20 years ago today, New Captain Scarlet debuted on CITV! What would turn out to be Gerry Anderson's last ever fully realised television production reinvented one of his and Sylvia Anderson's most beloved Supermarionation series.

New Captain Scarlet embraced computer-generated imagery to recreate the darkly thrilling war of nerves from 1967's Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. Filmed in 'Hypermarionation' the CGI remake thrusts Spectrum and the Mysterons into the 21st century with an all-new genesis and saga for the indestructible superman. 

In recognition of the series' landmark anniversary, let's take a deep dive into the history of New Captain Scarlet!

Making the Indestructible

New Captain Scarlet has its roots in the astounding popularity that greeted many of Gerry Anderson's classic puppet series throughout the 1990s and 2000s when they were broadcast on national television for the first time and received extensive home entertainment releases across video and DVD. Speaking in Anderson's authorised biography, What Made Thunderbirds Go, then business partner John Needham elaborated that Captain Scarlet was chosen to be remade because of its appeal as being darker than Thunderbirds. 

Gerry's growing fascination with the development of CGI technology prompted him to pursue a digital reinvention of his Supermarionation series. Where filming in live action could bring his puppet characters to life, CGI offered the same possibilities, but with a hyper-modern twist. "I'm very enthused by the possibilities CGI offers film-makers," Gerry would enthuse in his biography. "As soon as there's a new invention, I want to use it."

Captain Scarlet and the Return of the Mysterons was the initial result of this new process. A compact, five-minute standalone adventure set in the world of the classic 1967 series, the short reunited Francis Matthews and Ed Bishop with Nigel Plaskitt quickly settling into his role as Captain Black, for which he'd be retained once the remake was greenlit. The short was well received by fans, but the protracted time it would take to produce a full series in CGI prompted Gerry to dispense with the mature Matthews and Bishop and embrace a new, younger cast. 

While Captain Scarlet lingered in the shadows of Thunderbirds, news of the series' forthcoming remake sparked plenty of positive interest, carried on the wave of renewed interest in Anderson's series - and bolstered by the poor reception of 2004's Thunderbirds film! Writing in the Evening Herald in July 2004, Pat Stacey wrote the following: "If anyone deserves fresh recognition, it's Gerry Anderson. Thunderbirds (2004), regrettably, won't provide it. Captain Scarlet, however, might just. One of Anderson's most popular creations, he's due back on TV screens next year in a spanking new 26-part computer-generated series. And this time Gerry Anderson will be pulling the strings. FAB!" 

New Captain Scarlet entered production in early 2003. After a tricky start involving slow progress and missed deadlines, the production team was refreshed around Christmas 2003 under the helm of Ron Thornton, who's standard-setting CGI work on the likes of Babylon 5, Star Trek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer yielded a renewed smoothness to the making of New Captain Scarlet. 

The series utilised plenty of cutting edge 3D software, blending motion capture for its characters and digital imagery for sets, vehicles and other hardware. Mark Harrison joined the series initially as a 3D modeller on the opening two-parter, 'Instruments of Destruction', before being promoted to CG director. "...we had to finish a 45 minute film in the space of a month or so," Harrison recalled in Andersonic in 2016. "We had a very real and intimidating deadline and those who were given the responsibility, myself included, were informed that the production was at make or break point. Had we not finished the pilot by February 2004, the production would have probably been cancelled. So we all realised what was at stake."

Each episode generally took eight weeks to produce and were produced simultaneously across four CG teams, which each comprised of around 25 people. "If we were starting an episode, the first place we'd go to would be a script review with the given director, and sometimes Gerry, plus all the senior staff," Harrison recalled. "We'd have a breakdown and we'd discuss things in the script that we might have to remove... being CG experts some of us would see swathes of nightmare days on some issues."

New Captain Scarlet's strikingly modern aesthetic was chiefly the result of production designer Mark Harris and concept artist Dominic Lavery, who also went onto direct several episodes of the series. Lavery's approach to creating New Captain Scarlet's futuristic world was a balance between outlandish designs and believable functionality. The series was chiefly written by Phil Ford, whose screen credits at that point included Coronation Street and Bad Girls, with additional contributions from Brian Finch and John Brown. Ford's sustained presence throughout the series, nearly writing all 26 episodes single-handedly, undoubtedly aided in cementing a satisfyingly consistent tone for the series.

