Renegade Rocket

"Renegade Rocket" is the seventh 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 Ralph Hart and directed by Brian Burgess, it was first broadcast on 19 January 1968 on ATV Midlands.

"Renegade Rocket"
Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons episode
Episode no.Episode 7
Directed byBrian Burgess
Written byRalph Hart
Cinematography byPaddy Seale
Editing byBob Dearberg
Production codeSCA 7[1]
Original air date19 January 1968
Guest character voices
Space Major Reeves
Sergeant
Airstrip Controller
Commander
  • Charles Tingwell as
Launch Controller
Yacht Captain
Security Guard

In this episode, Spectrum fights to stop a hi-jacked incendiary rocket from destroying an unknown target.

Plot

Space Major Reeves, a rocket expert and friend of Colonel White (voiced by Donald Gray), leaves Cloudbase after completing a tour of the facility. He departs in a motor yacht for the island military installation Base Concord, unaware that Captain Black is watching from the shore. Black uses the Mysterons' powers to induce nausea in Reeves, who falls overboard and drowns in the yacht's slipstream.[2][3]

A Mysteron reconstruction of Reeves arrives at Base Concord, shoots the control room officer and launches an incendiary variable-geometry rocket (VGR) under the control code "ZERO". He then escapes in a J-17 fighter jet, with the flight program unit in his possession, leaving the base personnel no way of knowing the VGR's target or which of the 10,000 listed codes must be transmitted to trigger its self-destruct. In addition, for reasons unknown the VGR is not appearing on radar.

The commander of Base Concord alerts Spectrum and White dispatches Captains Scarlet and Blue (voiced by Francis Matthews and Ed Bishop) to Base Concord. Meanwhile, the Angel squadron are launched to track down Reeves and recover the unit. Reeves is quickly intercepted but refuses to surrender, instead crippling Melody's (voiced by Sylvia Anderson) aircraft with the J-17's machine gun and forcing her to eject before she crashes into the ocean.

At Base Concord, Scarlet, Blue and the base personnel realise that the VGR would be invisible to radar only if it were travelling upwards, and that because its descent would be equally vertical the only plausible target is the base itself. A replacement unit is installed and the personnel use it to transmit codes one after the other in a desperate effort to find the one used by Reeves, to no avail. In the air, Reeves ignores Rhapsody's (voiced by Liz Morgan) order to surrender and deliberately kills himself when he crashes his fighter, causing the original unit, which survived the crash, to fall to the ocean floor.

Minutes before impact, and with Base Concord fully evacuated except for Scarlet and Blue, White radios them and instructs them to leave. However, in a last-ditch effort to save the base, Scarlet and Blue disobey White and carry on trying codes. "AMEN" is the code used, but at the same time, the sunken unit is knocked over by an underwater current and the impact causes it to re-transmit "ZERO", triggering the VGR's self-destruct.[3]

Scarlet and Blue return to Cloudbase believing that they miraculously found the correct code. When the truth is revealed, White reprimands them for their insubordination but stops short of court-martialling them, recognising the value of their bravery in the fight against the Mysterons.

Production

"Renegade Rocket" was filmed on Century 21's Stage 3 over two weeks beginning on 27 February 1967.[1] The miniature model of the J-17 fighter was built with parts from an Airfix Dassault Mirage III model kit.[4]

The incidental music, performed by an ensemble of 12 instrumentalists, was recorded during a four-and-a-half-hour studio session held on 14 May 1967. Music for "Operation Time" was recorded during the same session.[5]

Reception

Anthony Clark of sci-fi-online.com describes "Renegade Rocket" as "just about average" and "about as dull as [Captain Scarlet] gets". He views the episode as an example of the series' "patchy" quality and questions Scarlet and Blue's motives for disobeying White given the extremely low chances of their finding the correct code.[6] Shane M. Dallmann of Video Watchdog magazine suggests that the plot "could have similarly serviced a sitcom" and regards the episode as considerably less "gripping" than "Point 783".[7]

In a review for the Andersonic website, Vincent Law argues that "Renegade Rocket" is one of many Anderson productions to focus on the dangers of "runaway machinery". Noting that the Mysteron reconstruction of Reeves effectively pulls rank on an officer to launch the VGR, he compares the character to a Cold War double agent and the episode as a whole to the Stanley Kubrick film Dr. Strangelove. He criticises the dialogue and characterisation – questioning, for example, White's lack of emotional response to the death of his friend Reeves. Despite praising the episode's visuals, Law sums up "Renegade Rocket" as "a forerunner of effects-led films like Independence Day and its ilk — flashy, nice to look at but insubstantial and ultimately unfulfilling."[8]

Chris Bentley, author of Captain Scarlet: The Vault, criticises the editing of the sequence in which the VGR makes its final approach to Base Concord, pointing out that White, who is counting down the seconds to impact, reaches zero even though the rocket is destroyed before it hits. He calls the sequence "baffling".[1]

References
  1. Bentley, Chris (2017). Hearn, Marcus (ed.). Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons: The Vault. Cambridge, UK: Signum Books. pp. 52–53. ISBN 978-0-995519-12-1.
  2. Bentley, Chris (2008) [2001]. The Complete Gerry Anderson: The Authorised Episode Guide (4th ed.). London, UK: Reynolds & Hearn. p. 124. ISBN 978-1-905287-74-1.
  3. Bentley, Chris (2001). The Complete Book of Captain Scarlet. London, UK: Carlton Books. p. 65. ISBN 978-1-84222-405-2.
  4. Brown, Stephen; Jones, Mike (2017). Jones, Mike (ed.). Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons: Close-Up. Fanderson. p. 21.
  5. de Klerk, Theo (25 December 2003). "Complete Studio-Recording List of Barry Gray". tvcentury21.com. Archived from the original on 13 December 2009. Retrieved 21 March 2010.
  6. Clark, Anthony. "Captain Scarlet: Volume 5 – Video Review". sci-fi-online.com. Archived from the original on 13 October 2011. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  7. Dallmann, Shane M. (June 2003). Lucas, Tim (ed.). "DVD Spotlight: Captain Scarlet". Video Watchdog. No. 96. Cincinnati, Ohio: Tim and Donna Lucas. p. 38. ISSN 1070-9991. OCLC 646838004.
  8. Law, Vincent. "'Renegade Rocket': What Goes Up ..." Andersonic. Archived from the original on 12 January 2010. Retrieved 23 January 2010.
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