"Big Ben Strikes Again" is one of the most memorable episodes of the series. We get Macey driving a 120 ton lead lined transporter, carrying a nuclear device to be used on a construction site. Naturally, Macey has a police escort, but both police cars are driven off the road when The Mysterons take over the truck....cue many gear changes, and the steering wheel turning on its own!! It makes the one policeman telling his colleague that he shouldn't worry as "nothing could go wrong" a piece of unwitting comedy, as Captain Black hides in a doorway, looking his most menacing.
The Mysteron threat is to destroy the City of London. Colonel White knows immediately that a missing 120 ton transporter carrying a nuclear device and the Mysteron threat cannot be a coincidence. He says if it takes every man he's got, the transporter, the driver, or both, MUST be found. In a piece of unwarranted faith, Captain Grey says that the nuclear device can only be armed with the insertion of keys, each one held by a different person. Ridiculous writing really as The Mysterons were hardly likely to let a detail like that, stop them from using the device.
Macey wakes up to find himself locked in a car park. Not knowing how long he's been unconscious and his watch broken, he tunes into the Joe Twilight radio show. The radio time check says it's twelve midnight but Macey hears Big Ben strike thirteen. At that point, the nuclear device begins to arm itself. Then by some unseen hand (Captain Black teleported into the garage?) Macey is knocked out cold. He wakes up to find himself sat in the street, in a puddle and a Spectrum saloon approaching. WHY let Macey live? Captain Black is a cold hearted killer, it's a clumsy story device that doesn't really fit.
Macey is whisked off to Cloudbase for questioning. This is recorded on tape and on listening to the tape, Captain Blue realises a clue to the location of the transporter.... Big Ben striking thirteen. Scarlet thinks that Macey miscounted, Blue and Colonel White realise HOW he could hear thirteen. With Scarlet baffled, he and Blue rush to one of two possible car parks, and they find the transporter. There isn't enough time to make the device safe, so Scarlet is ordered to drive the truck to the construction site where it can safely explode.
Mission accomplished, Captains Scarlet and Blue have dinner at a restaurant a short way from the car park. Scarlet reminds Blue that he never explained HOW he found the transporter. Blue shows him that through listening to Big Ben on the radio and Big Ben being near by, there was a time delay between the real thing and the radio broadcast and that it appears as if the bell rings thirteen times. Scarlet announces that from then on, thirteen was his lucky number.
Even though some of the details are clumsily written, it showed how the series worked at both adult and child levels. Young kids are unlikely to understand anything to do with the speed of sound, the basis of the whole story, but they would've enjoyed running around the playground shouting "Macey! Macey!! You're out of control!!" And interestingly, it was one of the very few examples where Captain Blue proved to be smarter than Captain Scarlet as to most adults, Captain Blue's reference to "760 miles per hour." would immediately mean a reference to the speed of sound, yet it went completely over Scarlet's head.
Solid 8/10.
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