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in: Season 1, Episodes, Thunderbirds Episodes, Classic Thunderbirds

Trapped in the Sky

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"OK, boys. That's the brief. It's our first assignment, so make it good."
— Jeff Tracy

Trapped in the Sky is the first episode of Thunderbirds season 1. It first aired in the UK on September 30, 1965, but had its world premiere on Dutch TV, on September 15 1965.

Despite being the first episode of the series, it was not the first published piece of Thunderbirds media - that honour would fall to the comic story Mr. Steelman, a Lady Penelope story that was published (and set) 8 months earlier.

Plot[]

The Hood places a bomb aboard an airliner in order to be able to photograph the Thunderbird craft as they attempt to rescue it. International Rescue must simultaneously save Tin-Tin, who is aboard the airliner, and thwart the Hood's devious plans.

Storyline[]

Main article: Trapped in the Sky/Storyline

Transcript[]

Main article: Trapped In The Sky/Transcript

Cast[]

Regular Characters[]

Guest Characters[]

Cameo Roles[]

Crowd Scenes[]

International Rescue Equipment Used[]

Non-International Rescue Equipment Used[]

Locations[]

Credits[]

Uncredited[]

Trivia[]

  • The short-story Crash Course follows on from after the episode's rescue, and focuses on what happened after the Hood's "crash".
  • This is the first appearance of the Hood, who becomes a recurring villain in a total of six episodes. Apart from this episode, he also appears in Edge Of Impact, Desperate Intruder, The Mighty Atom, Cry Wolf and Martian Invasion, as well as the movies Thunderbirds Are Go and (potentially) Thunderbird 6.
  • The Fireflash reappears in Operation Crash-Dive and has a small role in The Duchess Assignment, The Man From MI.5, and The Impostors.
  • Alan is voiced by Ray Barrett in this episode alone. In future episodes, he would be voiced by Matt Zimmerman.
  • Air Terrainean's Lieutenant "Bob Meddings" is named after Thunderbirds art director Bob Bell and visual effects supervisor Derek Meddings.
  • The end credits music for this episode is Thunderbird 1's launch music. The reason for this is the original ending theme, a vocal piece sung by singer Gary Miller, was deemed unsatisfactory and removed weeks before its airing. In all other episodes, a dedicated arrangement of the Thunderbirds main theme is used.
  • This is the only appearance of the Elevator Cars.
  • This episode was originally 25 minutes long. After having been screened for Lew Grade, then ITC's financier, it was so critically acclaimed that Grade ordered it (and the series as a whole) to be brought up to 50 minutes for a full hour airing.
  • Footage from this episode was reused in the clip show Security Hazard.
  • The episode originally didn't come with an on-screen title card, until Carlton International added one, it's however only featured on BBC2/Boomerang/Cartoon Network transmissions and on Carlton's VHS/DVD releases.
  • On 15th September 1965, AVRO aired a Dutch-dubbed, black-and-white version of "Trapped in the Sky" in The Netherlands, 15 days before it first aired in the UK.
  • According to the Gerry Anderson Story in Volume 5 of Gerry Anderson: The Vintage Comic Collection, inspiration for this episode came from Anderson's National Service at RAF Manston. Whilst up in the control tower, he watched a plane make an emergency landing with its undercarriage still retracted, and amazingly none of the crew were seriously injured despite the tricky landing.
  • Footage of the emergency services heading off was reused in Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons in the episode "Flight 104".
  • The shot of the third elevator car swerving out of control was originally filmed by accident, but Derek Meddings liked the shot so much that he persuaded Gerry Anderson to write the scene into the episode.

Puppets[]

Goofs[]

Dr-Paper-TIS

Strange paper

  • One of the passengers in the departure lounge at London Airport is reading a newspaper. Curiously, it has the front page on the wrong side: it is on the left instead of on the right.
  • When the towed target is shot out the sky by the fighter pilot of the TX-204, a piece of the target shoots off into the top left of the screen and bounces off the sky background.
  • Near the end of the episode, Jeff activates Operation Cover-up to change the wall-mounted pictures of the International Rescue members from the usual pictures of them in their uniforms to ones of them in casual clothing. However, while he and Jeff are talking, a couple of shots of Scott and Gordon, and a shot of Jeff, contain enough of the picture to show that they have reverted back the ones of them in uniform.
  • Several shots of Thunderbird 1 have the "T" of "Thunderbird" painted on the nose cone, yet in all the other shots the nose cone has no markings on it.
  • When the Hood is seen wearing his airport police jacket, it has a five-pointed star on. In the next shot, it's changed to a six-pointed star.
  • In one shot where the Hood is seen photographing Thunderbird 1, on his hat, it says "Airport Police" on the lens. In one of the next shots, the words on the lens have disappeared.
  • As the Hood enters Thunderbird 1, the cockpit is stationed in its vertical position, as opposed to horizontal when the craft lands.
  • When Scott and Lady Penelope communicate with each other via mobile control, the timing on the lip sync between the two characters during the split screen effect is severely out of place.
  • When Gordon and Scott are shown playing chess near the end of the episode, the chess board is oriented incorrectly, as for both players, there is a white square in the bottom-left corner.
  • When Bob Meddings boards the Fireflash Aircraft and grabs hold of the pipe, it is red both on the puppet-sized set and in the close-up shot of his hands grabbing it - but in the close-up shot of his hands pulling him along the pipe, it is silver.

