10 Times Thunderbirds Was Way Too Dark For Kids TV
Genuine terror, no strings attached
To many of a certain age, sitting down in front of the TV to enjoy a glorified puppet show was a definite highlight of the week. Not the Barclays Premier League, but Thunderbirds, the vision of a utopian (if disaster filled) future from Gerry Anderson which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
Those of you who aren’t immediately giddy at the thought of talking Thunderbirds be sneering at the visible strings and that jaunty wee walk that they all did. If you're doing that, you're wrong.
Who doesn't get excited at the memory of Thunderbird 2 slowly unveiling one of its many pods full of exactly the right equipment, and get a rush of excitement every time the swimming pool on Tracy Island rolled back to allow Thunderbird 1 to take off?
Perhaps the best thing about Thunderbirds was the way that it brought families together. From its original 1965 run and repeats in the 90s and 00s, Thunderbirds has seen kids sit down to enjoy the show with parents knowing that both will enjoy it.
Since 2004’s disastrous big screen reboot at the hands of Commander Riker from Star Trek: The Next Generation, 2015 has seen Thunderbirds remade for a new generation with some added flair and more than a passing nod to the source material. It’s nice and all, but there’s definitely something missing.
The darkness.
By today’s standards, Thunderbirds was way too dark for kids TV. Let’s take a look at some of the moments that almost certainly have appeared on a kid's show.
10. Buried Alive And Tortured
With his stammer and jittery hand movements, Brains is one of the most well loved Thunderbirds characters. This boffin created the Thunderbird craft and if it wasn’t for him, the Tracy brothers would be gadgetless and pretty useless.
In the episode 'Desperate Intruder', everyone’s favourite one-man NASA and his assistant Tin-Tin head off on a treasure hunt in the Anara Desert. Little do they know they’ve been followed by the nefarious Hood, who quite fancies the treasure himself.
He leaves Brains buried up to his neck in sand, even refusing him water at one point. As plots go this would be fairly sinister for most television shows but the fact that the viewer is able to watch as Brains becomes more and more dehydrated to the point where his lips are chapped, his eyes are sunken and he's on the brink of death is cruel to the point where you question the writer's sanity.