The Ghost Ship (Stingray)

"The Ghost Ship" is the third episode of Stingray, a British Supermarionation television series created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and filmed by their production company AP Films (APF) for ITC Entertainment. Written by Alan Fennell and directed by Desmond Saunders, it was the eighth episode filmed and was first broadcast on 18 October 1964 on the Anglia, ATV London, Border, Grampian and Southern franchises of the ITV network. It subsequently aired on ATV Midlands, Channel and Westward on 20 October.

The series follows the missions of the World Aquanaut Security Patrol (WASP), an organisation responsible for policing the Earth's oceans in the 2060s. Headquartered at the self-contained city of Marineville on the West Coast of North America, the WASP operates a fleet of vessels led by Stingray: a combat submarine crewed by Captain Troy Tempest, Lieutenant "Phones" and Marina, a mute young woman from under the sea. Stingray's adventures bring it into contact with undersea civilisations – some friendly, others hostile – as well as mysterious natural phenomena. In "The Ghost Ship", the Stingray crew encounter a seemingly deserted galleon while investigating the disappearance of an ocean liner.

Plot
The ocean liner Arcadia disappears at sea. Her last radio transmission – in which the crew reported seeing an old galleon – reaches World Security Patrol (WSP) headquarters, who relay it to the World Aquanaut Security Patrol (WASP) in Marineville with orders to investigate. Captain Troy Tempest, Lieutenant "Phones" and Marina depart in Stingray, joined by Commander Shore.

Stingray arrives at Arcadia's last known position and makes visual contact with the galleon, which does not respond to Troy's hails. Shore and Phones board the ship and find its upper decks deserted. However, they fail to notice a platform built into one of the floors and are lowered into a watertight section in bowels of the ship, where they are met by an undersea pirate called Idotee. Holding them at gunpoint, Idotee explains that he converted the galleon into a submarine and used its cannons to sink Arcadia. Now he intends to kill the Stingray crew for crimes against the undersea races.

Idotee tells Shore to radio Troy and instruct him to come aboard, but Shore disobeys and instead orders Troy to attack the galleon. Troy is unwilling to do either and submerges Stingray to evade the furious Idotee's cannon fire. Submerging the galleon, Idotee threatens to kill Shore and Phones unless Troy surrenders.

Forced to comply, Troy puts on a diving suit and exits Stingray, then enters the galleon via an airlock and joins the others. Idotee, who never intended to leave anyone alive, has tied Shore and Phones to chairs in front of a double-barrelled cannon rigged to fire harpoons into them. However, he is unaware that only one of Troy's two diving cylinders contained air, and that Troy has unsealed the other, which is now releasing laughing gas into the galleon. Idotee, Shore and Phones collapse into hysterics and pass out, while Troy, who has swallowed a pill to negate the gas's effects, kicks the cannon aside just before it shoots Shore and Phones.

The Stingray crew take Idotee into custody and return to Marineville. Shore decides not to punish Troy for his insubordination, instead thanking him for his bravery.

Regular voice cast

 * Ray Barrett as Commander Shore
 * Robert Easton as Lieutenant Phones
 * Don Mason as Captain Troy Tempest

Production
Although Idotee is named in the script, the character does not identify himself in dialogue, instead telling Shore and Phones that his name is "of no consequence".

The galleon scale model was built by the APF special effects department under the supervision of effects director Derek Meddings, while the puppet-sized decks were designed by art director Bob Bell. Both the galleon model and the deck sets were re-used for the episode "Set Sail for Adventure", where they appear as Admiral Denver's ship.

The incidental music was composed from 16 to 22 October 1963 and recorded on 25 October at Pye Studios in London with a 30-piece orchestra. Music for "The Golden Sea" was recorded in the same session.

Reception
Writing for the fanzine Andersonic, Vincent Law compares "The Ghost Ship" to the episodes "A Nut for Marineville", "Pink Ice" and "Invisible Enemy" for the way in which the characters react to the threat posed by Idotee. He notes that in the last two episodes "the bottom line [is] 'blast them before they blast us'", while the first two "riff on pretty much the same theme, the stock response to the unknown usually being to shoot first."

Law also praises the flute music that accompanies the first appearance of the galleon, describing the piece as "unforgettable" and arguing that it "perfectly encapsulates the whole series." Anthony Clark of sci-fi-online.com describes the episode's incidental music as "spine-tingling stuff".

Adaptations
The episode was adapted into a picture book in 1992 and a comic strip in 1993. The strip was published over three issues of Fleetway Editions' Stingray: The Comic, which followed it up with a feature giving the backstory of Idotee, revealing him to be more than 200 "marine years" old.