Thunderbirds (TV series)/Recap/S1/E06 Day of Disaster

The Mars rocket, fully fuelled and loaded, is being transported to its launch site on the far side of the Allington Bridge. The two astronauts are also inside, already strapped into their launch seats. Alas, despite being within the tolerances of the bridge, the sheer concentrated mass of the rocket causes a catastrophic failure, and the rocket plunges into the water below. While substantially undamaged by the fall, the automatic countdown clock is activated. In thirty minutes, the rockets will fire - and the astronauts will be killed!


 * A Day in the Limelight - The episode centers mostly on Brains and Gordon.
 * Cassandra Truth - Brains keeps telling the bridge supervisors things will go wrong. They don't listen.
 * The younger supervisor also kept warning his boss about the risks, to no avail.
 * Contrived Coincidence - As noted on the main page, this episode is full of those. As Gordon notes later: Who would have thought you'd need a submarine to save a spaceship?
 * Go Look At the Distraction: Penelope and Parker blow up some abandoned factories to distract the (unseen) disaster tourists from the rescue. Can't have a Thunderbirds episode without gratuitous Stuff Blowing Up.
 * Hollywood Psych - Brains ends up on the divan for talking to his watch in public.
 * Recycled Soundtrack - The Mars rocket theme is recycled from Stingray, an earlier Supermarionation series.
 * Shoe Phone
 * Spot of Tea
 * Talking to Himself - This is very prominent in this episode, as a large part of the conversation takes place between Gordon and Brains, who sound very similar.