Television Review: Thunderbirds Are Go

I’ve only reviewed a couple of series of Thunderbirds Are Go, despite having watched them all. It felt wrong reviewing it: I’m a die-hard fan of the originals and when I’ve mentioned fanfiction in previous posts, well… this is my fandom. A reboot of the show, specifically aimed at a much younger audience, was frustrating more often than not.

With the show coming to an end, however, I wanted to do a wrap-up of my thoughts.

I’m the first to admit that although I had strong doubts about how they were going to finish it…I loved it. I thought they got the tone right, the characters came together in a way that made sense and there was an underlying emotional arc that hit the older viewers (I’m not just talking about me here).

This isn’t as much a review about the final series, but about how they carried the show off as a whole. There were highlights and frustrations throughout the entire thing.

For the majority, I thought the rescues were implausible and the characters doing things that went against their personalities. The “bad guys” were immature and childish (ironic, given this is a children’s show), and gave no depth to the characters and no chance for development: you could tell stories were done to appeal to the younger audience. Which is fine, that’s it’s intended market, but from a different perspective, it didn’t work.

That being said, there were a lot of episodes that got it right. And, you guessed it, these were the ones with a level of maturity.

A couple of episodes left characters in trouble and both the reactions of the others and the backing music used, gave these episodes more depth. They worked for the older audience, especially those who were introduced to the Tracys a long time ago. It showed that, even though it was a children’s show, it could work on multiple levels. Kudos to the writers for these episodes.

I also found the ones where there was a genuine rescue rather than it just being the bad guys causing trouble also had an added depth to them. A recent episode about forest fires would have touched a cord with viewers and the team work displayed in those ones give a much stronger message to a younger audience than the explosions and violence from the villains in some of the others.

I had huge doubts about the finale – there were so many ways it could have gone wrong. But you know what? I sat watching it with a huge grin on my face as it delivered in a way I hadn’t been anticipating.

Watching this reminded me that things from your own childhood can be reworked for a younger audience. It also shows that an intended market is not restricted to one demographic and, if done right, can work on multiple levels to appeal to a much larger group of people.

Now, of course, I want to go and watch the originals again…

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