New Captain Scarlet is a British computer generated action-adventure reboot of the 1967 Supermarionation series, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. Both series were produced by Gerry Anderson. As a nod to Supermarionation, the new series' computer animation was promoted as "Hypermarionation". It was the last show produced by Gerry Anderson.
The series premiered on the British ITV network in February 2005. Instead of having its own timeslot, each episode of New Captain Scarlet was shown within the children's Saturday morning children TV Show, Ministry of Mayhem. Anderson was unhappy with this scheduling decision, claiming the show was ignored.
The Radio Times said fans "felt the essence of the show had been pixelated away", while The Register called the series a "rehash".
Development
In 1999, Anderson supervised the production of a computer-animated test film, Captain Scarlet and the Return of the Mysterons, to explore the possibility of updating some of his 1960s Supermarionation series for a 21st-century audience. The working title was Captain Scarlet – The New Millennium. Produced by Moving Picture Company using a combination of Maya software and motion-capture technology, the film features Francis Matthews and Ed Bishop reprising their voice roles of Captains Scarlet and Blue. Set a few years after the Mysterons apparently cease hostilities against Earth, the film sees the reappearance of Captain Black, setting the stage for a revival of the war with Mars. The film was screened at a Fanderson convention in 2000 and a science lecture in 2001. It was released on home media in 2017.
It was the success of Captain Scarlet and the Return of the Mysterons which led to the development of New Captain Scarlet. The new series' conventional motion capture technique was promoted as "Hypermarionation" as a nod to the original series' Supermarionation. Much of the series' £22 million budget was contributed by private investors under the Enterprise Investment Scheme.
Broadcast
ITV premiered New Captain Scarlet on the Saturday morning children's entertainment show Ministry of Mayhem. Episodes were split across two parts and shown with truncated opening titles.
Anderson later claimed: "They took my half-hour show, cut the titles off and cut it in half. It wasn't even listed so people who watched Ministry of Mayhem had to wait and watch all the nonsense going on before the first half. When it finished they didn't say there was a second half or when it was going to start. After they had shown all the episodes, legally it had to be cited as a repeat so it never had a premiere. It just broke my heart."
He interviews with Den of Geek and Big Finish, Anderson further dismissed Ministry of Mayhem as "a three-hour rubbish show", claimed parents had to "suffer" when NCS wasn't on-screen, that he was uncredited, and that Ministry of Mayhem "murdered the show".
In the United States, the series aired on Animania HD.
Episodes were aired in the order they were completed and delivered to ITV, meaning that the series finale aired as the penultimate instalment. This is because an alternative episode had to be made after one was abandoned because Gerry Anderson thought it was too scary for younger children. On 29 September 2017 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the original Captain Scarlet series, New Captain Scarlet became available to stream in North America via Amazon Video. In the years since, the series has also been available to stream on YouTube and Tubi.
Synopsis
In the year 2068, peace on Earth is maintained by the Spectrum Organization, a super-efficient security group, headquartered in the vast floating aircraft carrier Skybase, which hovers on the edge of Earth's atmosphere. Spectrum is staffed by agents recruited from various military services, who are each assigned colour codenames to hide their true identities. Under the command of Colonel White, Spectrum has become the supreme peacekeeping force, maintaining a fleet of sophisticated vehicles for use by Spectrum field agents.