7TV Campaign: "Now You See Them- Now You Don't!"

Courtesy of Doc Neodynium!

Flush from beating SpyForce UK into a comatose state, the boys of Riot Squad- In Color! thought it'd be a breeze, taking down Yankee upstart, The S.P.A.C.E. Man.

They thought wrong.

Riot Squad- In Color! versus The S.P.A.C.E. Man

Prologue

VOSTOK hatch a plan to feed the British with false intelligence regarding a known terrorist who is in fact famed rocket scientist and moon rocket designer  Werner von Broon (clearly the son of a German mother and Geordie father). The British send in Riot Squad to obtain the scientist for questioning. With international relations at stake. S.P.A.C.E are called in to stop the identity of Von Braun being divulged.

VOSTOK provide Riot Squad with details of S.P.A.C.E’s location and even mix up the equipment of the two forces.

Action!

The future for S.P.A.C.E looks bleak as Atlas and Redstone are set upon by the British coppers. But new recruit Matt Juno proves his worth in distracting the Riot Squad, allowing Redstone and Atlas to back off and use their deadly ranged weaponry. In the end Riot Squad flee without divulging the nature of the “terrorist”. America saves face and its all thanks to Redstone and co.

Production

As the show had several controversies regarding extras at this point it was decided to scale back the episode to just include the key stars. The TITAN suit was not functioning delaying its screen debut. Mark Hamill also made his staring debut as Matt Juno but in a less preachy role than before. In fact, the whole episode was much more action based, a reaction to the criticism of the first episode.

The episode still courted controversy with scenes of Von Broon, although these were kept to a minimum. The level of violence, whilst okay for an American audience, caused a censorship outcry in Britain where it was aired as a Riot Squad episode.

This episode was the first to feature the Astrovan prop, although not as a working vehicle but as a simple static prop. The reaction from the public resulted in a British sponsorship deal with Ready Brek, which in turn provided the funding for an actual working Astrovan stunt vehicle for future episodes. 

Trivia

The design of the Astrovan was heavily *kof* influenced *kof* by the Gerry Anderson series UFO.

The Special effects employed for the disintegrator weapons were subsequently used by Ready Brek in their adverts.