Set in 2068, the series depicts a "war of nerves" between Earth and the Mysterons: a race of Martians with the power to create functioning copies of destroyed people or objects and use them to carry out acts of aggression against humanity.
Earth is defended by a military organisation called Spectrum, whose top agent, Captain Scarlet, was killed by the Mysterons and replaced by a reconstruction that subsequently broke free of their control.
In "Place of Angels", Spectrum pursues a Mysteron agent who has stolen a vial of synthetic virus with the potential to kill millions of people.
When Chapman is sighted at New York International Airport, Scarlet and Blue fly to the United States and chase the reconstruction along the Interstate Highway in a Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle.
White informs the officers that the reconstruction is heading for the Boulder Dam, presumably to release the K14 into the Los Angeles reservoir and contaminate the city's water supply.
The transmission was delayed by ten minutes due to over-running live coverage of the World Snooker Championship semi-final between Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry.
Andrew Thomas of Dreamwatch magazine considers the death of the original Chapman, culminating in the sight of the character's "mangled body", to be one of the series' more violent moments.
[11] Andrew Pixley and Julie Rogers of Starburst note the horror of the reconstruction's death,[12] which Shane M. Dallmann of Video Watchdog describes as "one of the series' more show-stopping demises".
[12] Fred McNamara writes that Spectrum's pursuit of Chapman is "a tad cumbersome" and the overall episode arguably feels more like an "extended chase sequence" than a complete story.
However, he praises its sense of "menace and mystery", describing the strangulation of the security guard as "great fun to watch" and the gunfight between Scarlet and Chapman as "splendid".