Stingray Deep Dives #1: The Big Gun

Welcome to our Stingray Deep Dives! As we celebrate super-sub’s 60th anniversary, we asked you to pick your favourite episodes of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s classic 1964 sci-fi underwater series that should receive in-depth, analytical retrospectives. Based on your picks, we’ve collated a top 10 selection of Stingray’s greatest episodes to receive a review – as voted for by you!

 

We've been diving deep into 10 of Stingray's greatest episodes since August of this year, and we've now reached the number #1 spot! The episode you've all voted for the most to receive a celebratory retrospective is... The Big Gun! This early classic sees Stingray risk certain doom to stop the oncoming invasion of one of the show's most memorable guest villains.

 

 

 

Stingray at its most basic?

 

 

The Big Gun highlights Stingray at its most enjoyably basic. Throughout the Stingray Deep Dives, we've not just been exploring what the series can do, but rather, what *else* the series can do. From slapstick comedy to surreal mystery to dream episodes, no tonal terrain is too tricky for Stingray to navigate. Before the likes of Titan Goes Pop and Tom Thumb Tempest, however, episodes like The Big Gun establish an uncomplicatedly straightforward standard for what the series was all about. The Big Gun was one of Stingray's earliest episodes to be produced, and as such, its premise is matched in similarity to several other early episodes during this run.

 

 

The Big Gun, Emergency Marineville, and Hostages of the Deep all feature one-off villains beyond main antagonist, Titan, who plot to overthrow the terraneans in some interchangeable fashion, either through superweapons, secret bases, or capturing of terranean victims. Motives and personalities aren't entirely distinguishable from one alien race to the other. However, that suggested genericism across these episodes can't stop The Big Gun muscling its way past its similarities to other episodes and standing as a mighty example of the enthralling aquatic Cold War fought between human and alien in the world of Stingray.

 

In The Big Gun, the antagonistic underwater people of Solarstar prepare to launch a fearsome attack on the terraneans, led by the super soldier Maritimus in command of his deadly Solarstar vessel. The craft itself is capable of firing a devastating missile that can trigger chain reactions of destruction wherever it may make its impact. With this one vehicle, entire continents become at risk of being wiped out. Maritimus' testing of the warhead captures the attention of Marineville, which in turn risks being attacked by Maritimus himself. Stingray is soon in quick pursuit of Maritimus, but can the WASP submarine survive the impossibly deep waters of the Solarstar's base in order to snuff this threat out of existence?

 

"Maritimus to Solarstar control..."

 

 

The Big Gun is one of Alan Fennell's unashamedly gung-ho scripts. There's precious little nuance or morally grey areas uncovered for the Solarstar people's war-hungry rampage or even Stingray's eventual obliteration of the Solarstar base. It's very much a case of 'here's your bad guys, here's your good guys - fight!' Even if we come to learn little of the Solarstar people themselves, we're given more morsels than how other episodes depict their own alien antagonists. The Solarstar base itself, a colossal starfish-shaped structure, is one of Stingray's most magnificent models, while the base's interiors are lush in colourful production design. There's just enough visual implication of the sprawling yet self-contained civilisation of the Solarstar people to paint enough of a convincing picture.

 

The Solarstar people themselves are far simpler and less ornate in design than other Stingray villains, but what they lack in complexity is made up for with their delightfully chunky, squared-off humanoid proportions. A similar mindset is going on with Maritimus' unnamed attack vehicle. It's quite visibly a tank with its treads removed and its structure subtly curved to give the illusion of being capable of underwater travel. Accompanied by Barry Gray's stimulating orchestral manoeuvres, the submarine still manages to command the screen whenever it appears. The sequence of its gun turret rising ominously out of the ocean and taking aim during the episode's early moments is a neat signalling to the audience that this is a vehicle of terror and awesome firepower.

 

 

Fennell's deceptively simple story keeps the episode's push'n'pull momentum moving at a swift pace as we swing back and forth between Maritimus' deadly actions and the Stingray crew's response to this oncoming threat. The episode culminates in Stingray being forced to venture deeper than it's ever travelled before in pursuit of Maritimus. The yellowy, bilious haze that greets the Stingray crew when discovering the city of Solarstar is a sickly sublime method of highlighting the danger the Stingray crew is in, and that this is genuinely unknown territory for the crew, a terrifyingly alien landscape for which they're not prepared.

 

The Big Gun caps off an already memorable affair with the twist of Marina being the one who saves Troy and Phones, rendered unconscious from the immense oceanic pressures, to finish off Maritimus once and for all. The episode firmly holds onto its 'all guns blazing' mentality until the very end with the drastic move of Stingray to destroy the Solarstar city. For a series that often champions the ambiguity of whether or not newly discovered underwater races become allies or enemies of the WASPs, Stingray's actions can't help but make its victory ring hollow.

 

Enduring popularity

 

 

The Big Gun is one of Stingray's disarmingly entertaining episodes. Maritimus himself is a magnificent blend of character design and vocal performance. His dominating presence as a war hero of the Solarstar people makes him an unflappable villain, making it an even greater shame that there's no face to face meeting between him and the Stingray crew. The damage sustained by Stingray when travelling so deep into the world's oceans necessitates upgrades to the craft, which are felt in the later episode Subterranean Sea, another episode in which Stingray discovers oceans never before touched by mankind. In that later episode, Stingray is in no danger of rupturing from the fantastic pressures of unknown oceanic terrain - a handsome nod to continuity, perhaps?

 

As a possible sign of its enduring popularity, The Big Gun goes on to have an intriguing afterlife. The Big Gun was one of several episodes recontextualised for inclusion in the Super Space Theatre compilation movie, Invaders from the Deep, later adapted into comic form for Stingray the Comic in the early 1990s. Although the Solarstar people appear to meet a very definite end at the hands of Stingray, this alien race rises from the ruins for a chance at vengeance against the WASPs in our 60th anniversary saga, Stingray: Deadly Uprising! The Solarstar people are just one of the returning alien races who appear in the Stingray Comic Anthology, Vol. 1: Tales from the Depths.

 

 

 

 

The Big Gun finishes off the Stingray Deep Dives! Many thanks to everyone who voted for their favourite Stingray episodes to receive these in-depth reviews. Don't forget to check out all 10 retrospectives as follows:

 

• #10: The Man from the Navy
• #9: The Disappearing Ships
• #8: Stand By for Action
• #7: Pink Ice
• #6: Subterranean Sea
• #5: The Ghost Ship
• #4: Titan Goes Pop
• #3: The Master Plan
• #2: Tom Thumb Tempest

 

With Thunderbirds and Space: 1999 enjoying significant anniversaries in 2025, keep your eyes peeled across our social media channels for further polls asking you to vote for your favourite episodes that we can celebrate here on the Official Gerry Anderson website!

 

 

 

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