Space Patrol - Vol. 6 - Episodes 22-26 [1963]

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Primary Contributor : Ysanne Churchman
Primary Contributor : Murray Kash

Product Details

Director : Frank Goulding
Actor : Ysanne Churchman, Murray Kash, Ronnie Stevens, Dick Vosburgh, Libby Morris
Format : Black & White, HiFi Sound, PAL
Binding : VHS Tape
EAN : 5027626111137
Number of Discs : 1
Product Group : Video
Release Date : 2001-07-16
Running Time : 125minutes
Studio : Network

ASIN : B00004R7DW

Editorial Reviews

Synopsis

Featuring the episodes:- 'The Miracle Tree Of Saturn', 'The Cloud Of Death', 'The Planet Of Thought', 'Explosion On The Sun' and 'Volcanoes Of Venus'.

Customer Reviews

Space Patrol - a SF Kids Show for Ideas (2002-02-22)

The adventures of Captain Larry Dart of Galasphere 347, with his crew the Martian Husky and Venusian Slim. Often confused with Gerry Anderson's 'Fireball XL5', Roberta Leigh's 'Space Patrol' offers a quirky and light-hearted slant on the SF genre. Primarily a children's series, 'Space Patrol' mixes entertainment from offbeat characters and situations with moral stories and attempts at scientific realism (astronomer Colin Ronan acted as adviser).

This sixth volume, as well as featuring an extra bonus episode, gives a selection of stories from across the series (the episode order of the videos is NOT the production order) and all of them are fine examples.

'The Miracle Tree Of Saturn' is an early episode and sees the dramatic consequences of not using the Contamination Control seen in most episodes. A greedy technician stows away on Galasphere 347 and unwittingly infects the planet Saturn with the common cold, with life and death situations all round.

'The Cloud Of Death' is also an early episode, with Neptunian Overlord Tyro attempting to blackmail Earth into slavery by blocking the Sun's heat with a cloud of particles in space. Rather straight forward, it is the character relations that make this story with thoughts of evacuating the planet as a final resort...

'The Planet Of Thought', made later in the series, actually acts as a direct sequel to 'The Cloud Of Death' with Tyro convinced that robots may make better slaves than Earthmen. However, on his visit to Earth he becomes entranced by Marla's beauty and abducts her. A superb and clever episode, with some wry comments on sexual politics which could only have come from having Roberta Leigh as writer.

'Explosion On The Sun' offers more scientific blackmail with an unscrupulous scientist causing heatwaves by dropping freightloads of beryllium into the Sun in order to get what he wants. While the ideas are nice, you can feel the writer straining at the constraints of the format by conveniently forgetting the times involved in travelling between the planets, so nicely established in earlier stories.

'Volcanoes Of Venus' ends the first series video releases but is actually an early story, with Slim sent to his home planet to try and find out the cause of a strange virus. More political machinations abound as he becomes involved with his devious uncle Gallia who is trying to overthrow the Venusian President. Are the two linked? A memorable story for Slim's selfless solution to the problem - one he thankfully doesn't have to resort to...

'Space Patrol' may not be the best remembered of SF series, owing to its limited screenings but if you like 'Fireball XL5' and Britsh SF from its golden age of the 1950s and 1960s, then I think you will warm to the series as it remains in the best - if somewhat simplified for children - tradition of the genre of ideas...

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