Regrettably, FAB Annual 2025 has been unavoidably delayed, but it is now at the printer.
However, with the post getting more and more busy as we get nearer to Christmas, we wanted to ensure FAB Express 108 was in your hands as quickly as possible – so it’s in the post now! We’ll get FAB Annual 2025 following on just as soon as we can and we’re working hard to get it to all club members for Christmas!
As well as all the Anderson news and your views, FAB Express 108 takes a FlashBack to Joe 90 Three’s A Crowd. This proved to be a real fan favourite so there wasn’t enough room to include everyone’s thoughts and comments in the magazine (there’s not even enough room for Noticeboard this issue). To whet your appetite for the magazine itself, you can read those that wouldn’t fit below.
Now that the winter mailing is underway we’re able to make new memberships available once again. Thanks to all those who have patiently waited for news of this – we’ve emailed you already and look forward to welcoming you to Fanderson very soon. Please note that we won’t be mailing new membership packages until FAB Annual 2025 has been published.
Finally, remember that we’ve launched a fair bit of new merchandise recently. Also, in the Low Stock category you’ll find a few FAB back issues have been added (issues 42 to 50). There are fewer than 10 copies of each, so they won’t be around for long. Remember – buy three or more issues in the same transaction and save 25%!
FlashBack – Joe 90 Three’s A Crowd
Thomas Bright, Sandy, Bedfordshire
Three’s A Crowd is an outstanding episode of Joe 90. Not only is it outstanding because it is a superb episode, but also because it is largely devoid of the usual Supermarionation trappings – there are no explosions, little action, and very minimal model work. Instead, the focus is entirely on characters and their relationships. At the core is the burgeoning romance between ‘Mac’ and Angela Davis. Romance of any kind was rare in Supermarionation, the most obvious examples being the flirtations between Troy and Atlanta in Stingray, Alan and Tin-Tin in Thunderbirds, and of course Captain Blue’s rather ridiculous declaration of love for Symphony Angel in Captain Scarlet’s Attack On Cloudbase (do dream sequences count?). But never was romance treated so maturely as it is in Three’s A Crowd. This episode perhaps most typifies Joe 90’s different approach compared to its predecessors, with a greater devotion to character development. While action and adventure are plentiful, Joe 90 is much more nuanced than, say, Captain Scarlet, whose characters we barely get to know as people or individuals. Joe 90, on the other hand, has lots of character-driven episodes, such as Operation McClaine, Talkdown, and the surprisingly emotional Relative Danger. Three’s A Crowd is the ultimate expression of that, and a very strong episode because of it.
Even its guest ‘star’, Angela Davis, is given much more depth than other typical Joe 90 villains – the incredibly dark opening scene shows that although she may be acting for largely mercenary reasons, the threat of brutal execution means she is also motivated by fear and self-preservation. If she fails, she dies – and that aspect makes her a much more mature character as a result. Incidentally, Three’s A Crowd is the only episode of Joe 90 to feature a female character so prominently.
Having ‘Mac’ as the object of her ‘affections’ is a masterstroke. From the very first episode, he is portrayed with such humanity, and he emotes far more than any other Supermarionation character – throughout the series he emotes sarcasm, anger, sadness, protectiveness, ingenuity, courage… Therefore, having him fall for a woman, particularly when he is a widower (Anderson trope bingo!) is entirely in character. He is also not a completely willing participant in WIN’s Project 90 machinations, and frequently resents WIN’s interference in his and Joe’s private lives, and this really comes to the fore here, with his courtship of Angela Davis driving a wedge between him and his best friend, Sam Loover. As the audience, you sympathise with both parties – you feel for ‘Mac’ because you want him to be happy and you understand his frustration with Sam prying into his private life, as well as the knowledge that he is being manipulated. And you feel for Sam because you know he has ‘Mac’s’ best interests at heart and doesn’t want to see his friend hurt.
