Thunderbirds disc four has six episodes, most of the others have five. The comic above is by Frank Bellamy and it appeared in TV Century 21 magazine.
Edge Of Impact 10-28-65
A special Red Arrow airplane is being sabotaged by Red Hood. International Rescue has to go save the control tower workers when the Red Arrow crashes into the tower. The problem is that the head of the Red Arrow project is visiting on Tracy island. They'll have to get Tin-tin to take him scuba diving so they can leave without him finding out that the Tracy family is IR.
Desperate Intruder 11-18-65
Brains and Tin-tin are on a sunken treasure hunt which the Red Hood has his eyes on. Quite a bit of underwater stuff going on in this one.
30 Minutes After Noon 11-11-65
Some baddies put a bomb on a guy's wrist. He has to get to a building to get the key to unlock it. Then he's to leave the wrist bracelet and leave the building. The bracelet is a bomb and when it blows it leaves the upper floors on fire. There seems to be little reason to make such a complicated plot device but that's crooks for you. Often they are big ass dopes. The building is also poorly made, none of the fire suppression gear is working. Not much Health and Safety going on in that future. Later in the episode they find the bracelet, not damaged much from the explosion. Who would believe that? Not me, that's for sure. The show is still maintaining their level of poor writing. The criminals attempt to rob a plutonium storage facility that is guarded with robot guards. That's one of the robots up above. The robots can be turned off with radio waves. How useless are they? Pretty much totally. Then the crooks blast the door lock with a pistol and they are into the plutonium. How aren't the criminals running that future?
The Imposters 1-13-66
Someone is pretending to be International Rescue so they can steal some top secret plans. Now the police are after the real IR and they can't get crackin' on a rescue in space. The IR agents get to work and we have a hillbilly agent in the US named Jeremiah. Lady Penelope is in the US and she goes to visit him. We do find out that there are 500 people on IR's payroll but we only see less than a dozen, including Jeremiah. Lady Penelope gets pretty muddy getting to the mine and she comes up short when confronting the baddies. She's a terrible agent and one I wouldn't want working for me. Our hillbilly comes to Lady Penelope's aid with a couple of cans of explosive beans. IR gets cleared by the white house and they rescue the astronaut.
The Man From MI.5 1-20-66
MI.5 agent Bondson was an attempt by Gerry Anderson and company to cash in on the Bond craze sweeping Britain just before the release of Thunderball in December 1965. Some secret papers are stolen and Lady Penelope goes after the guys what did it. Lady Penelope's chauffeur gets the night off and all he can think of is robbing the nearby casino. Lady Penelope gets kidnapped and tied up for a good part of the show. There's a terrible scene where Lady Penelope is trying to move her chair nearer to the compact she uses as a communicator. Tracy can't hear her but she can hear him. At no time does she ever raise her voice. They waste a lot of time on that scene. Lady Penelope doesn't even attempt to get herself out of her ropes. Eventually the IR guys catch the baddies. We do get to see the inside of one of the Thunderbird 2 pods and the launch device for Thunderbird 4.
Cry Wolf 1-27-66
Two boys are playing and they call International Rescue on their walkies-talkies. IR comes calling and explain to the kids that they shouldn't put in false calls. They take the boys to Tracy Island and show them the Thunderbirds set up. The visit gets into the news and The Hood uses the boys to lure IR.
As usual there's a ticking time bomb in most episodes. The model work continues to be good but the scripts continue to punch that work right in the nuts. I like some parts of the stories but on the whole I'm just not that impressed with the series as others are. I did like them more as a kid.
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