City of Fire

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For a detailed overview of this episode, click here.

When the newly constructed Thompson Tower catches fire, International Rescue have to risk it all on an experimental gas.
Original UK broadcast date: January 6th, 1966

Contents
1) Synopsis
2) Notes
3) Errors


Synopsis

News presenter Eddie Kerr and his crew are in a helijet, and film the newly completed Thompson Tower. Thompson Tower is a massive building that's a self-contained city, containing 350 floors and a underground parking lot with enough space for 10,000 cars. Meanwhile, at Tracy Island, Scott and Virgil are testing a new kind of gas Brains has created called oxyhydnite. Whilst the gas initially seems to work, both Scott and Virgil pass out. Whilst they recover, Brains tries to find out what went wrong, and discovers from blood samples that the gas entered through the pores of the skin. Brains says he'll get back to the lab, and get to work on the oxyhydnite again.

The Carter family, consisting of Joe, Blanche and Tommy, head towards Thompson Tower. They come across a bad driver who gets pulled over by the highway patrol. They enter the parking lot and start to head towards the monorail, which will take them to tower itself. Meanwhile, the bad driver is on the road again, but despite her husband's advice, she enters the underground parking lot too fast. She ends up crashing her car, which catches fire. She and her husband manage to get out via an emergency exit, but her car explodes, causing other cars to set on fire. Soon the entire parking lot is ablaze.

The Carter family get lost trying to find the monorail. Meanwhile, the tower control staff realize the sprinklers aren't working. They begin evacuating the building, and sealing off the corridors in an attempt to contain the fire. They end up inadvertently locking the Carters inside one of the corridors, and things get worse when the main vent seal also fails, allowing the fire to spread to the tower itself. Fire tenders are sent out, but are unable to control the fire.

The tower control staff start checking video cameras to see if the fire has stopped spreading, only to realize that the Carters are trapped in one of the sealed corridors. They contact International Rescue, so Jeff sends Scott out in Thunderbird 1, and then gets Virgil to head out in Thunderbird 2, carrying the Mole. Scott arrives first, and finds out the family are trapped in corridor D-50. The entire tower the collapses, meaning the rubble is now on top of the corridors, and could cause them to collapse. Realizing time is of the essence, Scott contacts Tracy Island and says they've got no choice but to use the oxyhydnite due to how fast it can cut through steel.

Virgil lands Thunderbird 2, and drives out in the Firefly. He uses this to clear away rubble from the fallen Thompson Tower, blowing bits of it to pieces and then shoveling it out of the way. This is to clear a path to the drilling point, and Scott then drives the Mole out of Thunderbird 2. Virgil enters the Mole, and then it starts drilling into the earth. The Mole arrives in corridor C-17, which is the closest it can get to D-50. Scott and Virgil use hover bikes to move through the corridors, and use the oxyhydnite to cut through any steel doors they come across. This time, the gas has no effect on them, although neither of them know why.

After cutting through three doors, they find the Carters, but see that the ceiling is about to collapse. Outside, the tower control staff see a huge explosion, and realize that the corridors must have collapsed. They fear the worst, but they then see the Mole reappear out of the ground. Scott contacts them and says that they're all present and correct -they made it just in time.

Later on, Brains explains that normally the vapor filters into the body via the pores, and attacks the blood cells. But when the temperature is high enough, it causes the gas to evaporate -they were saved by the heat in those corridors. All they have to do in future is use electrically heated gas cylinders. Tin-Tin reads a news story about how International Rescue saved three lives at Thompson Tower. Scott asks her about the person who caused the accident, and Tin-Tin says it was a female driver. Meanwhile, the driver from earlier is back on the road, and nearly gets into another accident. She thinks people like that are a menace. Her husband tells her she's so right.

Notes

-It's believed that the experimental gas plot was not part of the 30 minute version of the episode, and was something added to make the episode longer. It's likely the scenes with the Firefly were also added -Jeff tells Virgil to take the Mole only, he never mentions the Firefly.

-Eddie Kerr is not named in this episode. He appears in a few more episodes, but his name is not mentioned until The Imposters.

-The London Airport control tower from Trapped in the Sky makes a couple of sneaky appearances in this episode as a filler background building. Seems the set designers didn't really want anyone to notice it, as first time round it's far in the distance, second time round it's obscured by a tree.

-Somehow the driver who caused this entire ordeal got off scott free -she apparently didn't even lose her licence over this, if the episode's final scene is anything to go by!

Errors

-There are two shots of fire engines moving down some streets. The second shot shows that a few background objects have moved slightly, most notably one entire building has shifted further to the left.
-The car which crashes in the parking lot is crashed so violently that the driver and her husband can be seen flying out of it. They're immediately back in the car in the next shot, completely unharmed.
-When the car crashes, it appears to be in the exact same place the Carter family were seen parking, only the Carter's car is missing.
-For the vast majority of the episode, the controller is voiced by Matt Zimmerman. However when he says "how are those fire tenders coming?" he is voiced by Ray Barrett.
-When Virgil says "Yeah, let's join dad and get the brief" his mouth doesn't move for the "yeah".
-When the fire engines start to retreat, one of them has actually caught fire as it starts moving -flames can be seen on the back of it. It looks like this truck was shot at two different angles, as you can see the flames twice.
-At one point, Scott says the Carters are in corridor C-17, when they're actually in D-50. Later on he's heard saying the closest they can get to D-50 is C-17.
-When Scott says "oh Virgil?", Virgil responds with a "yes?". Virgil's voice is not filtered to sound like it's coming through the radio when he says "yes?".
-The controller tells Scott he has a fast car waiting for him outside. His mouth doesn't move when he says this.
-When Scott and Virgil are first seen using the hover bikes, their shoulder sashes are on their right shoulders. In any other shot, they're on their left shoulders.
-Near the end of the episode, Brains says "it must be a characteristic of the gas". His lips don't move for the "of the gas" part of the line.