The last disc of Thunderbirds has the last 5 episodes of the series. Yay, nearly done. Only the two movies to watch after that. I'm still not sure if I want to start in on the new version of the show.
Path of Destruction 10-9-66
Holy cow, the International Rescue team has to come to the aid of a runaway tree cutting machine called the Crablogger. That's it above. It's huge, atomic powered and like most everything in that 2065 universe completely without any safety features. The men driving the Crablogger get sick from the local food and have passed out, leaving the Crablogger to run on unchecked. The Crablogger has a control base, a smaller vehicle, which has a crew that can't shut down the machine remotely. That begs the question, Why NOT? The only solution is to go to the designer of the machine and shut it down that way. Lady Penelope has to get that info and she gets his address. While driving to his house she stops to check out the victim of a car crash, wasting time. All this time the logger gets closer and closer to get to a dam. The Crablogger's reactor will blow when it crashes and the dam will break and the villages in the valley will be washed away with huge loss of life. It's all ticking time bomb to the end and unfortunately the stories use too many cliff hangers for my liking. Here's another annoying thing. The Crablogger cuts down trees and process the wood into pulp which is then loaded into barrels. Barrels, completely impractical. You'd spend a fortune on metal and lose space shipping them, over bulk containers. It's like the creators of the show have no actual idea on how things work so there's no way they can extrapolate what the future might bring. Making vehicles bulky seems their own design criterion. Oh, well, only 4 more to go.
Alias Mr Hackenbacker 10-16-66
Check out the Skythrust, that's it above, look how bulky it is. Brains is the Mr Hackenbacker of the title, he's designed some new experimental features on the Skythrust. Some thieves try to steal the plane to get a revolutionary new fancy fabric from a famous French designer. Lady Penelope has arranged to have his fashion show, debuting the new fabric, on the Skythrust. The French designer doesn't know what bugging is when it comes to hidden microphones. He's been made an idiot by poor script writing. Sixty percent of the show passes by before the criminals take over the plane. Luckily Lady Penelope is on the plane and she can let International Rescue know there's a problem. It's all pretty dull for the most part. It gets a bit more exciting right at the last few minutes when the plane has to make a landing without landing gear.
Lord Parker's 'Oliday 10-23-66
Lady Penelope and Parker are on holiday at the Italian resort village of Monte Bianco. Lady P and Parker go to a fancy dress ball at the resort hotel and Parker eats spaghetti for the first time. I guess he's used to fish n chips. A big storm comes up in the night and lightning destroys the solar tower. That's it above. It's brand new, the reflector aims the sun at an energy making device and that will power the town. When the dish breaks off the tower the reflector is aimed at the town and once day comes the sunlight will be concentrated enough that it will burn everything in it's path. International Rescue comes at Lady Penelope's request. The IR team decides to try to tip the reflector up so it's pointing at the sky. They are going to use a magnet on a cable to pull it. They seem to pick the most useless ideas for the job when all they needed to do was give the dish a nudge to tip it over so it points into the earth. An amazing poorly thought out bit of writing. Turns out that the world of 2065 doesn't know much of anything about BINGO. What a hellish future they imagine.
Ricochet 11-6-66
A pirate radio station, broadcasting from a manned satellite, is damaged when an out of control rocket is exploded near by. That's the rocket there above. The station is heading for the Earth's surface and it's splash down point is a Middle Eastern oil refinery. Sounds like a job for International Rescue. Honey Crunch Crispies is the station's sponsor. I guess space travel is cheap enough in the future to have a satellite radio station. How do they get up there? I guess I shouldn't ask those sort of questions, huh.
When the episode was being made in 1966 there were actual pirate radio stations operating off the coast of England. They played music that the BBC wouldn't play much of or at all. It's an interesting period in music that you can read more about if you want. I knew a guy in Winnipeg who was part of a group that had their own pirate radio station. It was in a van and they would drive around the city playing all sorts of interesting music. Another Winnipegger named Howard Hicks was actually involved with the British pirate radio. He was a DJ on the first station, Radio Caroline, back in 1965. The audience grew to enormous size and music companies paid to have their music put on that station. The BBC had the government shut the stations down and a month later they started their own rock station.
Give Or Take A Million 12-23-66
Crooks and Christmas is the theme of the last episode. A department store is going to use a rocket, launched from it's roof, to send toys to a children's hospital. Some crooks break into the bank next door to the department store and use the rocket to hide out when the alarms are accidentally tripped. On Tracy island a kid has come to visit the island. In a flashback Jeff Tracy tells how he got there. The kid knows him as Mr Tracy and I thought they were so security conscience. Oh, well, the poor writing lasted through the whole series. At least they were consistent in their inconsistency.
Well, that's the Thunderbirds done. Not sure if I'll ever bother with them again so it seems a waste to have bought the discs. It's too bad I can't just be happy with all the vehicle action but not all of it is that great. It's also my fault for liking a story more than the images. I can forgive poor effects or images if the story is good more than I can forgive a bad story with good effects.
Comments