The series was chiefly directed by Mark Wollard, Lavery and returning Anderson alumni David Lane, who had directed on Thunderbirds and its two cinematic outings, Thunderbirds Are Go and Thunderbird 6. For Lane, working with the relatively new medium of CGI was as much a learning curve as it was working with puppets. "Here, we're making something where there is no system in place," he told TV Zone in the run up to New Captain Scarlet's debut. "We're inventing as we go along. We create it, and if we took the wrong route there, we can come back and go down another road. It's all a learning curve and always, always keep onwards... Give us two more shows and we'll blow the socks off everybody because of what we're learning from this series."

Lane also became the series' supervising director, and for the comparatively young crew working with the intimidating digital technologies, having an older and more experienced hand steadying the ship proved invaluable. "The most important thing that David did was right at the beginning when I was still designing," Lavery recalled in Andersonic in 2009. "was almost trial running the whole process. It wasn't just a case of making the show, it was also building the facility, getting all the software running, ironing out all the problems that would arise and a lot of that really was down to David troubleshooting it and getting it right."

New Captain Scarlet boasted a quality voice cast consisting of some more returning Anderson alumni and newer talent. Wayne Forester, who voiced Captain Scarlet himself, had previously portrayed many guest alien characters on Space Precinct and performed in the Thunderbirds: F.A.B. stage show. He'd also performed as one of the motion capture artists for Captain Scarlet and the Return of the Mysterons. On learning that this earlier test film might yield a full series, Forester directly approached Gerry to ask if he may be involved in the series as a voice actor. "He (Gerry) said 'why don't you come and audition for Captain Scarlet on Thursday,'" Forester recalls on the Gerry Anderson Podcast in 2024, believing he'd have the chance to portray a similar line-up of guest characters as he had done on Space Precinct. "...he went over to this filing cabinet, reached in, and he got the script out, and he said 'Lines for Captain Scarlet'. And I said, 'well, this is to read for Captain Scarlet', he said 'that's right - come along on Thursday and do that.'"

Robbie Stevens of Terrahawks fame returned to voice Captain Blue. Nigel Plaskitt had voiced Captain Black in the CGI test film a few years prior, and would continue voicing the character for the new series. Emma Tate voiced Destiny Angel, the most prominently featured of the five Angels. Jules de Jongh voiced Lieutenant Green, Mike Hayley voiced Colonel White, and Doctor Gold rounded off the series' regular cast, also voiced by Plaskitt. The series' motion capture cast included Oliver Hollis, Bruce Lawrence and Jason L. Davis.

Production on New Captain Scarlet continued until mid-2005 and was budgeted at an astronomical £22 million, unintentionally continuing a tradition of Gerry Anderson programmes boasting phenomenal budgets! New Captain Scarlet would emerge at an oddly significant period for several other classic British cult sci-fi/spy-fi properties. 2005 saw the revivals of Doctor Who, Quatermass, and a young Daniel Craig making his debut as 007. Unfortunately, the series would emerge in an unceremonious fashion entirely unsuited to the style of hard-edged, sophisticated sci-fi programming that it succeeded in becoming.

Spectrum is Reinvented

New Captain Scarlet embraced more emotionally-charged character dynamics compared to the original series, another narrative element naturally brought on by the possibilities of CGI. Gerry remained consistently spirited by the promises that CGI presented to him, as he explained in TV Zone in 2004: "I could see the potential (of CGI), and over the years the software improved and the techniques improved until one day I thought 'I can achieve my lifelong ambition now, and actually bring these characters to life.'" 

New Captain Scarlet consistently strove to improve upon practically every aspect of the original series, including its narrative scope and depth of characterisation. In this remake, it's Captain Black and Captain Scarlet who unwittingly trigger the war of nerves into life. As a consequence, the Mysterons take a far more personal interest in Captain Scarlet, while Captain Black is far more extroverted as an enemy operative, rather than content to remain in the shadows.

The manner in which Captain Scarlet becomes indestructible became realigned. No longer a Mysteron doppelganger, Captain Scarlet now emerges with his newfound powers as a Mysteron/human hybrid. An unlikely love triangle also emerges between Captain Scarlet, Destiny Angel, and Captain Black, while a found-family dynamic blossoms between Colonel White and Lieutenant Green. Captain Scarlet and Captain Blue's friendship takes on a renewed freshness with Blue's more trigger-happy, occasionally nihilistic disposition. The war of nerves had now become far more personable to its individual heroes and villains. 

