Manhunt (Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons)

Plot

Captain Black sneaks into the Culver Atomic Centre, but security guards spot him. While fleeing, he runs into a radioactive zone and gets exposed to an isotope that makes him show up on long-range Geiger counters for two days. Spectrum launches a search with Detector Trucks and the Angel fighter squadron. Black kills a filling station mechanic to steal the Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle the man was guarding.

When Captains Scarlet and Blue arrive to pick up the SPV, they find the mechanic has been replaced by a Mysteron reconstruction. It pulls a gun, and Scarlet shoots it dead. The Detector Trucks pick up Black's trail as he races down a highway in the SPV. Captain Ochre sets up a roadblock, but the Mysterons warn Black and tell him to go back to the Atomic Centre, where background radiation will mask his signature.

Scarlet and Blue discover Symphony's landed Angel Interceptor with no pilot, realizing she has been captured. Spectrum forces gather at the Atomic Centre. Inside, Black seems to try killing Symphony by exposing her to radiation, but he changes his mind and spares her. The SPV smashes through the centre's gates and drives south.

Spectrum chases the radioactive signal, thinking it is Black. The SPV crashes at a roadblock, and the driver turns out to be Symphony. With the complex unguarded, Black cleans off the radiation and slips away. Spectrum realizes too late they have been fooled.

After Colonel White's debriefing, Lieutenant Green quietly asks Symphony why she did not stop the SPV outside the gates. She sheepishly admits she had never driven an SPV before.

Production

The puppet-scale interior of the Spectrum detector truck in this episode was adapted from the Zero-X MEV cockpit set originally built for the 1966 film Thunderbirds Are Go, which had last appeared in Captain Scarlet’s first episode, "The Mysterons." Special effects assistant Mike Trim designed the truck models. This episode also introduced voice actor David Healy to the series, performing as a Spectrum Geiger counter operator and a Culver Atomic Centre security guard.

When Captain Black murders the garage mechanic, the mechanic’s radio plays the theme from Crossroads to Crime, a 1960 film directed by Gerry Anderson. The incidental music for "Manhunt" was recorded in a four-hour session on 16 April 1967 with 14 musicians, lasting four minutes and seven seconds; the music for "Big Ben Strikes Again" came from the same session. Spectrum’s later attempt to capture Captain Black in "Treble Cross" reused the scale-model footage of the detector trucks originally shot for this episode.

Reception

Critics have been unkind to this episode. The authors of The Guinness Book of Classic British TV dismissed it as resembling leftover scripts from Thunderbirds. Starburst magazine’s Andrew Pixley and Julie Rogers highlighted the violence in Black’s murder of a mechanic, also noting a similar killing in "Special Assignment". Fred McNamara described it as a "rather limp affair" with an exciting setup but no "definite payoff". He criticised the episode for failing to develop Black’s character, explain why he spares Symphony Angel, or clarify his interest in the Culver Atomic Centre. McNamara also judged the final chase of the SPV as the series’ weakest vehicle pursuit, and suggested the story would have worked better later in the run. He concluded that "Manhunt" marks the series’ "first genuine blunder".