Captain Scarlet and The Mysterons - Reception

Reception

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons should have been one of the most successful puppet shows and it wasn't. I think it was too perfect. There was a lack of humour. It was too mechanical and needed humanising ... always wanted to make the characters a lot more rigid than I did. I wanted to start to give them human flaws, start to make them more important. He was more inclined to make them just say the lines and fit into a rigid pattern, but if you don't care about the characters, it doesn't really work.

Sylvia Anderson (1992)

While Thunderbirds had run for two series, Lew Grade's unexpected cancellation of the production led Anderson to assume that there was no possibility of Captain Scarlet lasting for more than one. In Anderson's words, "I didn't expect it to continue. I simply went to Lew and asked, 'What's the next thing you want us to do?'"

Captain Scarlet has generally been viewed as much "darker" in tone compared to Gerry Anderson's earlier science-fiction programmes, as Andrew Billen noted in New Statesman when its remake was broadcast 2005: "Whereas Thunderbirds was about rescuing people, Scarlet was about damnation, the soul of a resurrected man being fought for between Captain Scarlet and the equally indestructible Captain Black. It was Anderson's Gothic period." The horror factor of the Mysterons has been recognised, with the depiction of the extraterrestrials giving the series a ranking of 82nd in Channel 4's 2003 list programme 100 Greatest Scary Moments. Simon Wickes of the TV Century 21 website asserts that serious writing of the scripts is ultimately due to the realism of the new, accurately-proportioned puppets, and that this aesthetic change also answers for the heightened realism of the series' scale models.

Parallels have been drawn between Captain Scarlet and the Cold War. Historian Nicholas J. Cull interprets the "war of nerves" between Earth and Mars as a reflection of the strain on international relations during the 1960s and likens the "enemy within" scenario of Martians taking physical control of humans to the plots of such films as Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). According to Mark Bould, the series "seemed in tune with a decade of civil disobedience and anti-imperialist guerrilla wars" – a view supported by Rebecca Feasey of the University of Edinburgh, who has written that it is one of a number of series that "exploited the fears of 1960s America by presenting civil disobedience and the potentially negative impact of new technologies." Since 2001, comparisons have been made to the September 11 attacks, as well as the ensuing War on Terror.

To other reviewers, Captain Scarlet remains a "camp classic" that, in Bould's opinion, relates well to other Anderson productions due to a common depiction of "a utopian future benefiting from world government, high technology, ethnic diversity, and a generally positive sense of Americanisation. They articulate the commonly made connection between technological developments and economic prosperity." He also states that Captain Scarlet espouses "Euro-cool consumerism". The concept of world government is common to Anderson's work and was inspired by his thoughts on the matter at the time: "I had all sorts of fancy ideas about the future ... we had the United Nations and I imagined that the world would come together and there would be a world government." Peter Wright, on the series' depiction of technology, notes the "qualified technophilia" that it shares with Thunderbirds.

Since its first appearance, Captain Scarlet has been criticised for its filming, which has been considered too static due to the problem of moving the Supermarionation puppets convincingly. The return to a 25-minute episode format, as had been the case with series preceding Thunderbirds, has been blamed for a perceived drop in quality of storytelling and a lack of subplots. Concerns have also been raised about the development of the characters: in a 1986 interview, script editor Tony Barwick described Captain Scarlet as "hard-nosed stuff" that lacked humour, stating, "It was all for the American market and to that extent there was no deep characterisation. all balanced one against the other." To Jeff Evans, writer of The Penguin TV Companion, it is "more detailed"; he explains: "The agents were given private lives and real identities, and were furnished with other biographical data."

While it would become a huge success, Captain Scarlet received a less than enthusiastic reception from critics. It caused a stir among parents, who condemned the show for its realistic carnage, and (some) children who were bemused by its gritty realism.

Chris Drake and Graeme Bassett (1993)

Science-fiction author John Peel considers Captain Scarlet inferior to Thunderbirds, arguing that although the special effects had improved, it was to the detriment of the scriptwriting. He compares this schism to the disappointing reception to Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) following the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): "Anderson made the same mistake that George Lucas made, assuming that if the effects were praised in Thunderbirds, the public wanted a show with more effects." Peel also finds fault with the nature of Scarlet himself, suggesting that the use of an "indestructible" hero made the conclusions to the episodes too predictable. Furthermore, he expresses a concern that Scarlet, who is often seen to risk his life in a bid to thwart Mysteron plots, served as a poor role model to a target audience of impressionable children.

Seen as a cult series by some critics, Captain Scarlet ranked 33rd in a 2007 Radio Times poll to determine the greatest science-fiction series of all time. Despite concerns that it is not a true "children's" series on account of its "dark" tone and violence, it appeared in 51st position in the 2001 Channel 4 list show 100 Greatest Kids' TV Shows. Judging Captain Scarlet next to its immediate predecessor, Thunderbirds, Gerry Anderson's own verdict is unambiguous: "Nothing was as successful as Thunderbirds. Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons was very successful, but once you've had a smash hit, everything tends to look less successful in comparison."