The most traumatic Thunderbirds episode yet.
The One With… the building on fire.The Thompson Tower, a magnificent engineering accomplishment, has been opened to the public. Unfortunately, this includes a truly manic lady driver, who crashes her car in the underground car park. Since everything in the Thunderbirds universe is Made of Explodium, the tower catches fire with disturbing rapidity. Evacuation plans and the local fire department are able to rescue the majority, but three people are stuck below ground, somewhere in the network of tunnels, trapped behind automatic fire doors.
Bringing their pet Drill Tank the Mole and the fireproof bulldozer Firefly, International Rescue turn up and try to cut through to the trapped family, using a new cutting gas that Brains has developed. It's an awful risk, as the experimental cutting gear they're using has caused unconsciousness in operators in all previous tests!
Tropes featured:
- Arcology: This is the idea behind the Thompson Tower, being an entire city contained in one massive skyscraper. An Informed Attribute as we only get to see the exterior, the car park, and the basement before the entire thing is destroyed in a fire.
- Awesome, but Impractical: The fact that it burnt down on its first day aside, the downside of putting a whole city in one skyscraper is pointed out by the family that ends up trapped in the basement, who can't figure out from the map how to get from the labyrinthine car park to the city itself.
- Casual Car Giveaway: One of the guys overseeing the rescue gives Scott a car when he has to go to Thunderbird 2 to pick up the Mole. Downplayed in that he was just offering Scott to borrow the car; he didn't intend for Scott to keep it.
- Chekhov's Gun: At the beginning of the episode, International Rescue are testing a new cutting gas. The end stage of the rescue requires them to use said gas to cut through the fire doors quickly enough.
- Contrived Coincidence: The sprinkler and vent-closing systems both fail when either one would have ended this disaster before it started. And the controller checks and seals a corridor just as the only people who don't know they need to evacuate step into a room outside the camera's field of vision.
- Conveniently Empty Building: Thomson Tower's fire suppression systems may be a total failure, but its evacuation procedures must be second to none. The building is completely engulfed in flames within minutes, yet not a soul remains in the mile-high skyscraper.
- Drives Like Crazy: the woman driver who causes the inferno. Her husband's backseat driving doesn't exactly help matters.
- Failsafe Failure: The automatic sprinklers and vent shaft seal both fail to work, letting the fire spread from the car park to the Tower.
- Godzilla Threshold: IR is forced to use the cutting gear fueled by Brain's new gas if they want to reach the trapped family in time, though during a test on Tracy Island, the gas caused Scott and Virgil to pass out.
- Idiot Houdini: The woman driver who causes the inferno never gets her just desserts for her stupidity; in fact, she's seen out driving again at the end of the episode with absolutely no improvement in her driving whatsoever.
- Karma Houdini: The reckless driver who sets off the disaster, resulting in the complete destruction of a skyscraper shopping complex and thousands of parked vehicles, which must run into the billions of dollars of damages, is seen again at the end of the episode. Not only is she free and apparently not held liable for the disaster, but she has a brand new car of the same make as the one she crashed, is completely uninjured, and driving as recklessly as ever.
- Made of Explodium: The Thompson Tower doesn't so much catch fire as explode repeatedly until it collapses.
- No OSHA Compliance: A small car fire in the parking basement spreads so rapidly through the tower that the entire structure has collapsed before the day is out. Thank heaven it was the opening day so all 350 floors were mostly deserted and it can be quickly evacuated.
- Safe Driving Aesop: Tied with Space Whale Aesop, Drive safely or you might end up causing a fire that'll trap an innocent family.
- Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: The fire apparatus shown in the episode in real life would be woefully inadequate to deal with the fire alone. High-rise structure fires require teams of firefighters inside the building as well as outside to battle the blaze and ensure the building is clear. In-episode the tower is listed as 350-stories tall, 240-stories more than World Trade Center 1 and 2 in New York, and took practically all of the FDNY to battle on 9/11.
- Tempting Fate: John sits in Thunderbird 5 happy about seeing his family again, only having 2 hours to go before 3-month shift ends. Cue the emergency call from Thompson Tower coming through.John: Uh-oh! I spoke too soon!
