Starring:
Colonel White, Captain Scarlet, Captain Blue, Captain Black, Destiny Angel & Harmony Angel.
With appearances from:
The Angels have decided to compete in an aeronautics show during their leave. Captain Scarlet has gone with them to keep an eye on proceedings. He and Destiny admire an antique aircraft - a Lancaster Bomber that flew in World War Two over 120 years ago. Unfortunately, they fail to notice Captain Black, who seems to have come to watch the performance.
During the Angels' practice run, all the flight computers and the computers in the Control tower suddenly stop working. The Falcons are severely affected as they need their computers for all flight functions. Harmony's Falcon clips Destiny's and loses an engine, causing it to spin out of control and crash. Harmony ejects to safety, but before she even lands, computer function is restored to the remaining four Falcons and the control tower.
Colonel White explains back on Skybase that the two-minute blackout affected a large area of Britain, including the airfield that the Angels were at. He also shows Scarlet and Blue a mysterious crop circle that appeared at the same time as the disturbance, in the exact centre of the area of the blackout.
When they head to the surface, however, Scarlet and Blue find that the crop circle has vanished without a trace. They land in the centre of where it should have been in order to investigate. Before long, Scarlet starts to feel unwell, and the crop circle reappears. The central circle drops down into a large underground hangar where Captain Black greets them. He tells them that the Mysterons have been causing the computer blackouts *, and that the crop circles are caused as a by-product of the Mysteron energies, but that they gave Spectrum something to focus on. Scarlet and Blue realise that they had been led into this trap by the Mysterons, and Black taunts them before delivering the Mysterons' latest threat.THIS IS THE VOICE OF THE MYSTERONS. PEOPLE OF EARTH, YOU HAVE TWENTY-FOUR HOURS TO SURRENDER. DISOBEY, AND WORLDWIDE TECHNOLOGICAL FAILURE WILL DESTROY YOU ALL.
Scarlet and Blue are then released.
Colonel White orders an attack to take place on the Mysteron stronghold at dawn. Scarlet insists that Black will suspect this, and that the Mysterons will be ready for them, but White insists.
Next morning, as Destiny Angel is making her attack run, the Mysterons employ their device again. Her Falcon loses all flight capacity again, but the power is restored moments before she crashes. Colonel White solemnly realises that the Mysterons can disable anything that Spectrum can throw at them, as all of their technology and weaponry relies on digital technology of some sort, but his musings give Scarlet an idea.
Scarlet and Blue make the next attack run themselves, using the Lancaster Bomber, borrowed from the RAF museum. The ancient craft does not rely on computers or digital technology of any sort, and neither do the bombs that it carries. Black cannot use the Mysterons' powers to stop the bomber, and the attack is successful.
* Some kind of electromagnetic field, perhaps? As far as I know, it takes an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) to disrupt a computer or digital processor, but I could be wrong.
Quotable Scarlet
White: "Please can we have our Lancaster back? That is, if you've quite finished with it, old boy. And we do hope you haven't pranged it."
Scarlet: "Haven't pranged it?"
White: Yes, you know, broken it, crashed it. Oh, for heaven's sake, Scarlet, don't you understand English?
Did you spot...?
- When Captain Black triggers the power failure in the Falcons, Harmony is wearing Destiny's flight helmet.
Episode Rating: 
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Reviewer's Rating: 2/5
I'm not sure exactly why I dislike this episode so much; it guards against becoming too reliant on technology, the Mysterons issue an actual threat, Black appears, and Scarlet's sixth sense, oft mentioned in the original series, finally makes an appearance. All of these are good things. Perhaps it is that this episode appears to be embracing the past a little too much (and failing) that I, as an NCS virgin when I first saw it, took an instant dislike to it.
- Destiny's referral to 'the other girls' always makes me think that the other Angels aren't that important to her - certainly not important enough for her to remember their names!
- Scarlet's sixth sense is mentioned as if it is something that we should know about, because he certainly seems to, yet it has never been mentioned before, and is only mentioned again in 'Skin Deep' as a plot element. I often wonder if they shoe-horned it into this episode purely because the reference would be needed in two episodes time.
- The Mysteron threat, whilst a welcome return, is both chilling and frankly ridiculous in its delivery. I struggle to take it seriously.
- The final exchange between White and Scarlet just makes me mourn the loss of the original Scarlet, who most certainly would have understood the word 'pranged'.
Written by Brian Finch
Directed by Mark Woollard
Animated by Green team
Transmission date: 26 March 2005
Appears on DVD 2
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