Mysterons

Mysterons may refer to:

See also

The Mysterons (Captain Scarlet episode)

"The Mysterons" (or, rarely, "Mars – 2068 A.D.") is the first episode of the 1960s Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons. It was first officially broadcast in the UK on ATV Midlands on 29 September 1967, although it had been given an unscheduled test screening in the London area five months earlier on 29 April 1967. It was written by series creators Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and directed by Desmond Saunders. In the first episode, following an unwarranted human attack on their Martian colony, a collective extraterrestrial intelligence calling themselves the "Mysterons" initiate a war of retribution against Earth; the Spectrum security organisation is mobilised to counter the Mysterons' first threat, which is to assassinate the World President.

Filmed in January 1967, the completed version of the episode differs from a pilot script that the Andersons submitted in August 1966, particularly with respect to Captain Scarlet's biology as a replicated Mysteron intermediary. During pre-production, Patrick McGoohan was contacted as a possible guest-star, but a combination of actor availability and budget limitations precluded his casting as the voice of the President. Enthusiastically received by members of the voice cast in 1967 "The Mysterons" was also praised by critics such as British journalists James Rampton and Allison Pearson when it was repeated on BBC Two in 1993. The episode's violence has attracted commentary, particularly with respect to a scene in which the Mysteron double of Spectrum's Captain Brown physically explodes.