The series is prone to it due to Tracy Island's continued secrecy and International Rescue's policy of not even allowing their aircraft to be photographed. The 2004 movie basically had to throw the latter idea out because in an era of mobile phone cameras it simply wouldn't be workable.
On the subject of things requiring too much suspension of disbelief in 2004, did the movie address the matter of how International Rescue managed to operate in total secrecy without any of their craft ever being detected on launch, or indeed simply being tracked on the way back home?
Jeff mentions an anti-detection system that Alan forgot to turn on when he and Fermat nearly activated Thunderbird One, so that probably accounts for that.
Why does the guy up in Thunderbird 5 have a Jersey Shore-like tan? All that un-filtered sunlight!
In "Thunderbirds Are Go", what would have happened to the Hood had he not caught his foot in the Zero X's elevator control. He surely would have had to remain in the craft, since it looked like it was nearing the Earth's atmosphere at that point. I'm not sure he would survive a parachute jump from that height.
The original series episode The Impostors shows the downside of International Rescue's 'no photos' policy. Because the public hadn't seen any photos of Thunderbird 2, the villains were able to pass off their replica as it. Had photos of the Thunderbirds been published, the impostors would have been spotted right away.
Incidentally, I never really understood the 'no photos' policy. How much technical information can someone get from a photo?
It's probably a blanket "zero-tolerance" policy to ensure that nobody can get anything from photos.
Fridge Horror
From the 2004 film: Hooray, the Hood is going to be locked up! Except that there's no mention of Power Inhibitors, meaning that unless he's going to be constantly sedated or in some other way kept from using his abilities, he can always just break out again whenever he wants. Hopefully, the Traceys will come up with some way of containing him.
As Alan notes, using his power makes him weak. He could escape, but he’d probably be exhausted and not get very far.
