The Adventures of Captain Marvel: Time Bomb

"I don't think the police will hear about this..."

This third episode, while being absolutely a straight-up movie serial with all the tropes and limitations thereof, not least in stopping every seventeen minutes or so for a moment of peril, continues to show that The Adventures of Captain Marvel gets the superhero movie serial just right.

I like that the baddie is credited just as “the Scorpion”. I like the recap stills at the start of the episode that imprint in our memories the characters and the plot. Little things like this tend to be done right. But so far the plot has a nice, simple, but engrossing structure in that the Scorpion is after the lenses and, moreover, we know the Scorpion is one of the expedition. I like that there are several ostensibly sinister individuals amongst the group, and not just the obvious foreign red herring Tal Chotali.

And the cliffhangers, so far, are done with suspense- the time bomb on Billy’s plane is no exception, as the tension bounds and builds until the plane (a biplane with a propeller!) falls apart in the air.

This may not be big or clever, but it’s done very well indeed.