10 Times Thunderbirds Was Way Too Dark For Kids TV

Aristocrat Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward is International Rescue’s London Agent and injects a bit of mid-1960s British cool into an otherwise very American TV show. It’s worth noting that despite Thunderbirds being entirely produced in the UK, it was pitched heavily at the lucrative US syndication market, meaning that British characters were often just entrants in the Upper Class Twit of the Year Show.

The Tracys didn’t have a personality to share between them and coupled with the fact that she was a bad-ass secret agent, it’s not hard to see why Lady Penelope and her trusty butler (and former safecracker) Parker went on to become the most popular characters in Thunderbirds.

In an episode hoping to cash in on Bondmania (Thunderball was due to come out), Lady Penelope was kidnapped and told she would be blown up along with her boat. So far, so Thunderbirds.

However, the idea of killing one of the most beloved characters on kids TV purely as a distraction to keep the Coastguard busy long enough for a criminal gang to escape to the open sea is one of the most subversive storylines in the show. It showed that even important people could be snuffed out like a candle with very little apparent motive. A pretty traumatic realisation.