Review of Joe 90: Volume 5

Introduction

Another six episodes of Gerry Anderson`s penultimate Supermarionation series, and another six opportunities for young Joe McClane to have his brain overwritten by his mad scientist father and be thrust into more life-threatening situations by his so-not-caring spymaster "uncle". Aren`t there laws about child exploitation? Seriously, this is another chunk of what Gerry Anderson did best - completely over the top, boy`s own adventure full of cool gadgets and enormous explosions.

Making the hero a young boy does dilute the thrills and spills, as there is almost inevitably a queasy father-son scene between Joe and the mad Professor somewhere along the line and another scene at the end, where everybody laughs condescendingly about some facet of the case and directly or indirectly at Joe himself. It made me grind my teeth when I was six, and I`m sure your six-year-old will feel equally patronised.

Joe himself has got the last laugh, changing his name since the end of the series to Harry Hill...

Video

Presented in the original 4:3, the image quality has not been massaged to the same extent as the earlier Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet releases, but the picture is clear, stable and colourful with the minimum of wear and tear evident.

Audio

The audio is in DD2.0 Mono, with the animated menus in PCM, for some reason.

Features

This volume is possibly the jewel of the collection, including photo galleries of the production and artwork from some of the merchandising the series spawned. There is also the original artwork designed for the end titles. Strangest extra of all is the set of three "Joe 90" trails produced for the BBC2 series "I Love The 90`s" where Joe goes into the BIGRAT and emerges in trail 1 as Liam Gallagher, trail 2 as Vic Reeves and in trail 3 as Garth from "Wayne`s World".

Conclusion

After Joe 90, Gerry Anderson produced the very short-lived "The Secret Service". He was gearing up to do more live action work in the cinema (and ultimately on tv with UFO) and the days of Supermarionation were, in his eyes, nearly over. The final death knell came when Lew Grade viewed the first episode completed of "The Secret Service", where Stanley Unwin played a kindly old priest who worked for a mysterious international intelligence organisation. Combining live action and puppets, one of the gags was that Stanley Unwin`s character would lapse into Unwinese ("explodey tear-gas cartry in the eyebold - folly folly") to fox or otherwise flummox the opposition. The first time he did this in the pilot, Lew Grade leapt to his feet and shouted "Nobody`ll understand him! Bin it!" and that was the end of "The Secret Service" and Supermarionation.