Captain Scarlet (TV series)

Captain Scarlet was a television series which starred a character of the same name.

The Twelfth Doctor once referred to UNIT's aircraft carrier Valiant as "Cloudbase", a key feature of the series. Osgood mistakenly thought the reference was from Thunderbirds, but was corrected by Colonel Ahmed. The Doctor then noted that he had met Sylvia Anderson. (TV: Death in Heaven)

Behind the scenes

Created by producer Gerry Anderson, the Captain Scarlet series share many similarities with Doctor Who and Torchwood. The first series, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, was also created in the 1960s, and the second, Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, was first broadcast in 2005, the same year as the revived series of Doctor Who.

The series also share narrative similarities with Torchwood, most notably in that they both feature immortal protagonists (Captain Scarlet and Captain Jack Harkness) employed by security organisations dedicated to defending the Earth from alien invasions. Like Torchwood, Captain Scarlet is also known for having a darker tone than its preceding series, such as Thunderbirds

• Doctor Who, Torchwood, and The Sarah Jane Adventures writer Phil Ford also wrote several episodes of Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet.
• Though the link isn't directly made in Death in Heaven, in the real world Sylvia Anderson co-created both Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet for Century 21 Productions.
• The Second Doctor novel The Indestructible Man also contains many references to the original series. The title character, Captain Grant Matthews (named to reference Scarlet's likeness to Cary Grant and being voiced by actor Francis Matthews), was reconstructed by the Myloki (Mysterons) so that he couldn't die. As a member of the organisation PRISM (Spectrum), the colour-coded officer's uniform assigned to him was scarlet. The war with the Myloki is started by Captain Karl Taylor (Captain Black) who is recreated as a Myloki agent.