THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO.
The One With… the plane that can't land. And also the Thunderbirds' first mission.
The nuclear-powered hypersonic jetliner Fireflash has been sabotaged by the villainous Hood. Trapped aboard are hundreds of passengers, including Tin-Tin Kyrano, a member of a new organisation, International Rescue. With just hours before their radiation shields fail and the passengers and crew die of radiation poisoning, the fledgling organisation must race to London Airport in their Thunderbirds and find a way for Fireflash to land without detonating the bomb.
Unbeknownst to International Rescue, the Hood planted the bomb with the intention of drawing them out, in order to take pictures of the Thunderbird craft. While he succeeds in taking the pictures, International Rescue's London agent, Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward and her chauffeur Parker, are able to intercept and destroy his car (and the film, at the same time) with their heavily-armed and bright pink Rolls-Royce.
Thundertropes Are Go!:
- Anonymous Public Phone Call: The Hood uses a public call box to inform the airport control tower that a bomb has been planted in the landing gear of the Fireflash aircraft. He wears a mask to disguise his face while he makes this call.
- Artistic License – Geography: Mostly averted, with the bland name "London Airport" actually being accurate, since this was actually the name of Heathrow Airport back in the day. The dispatcher stating that the villain (the Hood) was now driving up the M1 towards Birmingham is a slight error — though that motorway does head towards that city, you have to turn off onto the M6 before people would suspect you'd be heading that way for sure. He's also said to be heading in Lady Penelope's direction, although other behind the scenes literature claims that her stately home is in Kent (i.e., on the other side of London).
- Astronomic Zoom: A shot of the Earth as seen from Thunderbird 5 zooms in on England until we reach Fireflash's tail fin.
- Atom Punk: The dangers of nuclear power on Fireflash are recognised, but everyone seems to consider it an acceptable risk under normal circumstances.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Fireflash is an incredible piece of machinery even by modern standards, capable of transporting up to 600 passengers at a speed of Mach 6. However, a form of transportation that can potentially poison passengers via nuclear radiation if the shielding is not serviced every few hours — to say nothing of what would happen if the plane should crash or be targeted in a terrorist attack — would never be approved for public use.
- Battle Butler: Parker guns down the Hood whilst driving FAB 1.
- Beige Prose: While out on their first ever rescue, Scott adopts a very militaristic style of communicating, dropping all unnecessary words from his sentences. Thankfully, he uses much more natural speech in all future episodes.
- Bus Full of Innocents: The Hood has mounted a bomb on the landing gear of the Fireflash airliner, knowing that International Rescue will come and save its occupants.
- Climactic Music: The sequence of Fireflash finally landing safely is accompanied by a score so tense and yet bombastic that it was used in every episode's introductory montage.
- Coming in Hot: An interesting example as Fireflash makes a completely controlled landing approach with functioning landing gear... which it cannot use due to the bomb in its undercarriage.
- Contrived Coincidence: Downplayed example. Tin-Tin (a member of International Rescue) just happens to be on the plane that the Hood (her uncle) sets a bomb on. Nothing comes of it, though, as once Tin-Tin's presence on the plane is established she is not even mentioned again.
- Cool Plane: Fireflash, as described on the main page.
- The TX-204 target carrying aircraft is an interesting design and plays a key role in the initial (and almost successful) rescue attempt.
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Virgil ends the episode with an adaptation of the theme on his piano.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: There's plenty of it, though not necessarily to the episode's detriment:
- The arrangement to the opening theme is slightly different.
- This is the only episode where audio accompanies the preview clips.
- The Hood's clothes are different, being dressed more casually while in his hideout than in later episodes.
- Alan's voice sounds completely different in his one line of dialogue from how it would sound for the rest of the series. This is because it is spoken by Ray Barrett as Matt Zimmerman had yet to be cast.
- International Rescue is portrayed as being more militaristic and formal than in future episodes.
- Lady Penelope's voice is a bit more hushed.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: The Hood's psionic powers are introduced through these.
- Hollywood Skydiving: When Lieutenant Meddings falls out of the Fireflash at less than 6,000 feet, he has time to activate his reserve parachute and land safely.
- Incredibly Obvious Bomb: The bomb was meant to be out of sight, buried in the wing, but still sufficiently obvious to be instantly detectable by the control tower's x-ray camera.
- Million to One Chance: The odds everyone describes an officer's daring plan to board the Fireflash in midair to remove the bomb. As such, no one is particularly confident in it, and indeed it doesn't work.
- Mission Control: Scott takes on this role upon arrival at London Tower, relaying information to Virgil on the runway.
- The Mole: The first instance of the unwilling Kyrano filling this position.
- Police Are Useless: Against the Hood yes who would have gotten away with his snaps if not for FAB 1 blasting him off the road after the Police lost him. Notably averted with the London airport authorities who are shown as highly competent and doing everything possible to deal with the situation, they just lack the equipment to be successful.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: When Virgil says "Mobile Control", David Holliday's natural British accent slips in, but he immediately corrects it when he says "F.A.B."
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The chief flight controller who listens to other peoples ideas and tries everything to save Fireflash (even if they seem ridiculous) and when a mysterious organization shows up out of the blue to help is quickly talked into at least letting them try and does everything he can to co-operate with IR. He also quite sensibly prioritizes the Fireflash passengers over mere property and tells the airport fire brigade to let the unattended aircraft burn so they're not out of position when Fireflash touches down.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Elevator Car No. 3 spirals out of control and crashes into a parked airliner which instantly bursts into flames.
- The Tag: In the last scene, the doctor visits Tracy Island, and says he wishes he knew who International Rescue are, because he would like to shake them by the hand. Jeff then shakes the doctor's hand, and after the doctor leaves, turns to the others, and says that they're now in business. Virgil then plays a few bars of the theme music on the piano.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We see Tin-Tin board the Fireflash, her figuring out that something is wrong, and Jeff's reaction to finding out she is on the plane that needs rescuing. She then disappears for the rest of the episode before being seen safe and sound on Tracy Island just before the credits roll.
- X-Ray Vision: London Tower has a huge x-ray camera, apparently for confirming bomb threats. It's sufficiently advanced to get a nice, big, high-resolution shot, even though Fireflash is supposedly traveling at hundreds of miles per hour.
