Q] Why were Thunderbirds episodes meant to be 30 minutes long originally?

A] Trapped in the Sky was filmed to fill a 30 minute time slot (around 25 minutes per episode). But when Gerry Anderson took the completed episode to Lew Grade (the founder of ITC Entertainment), Lew was so impressed with it he told Gerry that it was good enough to be a feature film and demanded that each episode was made to fill an hour time slot (around 48 minutes per episode). Gerry accepted, although it meant that a lot of extra scenes had to be filmed (around 9 half hour episodes had already been completed at that point, and scripts for 10 more were done).

Some versions of Thunderbirds, such as certain American versions, do have each episode cut down to 30 minutes.


Q] Why was the series cancelled so suddenly?

A] Thunderbirds was a huge hit, but was very expensive to make. Lew Grade hoped to find a solution to this problem by selling the rights to broadcast the series in America. He managed to get three networks interested, and hoped to play them off against each other to make more money. But then this backfired, as when one of the networks pulled out, so did the other two. With no earnings from the American market, Lew decided to cancel the series instead and asked Gerry Anderson to come up with a new show. The result would be Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons.

Due to the sudden cancellation, it is possible that there are some unused scripts for more episodes of Thunderbirds out there somewhere.


Q] What year is Thunderbirds supposed to be set in?

A] Either 2026 or 2065. There is a lot of conflicting information about the date, so if you are really interested, I'd recommend reading this.


Q] What is Turbocharged Thunderbirds?

A] A disaster. Someone thought it would be a good idea to take episodes of Thunderbirds, cut them up, add new live action footage and remove John Tracy. And add a new bad guy called the Atrocimator, who was played by Tim Curry. 13 episodes were produced and aired in America in 1995. The reaction from everyone is the same: Turbocharged Thunderbirds is abysmal. Gerry Anderson's reaction to it varies, some say he asked for his name to be removed from the credits, whilst others state it sent him into such a rage after he saw an episode that he demanded that the masters were destroyed.

If you want to check out Turbocharged Thunderbirds -and I'm sure you do -MrJim has the "Martian Invasion" episode up here.


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