The adventures of Mike Mercury – and much more.

While Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet are perhaps the best known of the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson Supermarionation shows, with Stingray and Fireball XL5 close behind, Supercar was a key component in their success, the monochrome series establishing many of the ideas both on screen and in production that led to those shows. Supercar is still beloved by many, and Network have provided a fantastic package to showcase it.

It’s not got the pace of some of the later shows – and the pilot episode drags as we go through every bit of tech involved in Supercar before someone finally realises that two lives are at risk and they should actually get off the ground and go do something about it. (Mitch the monkey isn’t counted as one of those at risk!)

The episodes themselves are presented in HD, and although it’s been commented on that a bit of the vertical image has been lost in order to assist stabilise the picture, the trade off is worth it. (It’s not comparable to the 16:9 horrors of the Thunderbirds Blu-rays.) Compare the quality of the footage of the title sequence in the extras from the overseas dubs and you can see just how much better these are. The subtitles are… interesting at times (I suspect they’re autogenerated, as capitalisation has gone out of the window!), and there’s some commentaries by Gerry Anderson.

The fifth disc contains the extras – Stephen la Rivière’s 2004 documentary is still fascinating watching, particularly given how many of those interviewed are no longer with us; the assorted dubs, clean footage, and home cine film showing the production are all worth a look.

The other extras are a new comicbook (not sent for review), and a book by Andrew Pixley on the show’s history (perpetuating a few myths about those early Supermarionation days along the way) with a fun introduction from Stephen Gallagher (somehow it’s very easy to picture him trundling round East Germany in his version of the car!).

Verdict: A great treatment of one of the early Anderson hits. 8/10

Paul Simpson