@RUTGERS.ARPA:fischer@ru-opal (01/24/85)
From: fischer@ru-opal (Ron Fischer) At long last! The return of Gerry Anderson to children's future oriented puppet shows. Can another Captain Scarlet be far behind? Does anyone on this digest know who Christopher Burr is, and what he has done previously? Does anyone know what Gerry Anderson has been up to lately? Pardon me if I got ahead of myself. One of the New York local TV stations (WPIX channel 11) has picked up "Terrahawks" for the 3pm afternoon slot. Its a bad one, I drive the 2 miles it takes to get home to see the 30 minute show. From a very few episodes I've picked up that Earth is under attack by aliens who are using Mars as a base of operations. The Terrahawk organization is protecting us. This sounds like standard fare for Anderson! Captain Scarlet had the organization "Spectrum" guarding us from takeover by the somewhat more ethereal "Mysterons" (who were native martians). The effects work in the show is absolutely top notch. Better resolution in explosions and model work than Bonanzastar Gahacktica. The usual Andersonian flying craft, launch from underwater, at the edge of the atmosphere the ship separates into a (high speed?) craft and the slower carrier flies back to base. Much fun. The puppet technology, I suspect, is derived from something Burr was doing. They appear to be operated from underneath (no strings) and are not the "perfect proportion" puppets used in Captain Scarlet. Eyes and mouths move nicely though, reminded me of Dark Crystal. The only drawback is that the show is only 30 minutes long, introducing severe limitations into their storytelling, and that it is aimed at a very young audience (the bad guys have interesting characters, but are more at "fantasy" than "sf"). (ron)