User Reviews

After the excellent "City of Fire" (regarding a building that goes up in flames after a serious car accident where a speeding motorist crashes into other vehicles in the underground parking garage setting off a blaze that soon gets further out of control by a certain type of gas, with the International Rescue having to rescue a trapped family at danger of dying if not saved), the next Thunderbirds episode had a tough act to follow as far as I was concerned. I'm currently making my way through the Thunderbirds box set released by A&E.

Fortunately, the next episode is also well made…"Sun Probe." "Sun Probe" concerns a dangerous mission for astronauts who are piloting a ship carrying a probe that will attain "matter from the sun". For some reason, after successfully completing their mission, with the probe returning to the ship and re-connecting, the retro rockets do not fire. This causes the ship to head on a collision course with the sun!

International Rescue are requested by those in charge of the sun probe mission, and when doing so will jeopardize three crew members piloting Thunderbird 2 which will use a beam with help from a radio transmitter operated by two others on Earth (including Brain and his robot creation named Raymond). Thunderbirds was a show that didn't have simplistic plotting which was refreshing because it wasn't dumbed down for its kid audience. This is a show I believe, quite frankly, was made not just for kids but adults who could appreciate the better-than-average stories involving complex situations that required International Rescue to help in a number of unique emergency situations. Brain gets to be the star of this episode as not only does his robot assist him in securing a much-needed answer to a difficult equation that would provide IR with a method to rescue Thunderbird 2 when its own retros fail sending them in the same collision course as the space probe but he was correct in his assessment that said space probe was in trouble. Brain's trials with Raymond due to his slow reaction time to questions asked him are part of the story. But the suspense part of the plot involves both the space probe ship and Thunderbird 2 both in dire straits. We see how the heat of the sun starts to cause sweat and illness to the crews of both ships, and the hulls of the ships begin to show signs of wear and tear. Not quite as good as "City of Fire", but certainly a fine piece of marionette sci-fi television.

"Sun Probe" was first aired on television December 9, 1965.

Anyway - As the story goes - A research space ship is headed straight for the sun. As the temperature climbs, Alan and Scott race to the rescue - but will Brains' new technology and the pilots' courage be enough to save the probe?