Grey Skulls

by **Kinggodzillak** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 12:27 pm

Fantastic. Although as a conclusion to the series, it sort of...well, isn't...it was a better episode than Dominion. A great one to go out on.

by **Kinggodzillak** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 12:41 pm

Good thing Scarlet drove the bus into the park, and not Blue - can you imagine the sheer number of bodies bouncing off the bonnet if he had? I'm guessing it was his driving that crushed Colt's bike...

That was a great moment too, when Colt said goodbye to his bike, and the mirror fell off...

by **Toropiusu** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 12:45 pm

Was Orche driving some sort of ultra-fragile Rhino or something? And the whole "Nobody knows how to defuse bombs in time so lets take them far far away" got old quickly. Apart from that though, it was a brilliant episode.

by **Clya Brown** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 12:47 pm

Awesome. To me, this one epitomised the quality of storyline I'd like to see continued throughout a third series, if one were ever to be made. Oh well, even it if never happens, Ochre's still definitely worth some attention in the fanfic department, I'd say - but then, to be honest, I'd come to that conclusion quite some time ago.

A magnificent end to the series: well done, everyone on the production team: I suspect it'll be something to highlight on your CVs for years to come. Let's disregard the running order - obviously we can all watch them again in the proper sequence when the DVD comes out.

by **nice_captainscarlet** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 1:50 pm

That's all folks !!

the Big question now is :

Will NCS ever be repeated on tv again ?

if so, will it be repeated for the next 30 years as OCS has been ?

by **Marcus** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 2:01 pm

Excellent! I was wondering what was so ambitious about this episode until we saw a captain Scarlet first: A big crowd scene (though if you freeze frame, you can see static bodies and arms doing peculiiar things!) What a relief after all those years of 'The Area's been evacuated!" and even a peopleless boat launching :grin:

The story, with the sub-plot running was well paced and fitted into the short time perfectly without seeming rushed. Also the references to Roswell and the little romantic frisson at the end were all perfect

Captain Ochre is an excellent character, coming across as cool instead of excessively stroppy like Destiny (absent again this week!) so it was good to see so much of her. I did enjoy White's dressing down and the altercation with Blue, there has been a lot more conflict and human emotion compared with the old CS.

Captain Scarlet's heroics at the fair were very well done, and I think this did the series a lot of justice as a parting shot despite not being the official series finale.

My only question: What am I going to look forward to on Saturday mornings now?! :cry:

by **Kinggodzillak** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 4:11 pm

Are these spores any relation to the ones from Storm at the End of the World? Blue says that a space probe brought them back to Earth, or something ( I was trying to keep a hyperactive puppy under control at the time, so I wasn't paying full attention) but the threat they posed seemed to be similar to the ones in the meteorite that was buried under Ragnarok.

Unlikely that the bomb didn't hit another part of the ferris wheel on the way down - much more unlikely too that Ochre could catch it.

Technician Monkey Man was back!!!!!! Yay! Yes, despite having been killed by the nanobots all the way back in Swarm, he somehow escaped to run the funfair. Don't know why he was still wearing his Spectrum uniform, but never mind...

I was kind of surprised Colt and Ochre didn't kiss at the end. They seemed to have genuine affection for each other, unlike the Scarlet / Destiny stuff which has never felt particularly convincing to me...

Would have been interesting to see Colonel White's reaction to the fact that, although she got the raid bike back, Ochre managed to destroy a Cheetah and a Rhino in the process...

by **Kinggodzillak** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 4:23 pm

Marcus wrote:Captain Ochre is an excellent character, coming across as cool instead of excessively stroppy like Destiny (absent again this week!) so it was good to see so much of her.

Can you imagine if it had been Destiny instead of Ochre? :shock:

by **Toropiusu** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 4:44 pm

The spores were brought back to Earth by a probe from Ganymede.

by **Lieutenant Green** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 4:52 pm

Excellent end to the series.

I was a bit worried how this one would compare with 'Dominion' if it (Dominion) was supposed to officially be the very last one in the series to be aired. Nevertheless, the storyline and CGI graphics came across extremely well, and made this episode a fitting end to the series.

