As a kid growing up in the 80's I remember watching a show with super-planes and goofy-looking characters with my dad. Of course I was watching reruns of Gerry Anderson's "Thunderbirds".
Gerry Anderson was known for his shows "Supercar," "Fireball XL5" and "Stingray" featuring "Supermarionation" which used marionettes instead of actors. In 1963 he was coming to the end of production on "Stingray" and needed an idea for a new show. While listening to radio reports about a mine disaster in Germany he got the idea for a show about a group of people working as an international rescue organization. Since villains would be after their amazing equipment, the organization was hidden in a secret location on an island in the Pacific ocean. In 1965 "Thunderbirds" premiered and lasted 32 episodes. The show has aired somewhere in the world since it's first episode.
Sure the show can drag on and the dialog is cheesy, but it comes from the wonderful 60's where a 60 min show was almost that long. It's still enjoyable for adults and kids.
Menu Design
The menus on the disc are quite nice and reflect the feel of the show and the look of the artwork on the cases.
This set features the following episodes:
Trapped in the Sky
An atomic supersonic jetliner has been sabotaged by the villainous Hood, who wants to study International Rescue in Action! Can I.R. save hundreds of lives (including Tin Tin, who's aboard the jet!) from nuclear death while also thwarting The Hood's evil schemes?
Pit of Peril
Men's lives and military technology are both on the line when a top secret Army transport vehicle disappears beneath the ground. International Rescue must execute an ingenious but incredibly dangerous operation.
City of Fire
A devastating fire breaks out, trapping a family below a raging inferno. Scott and Virgil must face overwhelming odds - including the unknown side-effects of oxyhydnite gas! - to rescue the family before the entire area explodes!
Sunprobe
A research space ship, thrown off-course, is headed for a fiery collision with the sun! As the temperature climbs, Alan and Scott race to the rescue in the space-faring Thunderbird 3. Will Brains' new technology and the pilots' courage be enough to save the probe?
The Uninvited
Scott has been dispatched in Thunderbird 1 to rescue a pair of archaeologists who've become stranded in the desert. Little does he suspect they've stumbled into the secret pyramid lair of the mysterious and hostile Zombites!
The Mighty Atom
The villainous Hood will stop at nothing to learn the secrets of International Rescue - even if that means destroying a nuclear reactor! however, the Mighty Atom he seeks is actually a miniature automatic spy camera cunningly disguised as a tiny rat!
Video
Okay, I'll admit that I wasn't expecting much from a show that's over 35 years old, so what's on this disc blew me away. Many of the elements in the show are meant to be brightly colored, from the character's uniforms to the Thunderbird ships and background sets. I was expecting washed out colors but was surprised by nice, bright colors. It's obvious that A&E Home Video did a lot of work to the print for this DVD release. Sure there are some dust specs, and the "outdoor" shots show some grain and look a little poorer compared to the "inside" shots, but overall this is a nice picture. A few shots suffer from minor shimmering, but nothing that's too distracting. I also noticed some of the "outdoor" shots in the first episode had an uneven image, but this was only evident in that episode. Most of the show features the marionettes, but every once and awhile they'll insert a human hand because they can't do the shot with a marionette.
Audio
While the video quality was a surprise, the audio was even better. The soundtrack has been completely redone in Dolby Digital 5.1 and it sounds great. There's excellent use of panning between the front speakers and from the front to the rears. The rears feature some nice ambient effects while most of the dialog and music comes from the front 3 speakers. Explosions really rocked! I couldn't believe I was watching a show from the 60's that sounded this good. The announcement made after the takeoff of the plane in the first episode is a great example of the sound remastering done to this show. It also cracked me up when she says, "You may now unfasten your safety belts and smoke if you wish." When was the last time you heard THAT on an airplane?!
I was a little surprised that the Dolby Digital 5.1 track wasn't the default track used for this release.
Rather light on the extras but it's the presentation I was mostly interested in. It would have been great to have a commentary track featuring Gerry Anderson on the first episode.
"Behind the Scenes" (3:25)
A promotional piece filmed for the launch of the show, we see some footage from "Stingray" and they briefly talk about the premise behind "Thunderbirds". The video for this featurette was how I expected the entire show to look; colors washed out and quite a bit of dust and debris. I was also surprised by how large the puppets are.
Photo Galleries
There are 16 photos on the first disc and 15 on the second. Not bad quality, but they're showing their age as the show looks better than these photos do.
Production Credits
Not really an extra, but this is a still with the people responsible for the DVD.
Summary
The "Thunderbirds" is one of those shows that you can enjoy no matter what your age. I don't have much experience with A&E Home Video products, only having reviewed "Best of the Original Avengers", but I can tell you I'm looking forward to reviewing more stuff from them (such as 3 other Thunderbird sets sitting on my shelf). They obviously care about the shows they release and it shows in the product.
I loved seeing Derek Meddings name in the credits as the Special Effects Director. I'm a big fan of the Bond movies and Derek Meddings did special effects work on many of them (5 to be exact).
