Trading Places

I don’t know how interested readers of this Blog are in stills from science fiction television series but I seem to amass them fairly rapidly, more than I can ever possibly use. I suspect it’s a continuation of collecting sweet cigarette and bubble-gum cards from when I was a child but without that teeth rotting element! I can remember a shop keeper going through her entire “Thunderbirds” stock, in a little newsagents in Paignton, during a summer holiday long ago, looking for that one elusive card to complete my set of fifty. She didn’t find it but I bought a packet anyway. I must have found it eventually, although where and when eludes me, as I still have them stored away for posterity. I actually have two sets of the first series, possibly one belonged to my brother, and a single set of the second. I prefer the latter, being made up of photos as opposed to artists impressions of the vehicles and characters. I also own a set of the sixty-four “Captain Scarlet” bubble-gum cards which mix artwork with photos and when collectively reversed make a single image.

Moving effortlessly on from Spectrum Pursuit Vehicles to a certain Sport-Utility Vehicle, I have to admit that, despite some reservations, my imagination seems to have been captured a little by episode seven of “Torchwood”. In a parallel universe, there might well be a set of trading cards for the series although, considering what I assume to be the age of the intended audience, that seems less likely than for “Doctor Who”! With this in mind, I’ve put together a little ten-picture gallery featuring the two leads from “Greeks Bearing Gifts”. It was Tosh’s episode but benefited greatly from the guest star, Daniela Denby-Ashe as Mary/Philoctetes, appearing throughout, rather than briefly at the story’s conclusion as was the case with Owen Teale in “Countrycide” and Gareth Thomas in “Ghost Machine”. The first of the set is above showing the moment our heroine first tries on the alien pendant with the remaining nine directly below in a separate post. Pictures two through six continue the exchange that took place in the Cardiff bar with the remaining four from the story’s climax at the heart of the Hub.