Thunderbirds reboot in 2015

Charlie Brooker can add this show to his Greg Wallice spotter's guide

I'd like to see the show as soon as it comes online somewhere I can actually watch it. In the meantime, opening credits.

I'm not sure I agree with the opening countdown being reused for every single launch.

Didn't like it in the original show either?

I don't recall the original show doing it every single time one of the vehicles launches.

I mean, I could go pull out one of the DVDs but I'm pretty sure it doesn't happen.

edited 7th Apr '15 11:16:01 AM by Deadbeatloser22

If anyone wants to help with tropes, I made a page for it. Thunderbirds Are Go

I watched the first two episodes. It's not bad at all, but there are a few things that stand out. For example the original Thunderbirds had a very slow, very deliberate pacing that was really good at building tension. Most likely this was a result of the hour-long format. I am hoping later episodes slow things down a bit.

In the second episode Thunderbird 2 loaded up pod 3, but I don't think he ever used it for anything. Unless that power loader suit thingie was in pod 3, but that seems like a waste of space.

It says on the Thunderbirds Are GO page that Tin-tin/Kayo has had a Race Lift. Is she no longer from Malaysia?

It says on wikipedia that the show has been renewed for a second season. How many episodes are going to be in season 1?

edited 8th Apr '15 12:43:35 PM by WillKeaton

...How can you have watched two episodes when Episode 2 doesn't air until Saturday?

Also I believe Pod 3 was loaded with the heavy lifting gear that was used to try and stabilise the dish.

edited 8th Apr '15 3:41:37 PM by Deadbeatloser22

Because "Ring of Fire" is actually two episodes, which means episode 3 airs Saturday? They're only half-hour episodes you know.

I used to watch Thunderbirds a bunch as a kid, but I've only seen a couple episodes recently and I don't remember if the Global Defense Force was even a thing in the original series. The leader, or at least the person who will be getting the most screen-time, is Colonel Cassey.

I do like the improvements made to the Hood. I remember several instances in the original series that he would just be trying to take pictures of the insides of state-of-the-art machines, and then he would be subjected to comedy slapstick. The new Hood seems to have evolved past that. Oh, and no more voodoo. Hooray.

edited 8th Apr '15 6:32:40 PM by WillKeaton

Just caught "Space Race". Mainly focused on Alan and John, with Scott making a fleeting cameo and Virgil not showing up at all (was it him that was screaming off-screen?)

While out clearing space debris, Alan sets off an armed orbital nuke that continuously attempts to latch on to various ships and detonate. Alan has to keep it focused on T3 until the kill code can be found and used.

Penelope and Parker breaking into the London archives to acquire the kill code was the light-hearted portion of the story, and it's resolved with, of all things, allowing the administrator (a fan of Penelope) to take photos with her dog!

"Grey Ninja" Parker has pretty phenomenal strength for his age, managing to pry open the doors to a lift.

You thought a series of earthquake machines set along the Pacific Ring of Fire was a threat? That's nothing compared to the evils of BUREAUCRATIC RED TAPE!

I thought the pacing in this episode felt a lot better than that first two-parter. It seemed a bit more methodical and, well, Thunderbirds-like. My memory of the original series is fuzzy, did Thunderbirds 3 always have those arms that came out of the side like that? I also enjoy this new Lady Penelope a lot more than the old one. The old Penelope was so stuffy and snooty. This one actually feels like a human being. And Parker, loved that they gave him a chance to be awesome.

Space sure is crowded in the future. And those ships are HUGE. Way bigger than Thunderbird 3, by a wide wide margin.

edited 11th Apr '15 1:12:12 PM by WillKeaton

Decent episode today. Liked seeing the Mole in action, but...they seemed to know what The Hood's address was because of the Uranium theif's contacts, and instead of intercepting and apprehending him, they...send him chicken wings.

