Thunderbirds (TV series)/Recap/S1/E03 The Perils of Penelope

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  • F1 Thunderbirds Are Go
  • F2 Thunderbird 6
  • S1
    • E01 Trapped in the Sky
    • E02 Pit of Peril
    • E03 The Perils of Penelope
    • E04 Terror in New York City
    • E05 Edge of Impact
    • E06 Day of Disaster
    • E07 30 Minutes After Noon
    • E08 Desperate Intruder
    • E09 End of the Road
    • E10 The Uninvited
    • E11 Sun Probe
    • E12 Operation Crash Dive
    • E13 Vault of Death
    • E14 The Mighty Atom
    • E15 City of Fire
    • E16 The Imposters
    • E17 The Man From MI 5
    • E18 Cry Wolf
    • E19 Danger at Ocean Deep
    • E20 Move and You're Dead
    • E21 The Duchess Assignment
    • E22 Brink of Disaster
    • E23 Attack of the Alligators
    • E24 Martian Invasion
    • E25 The Cham Cham
    • E26 Security Hazard
  • S2
    • E01 Atlantic Inferno
    • E02 Path of Destruction
    • E03 Alias Mr. Hackenbacker
    • E04 Lord Parkers Oliday
    • E05 Ricochet
    • E06 Give or Take A Million
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Lady Penelope goes on a dangerous cross-Continental trip to discover what has happened to a brilliant scientist - only to discover that a megalomanical lunatic has kidnapped him in an attempt to discover his research. In order to persuade the scientist to comply the villain presents him with a Sadistic Choice - the formula, or Lady Penelope!

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• Always Save the Girl: Subverted. Sir Jeremy and Professor Borinder keep a Stiff Upper Lip and refuse to give the formula. It would have resulted in Lady Penelope's death if it hadn't been for Virgil.
• British Stuffiness: Lady Penelope and her equally upper-class friend's failure to panic when shut in a room flooded with Deadly Gas. While banging on the door he even comments "We're British, you know!"
• Computer Equals Monitor: The villain claims to have disabled the railway power cutting system just by shooting the display. Possibly justifiable given these were 1960s-style computers where the display is built into the fascia.
• Chained to a Railway: Of a sort.
• Redemption Equals Death: Played straight for the villain's henchman.
• Engineer Exploited For Evil: Professor Borinder, a shameless Einstein Expy.
• Sadistic Choice: Hand over the formula or save the girl?
• Shown Their Work: The rocket launch sequence at the beginning is more realistic and based in NASA procedure than most you'd see in today's fiction. They even foresaw a hold-down system, which SpaceX has only just invented now.