| "Expo 2068" | |||
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| Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons episode | |||
| Episode no. | Episode 25 | ||
| Directed by | Leo Eaton | ||
| Written by | Shane Rimmer | ||
| Produced by | Julien Lugrin | ||
| Editing by | Harry MacDonald | ||
| Production code | 23 | ||
| Original air date | 26 March 1968 | ||
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| List of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons episodes | |||
"Expo 2068" is the 25th episode of the Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons It was first broadcast in the UK on 26 March 1968 on ATV Midlands, was written by Shane Rimmer and directed by Leo Eaton. In this episode, the Mysterons steal a nuclear reactor to bring devastation to the Atlantic Seaboard of North America, damaging Earth's prestige.
Contents |
A transporter delivering a nuclear reactor to the Manicougan Power Complex is destroyed by the Mysterons, who reconstruct driver, vehicle and cargo as part of their plan to damage Earth's prestige by destroying the Atlantic Seaboard of North America. Expo 2068, a futuristic building development, is under construction, with a fleet of Seneca remote-controlled helicopters ferrying various materials to the site. Captain Black infiltrates the Seneca control room and holds the operator at gunpoint, forcing him to divert a helicopter to a woodland clearing. The reconstructed driver transfers the reactor from the transporter to the helicopter's holding crate.
When a lumberjack stumbles across the scene, the driver shoots him and leaves him for dead. Captains Scarlet and Blue have been pursuing the transporter in a Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle and find the wounded man, who is taken into hospital. The thermal safety valve on the reactor has been removed — without it, the reactor will overheat and explode. The officers continue to pursue the transporter but the driver, desperate to evade Spectrum, is killed when he crashes the vehicle. Finding that the reactor has disappeared, Scarlet and Blue remember that the lumberjack was muttering "Seneca", and rush to Expo 2068.
At the site, Black orders the operator to position the helicopter directly over the Expo Tower to ensure maximum destruction when the reactor, which is approaching critical temperature, detonates. When Scarlet and Blue arrive, he commands his hostage to crash the helicopter immediately. The man refuses to comply and is shot, but Black's bullet damages the controls, causing the helicopter to become unsteady in flight. Wearing a jet pack, Scarlet glides up to the cargo crate and cuts through the wood with a saw. He ultimately succeeds in stabilising the reactor by disconnecting some external circuits, but the helicopter crashes with him inside. Blue returns Scarlet's body to Cloudbase so that he can revive.
The Mysterons' vanishing power is seen again in this episode when they switch a signpost for a road diversion, causing the original transporter truck to fall into a ravine. It is also shown in "The Heart of New York", "Model Spy" and "Inferno".
A number of plot changes were made in the transition from script to final edit. The original script for this episode includes a scene in which Scarlet and Blue requisition their Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle (number 442) at a village shop[2][1] from a manager wearing a nightgown and a baseball cap.[2][1] It is also explicitly stated that the Mysterons intend to lower Earth's prestige and destroy the Atlantic Seaboard by crashing the nuclear reactor into Expo 2068, the actual target of their threat,[2][1] although in the completed episode a line of dialogue from Colonel White suggests that the target is the Manicougan Power Complex.[1] Barry Gray composed a separate score for this episode as opposed to reusing tracks from earlier episodes.[3] The recording took place along with that for the later episode "Attack on Cloudbase"[3] on 3 December 1967,[3] as part of the final musical work completed for the series. One featured piece, "The Reactor",[4][5] is included on the CD release of the Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons soundtracks.[4][5]
Historian Nicholas J. Cull recognises "Expo 2068" as one of several Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons scripts created by Tony Barwick which prominently feature a theme of the dangers of nuclear technology,[6] describing this as a "favourite device"[6] of Barwick.
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