Episode 12: Ice Fall
Credits: Producer-Gerry Anderson, Director - Desmond Saunders, Director of Photography-John Read, Art Director-Reg Hill, Dialogue Direction - Sylvia Thamm, Story - Martin & Hugh Woodhouse (from an original idea by Gerry Anderson & Reg Hill), Music - Barry Gray, Editor - Gordon Davie, Sound Editor - Archie Ludski, Camera Operator - Juien Lugrin, Character Voices - David Graham, George Murcell, Graydon Gould, Aviation Facilities - Fim Aviation Services LTD, Puppets made and operated by Christine Glanville, Mary Turner, Roger Woodburn, Second Unit Operator - Cecil Stavordale.
Plot:The entire team is enjoying a day’s picnic outing up in the mountains. Beaker takes the opportunity to explore a nearby cave, being conscientious enough to leave a string trail behind him. Unfortunately, Mitch follows and takes up the string, fouling up the trail. To add insult to injury, Beaker becomes trapped behind a subterranean ice formation and has to depend upon Mitch to guide the others to his location. Amazingly enough Mitch accomplishes this, and Mike manages to bring Supercar into the cave, using the vehicle’s exhaust gases to melt the ice imprisoning Beaker.
Review: “I will not be fobbed off with coffee or mint juleps or carbonated beverage, I tell you. Tea! That’s the only stuff.”
With this episode Desmond Saunders becomes the third person to take the director’s seat for the series. For this job he’s handed yet another exercise in simplicity from the Woodhouse brothers. The plot for practically any Supercar episode could be outlined on the cover of a matchbook. But this sort of basic writing was more the rule than the exception to television in those days. The average episode from that time would describe a plot such as “Character A and Character B take a trip to the grocery store” and, from that premise, would depend upon the abilities of the actors and director to carry off the task of entertainment. The sparseness of plotting for shows such as Supercar must seem like an alien science to today’s pseudo-hip, spoon-fed television viewer who must have everything handed over in intricate and over-complicated detail. Directors such as Saunders (as well as his predecessors with the program), accustomed to having to fine-tune and tighten up whenever possible, would no doubt consider themselves spoiled if they were having to film episodes for today’s market.
Once again Doctor Beaker’s usefulness as a character is demonstrated as he becomes the catalyst for the situation which the rest of the cast is drawn into. And it’s a situation which throws up a neat little challenge. With Supercar so comfortable in the air and on the water, the idea of somehow using it in a closed location like a cave enables the characters to actually demonstrate genuine cleverness and resourcefulness in accomplishing the rescue. No convenient Star Trek transporter available . . . no handy computer-delivered solution at hand . . . only the raw wits of Mike and the others. Even though the series is entitled Supercar, the production team always took the opportunity to demonstrate that Supercar was still only as good and as useful as the people at its controls, and that these people were quite capable of acting competently on their own.
Not that Supercar is off in the background here. As in “Grounded”, it’s once again given the opportunity to act as a land vehicle, nicely dominating the episode in several shots. There’s even an interesting front-on perspective hangar shot near the end. Saunders perhaps realized what the regular audience had already known since the beginning: that Supercar was a visually striking concept. Even filmed in black and white, Supercar immediately draws the eye and holds the attention of the viewer. Besides that, out of all the Anderson “vehicle stars”, Supercar is the smallest and most “intimate”, allowing the audience to associate it with the passengers riding within. All in all an excellent dramatic tool.
And, although Supercar was hardly touted as an “educational” program, it nonetheless took opportunities to be as technically accurate and scientifically detailed as possible, providing realistic details which similar shows would’ve ignored. When Supercar is deep within the cave, for instance, Popkiss raises the subject of danger from trapped exhaust gases. Later on, when Mike fires the engines to free Beaker, the viewer notes Jimmy and Mitch covering their ears against what must have been (to them) the increased engine sound inside the cave. A small gesture which a great many other producers would’ve ignored, but one which made a “puppet show” far more realistic than many of its live-action cousins.
As usual the set designers came across with their usual speed and efficiency. The setting for the picnic bears a suspicious resemblance to the desert set of “High Tension” and “False Alarm”, but the cave interior where most of the action takes place is remarkable and works to good advantage here.
If there is a false note to be found in the episode then it occurs in Barry Gray’s soundtrack. “Ice-Fall” opens with a rousing rendition of the Supercar theme which, unfortunately, becomes heavily dependent upon the accordion. The regular viewer . . . by now accustomed to Gray’s virtuosity . . . cannot help but cringe mildly and hope that this represents the nadir of his work (not yet having heard the comparative dullness of later themes such as the one for U.F.O.).