Alternate Versions[]

Century 21 Records[]

Main article: Thunderbird 1 (Audio Story)

Trapped in the Sky, retitled as Thunderbird 1, was the third story released by Century 21 Records and the first direct adaptation of an episode.

FOX Kids[]

Main article: Trapped in the Sky (Fox Kids Series)

During 1994, FOX Kids in the USA decided to re-air Thunderbirds, albeit in a re-edited and re-voiced 20 minute version, suitable for the then-contemporary audience. Naturally, Trapped in the Sky was the first of 13 episodes that received the treatment.

Turbocharged Thunderbirds[]

Main article: Trapped In The Sky (TCTB)

After the apparent failure and cancellation of the FOX edits, Thunderbirds yet again went under modification, much more significantly this time around. Intertwined with newly filmed live-action inserts, Turbocharged Thunderbirds dramatically altered the Thunderbirds concept by setting the series in the year 2096 and on an alien planet. As with the FOX Kids series, Trapped in the Sky was the first episode of this new series, which too would only last 13 episodes.

Photo-Stories[]

For Leaf Publishing's short-lived Thunderbirds Are Go magazine in 1995, Trapped in the Sky would feature in the first issue as a photo story. Frames from the episode were, rather crudely, seemingly photographed directly from a TV monitor, captioned and assembled over six-pages, so readers could re-live the episode, or experience it for the first time.

Redan's Thunderbirds magazine would continue this, however with images of a much higher quality sourced from Carlton's recent digital remastering. Featuring in the very first issue, and spread out over 8 pages this time, the photo-story was much more similar to a comic strip than Leaf's version, but the story was edited to only include International Rescue's attempt at saving the Fireflash, and very briefly covering Lady Penelope's pursuit of the Hood. These photo stories were originally intended to be the main feature of the Redan magazine, but already by the next issue the newly created comics would take that place.

Redan Mission-Report[]

After Redan had published photo-stories of all 32 classic TV episodes, they began re-adapting episodes, but this time as mission-reports filed by the characters there. Appearing in issue 33, the Trapped in the Sky mission report features recounts by Scott, Virgil and Lady Penelope, with the following ten multiple-choice questions posed to readers (correct answers denoted in bold):

  1. What is the name of the aircraft in danger? (Fireflash / Firestorm / Flashfire)
  2. How fast does it fly? (Mach 4 / Mach 5 / Mach 6)
  3. Where was the bomb planted? (Landing gear / Cockpit / fuel tank)
  4. Which Thunderbird 2 pod was used in the rescue? (Pod 1 / Pod 2 / Pod 3)
  5. Which special vehicles are stored in this pod? (The Mole / Elevator Cars / Firefly)
  6. How many of these vehicles were used in the rescue? (2 / 3 / 4)
  7. What was the 'high risk' factor of the rescue? (Gas / Radiation / Altitude sickness)
  8. Who was in charge of the Mobile Control Unit? (John Tracy / Virgil Tracy / Scott Tracy)
  9. Which special agent uses FAB 1? (Lady Penelope / The Hood / Tin-Tin)
  10. How many of the Tracy brother were involved in the rescue? (3 / 4 / 5)

Thunderbirds Are Go![]

Main article: Fireflash (TB2015)

The Thunderbirds Are Go! series featured a remake of Trapped in the Sky, simply titled Fireflash.

Foreign Titles[]

TIS-TC-Italian

Italian title card

  • French: Pris au Piège (VHS)
  • German: Gefährliche Landung (TV), Das fliegende Gefängnis (DVD)
  • Spanish: Atrapados en el Espacio (DVD)
  • Italian: Insidia nel cielo (8mm); Prigionieri del cielo (TV); Intrappolati nel cielo
  • Dutch: Gevangen in de lucht
  • Japanese: SOS原子旅客機
  • Portuguese: Armadilha no Céu

Gallery[]

Main article: Trapped In The Sky/Gallery
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