(May 20, 1963) More wooden acting (The British show, Space Patrol )


By Ashley R. Pollard

The United Kingdom has recently been blessed with yet another televised science fiction spectacular: Space Patrol, is a brand new puppet show produced by Roberta Leigh for the Associated British Corporation. (I'm informed that this new series will be renamed when it's shown on American TV to Planet Patrol.)

Set in the year 2100, the story chronicles the adventures of Captain Larry Dart and the crew of Galasphere 347. He is aided by Slim from Venus, and Husky from Mars. The former elfin like, the latter stocky with a love for sausages.

They work for the United Galactic Organization whose headquarters are set in New York.

There is also a large supporting cast including: Colonel Raeburn their boss, and Marla his blonde assistant from Venus, who gets this wonderful line of dialogue: "There are no dumb blondes on Venus." They're joined on occasion by Professor Aloysius O’Brien O’Rourke Haggerty, and his daughter Cassiopeia. Appearing with them is their pet Martian parrot called, Gabblerdictum.

Space Patrol's creator, Roberta Leigh (actually Rita Lewin née Shulman) is what I understand Americans call a bit of a mover and shaker.

Not only is she the first woman to own her own television production company — National Interest Pictures — but she's also an author with her novel In Name Only, published in 1950. In addition, she is also an accomplished abstract artist, and music composer.

I became aware of her first through the children's show Sara and Hoppity, about a dolls hospital, which was based on one of her novels. But, she's probably better known for her collaboration with AP Films who produced Torchy the Battery Boy, a charming and delightful children's show directed by Gerry Anderson.

While Hoppity and Torchy were both aimed at the younger audience, Patrol looks to be aimed at a slightly older age group. Driven by the current interest in all things to do with space, this show introduces science fiction to a receptive audience.

Or at least, so I surmise from the reaction of my friend's young son whom I babysit, who sat enraptured while watching the first episode, as he did watching the other popular SF marionette shows, Supercar and Fireball XL5. Like Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation series', Space Patrol puppets have mouth movements that are synchronized with the voice actors' words.

Also of note, is the use of electronic music for the opening and closing credits, composed by Roberta Leigh. She really is a polymath of some considerable talent. While this is not the first time electronic music has been used for a production, as that credit must go to my favourite SF film of all time, Forbidden Planet, it's still a first for television. One wonders if it will set a trend for British SF shows.

So far six episodes of Space Patrol have been transmitted:

The first, The Swamps of Jupiter, involves the crew being sent to investigate a scientific base they've lost contact with on Jupiter. OK, we shall have to overlook the small fact that Jupiter is a gas giant.

But what's interesting is that in many other respects the story sticks to what might be considered plausible science, in particular, transit time. The crew therefore travel in a freezer for their three-month journey from Earth to Jupiter. Compare this to how space travel and distances are dealt with in Gerry Anderson's Fireball XL5. In Space Patrol ships take months to travel around the Solar system while Fireball XL5 travels to other stars in no time at all.

Anyway, Swamps has the crew stop Martian hunters who murdered all the scientists, and who are now hunting and killing sentient aliens for their fur. Boo hiss. But Captain Dart and Crewman Husky bring them to justice.

The second episode, The Wandering Asteroid, sees our intrepid heroes take on the mission to destroy a rogue asteroid that is heading towards the Martian capital of Wotan. Given the increased awareness in the threat that asteroids pose to life on Earth, this seems a most apt subject for a series about travel in space.

I'm sure this would make a good plot for a large budget Hollywood action film.

In episode three, The Dark Planet, we are introduced to Professor Haggerty and his daughter Cassiopeia. They're scientists researching plants from Uranus that appear to think. After twenty people sent to survey Uranus are lost, the crew of Galasphere 347 go to investigate. The plants turn out to be less than friendly, and I don't know why, but the story reminded me of the 1960 Roger Corman movie, Little Shop of Horrors, with talking plants killing people.

Episode four is called, The Slaves of Neptune, a title that elicits a da, da, dum for setting the tone of the story. Galasphere 347 is sent to investigate. They discover that a Neptunian overlord named Tyro is behind the mysterious disappearance of a colony spaceship. He's using his dastardly hypnotic power to enslave people.

