h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

After the annoying capers of the Tracey brothers and their improbable organisation it was nice to learn that Jerry Anderson could produce a series that had at least a vague idea of plotting and style. I can put up with daft "persuit vehicles" in which you sit backwards and presumably have a high-tec vomit bags nearby as well. I can even stifle a laugh at characters such as "Captain Ochre" and the awe his code name must have inspired in the intelligence community. But the thing that cracks me up every time is when the credits role and there he stands: "Captain Black, Mysteron Double Agent"

What cunning fiends the Mysterons are, to choose this man as their mole inside the Spectrum organisation. Who would ever suspect a man who has bags under his eyes like the black hole of Calcutta, the trademark five o'clock shadow of the habitual bounder and the gravelly voice of the kind of cad that smokes forty ciggies a day. All these elements add up to one unmistakable conclusion: CAPTAIN BLACK IS A VERY BAD MAN.

In the credits we even see him standing outside a graveyard in the middle of the night, what on earth is he doing there? Suggestions range from the ridiculous to the disturbing, from a part-time job as a gravedigger to romantic liaisons with the residents of the graveyard.

Is Captain Black the most blatant double agent ever concieved? Is he an insomniac? Does shaving chafe his delicate skin? Was he a goth in his teenage years? And just what is going on in that graveyard, he's there at the start of every episode, is he waiting for a lift home from the pub?

Answers to these questions must be found people...

If you think that's bad, wait until you read the 'Characters' entry later on this week - poor Captain Black had a horrible life before the Mysterons stole his body.

If I remember the series correctly the Mysterons were a right set of extraterrestrial tea-leaves. They stole people's bodies, cars, helecopters, planes and the lot. If it wasn't nailed down they'd have it away. If the series had run long enough I could have seen them taking over Captain Scarlets coffee pot and trying to finish him off with a lethal diet of caffine...Then again, maybe that's what happened to Captain Black.

one point

Captain Black is not a 'double' agent-his association with SPECTRUM ended with him being presumed dead-and then SPECTRUM of course discovered that like Scarlet, Black had been replaced.

Oh-and the Mysterons weren't sticky fingered-they destroyed the originals and made ther own copies. So their not really thiefs-but they are murderers...

Stealing someone's identity even after you've killed them is still theft in my book, and what's more its downright cheeky of them as well. You have to say though, that having Black still working within Spectrum would have added a much needed comedy element to the series. Imagine the scene when they assembled all the Spectrum personel in order to weed out the traitor because you know it'd be Captain Blue that got fingered for it and not Black.