Thunderbirds Thursday: The Perfect Thunderbirds Trilogy

Many classic Gerry Anderson series are entrapped by the irony of being saddled with varying ways of viewing each series thanks to clashing production orders, broadcast orders and recommended viewing orders, despite only lasting for a single series. Your enjoyment of any given Anderson series may depend on which order you view the series' episodes. However, when approaching Thunderbirds, I'd like to argue the case for viewing Trapped in the Sky, Sun Probe, and The Mighty Atom (and in that specific order) gives you the perfect introductory experience of Thunderbirds.

This Thunderbirds Thursday, we're examining why these three episodes neatly give you the very best Thunderbirds has to offer!

Nuclear terror and solar danger

If you're new to Thunderbirds, then these three select episodes do a brilliant job of providing you with a comprehensive overview of the scale of imaginative disaster and heroic adventure that Thunderbirds boasts. Trapped in the Sky, Sun Probe and The Mighty Atom constitute the first, fourth, and sixth episodes from early on in the series in most recommended viewing and broadcast orders. Embracing these early episodes results in bypassing Pit of Peril, City of Fire and The Uninvited. Despite those other episodes being highly regarded by fans, you're not losing too much in terms of informing yourself with an introductory experience to the series.

Between Trapped in the Sky, Sun Probe and The Mighty Atom, many crucial elements of Thunderbirds blast off into action. All five main Thunderbird vehicles are introduced, as well as a handful of impressive pod vehicles, offering a range of International Rescue's capabilities. The thematic scope of the series is covered in detail, too, from futuristic airports and atomic irrigation plants to desolate yet savage arctic mountains and even the deadly depths of space. From the international to the intergalactic, these episodes blend nuclear terror and solar danger that capture the impressively far-reaching narrative scale of Thunderbirds.

Successive storytelling

Trapped in the Sky is the irrefutable starting point of any Thunderbirds viewing experience. The series' debut episode is indisputably framed as International Rescue's first mission, and with it, the outfit introducing themselves to the world they've devoted themselves to rescue in times of crisis. Trapped in the Sky depicts Thunderbirds at its most formal, showcasing a rescue operation that remains thrilling in its disarming simplicity, yet is still packed with deadly consequences. Master criminal the Hood's desires to obtain International Rescue's secretive advanced technology sees him bait the ultimate trap. He targets the atomic passenger jet, the Fireflash, strapping a bomb to its undercarriage. Unable to land for risk of detonation, the plane remains literally trapped in the sky, with the passengers and crew at fatal risk of an emergency landing or radiation exposure from the craft's atomic motors.

Blending futuristic rescue adventure with a dash of spy-fi arms race mentality, Trapped in the Sky remains a firm favourite for obvious reasons. The episode sets a high standard for the engrossing technology-driven dangers that escalate all too quickly in the world of Thunderbirds, and why International Rescue is often the only means of saving the day. After some immediate tensions experienced when Scott Tracy lands Thunderbird 1 at London International Airport, his rapid takeover of running the rescue operation and subsequent trustworthiness gained once he and Virgil save the Fireflash feels so satisfyingly natural and well-earned. From unknown outsiders to valued heroes, International Rescue enjoys a successful debut mission in Trapped in the Sky.

Sun Probe fits neatly in the middle as the most ambitious in terms of spectacle of disaster. International Rescue's attempts to rescue the Sun Probe from colliding with the sun results in the crew of Thunderbird 3 itself at risk of suffering the same fate. Only Virgil and Brains, situated in the snow-covered region of Mount Arkan, have any hope of saving TB3, but encounter their own troubles in performing a successful rescue. The harrowing fate that awaits both the crew of the Sun Probe and Thunderbird 3 is a grim leap forward from the contained threat seen in the previous episode. In addition, the creative blend of Thunderbirds 2 and 3 and the subsequent visual mix of locations enlivens the series' set-up after the comparatively traditional danger zone of Trapped in the Sky.

Sun Probe evolves the sense of formulaic jeopardy established by Trapped in the Sky by demonstrating that International Rescue isn't infallible to mistakes or disaster. Despite rescuing the Sun Probe from collision course with the sun, it's Thunderbird 3 who winds up nearly suffering the same fate. Virgil and Brains' own efforts to rescue the Thunderbird 3 crew are hampered by the discovery that they've accidentally brought Brains' robotic companion Braman instead of the mobile computer that would have provided invaluable technical aid in dragging TB3 from its cosmic path of destruction. We're therefore shown that International Rescue is susceptible to their efforts going awry, from unpreventable cosmic disaster to simple human error.

With the solar-flavoured premise of Sun Probe not needing any external villainy, the Hood's involvement in Trapped in the Sky and The Mighty Atom acts as a satisfying bookending of this combined viewing experience. The Mighty Atom brings things back down to Earth with an eerie, isolated desert setting, the risks of atomic fallout also echoing the threat in Trapped in the Sky. Scorching desert landscapes make for a nice thematic link with the barren depths of space, aided further by Thunderbird 3's brief appearance in an episode otherwise known for its introduction of International Rescue's underwater scout craft. The Hood attempts to lure International Rescue back out to a freshly concocted disastrous scenario of his own making by threatening to destroy an atomic irrigation plant, the contaminating fallout of which would be gargantuan. Following on from his efforts in Trapped in the Sky, viewing The Mighty Atom in such close proximity to the series' debut episode gives us a compelling leap in characterisation as we see the depths the Hood will go to in order to expose I.R. for his own desires.

There are some awkward drawbacks to embracing this combination of episodes, admittedly. Despite a confident introduction in Trapped in the Sky, The Mighty Atom doesn't showcase Lady Penelope in the most positive of lights. Despite her hysterical reaction to the robotic spy mouse itself adding some comical levity to an episode otherwise centred in horrific nuclear fallout, it's one of the series' moments that hasn't aged well in showcasing Penelope as a supposedly unshakable action heroine. Elsewhere, The Mighty Atom perhaps isn't the strongest episode to showcase Thunderbird 4. Day of Disaster or Atlantic Inferno may be better contenders compared to how minimal Thunderbird 4's presence here feels. Nevertheless, the climactic rescue in The Mighty Atom sees Tracy brothers and Thunderbird machines working in tandem to cut off the atomic plant's seawater intake, a carefully coordinated operation that rounds off this trio of interconnected adventures on one of I.R.'s tensest rescues.

The perfect trilogy

From radioactive threats to espionage rodents, Trapped in the Sky, Sun Probe and The Mighty Atom make for a compelling combination of successive events that showcase the best elements of Thunderbirds. Further episodes would continue to play with the series' format, but the formative nature of these three key episodes, each of them focused around introducing each of the five Thunderbird machines, enables them to be greatly enjoyed as a cohesive beginning set of adventures.

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