The fifth episode is called, The Fires of Mercury. The story is driven by the freezing conditions threatening the colony on Pluto. Marla, the very smart blonde Venusian assistant to Colonel Raeburn, realizes that the disaster can be alleviated by transmitting energy from Mercury using Professor Haggerty's invention that converts heat into radio waves.

The last episode I've watched was The Shrinking Spaceman. The gallant crew of Galasphere 347 go off to repair a sonar beam transmitter in the asteroid belt and Husky the Martian shrinks after cutting himself on one of the rocks. Put into suspended animation and taken back to Earth, Professor Haggerty is in a race against time to save him.

In Space Patrol mankind has met aliens from stars, and law and order is being brought to the worlds. At the end of each episode we see a city of the future, clean and marvelous.  The age to come certainly looks promising, and with another twenty episodes to be aired, our immediate future also looks bright.




8 thoughts on “(May 20, 1963) More wooden acting (The British show, Space Patrol )”

  1. Robert Heinlein followed his rather ragged Rocket Ship Galileo (1947) with a more sophisticated young adult novel Space Cadet (1948) (and a succession of such novels for Scribner's for years). Something about Space Cadet caught TV's interest. Tom Corbett, Space Cadet (1950 – 1955) leveraged off Space Cadet. As low budget and a bit lackluster as it was, it was definitely not Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon, some influences from modern prose SF space opera were evident. Starting in 1953 there was Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers (what an awkward title!) a not to subtle rip off of Corbett.  The even lower budget lifeless Captain Video (1949-1955) may have been inspired by Space Cadet but it was hard to tell.  Then were Space Patrol (1950-1955) which also seemed to give a nod to Space Cadet but with a perkier demeanor and not so doggedly juvenile (if you subtracted Cadet Happy).  Space Patrol was unusual in having two primary female characters (actually there were female secondary characters, quite rare in a 'juvenile' TV series).  There was also Rocky Jones, Space Ranger (1954) with a little better production values but lame stories. Even a (a bit daffy) Flash Gordon (1954-1955) made in West Germany and syndicated in the US (like Rocky Jones). I did not see Rocky Jones or Flash Gordon until 1960 , in my mind they seem more 60 than 50's TV space opera. Why 1955 was the drop dead date for TV space is a puzzle. In 1956 there was the much superior Forbidden Planet. A space opera even more faithful to the prose form, well as the written form existed in the 1940s.  Space Opera as TV drama is still alive on the page but dead as a door nail on USA TV, I don't know why.

    1. I think the real-life Space Program has killed the fictional ones, at least for now.  Just as the '50s saw a transition from Solar-System-based drama to interstellar action (for the most part), I think the '60s will mark a similar change for TV.  Expect star-traveling shows in the near future.

      1. Even tho writers had been using FTL methods in the 1930s my sense of things is that Asimov had great influence on the use of interstellar flight in science fiction prose. His Foundation series needed a lot of vista, a lot! Pretty sure Asimov adopted the Jump Drive from someone else but it sure was his go-to FTL travel. The need for SPACE in SF stories , beyond the Solar System took off in the 40s and became common currency in the 1950s. There was some awkward FTL in some of the TV space opera , I think only Tom Corbett kept the facts straight.  Forbidden Planet , as far as I can remember was the only movie to source FTL from the page in the 1950s (This Island Earth had a kind daffy swipe at it ). Movies and TV didn't seem to have any use for all that SPACE in the Galaxy!

  2. What, no mention of yobba rays? This is a method of propulsion I can't help feeling the boffins are unfairly overlooking.

    Also, and I could be wrong in thinking this, but it's possible the creators may be hinting that the character of Aloysius O’Brien O’Rourke Haggerty has some Irish ancestry.

    1. Yobba Rays were not a method of propulsion but a means of imaging. In one episode, Husky remarks they cannot see the surface of a planet (either Venus or Jupiter, I think) by using gamma rays. They switch to yobba rays and succeed.

  3. Curious to know what building was shown when Professor Haggarty is called on.
    This is shown prior to seeing the Prof. and has a curved structure.
    Thanks

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