We close on the blazing sun in space before fading to a view of ringed planet Saturn. A gyroscope-like ship, enclosed in a flickering bubble of energy, speeds past us and beyond accompanied by almost musical radiophonic tones. We see it pass the Moon before spinning away to the twilight of the Earth's curved horizon...

As we hear a grinding rhythmic electronic score, we see scenes of a futuristic city under a dramatic sky. Some buildings and antennae rotate, light pours from other structures as bullet-shaped and spherical vehicles move rapidly back and forth...

'This is Earth - the year 2100. New York is the headquarters of Space Patrol and men from Earth, Mars and Venus live and work there as guardians of peace. This is the story of those men, whose courage and daring make the universe safe for us all.'



The opening narration on the first episode paints a broad overview of an optimistic future that parallels its sibling series - Gerry Anderson’s Fireball XL5 - and precedes the Federation of Star Trek by some three years. Produced in 1962 and running to 39 episodes, Space Patrol is one of the forgotten series of telefantasy. Popular and innovative for its time, it disappeared from our screens - along with most black and white series - with the advent of colour in the late 1960s.

The series was also sold abroad to America (under the name Planet Patrol to avoid confusion with a homegrown TV series), Canada and Australia, maintaining its popularity overseas but afterwards vanishing into obscurity. Lacking the backing of a major company like ITC (who financed and distributed the Anderson series), publicity seemed very limited and the production company Wonderama disappeared shortly after, fating the series to little more than a memory. A handful of edited episodes sold commercially on Super 8mm were all that was available in the pre-video days.

During 1997, creator Roberta Leigh was contacted by Tim Beddows of Network Video with a view to releasing the series on video. The series was already presumed lost at this point, even by Leigh herself, but by chance it was discovered that she had the entire series as 16mm prints in a lock-up. A deal was struck and Space Patrol can now be viewed in its entirety.

So how well does it stand up after forty years ?

It would untrue to label Space Patrol as a stand-out series though it has many praiseworthy points. It is something of a mixed bag, with few episodes attaining the status of classic. Made on a limited budget, even for the era, the single world view of 2100 that was Roberta Leigh's gave us some beautifully conceived concepts which struggle valiantly to overcome the constraints of budget, production and continuity lapses.

Recent reviews of the series describe the leap from such child orientated series as Twizzle, Torchy The Battery Boy and Sara & Hoppity to the world of Space Patrol was as if Enid Blyton had gone from writing Noddy to Dan Dare. And if the series has a single inspiration it does lie very much with Frank Hampson's creation. Both try very hard to extrapolate from the known science of the time and both - for the main part - stay confined to our solar system with the odd visitor from another star. Both have well conceived and maintained cultures on the known (and unknown) worlds, and share a common desire to show the moral and educational aspects of their characters and stories.



It is obvious now that puppets, props and whole chunks of footage were repeatedly used in an attempt to keep within the low budget. No more than two dozen puppets were used in the entire series, not including duplications, aliens or robots. But this did not stop Space Patrol from being very entertaining and, under the scientific consultancy of Colin Ronan, informative and as close to factual as any television science fiction could be expected. The diversity of alien life and imaginative concepts show high aspirations for the format, but never as fully realised as they could have been. Which is a pity as they beg to be expanded upon, given the full reign of decent production values.

But we shall never know and have to be grateful that for all its flaws, Space Patrol has not been lost forever as once previously thought. It may not be regarded with such esteem as Fireball XL5 or Thunderbirds, nor Doctor Who which debuted around the same time, it is a snapshot of science fiction and children’s television from a simpler era when justice did prevail and times were (will be?) more decent. Unlike the Americanised Gerry Anderson series (a deliberate move to sell them in the States), Space Patrol remains a thoroughly British show. Death and destruction is rare in the stories, and there is a real sense of Larry Dart and his crew keeping the peace in the solar system - even when threatened by the occasional foe within or from outside the UGO. The plastifoam guns are the clearest and far-sighted indication of this - with non-lethal weaponry being a recent and growing development in law enforcement and the armed forces. The worlds of the UGO are peaceful, though not always at peace, with harmony between Earth, Mars and Venus and the people who inhabit them. They may not be perfect but they are idealised for a future where most problems have been overcome, and in many ways it can be seen as the younger alter ego that Star Trek, some three years later, would grow from.

For our love of the series, we can’t help a tongue in cheek attitude to some of the entries and observations. We could have ripped the series to bits with a modern day ferocity but it did aspire to greater things, occasionally failing as we all do, so forgive us our sense of humour and pointing out of things that did not make sense... and lead us not into flaming. Just drop us a note and share your thoughts with us.

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