STINGRAY-STINGRAY and EMERGENCY MARINEVILLE

 

STINGRAY-STINGRAY and EMERGENCY MARINEVILLE

 

There’s something energetic and bright about Gerry Anderson’s pre UFO, pre SPACE: 1999 series. They’re creative, often fast paced and hopeful about the future with wonderful gadgets that no one expected to be able to re-see after the first viewing. Now, of course, we can see anything we want to due to DVDs, blu rays and on line watching services. This is why the shows don’t often hold up that well because they linger on the gadgets and incredible buildings of the future of Gerry’s shows and repeat footage often. Even so, one can see, with the music and the colors and care that went into these shows, the wonderful enthusiasm that went into them.

 

That said, the puppet shows are…somewhat of a mixed bag to me. Now, I watch all sort of shows, even shows for kids and teenagers as these shows are usually more creative and imaginative and funny so it’s with great trepidation that I say that these shows yell out at me that “IT’S A KID’S SHOW” and maybe it’s the puppets instead of real actors but I lose interest right away. I mean if these shows had the effects the way they were and the plots the way they were but used live actors in place, maybe I’d enjoy them more.

 

None of the characters reach out and grab me. Though there is a paraplegic commander, a stalwart main hero and his comic relief side kick named Phones. 

I do like the Barry Gray music (and I guess there are other composers used, too) but often it reminds me of the Anderson shows I like more: UFO (which might have used some of this music) and SPACE: 1999 (some of the music is used in the first season of 1999).

Certainly, I enjoy UFO and SPACE: 1999 more. There’s something about STINGRAY and THUNDERBIRDS though, something that I can’t quite identify. They seem hopeful and yet dangerous. Enemies explode and heroes kill. The undersea stuff is incredibly beautiful, even if it looks fake. I’m not sure I will be watching more of these but they do seem to call out to me to try again and again every so often. I can’t say the plots, which are more FLASH GORDON than STAR TREK match what might be in the area of interest to me. Live action FLASH GORDON serials are exciting. Puppets, not so much. Still, maybe it takes time to get used to these.

 

 

"Stingray"            4 October 1964

1-When a World Security Patrol submarine is mysteriously destroyed, Troy and Phones are assigned to investigate. However, they are captured by the Aquaphibians and sentenced to death by King Titan of Titanica.

2-"Emergency Marineville"           11 October 1964               11

Marineville is targeted by a series of missiles fired from a seemingly uninhabited island.