Big Ben Strikes Again

Plot

The Mysterons declare their plan to level London. With Captain Black’s assistance, they commandeer a truck hauling a nuclear warhead through the city. The vehicle and its driver, Macey, are trapped inside Park View, an underground parking structure. Macey, unconscious from the hijacking, comes to in confusion.

He switches on his radio as Big Ben chimes midnight, but counts thirteen strikes instead of twelve. The Mysterons activate the bomb’s twelve-hour countdown, knock Macey out again, and abandon him in an alley. Spectrum goes to red alert. Captain Scarlet locates Macey and brings him to Cloudbase to brief Colonel White.

Though over two thousand London car parks fit Macey’s description, Captain Blue deduces the site must lie within a mile of Big Ben after recalling Macey’s mention of the thirteenth chime, narrowing the list to Park View and one other. With under sixty minutes until detonation, Scarlet and Blue fly to London, reach Park View in a Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle, and find the bomb. Defusing is too slow, so Colonel White orders them to drive the truck to a nearby construction site and let it explode in a pre-dug pit.

With seconds left, they arrive. Blue lowers the truck—with Scarlet at the wheel—into the excavation via a large elevator. Scarlet jumps clear and starts climbing out, but the bomb detonates, destroying the shaft. Scarlet is mortally wounded but survives thanks to his rapid healing.

Later, over dinner with Scarlet, Melody Angel, and Destiny Angel, Blue explains his reasoning and the real cause of Macey’s confusion: Macey heard two sets of chimes—one live, one on the radio—but the live sound lagged due to the speed of sound, so the extra chime was merely the twelfth repeated from the radio. After this, Scarlet adopts 13 as his lucky number.

Production

The episode's script contained several scenes that were never filmed. These would have taken place right after Colonel White gave the red alert order, introducing Spectrum captains with the codenames Yellow and Purple, and showing Captain Scarlet resting in Cloudbase's "Room of Sleep." That room is mentioned in later episodes but never actually seen. According to the script, it had special couches that let someone get a full night's rest in just one hour.

The scale model work for this episode was more elaborate than in earlier Century 21 shows because the budget per episode was higher. Whole miniature streets were built. Special effects director Derek Meddings remembered the transporter hijacking scenes for their atmosphere. To make the stolen transporter seem to travel farther, the model sets were redressed several times.

The transporter model itself was designed by Meddings' assistant, Mike Trim, and later reappeared in the episode "Expo 2068." The incidental music was recorded on April 16, 1967, during a four-hour session at composer Barry Gray's private studio. A 14-member ensemble performed it. Music for the next episode, "Manhunt," was recorded the same day.

The tracks include a light jazz piece called "Until Midnight," which plays on Macey's radio in the scene just before Big Ben's chimes.

Broadcast and reception

When the series returned to BBC Two in September 2001, "Big Ben Strikes Again" was set to air on 24 September as the third episode, following the order in which it was made. But broadcasters pulled it because its story about a stolen nuclear device too closely resembled the terrorist attacks that had happened just weeks before. Around the same time, the Captain Scarlet pages on the distributor Carlton's website were taken down for a short period.

The episode finally aired on 5 November 2001, as the eighth instalment of the run. Mike Fillis of Cult Times magazine calls it a series highlight, praising its scale model work as superb. Gary Russell of What DVD points to the opening act, which centres on Macey's paranoia, as proof of the show's maturity for a children's programme and its dark, dramatic tone. Chris Bentley, author of Captain Scarlet: The Vault, says the race between Scarlet and Blue to the construction site creates unbearable tension, made worse by Spectrum's loss in the prior episode.

Writer Fred McNamara describes the episode as one of the series' most taut and nerve-chilling, applauding the first half for its blend of atmosphere and model work. He highlights the night-time London scenes, calling them a model-maker's paradise, the thrilling hijacking of the transporter truck, and Macey's underground car park exploration, which he calls a sublime mix of lighting and direction. His main criticism is the expository closing scene, which he finds a limp, dry letdown after an otherwise brilliant episode.

Media historian Nicholas J. Cull argues that this episode, along with "Treble Cross" and "Expo 2068", shows writer Barwick's fondness for stories about nuclear dangers, with the stolen nuclear device being one of his favourite plot devices.