Mighty Max - Episode 31 - Scorpio Rising

SCORPIO RISING

This is episode 31 (18th of the 2nd series) A lone back-packer is walking along an empty road at night in what looks like an arid, barren desert type area. A lorry goes past and he holds up his thumb in a traditional hitch-hiking manner, but the lorry thunders past him without stopping and is soon out of sight. As the man continues his progress he hears an eerie noise, though he can't quite place where it is coming from. He hears something down by his feet and looks down to see the ground dropping away beneath him. He desperately claws onto the edge of the ground trying to keep a grip to prevent himself falling into the chasm below. His fingers cannot purchase a hold and he disappears from sight, screaming as he falls.

Episode Captures (Click to enlarge)

Max and Felix emerge from a bicycle repair shop on a clear blue-skied sunny day. Max is moaning because his bicycle is going to take 2 days and "twenty-five bucks" to repair his bicycle.

"I told you not to ride it down the escalator!" Felix tells Max.

"Yeah, but it was an accident - kinda!" Max defends himself. "Alright, it was a shortcut!"

They are walking along the sidewalk when they approach a junction in the road that has a set of traffic lights on it. A stunned Felix points out the traffic lights to Max after seeing some strange symbols within the lights. Max peers up and sees a message for him in the form of pictures; his cap, a figure of a running boy, and arrow pointing left, and the number 25. A message from Virgil for Max to make his way to the nearest portal. Max runs across the road without looking and is almost creamed by several vehicles. He looks behind him and sees a huge truck hurtling toward him. He steps back, almost frozen to the spot with fear, but just as the truck looks as if it is going to squish him, a portal opens up behind Max and he falls into it - in the nick of time. A bewildered Crossing Lady stares on in disbelief, thinking that she had just seen a boy almost get hit by a truck. But where was the boy?!

Max falls out of the other end of the portal and onto the road that the back-packer had been on before. Another truck races toward him and Max just manages to leap out of the way in time. He lands on the ground, stands up, walks a few steps before walking into something solid causing him to fall to the floor again. He looks up to see Norman standing over him, smiling. He reaches down and picks Max up off the ground as if he weighed nothing more than a matchstick. "Careful, Mighty One!" he says as he places Max back on his feet. But Max is staring incredulously behind Norman. He sees he is on the outskirts of Las Vegas, but here is also a huge pyramid and Sphinx, just like the ones in Egypt. Virgil explains that there have been dangerously high levels of radiation in the area, and to prove it he approaches an abandoned truck, points a Geigo counter at it, which immediately leaps to life as it shows a high level of radiation. Unseen by the three of them a camera emerges from the ground and peers about.

In the next scene we see Max and Virgil sitting on the front of a hand operated rail tram, which is being driven along by Norman. "I hope we don't meet a train coming the other way!" exclaims Max. Virgil assures him that the track they are on is disused. They soon arrive at an old cowboy style deserted ghost town called Perdition, (reminds me of something out of a Stephen King novel.) A shiver runs down Max's back and as he looks about him. Virgil informs him that this is where the source of the radiation is coming from. Norman and Max explore one of the abandoned buildings whilst Virgil stays outside tinkering with the Geigo counter. Suddenly the tram that Virgil is still sitting on rises up into the air - balanced on the claw of a gigantic scorpion! Its huge sting bearing down toward him. The sting strikes the tram which splinters into little pieces causing Virgil to tumble to the ground. Virgil calls out to max who looks out of the window of the building he is exploring. Seeing the huge scorpion moving toward Virgil, Max races down the stairs, leaping over the last few. "Time for some super hero action. Up, up and away!" he cries - and promptly falls through the rotten floor boards at the bottom of the stairs.

Outside Virgil backs against a wall and calls out to Norman, who promptly appears by smashing his way through the rotten wooden wall of the building he is in. Max lays unconscious in the basement of the same building. Norman races toward the giant scorpion with his sword swing about his head. In one clean swipe he cleaves the right claw from the scorpion, but instead of reacting as Norman would have hoped, a new claw emerges from the stump. Its sting glows red and out of it shoots a red ray of light which hits a wall behind Norman, causing a burning hole to appear. "A most unusual giant scorpion!" Virgil says.

