The Secret Service: The Vault

1. My own overview

This section of the book is to give my own general, honest opinion on The Secret Service as a whole and is not intended to attack anyone who has any involvement on the program or anyone related to it. Bearing in mind, this is just my own opinion. And if yours differs, that's perfectly fine. I would like to hear your own opinions about the series in the comments below.

My overall rating of the show: 7/10 - Good.

I would say that The Secret Service is a good show, nothing more. Not a great show, just a good, enjoyable show.

I think this show was one of Gerry Anderson's weaker outputs, not that it is bad, but I know that he can do a lot better. I'd rank it as the sixth-best SUPERMARIONATION series, honestly, I gave up on Fireball XL5 the second and last time I watched it. I think that it is due to some of the concepts and ideas presented in the series, also the unfortunate timing of the series I felt had an effect on the show's cancellation. Some of these aspects, like the gobbledygook, I think sounded better on paper than on screen. It just doesn't have the same iconic ideas that, let's say, propelled Thunderbirds.

The series defiantly had very strong episodes like "A Case For The BISHOP", May-Day, May-Day" and "More Haste, Less Speed", but at times can seem drawn out and dull like "Last Train To Buffler's Halt". The characters, Father Unwin, Matthew Harding, Agent Blake, Mrs. Appleby and the BISHOP, I don't feel like I have the attachment to them like the Tracy family. I don't see an undercover priest as a role model in the same way I see Scott Tracy and Captain Scarlet as role models. I like Matthew, but would have liked to have seen more development from him. Mrs. Appleby I think isn't suited to appeal the series to girls, which I will cover in more detail later. The BISHOP doesn't really play much of a part in the series, only to assign missions to Father Unwin. Agent Blake I also believe, as a theory, to be in some relation to Captain Scarlet, maybe its his great-grandfather. I mean, really puppeteers, a pair of glasses, a different voice and dyed brown hair hardly covers the fact that this was the puppet from the star of one of your own series.

Barry Gray's music is always up to his exceptional standards, but the theme is nowhere near as iconic as the Thunderbirds march. The titles of the series I don't think added much interest in the series. A church Century 21? What about a countdown with clips from the episode, a cold briefing about the war of nerves between Earth and the Mysterons, or "Anything can happen in the next half-hour". Taking the series away from the futuristic backdrop doesn't add any appeal to younger audiences, not even a computer bank to capture imaginations. Like Joe 90, The Secret Service is more of a spy espionage series than a Sci-fi show, despite being technically and visually superior to the other puppet shows.

Even when I was writing my fan fiction The Anarchy Of Chaos (which I fully recommended to Gerry Anderson fans), I didn't have the same enthusiasm and enjoyment as I did with my Doctor Who's or Joe 90's. Which I think, as I'm sure most would, are much better in comparison. If I was to give it another chance, I would have made it much longer which would add more depth to characters and help build a stronger storyline. Even if there was more on the terrorists, Father Unwin, Matthew and Emma Chater, the last half of the story, I think, I rushed.

The Unwinese I think wasn't a good idea, it only really adds a unique, quirky weirdness to the series. After all, it did partly result in the series' demise. I also feel that the minimisation wasn'tt experimented on enough during the series, it would have been nice to see an episode where we learn more about the Minimiser or the Professor Humbolt, or where it goes wrong and Father Unwin and Matthew must survive to get back to real size in time before they are squashed. It is a real oddity in the Anderson canon.

For those unfamiliar with The Secret Service, imagine it like, in short, Joe 90 meets Father Brown. A secret agent to stop evil schemes of world dominion with his disguise being something not quite what you would expect. It might sound like I am criticizing the series, I just feel that there are lots of elements that didn't make it work, even compared to Joe 90. Fireball XL5 and Dick Spanner were just camp and weird, and Twizzle, Torchy and Four Feather Falls just pale in comparison badly compared to what would later be an astonishing career for creator Gerry Anderson. It's a show where you either love it, it's meh, or you loathe it. These are my theories and reasons why the series didn't take off as well as it should have;

1. The series was cancelled: The simplest problem, it creates a bad reputation for the series, as a result, it didn't do so well being sold across to the all-important US market or even in the UK. This is probably why not many have even heard of The Secret Service.

2. No female role models: This is also a problem I found with Joe 90, with no female role models, there is nothing to hook in young girls in the same way earlier shows have such strong characters like Marina, Lady Penelope, or the Angels. Girls don't want to grow up and be an old housekeeper like Mrs. Appleby, really? Which is why I added female characters for some of my stories because it creates something for girls to catch onto.

3. Timing: The Secret Service was the 7th SUPERMARIONATION series, and Anderson's 10th puppet series he had worked on. Joe 90 had already not gone well, but the series started airing when The Secret Service was well into production. People at this point already had their favourite of the programs. It seemed that by the time of the release of Thunderbird 6 (1968), audiences were bored with puppets and wanted something new - live-action. By the time of The Secret Service, people just weren't interested in another SUPERMARIONATION program.

4. The idea: To be brutal about this, as I have stated earlier, I don't see a role model in Father Unwin. I don't want to be a priest when I'm older, and I'm sure not many children do. They would want to be part of International Rescue, an indestructible agent from Spectrum, or a leader from a team of defenders of UFOs at SHADO. There aren't any fantastic vehicles for children to play with, only an early-20th century Model T Ford. Factors like the Unwinese that I've also mentioned sound better on paper and didn't help the future of the series.

5. Storylines: Because the other shows have stronger ideas, it means more can be experimented with, not saying that The Secret Service had any strong stories, but doesn't have as well-regarded stories. To name several, Thunderbirds has "Terror In New York City", "Attack of The Alligators", "Atlantic Inferno", Captain Scarlet had "Lunarville 7", "Crater 101", "Attack On Cloudbase", Space 1999 had "Breakway", "Dragon's Domain", "The Metamorph", UFO had "The Psycobombs", "Reflections In The Water", "Timelash", Stingray had "The Big Gun", "The Master Plan", "Star Of The East", but we'll just pretend that The Cool Cave Man doesn't exist for the moment. There aren't any The Secret Service episodes where I take away episodes as modern classics sadly.

I first watched The Secret Service when I was 14 years old, I had already grown up loving Thunderbirds (which in my opinion, as a Gerry Anderson show before or since his death, has yet to be bettered), I had fallen in love with Captain Scarlet, UFO and Stingray, and so on. But seeing those shows first does put The Secret Service down towards the end. I would still say you should check the series out on DVD or Kiss Cartoon (where I first watched it), and is a highly entertaining show. Now, to the Vault...