Another 6 episodes of the popular '60s show "Thunderbirds" from A&E Home Video. This review will look quite a bit like the review for sets 1 & 2 since A&E has kept the quality of the release the same.
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:
Terror in New York City
An operation to move the Empire State Building has gone terribly wrong. Two journalists are trapped in a subterranean cavern between the collapsed building and the rising waters of an uncharted underground river! With Thunderbird 2 out of action and Virgil injured, can Scott and Gordon reach the journalists before they meet their final deadline?
End of the Road
Eddie Houseman has risked his life to save his construction company. Too close when he fired explosive charges, his tractor now teeters on the edge of a crumbling mountain trail. One of IR's most difficult operations is made more complicated - Eddie knows the Tracy family personally! If he sees his rescuer's faces, the supersecret identity of the Thunderbirds will be blown forever!
Day of Disaster
While being moved to its launch site, a slight miscalculation has dumped the Martian Space Probe Rocket into the Allington River, activating the automatic launch countdown! It's up to Gordon in the Submersible Thunderbird 4, and Brains, in the Suspension Bridge Control Centre, to clear the debris trapping the rocket and free the engineers trapped inside!
Edge of Impact
When the Red Arrow fighter plane crashes into its launch site on its test flight, Colonel Tim Casey is removed from the project and pays an unexpected visit to his close friends on Tracy Island. Now a second Red Arrow has crashed into a television relay tower, and International Rescue must find a way to save the operatives in the tower without exposing their secret to Colonel Casey!
Desperate Intruder
the Hood has learned that Brains and Tin-Tin have joined Professor Blakely on a treasure-hunting expedition, and is determined to steal the treasure! The expedition has not reported in, so Jeff has dispatched Scott, Virgil and Gordon in Thunderbirds 1 and 2 to the scene, where they've all walked into The hood's hypnotic trap!
30 Minutes After Noon
The Erdman gang has found an explosive technique for getting what it wants - and it wants plutonium! International Rescue, working with The British Security Service, has to rescue one of the gang's victims from an elevator inferno, and then race against a time bomb to prevent a massive plutonium theft!
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 the picture to be washed out 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. 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. Excellent audio work!
I was a little surprised that the Dolby Digital 5.1 track wasn't the default track used for this release but I guess they wanted to set the original mix as the default.
Photo Galleries
There are 14 photos on the first disc and 18 photos on the second. The photos feature scenes from each of the episodes contained on these discs.
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. A&E Home Video didn't let anything slide from the first two sets, and I expect the others to be of the same quality. It's nice to see a company spending the time to restore old shows for DVD release.
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 5 of them.
