| "The Fortress" | |||
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| Joe 90 episode | |||
| Episode no. | Season 1 Episode 6 |
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| Directed by | Leo Eaton | ||
| Written by | Shane Rimmer | ||
| Production code | 15 | ||
| Original air date | 3 November 1968 | ||
| Episode chronology | |||
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| List of Joe 90 episodes | |||
"The Fortress" is the sixth episode of the Supermarionation television series Joe 90. It was the 15th episode to be produced. Its original UK air date was 3 November 1968 on ATV Midlands. It was written by Shane Rimmer and directed by Leo Eaton.
Contents |
A WIN agent is captured in South America after hiding a secret microfilm. Using the brain pattern of the spy's comatose partner, it is up to Joe to rescue him from an impregnable fortress before he is forced to give away the location of the classified information.
WIN operative Roger Fleming is captured in Santa Marina in South America by the forces of Captain Trang. In a transmission from his radio to a WIN communications satellite, Fleming reveals that he has hidden a classified microfilm passed on to him by his friend and fellow agent, Mike Laramie, who as a result of an earlier ambush is in hospital in a coma. Since the microfilm details the covers of all WIN agents in the Santa Marina sector, its recovery is vital. In England, Joe receives Laramie's brain pattern from the BIG RAT and, with Professor McClaine and Sam Loover, is taken out to South America in a private plane. The three locate a two-person hovercraft abandoned by Laramie and Fleming in an old riverside boathouse. Joe parts company with Mac and Sam and continues further up the river on his own, using the hovercraft to clear underwater mines. Tasked with rescuing Fleming and retrieving the microfilm, Joe's destination is "The Fortress", a formidable compound inhabited by Trang, his lieutenant, Raoul, and a soldier detachment. Although attempts to extract the location of the microfilm from Fleming through torture and truth serums have so far proven ineffective, Trang is confident that the WIN agent will soon confess. Raoul is keen to have the honour of disposing of Fleming, bent on revenge for a facial scar that he sustained at his hands.
After a run-in with a venomous snake the next morning, Joe reaches the Fortress that night and fires a stun grenade through an open window, incapacitating Raoul, who is observing the interrogation room from a video monitor. Ascending via a tow cable, Joe blasts through the bars in the interrogation room window and uses Laramie's knowledge to convince the beaten, drugged Fleming that he is a legitimate WIN operative. Fleming informs his comrade that the microfilm is concealed in mission ruins to the satisfaction of Trang and the recovered Raoul, who are continuing to monitor the situation in spite of their incredulity at Joe's presence. Trang orders his guards to kill the two spies and he and Raoul set off from the Fortress in a launch to interecept the microfilm. Returning fire, Joe and Fleming evade the soldiers and pursue the enemy in the hovercraft. With Laramie's experience of the backwaters, Joe soon overtakes Trang and Raoul, who in a bid to accelerate are killed when the launch loses control and crashes and explodes into the riverbank. The microfilm returned to WIN, Fleming has only delirious recollections of these events when he visits a convalescent Laramie in hospital, but could swear that his rescuer was a boy.
In speaking order: