'Thunderbirds' Reboot: 'Thunderbirds Are Go'

After nearly a 50-year wait a new series, or perhaps a re-boot would be a more appropriate description, of the much loved late Gerry Anderson series ‘Thunderbirds’, now renamed ‘Thunderbirds Are Go’, has just had it’s first episode broadcast on ITV, here in the UK.

I know some are going to say it is nothing like the original, but did you really think it was going to be exactly the same, it's got to appeal to the younger generation to be a success, and I think overall a good job was done.

The show gave us a good story, and provided a good dose of suspense along the way. The evil character Hood is up to his usual acts of sabotage, to try and gain not only the secrets of the Thunderbird craft, but to take possession of the craft themselves. And what an earth has he done to Jeff Tracy, missing from the opening episode, having been involved in a crash caused by the Hood, but we don't get to learn if this was fatal or otherwise. I just hope he appears in later episodes, some compensation for his absence is given, in that we do get to hear his voice in the famous ‘5-4-3-2-1 Thunderbirds Are Go’ title sequence.

One glaring omission is the wonderful Barry Gray music scores, that set the scenes so perfectly in the original series, but there again perhaps this just would not appeal to the younger generation of viewers, to which this re-boot is obviously aimed.

Tin-Tin has been renamed Kayo and Brains now appears to be Indian and lost his stammer. Unfortunately, some think it is their duty to make on social media sites racist remarks relating to Brains now being Indian, totally distasteful.

Loved the sequence where a few seconds of the Gerry Anderson series ‘Stingray’ was shown, and the holograms of characters when communicating with each other. Lovable Grandma seems to be a completely changed woman, that everyone now seems to avoid, don't quite understand that, but only a minor character, so never mind.

It appears us devoted fans are going to have to switch over to ITV Children's Channel early on a Saturday morning to see future episodes, all I can say to that is, us Thunderbirds devotees never get old, so over to the ITV Children's Channel it is, I'll set my Sky Plus machine now, and see now the series develops.