I recently guested on a Gerry Anderson podcast called Keep and Destroy, where fans of his shows discuss their favourite episodes and critique (for want of a better word) some of the others.
As today is International Gerry Anderson Day, I thought I would publish some of my notes from the podcast, going into a bit more detail about some of the best episodes.
Narrowing it down to just five was, of course, really difficult, as there are possibly hundreds of entries I could have made. So, if any of your favourites don’t appear, try not to shoot the messenger!
My favourite episodes:
- Dragon’s Domain (Space: 1999)
- Sun Probe (Thunderbirds)
- A Christmas to Remember (Stingray)
- Survival (UFO)
- Avalanche (Captain Scarlet)
Avalanche
If someone was to ask me to explain why Captain Scarlet is such a timeless, cult classic, Avalanche would be a key episode, which is why I’ve chosen it.
What made this show so ahead of its time was, of course, the way Gerry introduced the audience to a war of nerves decades before the western world became so acquainted with the concepts of terrorism and espionage.
It is stuff like this, as well as many other things, that show how much of a visionary Gerry was. What is impressive about this episode in particular is that it is actually a first-ever stab at Anderson script-writing for by Shane Rimmer, of Scott Tracy and Thunderbirds fame.
The success of Avalanche comes from presenting the contrast of two war styles: open warfare versus a war of nerves. Rimmer does this masterfully by distilling the dichotomy into the character of General Ward, a military man with a painful inability to understand a threat he cannot intimidate or wipe off a map.
And that leads us onto another excellent examination of the human problem, similar to what Anderson went on to show in UFO’s Survival but with some differences. In Avalanche, the imperfection and ignorance of our race becomes as much the threat Spectrum are seeking to stop as the Mysterons are. General Ward’s close-mindedness sets our heroes in an additional race; one against time, or rather, against his trigger finger.
Once again, this is another episode that uses the empty shop trope really well, with each Frost Line base acting as equivalents of the Marie Celeste. You’re probably starting to notice how much I loved Anderson’s mysterious episodes like Dragon’s Domain, A Christmas to Remember, Ghost of the Sea, Survival and I’m not even remotely ashamed! There were some great nods to Alfred Hitchcock’s style in Anderson’s work and Avalanche is one of the best.
It’s very textbook nod to the empty shop in this episode, of course, with the water still running, the radio blaring out, food on the table type stuff, while these people all lay around dead. It’s an effective combination that builds the tension and mystery of the episode in an upwards trajectory until Scarlet and Green come into contact with the latest Mystery agent. And let’s not forget this trope also ties into the discussion about understanding a threat nicely. The Mysterons are not something you can just attack directly because they work in the shadows, something General Ward just does not understand.
Another reason why this episode is one of my favourites is because we do deviate from the norm by bringing Lieutenant Green on a mission. The character was, of course, iconic considering he was the first black character to play a prominent role in a Supermarionation show although I did always feel like he was a little underused, at least initially.
But this is an episode where they gave Green a chance to spread his wings, let him take part in the action, and enjoy in-the-field banter and chemistry with Scarlet.
I nearly included Lunarville 7 and Crater 101 on this list because they are hugely important episodes to the show’s overall arc as well as featuring eerie mystery but and Lieutenant Green involved in the action.
Still, Avalanche is the first episode that allows him a chance to get away from his desk, so you could say this is an episode that laid the groundwork for the success of the Lunarville 7/Crater 101 arc, so it deserves its place in Scarlet history.
I want to talk about visual effects again, especially as Avalanche ramps up into the action-filled climax. There’s an excellent piece of puppetry in the closing stages where we see Scarlet tilting his head, shoulder and firing arm to eyeball the gunshot so that he can create an avalanche to stop the Mysteron agent.
But we get more examples of how effective the sound effects team were with the spluttering grumble of the maintenance truck and the heavy noises used for the avalanche. Let’s use the Doctor Who and Star Trek example again. In Doctor Who, if they ever needed some rocks to fall on something, they’d paint some polystyrene blocks grey and just lob them at someone. But they would just leave the native sound, which is the horrible screeching noise polystyrene makes, completely robbing the objects of any conceivable weight in the imagination of the viewer.
As per usual in an Anderson production, they do enough work on the sound effects that imagination is irrelevant. You don’t need to use your own brain power here because we hear the sound of a real avalanche over the top of what looks like one – so the effect is complete and excellent in its execution.