I'm presuming the reason they did'nt do that would be because then the Defense Force would have asked questions about the thief and imprisoned her. Scott was trying to cover for her by not telling the Defense Force how he had met her upon recommending she join with them

edited 18th Apr '15 7:19:07 AM by Zarius

Is the windshield for Thunderbird 1 on the underside of the vehicle? Isn't that a little odd? Speaking of Thunderbird 1, I thought the entire point of launching it vertically was to achieve a sub-orbital path to the destination, because that's the fastest way to get there. Instead it seems to just fly horizontally right after it takes off thus making the vertical launching pointless.

I have to say I am really liking these stand alone episodes much better than that two part opener. The pacing in these is just so much better. I think the problem with the two first two episodes was that they tried to cram too much stuff in and had to rush things as a result.

So if they don't use nuclear materials in the future, what powers everything?

edited 18th Apr '15 1:49:35 PM by WillKeaton

I'm assuming Fusion power.

But fusion power is still Nuclear power.

This week on Thunderbirds, the return of Fireflash, the plane that they rescued in the very first episode of the original series.

Not just that, but if you listen to one of the final scenes, they use some of the classic series music (specifically the score they used for the old pre-credits montage)

I was half-expecting The Hood to actually get away with that device and set up a storyline for later. Shame that did'nt happen.

Did anyone catch what the moral was in that episode? Because I don't think they said it enough times.

On a more seriously note: I think they're overusing the Hood. Thunderbirds is a about rescuing people from dangerous situations and you don't need a villain to be behind most of them. Six episode in and only one of them didn't have the Hood. His contribution in "Crosscut" was small, but it did give what'-her-name a reason for doing what she did, so that was handled well enough, and "Fireflash" was all about the Hood anyway, so that's fine, but this episode could have gotten by without him. And it's not strictly necessary to end all his failed scenes doing this.

Also, a compass would not help you in the middle of an electro-magnetic field. It would just spin about randomly, like it did in the episode. Thing is when it spins around randomly it's completely useless and wouldn't point you to jack shit.

edited 4th May '15 5:07:34 PM by WillKeaton

Well that's more in line with what I was expecting from this show. No Hood, no sinister plot, just a problem for International Rescue to solve. Just as one one disaster is averted another one pops up, just like the old series. I like the Hood, but he doesn't need to be in every episode and the less we see of him the more impact his appearances have. On the downside, as soon as they introduced the notion of an AI things went downhill. Very few shows do the AI thing well and this one seemed to have no motivation at all, it just did whatever the plot needed and was defeated in the most arbitrary manner possible.

It's nice to have a recurring villain who isn't the Hood, and this episode handled her much better than the last one. And the moment where the guys realized John was an imposter was great. While it's nice that the writers have found way's to give Allen and especially John more to do, it's not without cost, as we haven't seen Thunderbird 4 since the pilot and Kayo's ship has yet to feature into the plot even minutely.

Does Alan always sleep on the floor? In his clothes? The episode gets points for knowing that decelerating in space requires effort, but this was a terrible case of Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale. Ignoring the time it would take to do everything they did in this episode that asteroid wasn't big enough to have the gravity that they showed it having. At least when they did show it having gravity. Sometimes the people were weightless, while other times they seemed to be on Earth. And they pull the old trope of running out of fuel in space. Which isn't really a thing, at least not how it was portrayed here. At this point I think Alan has had the most screentime by a wise margin, but poor Gordon is barely in the show at all.

edited 25th May '15 3:12:17 PM by WillKeaton

You know, multiple posts like this are frowned upon around here. If you want to discuss something wait till someone else posts or PM someone who you know likes the show to post here.

I don't know if its really that bad to post once a week, I thought it was multiple posts in row that were frowned upon

Anyhoo, I do it find kinda funny how even though its CGI show they seem to imitate puppet show look at scenery and stuff to the point I'm not sure if scenery is cgi or not at times xD

When I saw that the title was "Tunnels of Time" I was afraid we might get a time travel episode, which would be completely at odds with the mostly grounded plots Thunderbirds has always had. Glad I was wrong. And hey! An episode with Gordon as the main character! Who'd have imagined? No sign of Thunderbird 4, but I'll take what I can get.