Thunderbirds - Set 2

Studio: A&e Home Video Release Date: 02/27/2001 Run time: 312 minutes Rating: Nr

Created by Gerry Anderson (Space: 1999), this '60s-vintage British series remains a one-of-a-kind. With its "Super-Marionation"-animated characters (their strings endearingly in plain sight) and way-cool supersonic vehicles and space-age gadgets, each hour-long episode plays like a mini-James Bond film. This boxed set contains six fab episodes that chronicle the further futuristic adventures of International Rescue, led by former astronaut Jeff Tracey and manned by his five sons, who pilot the five Thunderbirds aircraft. They are aided on the ground by the glamorous and unflappable Lady Penelope, who is squired around in a pink Rolls Royce by her devoted chauffeur, Parker ("Yes, milady"). PC alert: Lady Penelope smokes and drinks! Perhaps her finest hour is "The Perils of Penelope," in which she searches for a missing scientist who has converted seawater into rocket fuel. With each attempt on her life, she is the epitome of grace under pressure, while her more flustered companion, Sir Jeremy, is more apt to yell, "Open this door. We're British." The squad is also heading for trouble ("and I mean trouble") in "Vault of Death," "Operation: Crash-Dive," "Move and You're Dead," "Martian Invasion," and "Brink of Disaster." Adults who formed their own Thunderbirds squadron on the playgrounds of America in the '60s and '70s should be thrilled with these newly digitally remastered episodes. Yet this is not some Baby Boomer nostalgia trip. The Pokémon crowd will probably watch with rapt fascination and dig these adventures once and again. --Donald Liebenson