Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet is a CGI Remake of the marionette show Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, which debuted in 2005. The new series lasted two seasons (the original only lasted for one, but had six more episodes) but remains lesser-known than the original due to being Screwed by the Network.
As a nod to the original's Supermarionation format, this reboot is described as "Filmed in Hypermarionation". The basic storyline starts of the same: in the year 2068, Captain Scarlet and Captain Black discover the Mysteron City during a mission to Mars, and Captain Black opens fire when he mistakes a probe for an offensive action.
Thus the Mysterons are now retaliating on Earth with their retrometabolism power, and using Captain Black's clone as their main agent. Captain Scarlet, also recreated as an invulnerable clone, but retaining his original personality and loyalties, opposes them along with the Spectrum organization.
Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet provides examples of:
- 10-Minute Retirement: Destiny gets one in episode 2 after thinking she can't be the leader of the angels anymore.
- Achilles' Heel: Duplicates can be detected with a DNA scan. Scarlet's "allergy" to them is also retained, though not consistently applied. The revival shows duplicates' eyes occasionally glowing green as well (which is visible in-universe, according to the episode "Grey Skulls").
- Airborne Aircraft Carrier: Skybase, as per the originals' Cloudbase.
- Alone with the Psycho: Most of the episode "Best of Enemies" has this with Scarlet and Black trapped at the bottom of an arctic lake in a Spectrum Rhino. That said, the events of the episode has Black slowly regain his memories of his pre-Mysteron self, and notably gets kinder as the episode progresses. Sadly, the moment he reaches the ice, he becomes a villain again. There's a glimmer of hope, though, with him asking Scarlet to look after Destiny for him.
- Ascended Extra:
- The female Captain Ochre makes a brief debut appearance at the end of season 1, a couple of brief walk-ons at the start of season 2, but by the end of the season had graduated to leading an entire episode ("Grey Skulls") by herself — the only Captain other than Scarlet to do so; even Blue never gets to lead an episode. Several fan sites have suggested that Ochre would likely have graduated to major character status had the series continued.
- Lt. Green, who in the revival is a more active character than the original version who hardly ever left Skybase, and even to an extent Destiny Angel, who becomes the female action lead and plays a major role in many episodes in this version of the show.
- Badass Boast: Many characters deliver good lines, Scarlet gets a few good ones in some episode.Enemy: You're a dead man, Scarlet!
Captain Scarlet: I've been dead before. - Blessed with Suck: To the revival's credit, Scarlet's indestructibility is only called into play in a minority of episodes. It also establishes early on that he is virtually indestructible, emphasis on the "virtually".
- Clone Angst: Mostly averted. However, Captain Blue takes longer to warm to Scarlet, and several episodes do reflect on Scarlet's angst at being a "human-Mysteron hybrid" as he is described by a friendly Mysteron in the episode "The Achilles Messenger".
- Code Name: Unlike the original series, which only on rare occasions referred to the characters by their real names (the episode "Manhunt" has it happen and point out it's a breach of protocol, for instance), the revival uses the color codes and real names interchangeably. In one episode Scarlet activates an identity scan that clearly IDs him as "Paul Metcalfe, Captain Scarlet". The original series suggested the real names are usually kept secret, but not so in the revival, seemingly to humanize the main characters and make their interactions more meaningful.
- Cool Bike: The Spectrum Raid Bike. So much so, an entire episode ("Grey Skulls") is basically built around how cool it is: Captain Ochre let hers be stolen by a biker gang, and White assigns her to getting it back over helping thwart the new Mysteron plot because of how dangerous that vehicle is in the wrong hands.
- Crop Circles: These pop up in "Circles of Doom" as a result of a weapon the Mysterons were using to control Earth's technology.
- Criminal Mind Games: Averted compared to the original, as such announcements were, for the most part, done away with.
- Darker and Edgier: Played With when compared to the original show. This series, while definitely still darker than most kids shows even fifteen years later, very rarely shows blood, but still has many instances of on-screen deaths like the original does, especially once the series establishes that the original victim's memories and personality still exist within the duplicate and can, under some circumstances, be revived. Yet that doesn't stop them from being shot on sight, thrown off cliffs, killed on-screen etc.
- Dating Catwoman: While it doesn't quite get as far as a "date", Scarlet and Astrid Winters (a friendly Mysteron replicant trying to stop the war, but who shows clear attraction to Scarlet) are headed down this road in the episode "The Achilles Messenger".
- "Die Hard" on an X: Destiny Angel vs. a group of Mysteron-controlled pirates in the episode "Fallen Angels". Bad-assery kicked up to eleven by the fact she actually isn't aware she's offing Mysterons.
