Fascinating post prof!
Thanks!
FIREBALL XL5 was my introduction to science-fiction, and Dr. Venus was my first TV crush (heh). For 4 years in Catholic school, there was a girl in my class who looked just like her!
But the show vanished completely from Philly stations in September '65 and to my knowledge, has never been seen here since.
FIREBALL XL5 was the very 1st DVD box set I bought, 3-1/2 years ago. Since, I feel like I'm re-living the 60s, only better (my schedule, no commercials, better picture & sound quality).
May I suggest a tip for those hour-long Thunderbirds episodes - that you play them at 1.25x? 
The CBS Late Movie started doing that in the mid-80s. It was infuriating. I have several episodes of
THE NEW AVENGERS recorded that way. VERY much looking forward to upgrading that entire series (from Honor Blackman all the way to Joanna Lumley) on DVD eventually.
I could never get into Terrahawks but I adored Space Precinct - couldn't understand why there was only one series.I thought the characters were more real and "human" than any show Anderson had done since
STINGRAY. Especially "Sergeant-Major Zero" (Windsor Davies), the robot shaped like a basketball, who was IN LOVE with Mary Falconer.
I loved that so much of the show was played as a comedy.
The Philly AND New York City stations than ran
SPACE PRECINCT seemed hell-bent on sabotaging it. The Philly startion ran it Saturdays at 11:30 PM, then stopped halfwway thru the season (EXACTLY what the same station had done with the 1st season of "
SPACE: 1999" 2 decades earlier).
Luckily my cable had the NYC station that also ran it. They had it on 12:30 AM, then 1:30 AM, then moved it to Sunday nights at 2:30 AM. It's a miracle I managed to record the whole season.
I heard a rumor there was a 2nd season, bt it never showed up.
DECADES later... I discovered at the
IMDB that they had actually started a 2nd season... but, JUST like "
THUNDERBIRDS", they only did 6 new episodes.
Assumng these are on DVD, I'm very much looking to getting them. But I have a lot ahead of it.
I'm currently watching "
UFO"-- intact for the very first time. Sci-Fi cut 6 MINUTES from every episode in the 90s, and the show has always been run COMPLETELY out of sequence. My friend in Wales insists that because the show "had" to be able to run in any order (WHY do networks insist on such CRAP?) the "big story" was never allowed to ever make any real progress. Not like so many shows do these days. But watching in production order, I see many subtle continuity bits COMPLETELY destreoyed by the previous running order, so even flawed as it is, it's still much better to my eyes than it ever had been.
Next up for my Anderson marathon wil be "
THE PROTECTORS" with Robert Vaughn. After that, I actually have NO intention of buying "
SPACE: 1999", as I just dislike it that much. I really wish all the pre-production work they'd put into it had instead gone toward its original intention-- an upgraded 2nd season of "
UFO". Nothing about "
1999" makes sense on any level.
After that, my next show to go after will be
X-BOMBER (alias
STAR FLEET), the Japanese puppet show that apparently inspired
TERRAHAWKS. I've never seen it, though I've loved the UK theme song for decades, and a few weeks back saw the video someone did of it, which included clips from the series.
And them, if it's available, I'd like to upgrade my entire set of "
THUNDERBIRDS 2086" to DVD. I've loved that Japanese cartoon since the 80s, when a friend at work tediously would record EACH episode for me off of Prism (he had that channel, I didn't). Every 2 weeks I'd loan him the tapes and he'd record the show for me, bring it in, I'd watch the new episode, then give him the tape back. What an incredibly tedious, complex way to get ahold of a TV series. And we got thru the entire show that way!!!
Author
Topic: Lady Penelope - Thunderbirds (Read 1502 times)
