Next time you see this and think:
GOD THAT ENDING WAS PATHETIC
Think:
That wasn't a dream.
It was a vision of the future.

This should have been the final episode (but without the 'all a dream' ending). Although I doubt a downbeat ending would have worked (then again, it would have fitted in with the 'Spectrum can lose' aspect of the series).
I seem to remember that in the movie compilation of Captain Scarlet, this story ended it, and we told it was a vision of what will happen once the Mysterons win; and instead a peace treaty was drawn up or something...

If you ever are told to write a story at school, you get zero if it ends being "all a dream", no matter how good the dream is.
The version in the movie compilation was darker, the full episode verges on the comical at times.

But not often.

When Cloudbase is atacked, we see a shot of the Amber with the remaining Angels hanging on as Cloudbase swings around. Its obvious that the picture has just been flipped round a bit, as all the glasses, ashtrays, books and plant pot remain where they are as opposed to sliding onto the floor.

I watched this episode on DVD, with Anderson providing commentary. He said that he's never understood why people have problems with "dream" episodes; he enjoys them, as they give you a chance to do things you couldn't do otherwise (such as kill off everyone on Cloudbase!)
He also said that the episode was intended to be a comedy, and ended up being a black comedy. I suppose that's where they got the scenes of Captain Magenta frantically trying to count saucers, and Col. White's comment to Scarlet: "If we get out of this alive...get a haircut."

Lt. Green was given a line that I'm surprised never came up before in the course of the series: "It's easy to be brave when you're indestructible."

Maybe it was just me, but it seemed as though the pitches of some of the voices were a little off. Just the male voices; the pitch seemed to be just a little higher than normal, and it didn't happen all the time.

I was very disappointed, watching the uncut episode, to find that they did not explain why Symphony's jet crashed in the first place. Would you want to fly a plane that might suddenly blow out the engine for no discernable reason?

Anderson also commented that they cropped Symphony's hair so that she wouldn't look so much like Destiny and Rhapsody. Regarding Destiny, he said that he would have preferred her to have a more subtle French accent.

Anderson was careful to have a number of "dead" characters in the final scene, just to reassure children who might have been frightened by the episode.

Does Spectrum has such extraordinary faith in their search-and-rescue teams that they don't trouble to provide their pilots with survival kits, including, perchance, food and WATER?

One other point: When Blue and Scarlet locate Symphony in the desert, the camera angle is about waist high. My DVD set includes a number of still shots, including this scene. If they had pulled the camera back just a little, the audience would have noted that Captain Blue had a rather unseemly grip on Symphony's thigh!

>>Anderson was careful to have a number of "dead" characters in the final scene, just to reassure children who might have been frightened by the episode.

But they'll have run away screaming before the final scene.

Did anyone think to ask Symphony just why she walked away from the drop site, leaving her radio behind? Was the sun that intense that it zoned her out in the time it took her to reach the ground?

Where do they store extra aircraft? Rhapsody's plane was blown out of the sky, leaving two. Captain Scarlet crashed his, leaving one. When Cloudbase was hit and went into a tilt, two Angel interceptors fell off.

Col. White said that people would be operating four hours on, two off, but Captain Magenta was stuck in the radar room the entire time. Of course, it was just a dream...

Aircraft carriers have below deck hangers, & the planes get onto the dack by a lift. Skybase could have something similar.

CLOUDbase... what are you, a new-series fan?

Even though "it was all just a dream" is something of a cop out I think Anderson does them well. Well enough to be forgiven for it. The scenes of Colonel White going down with Cloudbase are brilliant for example and you'd never be able to do them otherwise.

And is it really so different from the parallel universe or time travel + reset button methods that stories use nowadays to tell these kinds of stories.