A tangible sense of escalation gradually occurs throughout the series in how the Mysterons execute their attacks, while retaining their horrible 'unknown' quality as invisible aliens with the power to reanimate matter. Episodes such as The Achilles Messenger and Enigma showcase paranoid avenues of the Mysterons rarely seen in the classic series. 

The hardware of the New Captain Scarlet comes with many recognisable parallels to the classic series. In place of the Angel Interceptors, we have the Falcon Interceptors; for the SPVs, we have the Rhinos; what was once Cloudbase is now Skybase, and so on. The closeness of these vehicles and technology to reality gifts New Captain Scarlet with an invigorating tactile quality to its sense of action and adventure, without feeling the need to be aggressively faithful to the original for the pure sake of nostalgia. 

There's a structural cohesiveness to New Captain Scarlet that places the series above other entries in the Gerry Anderson canon. Previous series such as Space Precinct feel transparently obvious in being pulled in different tonal directions to appeal to different demographics; darker and light-hearted, often in the space of the same episode. That's not apparent in New Captain Scarlet, which greatly benefits from a tonal consistency from beginning to end as an uncompromising action adventure series, serious but not rigid, dark but not depressing, graphic but not lurid.  

Narratively and visually, New Captain Scarlet grows in confidence as the series progresses, with many of its strongest episodes to be found from later on in the series' run. By the time we reach the series' finale, 'Dominion' (not the actual final episode, oddly enough), we've satisfyingly capped off the war of nerves by giving the series' overarching story a near-definite conclusion, something the classic series always lacked.

The Series' Aftermath

For all of its structural cohesiveness, the curse of the indecisive broadcaster would unfortunately strike the series, as it often did with other Anderson series. Much like UFO, Space: 1999 and Space Precinct, broadcasters appeared unsure how to present this darkly intense reimagining of a then-40 year old children's puppet series. Then again, it was surely something of a victory for the madcap variety show, Ministry of Mayhem, to make room for a series that featured mild swearing and a certain level of unchecked violence.

New Captain Scarlet found itself shunted into an unlisted slot on Saturday mornings within Ministry of Mayhem's confines. Episodes would suffer from being split into half to necessitate advert breaks, robbing them of their concise immediacy. The blow was softened by the series' managing to enjoy a repeat at 4:30 PM on Tuesdays, but it wasn't enough to secure the series' future. "As the show went on we were refining the process, we were getting better at it, the look of it was getting better, the characters were starting to develop and look more realistic..." Lavery recalled. "We were quite ready to carry onto the next series. It all just ground to a halt because of how the show was treated." New Captain Scarlet came to an end in November 2005 with the hastily produced yet well-regarded episode 'Grey Skulls' devised as a replacement for the unmade 'House of Dolls', which Gerry deemed to terrifying for a family audience. A stunning assessment, given how unflinching New Captain Scarlet could be in its depiction of violence and terror.

In the years to follow, New Captain Scarlet has had an unfairly assigned reputation, derided by some corners of the Gerry Anderson fandom for its abandoning of Supermarionation. If CGI had been available to Gerry Anderson in the 1960s, would he not have embraced it then? The more vocal fans remain all too willing to dismiss New Captain Scarlet's digital format as lacking the 'charm' or 'magic' of the original series, conveniently non-descript summaries that say more about the individual's relationship to Captain Scarlet than the perceived quality of either series. 

New Captain Scarlet was never designed to have 'charm' - it was designed to have danger and malevolence, but in a sophisticated way that elevated the series into being a compelling science fiction action-drama. It was never Gerry Anderson's intention for New Captain Scarlet to be his final production - expectations swelled that a CGI reinvention of Thunderbirds would swiftly follow in New Captain Scarlet's wake, similarly produced by Gerry himself. Alas, New Captain Scarlet would bring Gerry's lengthily career to a close, but it remains oddly gratifying that the man's professional journey should end on something as brilliantly conceived and realised as New Captain Scarlet.

Discover New Captain Scarlet on ITVX, Amazon Prime, or on Blu-ray/DVD from the Official Gerry Anderson store! Learn about the secrets of the series with our New Captain Scarlet Primer, too!

You can also learn more about the secrets of New Captain Scarlet by hearing Phil Ford, Jules de Jongh, Robbie Stevens and Wayne Forester on the Gerry Anderson Podcast!

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