The other main relationship that comes under the spotlight is that between ‘Mac’ and Joe. Credit must go to Tony Barwick’s mature writing and Len Jones’ performance – Joe reacts naturally and realistically to this ‘intrusion’ into his world. The show does not linger on the fact that Joe is ‘Mac’s adopted son (indeed, I believe it is only mentioned once, in The Most Special Agent, in a piece of throwaway dialogue), but one can only imagine how Joe must feel that his adopted father, with whom he has such a close bond, is giving his attentions to someone else. As a character, Joe had the real potential to be a brat, but here he reacts as any child – particularly an adopted one – might do in the same situation.
All the characters here behave so real in Three’s A Crowd. They are so human, and it shows just how far Supermarionation had come in its storytelling. You would never have got an episode like this in any of the preceding shows, and while Three’s A Crowd might not be everyone’s cup of tea because it lacks so many of the things Supermarionation was known for, it is a beautiful, character-driven drama with a sophistication that we’d only ever see again in UFO. Despite having a nine-year-old as its main star, Joe 90 was definitely not a purely children’s programme; it was so much more grown-up, and Three’s A Crowd epitomises this. Rupert Davies, as he always does, gives a rich and humane performance as ‘Mac’, and Barry Gray’s score captures the mood of this episode beautifully. While it may not be as exciting or action-oriented as, say, Splashdown or Attack Of The Tiger, Three’s A Crowd is nonetheless very compelling, and arguably in my top five Joe 90episodes. It really is that good.
Doug Pelton, Mississauga, Canada
When I was a teen I logged down locally airing Anderson shows in a business day planner mom gave me from her work. Beside the one for this Joe 90 my fannish High School friend Peter Chapman pencilled in BEST STORY. He wasn’t far off.
3AC starts off grim and uses character deviation quite well. Mac gets taken by our lady spy and even Sam’s attempt to warn him off strengthens his position. WIN has every reason to be on edge. The opening was grim the way the slain spy agent slumping slowly to the ground and the viewing party seen slit window pane looking on. Further on it was Tony Barwick’s genius having Joe take her BP and open her can of worms. What followed was a hypothetically scenario much akin to the MIG 242 pilot offered by Uncle Shane Weston. The quick edited scene of seated Joe having it out with Angela with fancy quick editing in harmony with the quick sentences. Sylvia had a great time doing a baddie for a change. And my former General Cope is there in the front seat of the motor. C21 grew up in strides with Tony writing for a more adult maturing Anderson audience with UFO a year or so away.
Derek Eaton, Whittington, Staffordshire
“The best thing about bein’ a woman, is the prerogative to have a little fun” – is what a modern day version of Joe 90 would say as he came out of the BIG RAT – a young boy with a woman’s brain pattern.
Unfortunately, Joe 90 would simply not be made in today’s world. So the basic premise is an adopted 9 year old boy whose parents died at the age of one, spends four years in the care system before he is adopted by a couple in Dorset. Once adopted he then loses his stepmother Mary Maclaine, who if she was alive would have never in her right mind allowed him to help his scientist step dad in the basement of the remote cottage, let alone go on to receive the brain patterns of adults to carry out very high risk missions around the world. Oh, and yes the British Intelligence is aware of this and let it carry on. To be honest it’s barmier than the Priest who shrinks his gardener and that got cancelled!
So, once we have got this out way then this particular Joe 90 episode, much like many of other episodes in this series, is beautifully written and executed (no pun on the opening scene which is a bit brutal). My favourite voice performance in the episode should be Sylvia Anderson as the two faced Angela Davies but then I realised that Keith Alexander was voicing the two characters in the execution – so killing himself. Any last words?
I enjoyed the lovely external Opera House shot, dressed with statues at the entrance and a full car park, which is only on screen for a few seconds before being taken back to the now overflowing Century 21 props room. Also, the footage pinched from Thunderbirds of the monorail train coming out the tunnel and showing the detail of the push bikes parked casually on the side.
An episode with quite a bit of character development in 25 mins and not a lot of hardware really – note the plane takes off with one set of markings changes them in mid-air but they are back to original for landing.
Finally, in the Joe 90 multiverse – an investigation begins at Dorset Social Services after nine-year-old boy is shot out of the sky after stealing a Mig 242 from an airbase in Moscow.