Max wakes up to find himself not in a basement as we assumed, but in a huge complex of cave tunnels. He hears the strange noise he heard earlier and hopes to himself that they are just crickets. The answer comes straight away as two more giant scorpions limber toward him. Max runs away and quickly manages to lose them, but does not realise he is being watched on CCTV. He does not get much further when the two scorpions find him again. Max runs away but finds himself in a dead end. The two scorpions approach him and reach out with their huge claws. Max cowers away and cries out in fear.

"Stop! Naughty bugs!" A voice is heard nearby and the three scorpions turn away and leave Max alone. A figure approaches Max, a figure of a man dressed in some kind of protective suit and mask. The man leads Max into an airlock and hands him a radiation suit, introducing himself as "Doctor Robert Scorpio."

Max is lead into another room which he is told is the best bomb shelter in the 49 States. Max looks puzzled; what is this man talking about, there are 50 States. Max also notices that the man is dressed as if he were straight out of the 60's and he has no modern day gadgets in his room.

Above ground Norman and Virgil are examining a 'dead' giant scorpion. Virgil tells Norman that its technology is very out dated. As he turns to look at Norman he notices a very modern day jet screaming toward them which drops its payload on them. There is a huge explosion and Norman picks Virgil up and dashes into the nearest building, sees the hole that Max feel through, and leaps into it. The jet flies off but the sting of the apparently dead scorpion glows and the red ray shoots from it, hitting the jet which promptly explodes. Max is watching this on the monitors in Dr Scorpio's room. He sees the pilot eject safely.

"That was an Air Force jet!" Max tells him.

"But not ours!" answers Dr Scorpio. "Theirs!" He goes on to explain that due to all the radiation he has been changed and now needs radiation to survive. He tells Max that he can no longer go outside, but adds that is all about to change, as he places an arm around Max, and, for some reason, keeps calling him "Ricky," and other characters from the Australian "Skippy" TV series. He also tells Max that he has mutated normal scorpions into the giants he sees now, and that his plan is to irradiate the whole world, enabling him to return to the surface. Then Doctor Scorpio accuses Max of being a Russian, and he reaches for a shotgun to kill Max, but Max has already started running. He meets Norman and Virgil out in one of the tunnels and tells them about Doctor Scorpio's plan to kill the entire world. When they reach his room they find that Scorpio has disappeared and is now advancing on Las Vegas with an army of giant scorpions. Doctor Scorpio, on the back of a giant scorpion, scales the sphinx and removes to large green crystals from the statues eyes. Our three heroes chase after him on their own scorpion, but they are two late. he has the green crystals, and is nowhere to be seen. The ground trembles beneath them and they fall through back into the cave tunnels of Doctor Scorpio's lair. Moments later they fall through yet another hole. "Not again!" cries Max.

Max and Virgil have been captured, Norman has been buried under a huge pile of rocks resulting from the cave in. Doctor Scorpio is about to start his evil plan of destroying the world. He sets off a timer on a large laser that is pointing directly at Max and runs off, leaving Max and Virgil to wait their deaths. The timer on the laser runs out, the lever falls down, and the laser leaps into life. But just then something hurtles into it, knocking it over and displacing the beam, narrowly mixing its intended target. Out of the hole in the roof of the room Norman appears and frees Max and Virgil. The three of them hurry away from the room and run after Doctor Scorpio. Moments later they have to look no more as Doctor Scorpio finds them. Enraged by Max's apparent lack of respect for his elders Doctor Scorpio points another laser at Max and fires. Max and team manage to duck out of the way and the laser beam hits a wall, which them crumbles away exposing the outside world. Clean air rushes into the stale tunnels, and Doctor Scorpio scuttles away with his giant scorpions, shouting out his anger, but also his admiration, for Max.

Outside once again, Max, Norman, and Virgil run for their lives as a huge green flash of light erupts behind them. There is a loud explosion and the tunnels collapse in on themselves, trapping Doctor Scorpio for ever.

Max and Virgil look on at Norman who is glowing green.

"I hope you didn't get too much radiation." says Virgil.

"Pah!" snorts Norman. "I eat radiation for breakfast!"