yeah, you know, the Mysterons do what the Mysterons do. “We can only assume it is the work of the Mysterons.” The problem all this time has been … crap engineering! A faulty hydraulic valve. It seems the Mysterons have been able to alter the atomic structure of the very metal itself, or maybe there’s just some dodgy hydraulic valve manufacturer somewhere in Sheffield.

So does that mean the Mysterons put their googly eyes on the hovercraft at some stage like they do with other inanimate objects to make them fail? Or is that the way they always make things fail? It’s an episode that kind of raises more questions than answers really. This gives weight to Luke’s theory that the Mysterons are just doing this whole war-of-nerves thing with the Earth Men because, uh, well, they’ve got time in their hands really. It’s not like they’ve got to go to work. They can rebuild anything they’ve already done. They’re probably sitting around on a Friday afternoon going “I know, let’s make a valve weak on the hovercraft, let ’em all fight amongst themselves.” So the whole Mysterons War with Earth is kind of like they’re doing it for Mysterons and Giggles?

There are a few loose ends here, Tony Barwick. Who started the fire? How did the fire start? But there’s some fantastic Supermarionation hand waving at the end to answer these questions for us: “And the fire in our bedroom at the base?” So was it the Patchouli oil that started the fire with the candle and the curtain? Was it smoking in bed? Did someone knock over a bong? “That is something to which we shall never know the answer.” We’ll never know. So don’t even think about it. Don’t stay awake at night wondering if things are gonna catch fire. Nothing to see here. “All we can do is remain vigilant.”

But as an episode goes, it’s very different to most other ones as there’s no googly eye dead person coming back and going “Boo!”. We’re looking for a traitor. It’s a good whodunnit. I’ve got a feeling that Columbo probably could have solved the case faster than Captain Scarlet, but that still leaves the loose end of that fire. Anyway, I know I will sleep more soundly tonight in my bed knowing Captain Scarlet and Captain Blue are on the beat.

One final thought – with everything we know from this episode, and with everything we know about the metallurgy of the hovercraft, I’ll leave you with this from Machin: “Listen, Captain Scarlet would have access to all sections of Spectrum, including the plant where the hovercraft were made.” “What are you driving at?” “Just thinking.”

Maynard, Captain Aubergine, Sydney, Australia signing off. Well, I’m going to pop over to Lady Penelope’s sheep farm now. I’ll have a Drambuie and soda, thank you. A large one.

Listen to Maynard’s take on Captain Scarlet episode Operation Time

Listen to Maynard’s take on Captain Scarlet episode Model Spy