After an exciting half hour of underwater daring do, with the brave Captain Troy Tempest saving the world what would be more stirring than a fine piece of outro music. Well obviously what would be more stirring would be a soppy (and sopping) ballad about a mute bird who moons over said hero. Marina, mysterious woman of the waves, was one of the few Gerry Anderson puppets whose communication was not troubled by shoddy lip syncing, because she never spoke. This obviously made her attractive to the egotistic Captain Troy Tempest, something which makes the ballad even more unbelievable that it might be from his point of view.

Marina, Aqua Marina,
What are these strange
Enchantments that start
Whenever you’re near?

You would imagine that those strange enchantments would be a particularly strong fishy smell, considering her preferred habitat. Actually all the songs in Stingray were rubbish. The opening theme tune included. It may have kicked off with some stirring drums, but we were then promised that “Anything can happen in the next half hour”. I suppose given the liberating special effects of puppets this might have been true: but you could bet you bottom dollar it would be underwater. Submarines are rubbish on land.