- Do Not Try This at Home: Interestingly, the 2005 revival has no such disclaimer. Maybe today's kids know better than to jump out of a flying aircraft hangar at 60,000 feet without a parachute?
- Emerald Power: The Mysterons are an alien race that is never shown on screen. They are instead symbolized by twin rings of green light. Mysteron replicants also have eyes that glow green.
- The End... Or Is It?: "Dominion" ends with Captain Scarlet infiltrating the Mysteron fortress with a seemingly-recovered Black's help. He destroys the source of their power and the entire city, then flies home. Pan over to see a surviving Black watch him leave, and as Black walks away, the two green rings of a Mysteron projection are seen on the ground.
- Evil Brit: Captain Black is said to be from Brooklyn — yet he stil speaks with a British accent (which becomes more pronounced when he's being really evil). Might be a Mythology Gag.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: One character is shot in the head by Captain Black at point blank, another is crushed by falling rock, and Scarlet performs a Neck Snap on another!
- Faux Affably Evil: Captain Black, who in this version is given more personality than just a Mysteron puppet, but also taunts his opponents openly.
- Fun with Acronyms: RAT (Remote Aquisition's Technology) is the name of the antagonistic robot in "Rat Trap". It was created to work in hostile environments by scientists who were studying Mars, but was taken over by the Mysterons.
- Gender Flip:
- The male Lieutenant Green from the original puppet series becomes female in New Captain Scarlet, but remains the Token Minority in both.
- Captain Ochre also became female, but unusually the gender flip occurred mid-series as a male Ochre appears in the first episode, but by the end of the first season, Ochre is a woman, meaning it may just be a new officer with the name.
- One episode introduces a male pilot who is training to become an Angel before the Mysterons get him.
- Glamor Failure: The remake
replaces the opacity to X-rays from the original with a DNA test. - Heel–Face Turn:
- Captain Black's original human personality — that of Scarlet's best friend and Destiny's boyfriend — resurfaces on several occasions, most notably in "Best of Enemies" when being submerged in a sunken Rhino causes the Mysterons to briefly lose control over Black, and definitely in the finale "Dominion" in which Black is manipulated by the Mysterons and led to believe he's thrown off their influence for good.
- The episode "The Achilles Messenger" introduce a faction of Mysteron society who are opposed to the war and are willing to help the humans. Unfortunately the series never develops this beyond a couple of episodes.
- Heroic Willpower: Somewhat negated in the revival when it's revealed most Mysteron duplicates retain the original personalities of the victims; however Scarlet is able to retain control for longer.
- I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: In "Storm at the End of the World", Scarlet states that he doesn't like the sound of the town they're investigating because it's called Ragnarok. (Which means the end of the world in Norse mythology.)
- Latex Space Suit: The Angels' flying suits. Skin-tight and shiny!
- Mythology Gag:
- The remake is billed as being "filmed in Hypermarionation" in the opening credits, as opposed to the originals' "filmed in Supermarionation".
- The Mercury Shuttle has a markedly similar launch sequence to Fireball XL5.
- The transition beat, while different, is still used in much the same way as the original series.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The war starts the same way in the remake, except the co-pilot is Scarlet — but only Black overreacts.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Happens often. Captain Black lets out a nice one after pulling a Not My Driver.Captain Black: This is a short cut... I'm cutting short your life.
- Ray Gun: Spectrum-issue firearms. An unusual case where Family-Friendly Firearms is definitely not in play; the sidearms at least can act as a Static Stun Gun, but they have an explicitly-marked "Kill" setting that gets used, often.
- Recurring Riff: Barry Gray's original music isn't used here, with the most notable loss being the transitional drumbeat, which was changed to follow different rhythm.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: "Best of Enemies" has Black receiving a weapon stolen from the Russians. When his contacts remind him of their agreement, Black makes a flippant remark about being out of cash, shoots them instead, and dumps their bodies to rot in the frozen wastes.
- Theme Naming: In addition to preserving the theme naming of the original series (colours for Spectrum officers, musical terms for the Angels), in this series each Spectrum vehicle is named after an animal (land animals for ground vehicles, birds for aircraft).
- Theseus' Ship Paradox: The question of whether or not Captain Scarlet and Captain Black are their true selves or just copies of dead men created by the Mysterons is a frequent question in the series. Black confesses to feeling like his old self at times and temporarily regains control of himself in the series finale.
- To the Batpole!: Averted here, unlike the origial; if anything the characters move around too much.