Good to see large crowd scenes which could not have been possible earlier in the series, and even a nice bit of slo-mo when Ochre kicks one of the guys through the window - we've not seen that before in the series.

If a third series is commissioned in the future (and to some extent this may depend whether it gets aired in the USA and does very well there) you can bet that the computer software would have much improved to such an extent that the CGI will be even better. As for the storylines, if Phil Ford is still on board at that time, you can bet that they will get even better.

All that needs to happen now is for ITV to repeat the entire series in a weekday or weekend early evening slot so that those who were not even aware of it can enjoy it as much as we have. Percentage possibility of ITV doing this? - going by their past experience, probably zero.

by **Clya Brown** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 4:53 pm

Speaking personally, I'm extremely glad that Colt and Ochre didn't kiss at the end. I just loved the very slight suggestion of sexual tension between them: to me that was one of the high spots of the episode. It was so subtle that I found myself wondering afterwards whether I'd imagined it - which is exactly how it should be. Doing that convincingly with real actors is difficult enough, but with CGI characters?

It's easy to debate and argue about what this character or that one did in such-and-such an episode - and we do it all the time - but we have to remember that these people don't even exist: they've all been designed and built from scratch inside a computer. To create convincingly the scenario of a potential relationship between two of them that each can contemplate whilst simultaneously knowing that it isn't going to happen, coupled with the inevitable hint of regret on both sides, really is a work of art - and that'll be my fondest memory of this episode, I think. Maybe I'm just a romantic, but to me that sort of scripting and visualisation is worth any number of spectacular special effects.

by **Jay** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 5:41 pm

Marcus wrote: Captain Ochre is an excellent character, coming across as cool instead of excessively stroppy like Destiny (absent again this week!) so it was good to see so much of her. I did enjoy White's dressing down and the altercation with Blue, there has been a lot more conflict and human emotion compared with the old CS.

Love the fact that Ochre takes a lead role in this, nice the see the day saved by someone other than Scarlet and Blue.

Also liked the fact that the dressing down from White made her feel 10 again (he does tend to have that effect :grin:

)

The most important step, IMHO is the introduction of adult relationships and conflict into what is usually shown as a pristine working evironment. Real people have friends, have bad days, say things they don't mean and have to apologise for them and they have their attractions and their flirtations - great characterisation by all concerned.

Captain Scarlet Rocks

by **Kinggodzillak** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 5:41 pm

Doc Brown wrote:[color=cyan]Speaking personally, I'm extremely glad that Colt and Ochre didn't kiss at the end.

I'm glad they didn't, too...but I was also surprised by it, considering how keen Gerry seemed to be make these characters seem like real people, and how Scarlet and Destiny don't seem to need much encouragement in that department...

Was this what you meant when you mentioned something like 'a glimpse of the sort of life Captain Ochre could have had if it weren't for her career in Spectrum' in the thread about the Fanderson convention?

If we take this episode as being set after Dominion - obviously it isn't, but ignoring that - then the Mysterons seem to have upped their game a bit. This is probably the closest they came to victory (except for Enigma).

Anyone else think that, if we had more episodes to come, Ochre's become a main character now?

by **Clya Brown** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 5:47 pm

Yep - this was the episode I had in mind when I made that comment about Ochre's alternative career after the Fanderson convention a while back. I think she's fabulous - and yes, I'd definitely say after this final escapade that she's earned promotion to "main character" status!

Incidentally, I agree wholeheartedly with Jay about the accurate portrayal of adult working relationships, which came over so well in this one. I remember someone commenting about Star Trek some time back about how he could cheerfully accept warp-drives, phasers, teleportation and photon torpedoes... but not the fact that everybody on board the USS Enterprise seems to get on with one another - because people just don't!

by **Kinggodzillak** » Sat Nov 26, 2005 6:36 pm

From what you said, I'd gotten the impression that Ochre had started off in a biker gang, and then joined Spectrum. I was waiting for a big revelation that she knew these people, or something...