Recap / Thunderbirds S 1 E 6 Day Of Disaster

That poor rocket.

The One With… the rocket under water.

The Martian Space Probe rocket, fully fuelled and loaded, is being transported to a launch site in Great Britain (It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context); on the way, it must traverse the Allington suspension Bridge. The two astronauts are also inside, making final in-cabin checks. Alas, despite being within the tolerances of the bridge, the sheer concentrated mass of the rocket causes a catastrophic failure in part of the bridge and the rocket plunges into the water below. While substantially undamaged by the fall, the automatic countdown clock is activated. In a few hours, the rocket will launch and the astronauts will be killed!

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• Abandoned Area: Lady Penelope has Parker blow up a few buildings in an Abandoned Warehouse district to draw away the crowds at the collapsed bridge. This allows Brains to sneak into the Danger Zone unnoticed.
• A Day in the Limelight: The episode centers mostly on Brains.
• Artistic License – Physics: It doesn't matter what the position of Mars is, it will never be more efficient to launch a mission to any planet from the UK than from just about anywhere in the United States...
• Awesome, but Impractical: ...But even if we go with the premise of the episode and say that the UK is in a preferential position, it has no launch infrastructure of its own, so absolutely everything needed to launch a Mars mission has to transported along with the rocket.
• Big Storm Episode: The opening scenes make it seem like we're in for one of these, but then becomes an Averted Trope when the skies clear and the bridge turns out to have suffered no measurable structural damage.
• Bowdlerise: In latter-day airings (at least on The BBC) when Brains dances for joy following the successful rescue of the rocket, the line "You... er... don't suppose he escaped from somewhere, do you?" (said by one supervisor to another) is cut out.
• Brits Love Tea: During teatime, Brains is so distracted by the televised footage of the rocket's journey that Lady Penelope has to switch off the TV.
  Lady Penelope: I feel I would be failing in my duties as hostess if I didn't tell you that, in my home, everything stops for tea.
• Cassandra Truth: Brains keeps telling the bridge supervisors their rescue attempts using antiquated equipment will fail. They don't listen.
• Cloudcuckoolander: What the bridge supervisors mistake Brains for, when they see him talking into his watch. Since he's contacting International Rescue, he's actually the Only Sane Man.
  • The Cloudcuckoolander Was Right
• Contrived Coincidence: As listed on the main page, this episode is possibly the crowning example of the trope. It takes a lot of coincidences to set up the situation which Gordon summarises so succinctly in Security Hazard
  Gordon: "Who would have thought at the time that an underwater craft would be used to save a Martian probe rocket?"
• Cool, but Inefficient: The Mars rocket's sweet design puts it firmly in the Cool Spaceship category, and those loving shots of it passing through the streets of England are rightly admired. One can't help but wonder, however, if it would have been easier to just construct a slightly bigger or more powerful rocket and launch from Cape Canaveral than to design and build this enormous, complex, self-contained transport-and-launch vehicle to launch from the UK.
  • The capsule is far too small and simple for a trip to Mars. The voyage there alone will take at least 3 months, so the astronauts will have quite the cabin fever by the end of the mission. And when they do get there, what then? If they landed, they would need another rocket to get home again (of smaller size due to Mars's weaker gravity, but still), so there's nothing to do except potter about in Mars orbit for a bit, then go home again... which is another 3 month (minimum) trip. Something of the size and complexity of the Zero-X mission in Thunderbirds Are Go is far more appropriate for a self-contained mission to Mars.
• Dramatic TV Shut-Off: Brains is watching the Martian probe on the television, and Lady Penelope switches it off, saying that in her house, everything stops for tea.
• Freudian Couch: Lady Penelope finds Brains lying on one while a psychiatrist tries to get him to open up about his compulsion to talk to watches.
• Happy Dance: Brains does one when the rescue succeeds.
• Hollywood Psych: Brains ends up on the divan for talking to his watch in public. The psych himself looks like Freud.
• Idiot Ball: Firmly held by the elder supervisor throughout the episode.
• No OSHA Compliance: Installing a 12-hour timer that begins when the rocket is raised upright and cannot be aborted is an insane idea, especially for a manned mission! It is with good reason that launches of rockets can be aborted right up to liftoff, and that manned missions have crew escape options for every stage of countdown and launch.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: The senior supervisor is convinced that standard rescue equipment will suffice, regardless of how many people suggest calling International Rescue.
  • And the minister who pressured him into opening the bridge too early.
• Recycled Soundtrack: The March of the Oysters (theme that plays when the Martian Space Probe is travelling to its destination) is recycled from Stingray, an earlier Supermarionation series.
• Shoe Phone: Brains' watch, obviously. Later on, Penelope's powder compact and teapot.
• The Tag: After the rescue, and the scene where Brains has seen a psychiatrist about talking to watches, the boys are having tea at Lady Penelope's house. Scott answers the teapot phone, and Brains quips that if Scott is going to start talking to teapots, there's a guy he ought to see.
• We Need a Distraction: Penelope and Parker blow up some abandoned factories to distract the crowds observing the rescue attempt.