Proteus

by **Kambei** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 11:29 am

Okay. Enjoyed seeing Lieutenant Green in action, and her offered promotion to captain. But.... One MAJOR criticism. The Proteus would be radar proof and visually invisible, but advanced sonar would be able to pick up both the movement through the water and its displacement, and it would be impossible to hide the wake from the hydrofoils. Therefore it would be possible to track it.

by **DanDud88** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 11:33 am

All I can say is wow. The whole trying to kill the chiness President reminded me of James Bond Tommrow Never Dies. And The stealth ship its self reminded me of the ship used in the Thunderbirds episode Danger At Ocean Deep. And greens promotion Suprised me i thought she was goning to take it. One thing bugged me though Green was using Scarlets Gun (you can tell becuase it has red on it) against those robot things but Scarlet had his gun with him. Doesn't Green have her own gun. And the gun green had fired green lasers (there are only 2 colour lasers for spectrum Guns red for kill blue for Stun, and somtimes they can fire bulets).

Very enjoyable episode.

by **Clya Brown** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 11:42 am

Kambei got there before me! I remember flying over the Irish Sea a while back, and being astonished at just how far back you could see the wake of a moving vessel - it went back for miles and miles. The concept was a good one though - likewise I was reminded of "Tomorrow Never Dies", and there were also shades of "Captain Scarlet and the Silent Saboteur" in the script. I'm a little surprised at just how easy it apparently it was to disable those drones, and I wasn't too sure about Lieutenant Green turning down a promotion: it's my experience that one never turns down a promotion if it's offered, even if you don't really want it - not if you expect to enjoy a successful career in the same organisation afterwards, since you're implicitly criticising your superior's judgment about your own abilities. But what the hell - it was a good action adventure.

by **steviep** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 11:47 am

A crew of three? Here's one episode where I expected to see International Rescue called out!

Nice robots and lots of them. At some points, it reminded me of being in the middle of a game of Timesplitters.

I expected Scarlet to trigger a wayward missile, thereby alerting the other ship to the Proteus's position and enabling the Chinese to either take avasive action or fire on the Proteus. However, that may have still achieved the Mysterons' objective, which was to start a war.

Having said that, the US or at least Spectrum might still have some explaining to do, what with the Proteus being in stealth mode and so close to the Chinese President.

Aegis: ANOTHER fall-off-something? :lol:

by **steviep** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 11:54 am

DanDud88 wrote:One thing bugged me though Green was using Scarlets Gun (you can tell becuase it has red on it) against those robot things but Scarlet had his gun with him. Doesn't Green have her own gun..

This has puzzled me before too. Both Green and Ochre seem to carry no sidearm (or utility belt). Now I know that this would ruin the outline of their very svelte figures

but it seems a bit sexist to me :wink:

. And just where do they produce their Spectrathingies from?

Talking of sidearms, I've said it before and I'll say it again - Scarlet, tie a bit of elastic to your gun will you, you butter-fingered wombat!!! :lol:

by **Kinggodzillak** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 11:57 am

Another fab episode...the ship and the robots looked so real...

'Target Aquired' though...oh dear.

Did anyone else get faded down a couple of times? And what was with that stupid 'Scarlet's little brother' rubbish?

RE Green's promotion - obviously she had to reject it because of the random order MOM are playing the episodes, she can't be a Captain this week and back to Lt the next...but why did she think a promotion would take her away from White? Where else is she gonna go?

by **shaqui** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 12:03 pm

Kinggodzillak wrote:'Target Aquired' though...oh dear.

Yeah I spotted that too... tsk tsk tsk. :wink:

Kim mentioned heat seeking missiles to track Proteus - there was no mention of infra-red masking, was there? And the wake mentioned above - obvious really, though I did wonder if a hydrofoil leaves less of a wake than a big boat churning up the sea?

Nit-picks aside, I thought it another great episode. Less thought provoking (but we've been spoilt by a whole spate of these recently :grin:

) so nice to have an action-based one again.

by **Chris C** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 1:19 pm

I thought it was a fantastic episode, exciting, fast-paced, great to watch, and can the CGI get any better?? Would anyone believe that the sea wasn't real?! And the characters were brilliantly lifelike. Maybe there were some flaws to the mechanics of it, but I'd so much rather they made the episodes than didn't bother because they couldn't come up with a completely water-tight concept.

My son said 'wow, that was the best episode yet, even better than Rat Trap. I really liked those robots'!! In fact the whole family was glued to this one from start to finish!!

Was that fade in and out supposed to be there though?

by **shaqui** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 1:37 pm

Chris C wrote:Would anyone believe that the sea wasn't real?

The sea was very well done by itself - the problem was when the Proteus exploded, it didn't churn up and froth as you'd expect...

Chris C wrote:Was that fade in and out supposed to be there though?

Nope - the sound went as well here. Chalk one up to MOM incompetence again. And they can't even be bothered to announce the show now! We were scrambling for the remote as the - edited! (Grrrr :evil:

) - titles suddenly appeared...

by **steviep** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 2:00 pm

shaqui wrote:Nope - the sound went as well here. Chalk one up to MOM incompetence again. And they can't even be bothered to announce the show now! We were scrambling for the remote as the - edited! (Grrrr ) - titles suddenly appeared...

I think that they're only showing series 2 because they're contractually obligated to. Notice that they cut off the end of pt 1 to show a trailer for another CITV programme (shown twice!) - how's that for rubbing salt in the wounds? Even Holly has stopped gushing over it.

I also think that, after the comments from fans and from the production crew, CITV and Granada will be glad to see the back of it.

I can understand why by now, they might think "right, stuff em" after having had so many bricks thrown at them but I'm perplexed as to why Granada and CITV have let such a prestigious production down in the first place.

by **Chris C** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 2:43 pm

Steviep wrote:

This has puzzled me before too. Both Green and Ochre seem to carry no sidearm (or utility belt). Now I know that this would ruin the outline of their very svelte figures but it seems a bit sexist to me . And just where do they produce their Spectrathingies from?

Having just sat and watched it again while eating lunch, I can safely say those spectratech thingies just materialize as and when needed, along with the odd extra spectrum gun, it seems...!!

(well at least today they did..)

by **steviep** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 2:54 pm

Chris C wrote:Steviep wrote:

This has puzzled me before too. Both Green and Ochre seem to carry no sidearm (or utility belt). Now I know that this would ruin the outline of their very svelte figures but it seems a bit sexist to me . And just where do they produce their Spectrathingies from?

Having just sat and watched it again while eating lunch, I can safely say those spectratech thingies just materialize as and when needed, along with the odd extra spectrum gun, it seems...!!

(well at least today they did..)

Not to mention Scarlet's endless supply of grenades from his bottomless pit of a little red pouch, which would be a right pain in the back if you were to fall on it or if you were to drive a Rhino over rough terrain...... :wink:

Do you think Colonel White's grenades are gold-plated too? :wink:

by **Toropiusu** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 3:18 pm

Maybe they're organic timed mines, and he can retrometabolise as many as he needs

Did anyone else think Lieutenant Grey, or whatever her name is looked virtually identical to Harmony?

by **VoxeLove** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 9:00 pm

Glad you enjoyed this episode!

Cheers about the ocean, it was my baby! :grin:

...and yes we ran out of time on the foaming ship at the end...alas never enough time to perfect our work!

It was really cool to see the entire episode with all the trimmings after not seeing it for a few months. I really liked the action in this one!

Best cheese: "Nothing out there but Tuna"

by **Marion** » Sat Oct 08, 2005 9:25 pm

Why were the Chinese sailors and the Chinese President talking to each other in English?