Category Archives: Reviews

The Secret Service – 9. Recall To Service

Ever seen the Captain Scarlet episode Point 783? The one about a runaway unmanned tank attacking the wrong building thanks to a rogue military officer messing with the program? Yeah we’re treading on dangerously similar territory here with Recall To Service. I think that’s okay though. Mainly because I rather prefer the way the plot is tackled here in The Secret Service. I find Point 783 a touch dry because it’s an early episode of Scarlet and the show is still finding its feet. In comparison, I think Recall To Service is The Secret Service really firing on all cylinders.

The Secret Service – 8. Hole In One

Combining the naffness of golf with spaceships and espionage… that’s so Secret Service. I’ve always had a soft spot for this particular episode. I think Hole In One just does a lot of things brilliantly as far as hitting the right tone and doing something genuinely intriguing. I’ve mentioned previously how the writers were likely struggling to get the show’s lead, Father Unwin, into the heart of any heavy sci-fi or spy thriller plots. Well I think that now we’re past the halfway point of the series, it’s clear that they’ve worked out the types of stories they need to tell in order to balance all the bizarre elements of the series’ format nicely… and top security plans getting leaked via a golf course is a pretty perfect setup for The Secret Service if you ask me.

The Secret Service – 7. The Deadly Whisper

Some of you are probably looking at your episode guides for The Secret Service and scratching your heads in bewilderment right now. Only some of you though. Y’see, we have a bit of a problem. There are two different accounts for the so-called “production order” of episodes for The Secret Service. Some sources such as Chris Bentley’s The Complete Gerry Anderson: The Authorised Episode Guide puts Recall To Service as episode seven, School For Spies as episode nine, and The Deadly Whisper as episode eleven. Others, such as the Filmed In Supermarionation website or Fanderson’s most recent episode guide put The Deadly Whisper as episode seven, Recall To Service as episode nine, and School For Spies as episode eleven. But which order is correct?

The Secret Service – 6. Errand of Mercy

Picture an episode of Supercar about Mike Mercury and the team at Black Rock flying medical supplies to the heart of Africa, traversing mountains, desert, jungles, and hostile enemy airspace in the process. Doesn’t sound that out of the ordinary does it? It’s a textbook action-adventure plot for Supercar. Would it be a storyline particularly out of place in a later Supermarionation show such as Thunderbirds or Joe 90? Maybe its a little pedestrian for those shows and would need further development, but its not out of the question. Now, to get to the rather laboured point, what about The Secret Service?

The Secret Service – 5. Last Train To Bufflers Halt

In my humble opinion, episodic television is at its best when each story can be easily summarised with the simple phrase, “the one with…” and immediately let us know which specific episode we’re all talking about. The sitcom Friends capitalised on this to the extreme by choosing “the one with” as the structure for its actual episode titles, but it’s a formula that can be applied to any good series. Thunderbirds has “the one with the Empire State Building”, or “the one with the alligators” and not a soul on the planet who’s seen the series would struggle to remember which episode is being talked about. It emphasises the success of the overall format that each episode can be unique, surprising, and easily distinguished, and it also demonstrates the strength and clarity of individual stories.

The Secret Service – 4. To Catch A Spy

To be completely honest, To Catch A Spy has always struck me as a pretty standard-issue episode of The Secret Service. Not outstanding, not poor, just okay. I can sense that there was great ambition behind some of the ideas it brought forward, but for one reason or another they weren’t delivered to the screen with much flare. The action-packed opening is vastly more interesting than the somewhat aimless and unsatisfying climax. For this week’s review, Pat Dunlop’s original script for the episode really will prove to be an invaluable asset towards unpacking how the episode was supposed to turn out, compared with what we actually got.

The Secret Service – 3. The Feathered Spies

Now then, this is where things start to get interesting. In my opinion, The Feathered Spies is The Secret Service starting to find its own voice. The blend of humour, quaintness, action, and intrigue all starts to balance out nicely with this episode.

The Secret Service – 2. A Question of Miracles

If the first episode, A Case For The Bishop, was a little too wild and experimental for your palate, you’ll find yourself in a much safer pair of hands this week. A Question of Miracles, feels like something of a course correction by the Century 21 team. In their format-establishing first script for The Secret Service, Gerry & Sylvia Anderson had laid out all the weird and wonderful tones and techniques they wanted explore with their quirky new series. Some of it worked and some of it didn’t. It was, in many ways, an experiment, as pilot episodes often are.

The Secret Service – 1. A Case For The Bishop

A bizarre mix of Supermarionation and live-action which was cancelled after 13 episodes because Lew Grade didn’t like Stanley Unwin’s gobbledygook. That’s the history of Gerry & Sylvia Anderson’s The Secret Service as most sources dish it out. It’s usually framed as a weird footnote in the Anderson story in between the steady waters of Joe 90 and the big comeback with UFO. Some critics accuse the Andersons of being either uninspired or unhinged when they devised the series’ format and that it was doomed to fail from the start because the adventures of a super-spy-priest and his shrinking gardener couldn’t possibly make good TV.