The Inquisition (Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons)

Plot

Captain Blue is dining with Captain Scarlet at the Markham Arms pub when the maitre d', a Mysteron reconstruction, serves him drugged coffee. Blue awakens in what appears to be the Cloudbase control room, where a man named Colgan, claiming to be a Spectrum Intelligence agent, tells him he has been missing for three months and must prove his identity by revealing Spectrum's cipher codes. Unwilling to disclose classified information, Blue instead recounts past operations against the Mysterons: the attempt to destroy London ("Big Ben Strikes Again"), the destruction of their Moon base ("Crater 101"), and the assassination plot against air force leaders ("The Trap").

Colgan rejects each account. Growing suspicious of Colgan's motives and the empty control room, Blue tries to leave but is blocked by an armed man with a syringe of truth serum. Realising he is captive of Mysteron agents, Blue throws himself through an observation window, landing on a painted-sky canvas that reveals the "Cloudbase" is a replica inside a warehouse. Captain Scarlet arrives in a Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle, destroys the warehouse with a rocket launcher, and tells Blue he has been missing only hours.

Production

The episode was planned long before scripting and deliberately excluded scenes from the first episode, which had already been used in flashbacks in "Winged Assassin", "Dangerous Rendezvous" and "Traitor". The framing scenes were filmed from 22 to 25 November 1967 on Stage 3 at Century 21 Studios on the Slough Trading Estate, concurrent with filming of the Joe 90 episode "The Most Special Agent" on Stage 4. Only eight minutes of original material appear in the finished episode; the flashback to "Crater 101" alone accounts for another eight minutes of the 25-minute runtime.

This is the only Captain Scarlet episode that does not feature Colonel White or the real Cloudbase. The Markham Arms pub was designed as a Tudor-style house by Mike Trim and built as a cardboard and Perspex scale model by Alan Shubrook, who aged it with sandpaper and dark paint. The background characters in the pub interior were played by 20 of Century 21's revamp puppets. Colgan was portrayed by a newly made copy of revamp puppet 19, which had appeared in guest roles and was debuting as Sam Loover in Joe 90 during filming.

Blue's escape was achieved by throwing the puppet through glass onto the painted-sky backdrop; a crew member's gloved hand is visible launching the puppet. The original music includes a piano piece performed by series composer Barry Gray.

Broadcast and reception

First broadcast on 12 May 1968 on ATV London, the episode was omitted from the series' first UK-wide re-run that began in 1993 on BBC2, eventually airing on BBC2 on 9 September 1994. Commentators have negatively received the episode. Chris Drake and Graeme Bassett call its reliance on previously filmed material an "unusual" series finale. Anthony Clark of sci-fi-online.com labels it a "cheap flashback episode", while Digital Spy's Morgan Jeffery describes it as a "glorified clip show" that provides no resolution, contrasting it unfavourably with the preceding "Attack on Cloudbase".

Andrew Thomas of Dreamwatch magazine cites an "occasional lack of ideas" leading to "over-use" of recycled footage and considers this the worst example, also deeming Colgan's interrogation "rather unconvincing". Martin Cater of Network Distributing calls the episode "decidedly downbeat" but considers the flashback episodes among the three best after the pilot. Writer Fred McNamara, while calling the overall episode a "farce", believes its frame narrative "just about succeeds" and praises the interrogation scenes' pace and drama, though he criticises the lack of Colgan's backstory and questions the Mysterons' tactics.

He notes that the series' storyline "just stops" and that the lack of resolution is more disappointing for Captain Scarlet because it had an overarching narrative, making "The Inquisition" an "undeniable anticlimax".