The Inquisition (Captain Scarlet)

"The Inquisition" is the 32nd and final episode of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, a British Supermarionation television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and produced by their company Century 21 Productions. Written by Tony Barwick and directed by Ken Turner, it was first broadcast on 12 May 1968 on ATV London.[2]

"The Inquisition"
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons episode
Episode no.Episode 32
Directed byKen Turner
Written byTony Barwick
Cinematography byTed Catford
Editing byBob Dearberg
Production codeSCA 32[1]
Original air date12 May 1968
Guest character voices
Linda Nolan (flashback)
Maitre d'
Captain Holt (flashback)
Colgan
Frazer (flashback)
Air Commodore Goddard (flashback)
2nd Police Officer (flashback)
1st Police Officer (flashback)
4th Police Officer (flashback)
Macey (flashback)
3rd Police Officer (flashback)
Shroeder (flashback)

In this clip show episode, Captain Blue disappears during a night out after unwittingly drinking drugged coffee. Having fallen unconscious, he wakes up on Cloudbase in front of a Spectrum Intelligence agent, who orders him to prove his identity by divulging Spectrum's cipher codes. Suspicious of the interrogator's motives, Blue tries to satisfy his demands by describing some of Spectrum's operations against the Mysterons, which he recalls as flashbacks. The episode has been criticized by commentators for its failure to adequately resolve the war between Earth and the Mysterons.[3][4][5]

Plot

After dining with Captain Scarlet (voiced by Francis Matthews) at the Markham Arms pub, Captain Blue (voiced by Ed Bishop) is served drugged coffee by the maitre d', who unknown to Scarlet and Blue is a Mysteron agent.[1] After finishing the coffee, Blue falls unconscious and disappears. Transmitting to Earth, the Mysterons warn Spectrum that a member of the organisation will betray them all.

Blue comes round in what appears to be the Cloudbase control room facing a man who introduces himself as Colgan, a Spectrum Intelligence agent. Colgan tells Blue that he has been missing for three months and must prove his identity by giving details of Spectrum's top-secret cipher codes. Reluctant to divulge classified information, Blue tries to satisfy Colgan by describing some of Spectrum's operations against the Mysterons. However, his efforts are in vain: his overview of the Mysterons' attempt to destroy London ("Big Ben Strikes Again") is judged useless and his first-person account of the destruction of their base on the Moon ("Crater 101") is rejected due to the extensive press coverage of the event. His third example – the attempted assassination of Earth's air force leaders ("The Trap") – is also rejected even though it was never reported in the news media.

Increasingly suspicious of Colgan's interest in the codes, as well as the absence of other Spectrum personnel, Blue attempts to leave the control room but finds his way blocked by a man holding a gun and a hypodermic syringe containing a truth serum. Realising that he has been abducted by Mysteron agents, Blue hurls himself through an observation window and lands on a painted-sky canvas, revealing "Cloudbase" to be nothing more than a replica built inside an empty warehouse. Scarlet arrives in a Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle, orders Blue to get clear and destroys the warehouse with the SPV's rocket launcher. Scarlet informs Blue that he went missing only a few hours earlier and suggests that he tell his story "back on the real Cloudbase".

Production

Captain Scarlet is one of a number of Supermarionation productions to feature a clip-show series finale, the first of which was Stingray's "Aquanaut of the Year". This practice continued in the Andersons' next three puppet series, ending with Joe 90's "The Birthday".[6]

"The Inquisition" had been long planned.[6] It was specifically written to exclude scenes from "The Mysterons", to which there are flashbacks in "Winged Assassin", "Dangerous Rendezvous" and "Traitor".[7] The framing scenes were shot on Century 21 Studios' Stage 3 between 22 and 25 November 1967 alongside filming on "The Most Special Agent", the first episode of Joe 90, on Stage 4.[1][8] The finished episode contains only eight minutes of original footage, the flashback to "Crater 101" taking up a further eight minutes of the running time.[1][9] "The Inquisition" is the only episode of Captain Scarlet in which Colonel White and Cloudbase (excluding the Mysterons' simulation) do not appear.[10]

The exterior of the Markham Arms was designed as a Tudor-style pub by Mike Trim and built as a cardboard and Perspex scale model by Alan Shubrook. To give the model an aged look, Shubrook used sandpaper to wear down the walls and applied strokes of dark paint around the windows to give the impression of rain stains. He has described making the Markham Arms as a "typical day's work" in the model-making department during his early years at Century 21.[11]

The scene set inside the Markham Arms features 20 "revamp" (guest) puppets appearing as background characters.[12] Blue's escape from the control room was accomplished by throwing the puppet through a sheet of glass onto the backdrop of the control room set;[9] though filmed at high speed, a gloved hand can be seen launching the puppet.[2][10] The puppet that plays Colgan was a newly made copy of revamp puppet 19, which had appeared in various supporting roles in Captain Scarlet and was making its debut as Sam Loover in Joe 90 while "The Inquisition" was being filmed.[1][10] The copy would also appear in the later series.[1][10]

