Welcome to our Stingray Deep Dives! As we surge towards the super-sub’s 60th anniversary, we asked you to pick your favourite episodes of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s classic 1964 sci-fi underwater series that should receive in-depth, analytical retrospectives. Based on your picks, we’ve collated a top 10 selection of Stingray’s greatest episodes to receive a review – as voted for by you!
We’re continuing our countdown of Stingray’s top 10 episodes with a character who causes more devastating chaos than the mighty Titan could ever hope to achieve – pop sensation Duke Dexter! The idol has come to Marineville to assist in the WASP’s latest recruitment drive, but the unsuspecting pop star soon finds an unwelcome fan when Titan turns his attentions to him…
“I got something to shout about…”
We couldn’t have had a wilder juxtaposition of episode rankings so far throughout our Stingray Deep Dives. From the hauntingly tense and sternly-faced attitudes of The Ghost Ship, we swing with abandon into an episode that perhaps tears up the rulebook on how joyously ridiculous Stingray could be. Titan Goes Pop is an episode that trades in any menace or tension for pure laughs – and the resulting episode is one of Stingray‘s slyly ingenious affairs ever. Titan Goes Pop is a riotous send-up of the hollow, futile nature of celebrity worship. W.A.S.P. and Titanica characters are swept up by the mass hysteria that comes with the arrival of pop sensation Duke Dexter, who’s come to the World Aquanaut Security Patrol to aid in its recruitment efforts. Noticing the wildness that Dexter brings with him, Surface Agent X-20 deduces that this must be the most important person ever to visit Marineville, and sets about capturing the pop idol for Titan’s use.
Has there ever been an episode of Stingray that’s so transparently absent of any kind of encroaching danger or disaster for the WASPs to battle against? No unstoppable alien missiles, no mysterious subterranean seas. Instead, we take a break from such storytelling tactics and turn our attention to that other invasive force that was so prevalent throughout the 1960s – Beatlemania. Titan Goes Pop undoubtedly takes inspiration from the flourishing celebrity fandom that came with artists such as The Beatles and Elvis Presley. Movie star Johnny Swoonara from Stand By For Action is a similar parody of this stereotype, but the Beatlemania hysterics surrounding Duke Dexter capture a far more precise zeitgeist.
Celebrity Parodies
The episode’s highlights are bountiful. It’s not surprising to see that this is another comedic gem from regular ITC screenwriter Dennis Spooner, who was also responsible for Stand By for Action, Set Sail for Adventure, and The Loch Ness Monster. Hooper’s scripts have a natural flair for wit than Alan Fennell’s gung-ho focus on action and adventure.
The arrival of this overhyped pop sensation has everyone at Marineville scratching their heads. Nobody appears to understand the substance of Dexter’s arrival, because their isn’t any. Phones and Commander Shore’s inability to grasp Dexter’s significance is a wildly transparent commentary on the vapidness of celebrity culture, but it also speaks to a generational divide. Nobody above a certain age appreciates Dexter’s style of music, and it’s no secret that Marineville doesn’t exactly have many young teenagers working as part of the WASP cause! Dexter himself feels modelled more on the king of rock and roll, with his similar good looks to Mr. Presley and his warbling vocal prowess.
However, it’s Titan and X-20 who steal the show. Their own inability to understand who Duke Dexter is gives the episode some of its funniest moments. X-20’s faltered answer at Titan’s demands as to how he found out that the pop star was coming to Marineville is a witty performance from Robert Easton (“Well… I read it in the newspaper). Equally delightful is Ray Barret’s pause and the wonderfully nuanced puppetry as Titan’s response to this news is a delight (So, Duke Dexter’s coming to Marineville… Who *is* Duke Dexter?”).
Dexter’s eventual capture and ‘recruitment’ into Titan’s cause is a fun twist on Dexter’s own arrival to help with the WASP’s own recruitment efforts. Again, that comedic misunderstanding is at the core of the episode’s humour. Titan’s reasoning with Dexter as to how and why he’s able to whip up mass hysteria is a hilarious breakdown in communication between the pair, but it’s oddly amusing to see Titan behave so affably with a terranean. Dexter’s eventual release ensures all’s well that ends well without any real danger having ever occurred, and gifts a rare if false victory for Titan. Titan and X-20’s joyous watch of Dexter’s performance at the end of the episode is one final stab at disdain for celebrity worship. Titan and X-20 still can’t understand who exactly Duke Dexter is, but they understand the frenzy he’s able to provoke from the terraneans.
A Comedic Gem
It’s an odd shame that Titan Goes Pop doesn’t take matters to their most logical extremes and actually have Titan deploy Dexter himself to cause chaos and destruction within Marineville, but perhaps that’s the point. Dexter doesn’t need underwater overlords to enable his chaos. His star magnitude draws chaos in like a magnet. It’s rare that Stingray would ever be quite this light-hearted elsewhere in the series, but equally rare that it matches that surface-level lightness with a biting cynicism beneath its surface. Titan Goes Pop may not be as action-packed or alluringly strange as other classically regarded Stingray episodes, but it’s an episode that revels in its comedic swagger.
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