Phoenix Five

Plot

Set in the year 2500 AD, the series follows the crew of the galactic patrol ship Phoenix Five, the most sophisticated craft in the Earth Space Control Fleet. The handpicked team includes Captain Roke, a heroic Kirk-style commander; Ensign Adam Hargraves, his second-in-command; navigator Cadet Tina Kulbrick; and the robot Karl. They defend the innocent against the evil blue-skinned Zodian of Zebula 9 and the renegade scientist Platonus. Zodian appeared in the first 13 episodes, replaced by Platonus for the latter half after producer Peter Summerton's death.

Production

Phoenix Five was a television series created in Sydney in 1969 by Artransa Park Television, working with the Australian Broadcasting Commission and Amalgamated Television Services. It first aired on ABC television on Friday, 24 April 1970 at 5:40pm, with broadcasts in other states beginning in May 1970. The show was sold to international markets, including the United Kingdom, where it aired during the 1970s and 1980s. The ABC repeated the series in 1975 when colour television arrived, and it was last shown on ATN 7 and regional stations like WIN 4 Wollongong in the early 1980s. All episodes are preserved in the National Sound and Film Archive, but no commercial release has ever happened. Since the 1990s, collectors have shared odd episodes of Interpretaris and Vega 4, along with off-air recordings of Phoenix Five, which have also appeared on YouTube from time to time.

The series has often been dismissed as "Star Trek with gumtrees," but the original Interpretaris was produced before Star Trek aired in Australia, and it more closely resembles children's space adventure shows from the 1950s and 1960s, such as Rocky Jones, Space Ranger and Fireball XL5, which had already been broadcast in Australia. Critics have pointed to its low budget, yet it actually cost more than most Australian dramas of that era because it was shot on film and in colour. Australia lacked the special effects experts common in US and UK productions, so FX supervisor Peter Hicks had to build everything from nothing. The costumes were notably expensive: floor-length robes for Zodian, pink tights for the 'microbe' girl played by Arna-Maria Winchester from the planet Leonicus, gold lame suits for the Phoenix Five crew, and an aluminium suit for the robot Karl, whose perspex head covered fibreglass bulbs. For the 'Galaxy Garden' aboard the ship, Hicks said he bought ordinary plastic plants and cut them up to look alien, and for one scene he built a gun that fired corrosive liquid to make the plants shrivel.