First, let's make something clear: this show is not available from my cable TV provider at this time and at my location (Montreal, Quebec, Canada). So I had to look for it on "scene" sites that some view as a slightly shady portion of the web. I was initially pleased to see the first episodes appear very quickly after their UK broadcast.
Second, I will be turning 60 in late spring. That brands me clearly as someone who was in his pre-teens when the original series aired, and I watched it religiously and delighted in each and every episode. At the time, this was the Canadian broadcast of the French-dubbed episodes, under the title "Les Sentinelles de l'air".
I watched with disappointment the 2004 live-action movie, although it made me discover the existence of the two long episodes packaged as DVD movies. I promptly sought and purchased the two DVD box set of "Thunderbirds Are Go" and "Thunderbird 6" and found them quite pleasant as trips down memory lane.
Watching the double episode that launched this new version, I found it well thought as a modern day evolution of the original, dispensing with the impossible secrecy of "International Rescue" in a world even more advanced than our current one in terms of satellites, radars and GPS devices everywhere. I could say a lot more about how I readily accept or even prefer some character changes (especially replacing/upgrading the token "Tin-Tin" with a substantial "Kayo" chief of security), but that would repeat stuff already mentioned in other reviews.
Here is where I my suspension of disbelief was completely destroyed: Alan flies out of TB3 on his rocket-powered hoverboard and performs what appears to be mind-controlled flying (including rolls and banks) over to the Hood's satellite, then hovers in front of a control panel while his board's apparently decorative only rockets keep blasting from the back while he floats in place. People, this is Saturday morning cartoon physics right out of the 60s, i.e. nothing like the mostly realistic physics the original puppeteers worked pretty hard to present.
All week afterwards, I was telling myself that I can endure this one ridiculous, uber-childish bit of show-off cartoon physics if the rest of the show keeps giving us what we saw in episodes 1 and 2. Then what do we get in episode 3? A complete episode of Alan flying TB3 with rockets fully on while he approaches bits of space debris he is about to grab, then more (LOTS more!) of him flying his hoverboard in impossible ways with his light-show rockets blasting backwards all the time, no matter whether he is holding still or moving in any direction. Oh please! None of this can possibly work (even discounting the silly rockets on that board) unless humanity in the 2060s has mastered artificial gravity, something which is not hinted at anywhere...
I am now just about to give up on this ridiculous show. Having seen an outline of episode 4, I know it's mostly about Scott and TB1, so I may give it a chance. But the next bit of silly cartoon physics that I see in there, in association with any character or vehicle, is the moment I give up on this travesty.
Second, I will be turning 60 in late spring. That brands me clearly as someone who was in his pre-teens when the original series aired, and I watched it religiously and delighted in each and every episode. At the time, this was the Canadian broadcast of the French-dubbed episodes, under the title "Les Sentinelles de l'air".
I watched with disappointment the 2004 live-action movie, although it made me discover the existence of the two long episodes packaged as DVD movies. I promptly sought and purchased the two DVD box set of "Thunderbirds Are Go" and "Thunderbird 6" and found them quite pleasant as trips down memory lane.
Watching the double episode that launched this new version, I found it well thought as a modern day evolution of the original, dispensing with the impossible secrecy of "International Rescue" in a world even more advanced than our current one in terms of satellites, radars and GPS devices everywhere. I could say a lot more about how I readily accept or even prefer some character changes (especially replacing/upgrading the token "Tin-Tin" with a substantial "Kayo" chief of security), but that would repeat stuff already mentioned in other reviews.
Here is where I my suspension of disbelief was completely destroyed: Alan flies out of TB3 on his rocket-powered hoverboard and performs what appears to be mind-controlled flying (including rolls and banks) over to the Hood's satellite, then hovers in front of a control panel while his board's apparently decorative only rockets keep blasting from the back while he floats in place. People, this is Saturday morning cartoon physics right out of the 60s, i.e. nothing like the mostly realistic physics the original puppeteers worked pretty hard to present.
All week afterwards, I was telling myself that I can endure this one ridiculous, uber-childish bit of show-off cartoon physics if the rest of the show keeps giving us what we saw in episodes 1 and 2. Then what do we get in episode 3? A complete episode of Alan flying TB3 with rockets fully on while he approaches bits of space debris he is about to grab, then more (LOTS more!) of him flying his hoverboard in impossible ways with his light-show rockets blasting backwards all the time, no matter whether he is holding still or moving in any direction. Oh please! None of this can possibly work (even discounting the silly rockets on that board) unless humanity in the 2060s has mastered artificial gravity, something which is not hinted at anywhere...
I am now just about to give up on this ridiculous show. Having seen an outline of episode 4, I know it's mostly about Scott and TB1, so I may give it a chance. But the next bit of silly cartoon physics that I see in there, in association with any character or vehicle, is the moment I give up on this travesty.