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| TV,
Jerry Carpenter,
20 January 1999 |
Rating: F4
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F.A.B. With so many mupperty plastic-faced generic presenters on TV these days, I’d be pretty surprised if anyone noticed they’d bought Thunderbirds back at all. Except of course that the Tracey boys don’t spend their TV time interviewing pop stars or demonstrating snowboarding tips, they’re too busy driving around saving commercial transport enterprises. Like you’d ever see Jamie Theakston raising a sunken hi-speed passenger train from a watery grave.
Gerry Anderson’s puppet disaster busting show has been dug up again for some more easy nostagia-magnet ratings. Now I remember really liking it when I was a kiddie, because it all tied in so nicely with those fantastic die-cast metal toys, and because every show had some cool new toy in it. Fast forwarding ten years later, when they showed it again, I didn’t like it so much, because a whole hour felt like too long for the relatively simple salvage operation to play out in. Now, because I’m so damn fickle, I’m finding it fun again – I must just be going through a puppet love phase.
The Tracey’s are the original Baldwin brothers you know, each with his own special facial tics and each dull in the most enjoyable way. For all the traditionally fun moments where they’re zipping around in Thunderbirds 1-6, there’s equally big laughs in the lameo bits where they’re lounging round Tracey island, cracking dumb gags, eyeing up Tin-tin the servant girl and mixing cocktails. These bits would be fun even if they hadn’t done it with puppets.
Then there’s Lady P and Parker, who get to do the more glamorous spy stuff, and zip around in that amazing pink roller. Our posh bird Penelope is still one of the classiest girls to ever grace the crystal set, and still a shining role model for your young girls everywhere. Just as Brains is for boys. Good grief, Brains ! – now whether or not he made stuttering more acccepted in society is a moot point, the most important thing is that, HE BUILT THUNDERBIRD 2 ! – that instantly puts him up for a Nobel prize in my opinion. Anyhow, along with ‘StarFleet’ (will they bring that back ever?!) the best marionette melodrama on TV. I think that’s a recommendation.
BBC2 Sun 5.25
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