In Review: Thunderbirds Are Go – Up From The Depths (Part One)

Synopsis: (Part One) A survey vehicle stalls at the bottom of the Marinas Trench, just as it discovers an old plane once flown by Jeff Tracy.

Review: This episode pays both homage to the classic comic book strips of ‘Thunderbirds’ as well as the in-built past of this incarnation of International Rescue.  The prototype ship that was flown by Jeff Tracy is called TV-21 and as anyone of a certain age will tell you. TV-21 was a weekly kids magazine, which featured comic strips of popular television of the 60’s and 70’s and as such featured many of the Gerry Anderson shows, which included ‘Thunderbirds’. 

TV-21 Magazine Featuring Thunderbirds.

In the episode TV-21 was the prototype for what would become Thunderbird 1, but it was sabotaged by The Hood, which forced Jeff Tracy to ditch in the Marinas Trench.

Of course since the craft went missing the Hood has been trying to find it and has enlisted the Mechanic to help him find and retrieve it. The two have funded a scientific Survey of the unexplored Marinas Trench in order to find TV-21, but when the Survey team runs into trouble. The Thunderbirds are called in.

During the attempt to both Rescue the survey mission and retrieve TV-21 Thunderbird 4 is destroyed and Gordon has little choice but to evacuate and use a newly developed high pressure diving suit, which Brains has packed for him. Luckily the suit is well stocked with some nifty tools, which allows him to stall the Mechanic’s efforts to steal TV-21.

The big moment though is when Gordon pilots TV-21 to the surface with the Mechanics disabled vessel and the survey team. Unfortunately for him The Mechanic has managed to hack into the communications going back and forth between Lady Penelope, Gordon and Thunderbird Island. So he has heard everything they have said.

The episode ends on an epic moment as the Mechanic pulls away with TV-21 and the folk at Tracy Island vowing to get it back and bring him to justice.

As a casual fan of the classic series of Thunderbirds. I loved that this episode did such a good job of paying homage to its roots in such a respectful way, but I also really enjoyed the build up and the fact that the stakes were so high that the writers were willing to destroy Thunderbird 4.

I can’t wait to see how this will all conclude in next weeks episode.