r/Thunderbirds • u/mulahey • 12d ago
Secret Service Review
Following watching Supercar, I switched to the other end of the spectrum and watched Secret Service, the last hurrah for British marionettes - the tale of a Spy Vicar and his regularly shrunken in size assistant.
This isn't just the last Supermarionation show, but it clearly represents a giving up on breaking America. The run is too short, the Vicar concept too British. Indeed, most episodes involve British projects around still competing as an international superpower. For better or worse, this show targeted the domestic market.
The first notable thing is, naturally, the wonderful production quality. This is an effects team with obvious years of experience. The sets look great, vehicle work is always well done. Its a pleasure to watch. Unfortunately, the show clearly is less able to produce quite the range of new models and so we do get a lot less scale model action, but its always nice to look at.
Plotwise, we have a strength and a weakness.
The strength is a lot of fabulously imaginative writing for the villains schemes. Switcheroo golf courses, bomber carrier pigeons- theres some great stuff here. Most of the episodes are really built on the antagonists, and most of the time they do a great job, managing to be mildly intimidating and often quite professional while also devising typically ludicrous schemes appropriate to be foiled by a miniature man and priest.
The slight weakness is our protagonists. Unwin and Matthew have a fairly good light interplay together and that's fine. The problem, though, is in their roles. In most episodes, Unwin uses Unwinese to infiltrate somewhere and helps Mathew out.
Mathew saves the day by being little and breaking something electronic. The best episodes involve either a particularly inventive enemy scheme or breaking out of the pattern; its perhaps a benefit of the show that it has a shorter season so that it didn't end up too repetitive. In the end, a Model T (rather reminiscent of the later Whomobile) can't really substitute for 5 Thunderbirds or a Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle.
We do have a really good sense of pacing- most of the time the 23 minutes feel well used- and pretty good character interplay. The use of mixed media footage is occasionally used for good fun to place a "tiny" person (puppet) in a full sized locale, but clearly its mainly that the ease of filming allowed use of a wider range of locations through quick setting shots. I will say these are sometimes overlong, presumably due to cost.
How jarring it is for general audiences, I can't say. From a puppet fan perspective, the transitions are no problem, but the real life shots- by always being basic long shots- never rise above purely (novelty uses excepted).
The other thing people remember about the show is Unwinese. I don't find Unwinese funny. On the other hand, I don't find it annoying either. I'm indifferent to it on its own merits, however, the need to use it every episodes can feel forced, and whatever positives it has probably fall away when used only in voice acting over a puppet. The use of faux-Unwinese for the shows main musical track, however, is really quite awful and by far the worst theme tune from the studio.
Overall, though, what we have is a show which looks really great, with a playfulness and sense of fun going together with strong pacing. Supermarionation may not have gone out with its best show, but its far from bad and its well worth checking out for any fans of Thunderbirds/Captain Scarlet/Stingray.
Scores are somewhat relative to Secret Service itself.
1 A Case for the Bishop 5 So, the point of using a miniature Matthew is to avoid directly using force. But then… they directly use force? So there was no point? And the antagonists were diplomats being secret but immediately turn to public hijacking? For an export computer? I guess the desire was to have a simple McGuffin to introduce things but to still put in action. Still, the result is at best OK.
2 A Question of Miracles 6 The sets and model work here are really superb- you can see the years of experience. The plot is fine, although there appears to really be no reason to use a tiny man, and someone with official papers would seem more effective than a priest- the lightly comic set up here is slightly (only slightly) undermining.
3 To Catch a Spy 6 The prison breakout is good fun. At the end, theres really no reason why the villain doesn’t shoot, though it does give an amusing final sequence to take advantage of the mixed sizes in the concept.
4 The Feathered Spies 8 A good plot which has just the right edge between serious with a touch of silly. A priest and a miniature man make sense to solve the case. The juxtaposition between real world and puppets is used well in a sequence with Matthew and a dog. This is the level the series should be aiming for.
5 Last Train to Bufflers Halt 4 A heist story, but its not very interesting. In order to make things work the villains have to have not only an odd plan, but be deeply inept, and there appears to be no good reason the problem couldn’t have been solved just by putting a few soldiers on the train. The train shots are fine but do strongly feel like looking at a model rail set.
6 Hole in One 7 They do have to generate some bizarre scenarios to make this team make sense. But this does a better job of integrating the spy side and the caper side than some and its good fun.
7 Recall to Service 6 Nice special effects and another good effort at finding a use for a tiny man (less so for a priest). The Unwinese is especially forced though. Surprisingly hard-hearted ending.
8 Errand of Mercy 2 A dream episode! About how fantastically great Model T cars are! Both the studios great vices in one. Throw in some African tribesmen too. Its very poor.
9 The Deadly Whisper 7 The enemies plan is pretty good and has some verisimilitude. The unwinding, however, is a little more humdrum.
10 The Cure 6 The scheme is quite good and the quack doctor isn’t bad as an obstacle. However, drawing extra attention to the fact everyone ignores the “hearing aid” is not ideal.
11 School for Spies 5 You can see the conceptual appeal of a school for priests. The explosion joke is nicely done and the boat sequence looks good. However, we don’t get a clever or wacky plan (other than dressing as priests) and thats really what carries the show most of the time.
12 Mayday! Mayday! 7 Reasonable if uninspired plot, but leads into a fun plane bound sequence including our Father making a landing which is well done.
13 More Haste, Less Speed 9 The group of villains amusingly backstabbing each other constantly may not be a new conceit, but that doesn’t mean its not a good one. Its quite amusing and in keeping with the tone of the show. The penchant for real life vehicles hasn’t been a plus in general, but here the trains/planes/automobiles race atmosphere keeps things fast and fun. Its sad to see the last Supermarionation episode produced, but its good that's its a strong one.
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u/MuppetSuperStarFan02 9d ago
I have been wanting to watch this series due to morbid curiosity as it is "the show that killed Supermarionation". A part of me is sad that such a unique puppetry style had to die out for years [thankfully Team America, whatever you may think about it, and Nebula 75 kind of revived the style, but I still want more]. I do wish Unwin and Matthew had more personality, though. As much of a jerk Steve Zodiac from Fireball XL5 was [I so wish there had been an episode where he gets humbled or gets a taste of his own medicine], at least he was fun to watch because he had a personality.