30 Minutes After Noon

30 Minutes After Noon
Season 1, Episode 7

Air date

11th November 1965

Written by

Alan Fennell

Directed by

David Elliott

Episode Guide

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"We're gonna get to the bottom of this, even if it means employing a little deception."
— Garfield

"30 Minutes After Noon" is the seventh episode of Thunderbirds season 1, originally broadcast on 11th November 1965.

Plot[]

A mysterious fire in an office building turns out to have been a test of a new explosive device, by a dangerous criminal gang. A British agent infiltrates the gang in an attempt to prevent its members from destroying a nuclear depot, but his cover is blown - and he's trapped in the explosive-rigged depot...

Storyline[]

Main article: 30 Minutes After Noon/Storyline

Transcript[]

Main article: 30 Minutes After Noon/Transcript

Cast[]

Regular Characters[]

Guest Characters[]

Cameo Roles[]

Spectators at the burning Hudson Building
People walking past Garfield's office

International Rescue Equipment Used[]

Non-International Rescue Equipment Used[]

Locations[]

Trivia[]

All Security Robots in this episode were the same puppet; a minor redesign of Brains' robot, Braman, also to be seen in Sun Probe.
Two Pod Vehicles - the Dicetylene Cage and the Laser Cutter Vehicle - make their first, and only, appearances in this episode.
Glen Carrick Castle previously appeared as McGregor Castle in the Stingray episode Loch Ness Monster; and appears again as part of Glen Garry Castle in the Captain Scarlet And The Mysterons episode The Trap.

This marks the first use in the series of a human hand in the same frame as a puppet character: during the scene where Southern plays with his pen, a real hand plays with it in the foreground; while the characters of Kenyon and Dempsey appear in the background.
Although he didn't write this episode, it's possible Dennis Spooner may have borrowed ideas for an episode of The Professionals - in which Bodie and Doyle had to prevent a bomb from exploding at 12.25am, destroying London.
The faces of Sir William Frazer, and the Erdman Gang Member who Southern meets, are never seen; only their hands appear on screen - when Sir William hand the pen to Southern, and when the Erdman Gang Member fastens the bracelet to Southern's wrist.
The rendezvous point where Southern receives his bracelet would later be seen as the Thompson Tower in City of Fire.
Unlike most U.S elevators and instead similar to British elevators, the floor indicator panel of the Hudson Building elevator lists the first floor above the ground floor instead of on the ground floor. The basement floors are listed in the wrong order instead of in ascending order going downwards below ground level.
The episode title refers to the time by which the bracelets placed in the plutonium store in the second half of the episode will explode - at 12:30PM - thirty minutes after noon.
This is the only time we see Brains relaying the distress call to Jeff in Thunderbird 5 with John.

Goofs[]

In the close up of Prescott's bracelet being put on, it is not locked on.

On the night of the Hudson Building fire, the auto date fixer in Garfield's office gives the date as 12/07/05 and the next day it says 13/07/05. But on American calendars, the month numeral is supposed to appear first; either the first date should say 07/12/05 (12th July), with the second 07/13/05, or the second date should say 12/08/05 (8th December).

When Jeff contacts Penelope, it is 10:00 am in England, yet it is already daylight on Tracy Island and Alan, Gordon and Tin-Tin have been out fishing for some time (It is established in Thunderbirds Are Go that there is a five-hour time difference between England and Tracy Island; it should be 5:00 am on Tracy Island when is it 10:00am in England).

About seven minutes before Southern, Dempsey and Kenyon's bracelets explode, they start smoking. Prescott's bracelet from earlier in the episode does not, however.

If the bracelets are smoking, then that must mean that they are far too hot to touch without safety gloves, but Scott just picks them up with his bare hands without even showing that he has burnt himself.

When Scott reboards Thunderbird 1 to dispose of the bracelets, his hat is back on, although at this time, putting on his hat to fly Thunderbird 1 should be the least of his worries.

When the Plutonium store doors are blown off by the Jet-air Blaster (on the Laser Cutter Vehicle), you can clearly see them been pulled off by a length of string from the inside.

In the shot where the camera moves through the castle, the shadow of some studio equipment can be seen moving down one of the pillars.
When Virgil tackles the robot guard holding Southern, his nose gets a little too close.

When Southern retrieves key number 16 from the box on the vault door, key number 8 falls to the floor.

In the establishing shot of the British Security Service Building, one of the building props in the foreground has been placed incorrectly.

30MIN 304 — The British Security Building

30m-buildings-02 — How it should have looked

Alternate Versions[]

Thunderbirds The Comic[]

In 1992, several episodes of Thunderbirds were adapted into comic book format for Fleetway's Thunderbirds The Comic series, with 30 Minutes After Noon among the first. Written by Alan Fennell and illustrated by D. M. Stokes, the 12 page adaptation was spread over 3 issues, emulating the presentation of the 1960's TV Century 21 stories.

For this compressed version of the episode, 8 pages were entirely dedicated to Thomas Prescott's subplot, while the remaining 4 swiftly detailed the "Erdwing Gang" (sic), and Southern's rescue from the Security Robots.

Foreign Titles[]

French: Le bracelet
German: Rennen gegen die Uhr
Spanish: 30 Minutos Después del Mediodía
Italian: Un bracciale prezioso
Dutch: 12 uur 30 precies (TV 1965), 30 minuten na twaalf (TV 1992), Race tegen de klok (VHS, DVD)
Portuguese: Os Impostores
Japanese: スパイにねらわれた原爆
Australian: 30 Minutes Afternoon (VHS 1990), 30 Minutes To Noon (DVD 2001), 30 Minutes To The Moon (DVD 2010)