Spectrum Strikes Back

Plot

Colonel White, Captain Scarlet and Captain Blue travel to an African game reserve under the aliases Mr Tiger, Mr Panther and Mr Bear for a secret conference held underground beneath a hunting lodge. Spectrum Intelligence scientist Dr Giadello presents two anti-Mysteron devices: the Mysteron Gun, which fires an electron beam that permanently destroys Mysteron reconstructions by exploiting their vulnerability to electricity, and the Mysteron Detector, a radiographic camera that identifies reconstructions by their resistance to X-rays.

Captain Indigo, a Spectrum officer working undercover as the lodge's waiter, is murdered by Captain Black and reconstructed by the Mysterons. When the Mysteron Detector reveals his true nature, Indigo's double sabotages the conference by activating the controls that lower the hunting lodge into the ground, then escapes in a car with the key to the controls. Scarlet pursues Indigo with the Mysteron Gun while Blue slows the lodge's descent by firing his handgun into the ceiling.

A game warden shoots Indigo, but Scarlet finishes him with the Mysteron Gun. Scarlet retrieves the key and reverses the building's descent just in time. The delegates agree that the day was trying but satisfactory, with the weapons proven effective.

Production

Originally titled "Spectrum Strike Back," this episode marks the World President's second appearance, having been a Mysteron target in the first episode. Derek Meddings, the series' special effects director, designed the Mysteron Gun. Filming started on 13 March 1967. The puppet portraying Captain Indigo had earlier played Macey in "Big Ben Strikes Again."

The incidental music for this episode and "Avalanche" was recorded on 11 June 1967 in a four-hour session with a 15-piece band. The episode's dialogue claims only high-voltage electricity can kill Mysteron agents, but in other episodes like "Winged Assassin," "Manhunt," "White As Snow," and "Shadow of Fear," they are killed by conventional firearms. While the Mysteron Detector appears later, the Mysteron Gun is never seen or mentioned again in the series, though it appears in the 1967 tie-in novel "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons." The audio play "Captain Scarlet versus Captain Black" introduces a similar weapon, the "electro-ray rifle."

Reception

James Stansfield of Den of Geek ranks "Spectrum Strikes Back" as the tenth-best episode of Captain Scarlet, finding it memorable for introducing the Mysteron Gun and Detector and for unintentional humour from the agents' nicknames. He questions the game reserve's lack of security and Indigo's humiliating waiter role. Writer Fred McNamara praises the episode for paying heed to past episodes, calling this continuity evidence of the series' narrative ambition, but criticises the plot as convoluted and the conclusion as unfulfilling, noting that the episode relies more on worldbuilding and character dynamics than explosions.

He questions what the Mysterons gain by sabotaging the conference since the weapons are already developed, and describes Indigo as pure script fodder lacking backstory. Vincent Law of Andersonic calls the episode one of the most convoluted and inconsistent, criticising the hunting lodge's design for descending underground for secrecy. He praises moments of light relief and Barry Gray's musical score, but questions why the trapped delegates do not use the lift.

Shane M. Dallmann of Video Watchdog describes the descending lodge as a Bondian deathtrap. Andrew Pixley and Julie Rogers of Starburst note that the gun, although fantastically useful, is never seen again. Law and McNamara regret its absence, with Law noting the detector reappears only occasionally. McNamara likens the gun to a cross between a hoverpack and a watering can, while Pixley and Rogers compare the detector to a car radiator grille.