Music specially recorded for "The Inquisition" includes a piano piece, performed by series composer Barry Gray, which plays during the Markham Arms scene.[13]

Broadcast and reception

The episode was omitted from BBC 2's first run of the series beginning in 1993. It had its UK network premiere on BBC 2 on 9 September 1994.[10]

Critical response

"The Inquisition" has been negatively received by commentators. Anthony Clark of sci-fi-online.com calls it a "cheap flashback episode".[14] Morgan Jeffery of Digital Spy describes it as a "glorified clip show" that "[provides] no resolution to the series", comparing it negatively to the "thrilling" previous instalment, "Attack on Cloudbase".[5] Andrew Thomas of Dreamwatch magazine argues that the series' "occasional lack of ideas" leads to an "over-use" of recycled footage, and regards "The Inquisition" as the worst case of this. He also describes Colgan's interrogation of Blue as "rather unconvincing".[15] Chris Drake and Graeme Bassett argue that the episode's dependence on flashbacks makes it an "unusual" series finale.[9] Martin Cater of Network Distributing calls the episode "decidedly downbeat" but describes the episodes re-visited in flashback as "arguably the three best examples from the series after the pilot".[6]

Chris Bentley notes that two guest puppets make more than one appearance in the episode. The puppet that plays Shroeder in the flashback to "Crater 101" and a puppet that plays one of the police officers in the flashback to "Big Ben Strikes Again" also have non-speaking roles in both the Markham Arms scene (as the pianist and a patron, respectively) and the extract from "The Trap" (as two of the conference delegates).[1][2][10] A similar observation is made by Jim Sangster and Paul Condon, authors of Collins Telly Guide, who compare the appearance of the Shroeder puppet to that of actor Robert Mitchum. Sangster and Condon view "The Inquisition" as one of the series' "disappointing amount of flashback compilations".[4]

Bentley adds that the flashback to "Crater 101" alters the established continuity of that episode: while inside the Mysteron base, Scarlet casts his mind back to a conversation that he had with Controller Linda Nolan at Lunarville 6, prompting the conversation to be replayed as a "flashback within a flashback".[2] Bentley states that this was done to ensure "narrative clarity".[1]

In his review of the CD release of the Captain Scarlet soundtrack, Andrew Pixley of TV Zone magazine names the "sombre" piano piece from "The Inquisition" as one of two standout tracks.[16]

References
  1. Bentley 2017, pp. 202-203.
  2. Bentley, Chris (2008) [2001]. The Complete Gerry Anderson: The Authorised Episode Guide (4th ed.). London, UK: Reynolds & Hearn. p. 136. ISBN 978-1-905287-74-1.
  3. "Captain Scarlet: Introduction". BBC Online. Archived from the original on 9 September 2012. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
  4. Sangster, Jim; Condon, Paul (2005). Collins Telly Guide. London, UK: HarperCollins. p. 166. ISBN 978-0-007190-99-7.
  5. Jeffery, Morgan (19 November 2011). "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons: Tube Talk Gold". Digital Spy. Hearst Magazines UK. Archived from the original on 20 November 2011. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
  6. Cater, Martin (15 June 2018). "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons: How to End a Series ..." networkonair.com. Network Distributing. Archived from the original on 29 July 2018. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
  7. Bentley 2017, p. 123.
  8. Bentley 2017, p. 183.
  9. Drake, Chris; Bassett, Graeme (1993). Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. London, UK: Boxtree. p. 71. ISBN 978-1-852834-03-6.
  10. Bentley, Chris (2001). The Complete Book of Captain Scarlet. London, UK: Carlton Books. p. 90. ISBN 978-1-842224-05-2.
  11. Shubrook, Alan (2007). Century 21 FX: Unseen Untold. Shubrook Bros Publications. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-9556101-0-3.
  12. Bentley 2017, p. 57.
  13. Eder, Bruce. "Captain Scarlet [Original TV Soundtrack] Review". AllMusic. All Media Network. Archived from the original on 29 May 2013. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
  14. Clark, Anthony. "DVD Captain Scarlet (New) Series 2 Box Set Review". sci-fi-online.com. Archived from the original on 16 February 2014. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
  15. Thomas, Andrew (1994). Leigh, Gary (ed.). "Captain Indestructible!". Dreamwatch. Vol. 1 no. 4 (Winter Special). Brighton, UK: Dreamwatch Publishing. pp. 24–26. ISSN 1356-482X. OCLC 225907941.
  16. Pixley, Andrew (March 2004). "The TV Zone Reviews: Merchandise: Captain Scarlet: Original Television Soundtrack". TV Zone. No. 173. London, UK: Visual Imagination (published February 2004). p. 75. ISSN 0957-3844. OCLC 226121852.

Works cited
  • Bentley, Chris (2017). Hearn, Marcus (ed.). Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons: The Vault. Cambridge, UK: Signum Books. ISBN 978-0-995519-12-1.
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