Security Hazard
| "Security Hazard" | |
|---|---|
| Thunderbirds episode | |
| Episode no. | Series 1 Episode 26 |
| Directed by | Desmond Saunders |
| Written by | Alan Pattillo |
| Cinematography by | Julien Lugrin |
| Editing by | Harry MacDonald |
| Production code | 26 |
| Original air date | 31 March 1966 |
| Guest character voices | |
| |
"Security Hazard" is the 26th episode of
Set in the 2060s, Thunderbirds follows the missions of International Rescue, a secret organisation that uses technologically‑advanced rescue vehicles to save human life. The lead characters are ex‑astronaut
"Security Hazard" was devised as a clip show for reasons of economy: as "Attack of the Alligators!" and "The Cham-Cham" had gone over‑budget and over‑schedule, the writing team reworked the next episode to feature a large amount of recycled footage, thus limiting the need for new scenes and making up for the extra time and money spent on the previous two instalments. It was APF's second clip show, preceded by Stingray's "Aquanaut of the Year". APF's next two series, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Joe 90, also ended with clip shows ("The Inquisition" and "The Birthday").
Plot
The episode begins with International Rescue responding to a mine fire in England. A nearby resident, Mr Morrison, puts his son Chip to bed before leaving their house to help fight the fire. Curious about International Rescue, Chip moves to his bedroom window and gazes out at the open pod door of
After the fire is extinguished,
's control panel warns of a stowaway aboard Thunderbird 2, the Tracys rush to the hangar and confront the intruder: Chip Morrison.Furious at this security breach, Jeff holds an urgent meeting with his sons to decide what to do about Chip, but no one knows how to get the boy home safely without him revealing International Rescue's secrets to the wider world. The problem is compounded when Chip coaxes his hosts into recalling past rescue missions: Virgil explains Thunderbird 2's role in saving Eddie Houseman, who was trapped in a truck teetering on a cliff edge (as seen in "
Jeff finally hits on a solution. Chip, who has been awake for hours, is left to fall asleep and then quietly flown home in Thunderbird 2. At dawn, Mr Morrison returns home to find Chip still in bed and no sign of International Rescue. On waking, Chip has clear memories of his time on Tracy Island, but his amused father convinces him that it was all a dream.
Regular voice cast
- Peter Dyneley as Jeff Tracy
- David Graham as Gordon Tracy and Brains
- David Holliday as Virgil Tracy
- Shane Rimmer as Scott Tracy
- Matt Zimmerman as Alan Tracy
Production
The 50-minute episode contains only 17 minutes of original footage (the frame story about Chip). Its other two‑thirds are made up of flashbacks to the episodes "End of the Road", "Sun Probe", "Trapped in the Sky" and "Day of Disaster".[4] "Security Hazard" was devised as a clip show after the production of "Attack of the Alligators!" and "The Cham-Cham" finished behind schedule and over budget, forcing the series scriptwriters to come up with a way to make the next episode quickly and cheaply with only a limited number of new scenes.[4][5][6][7][8] To simplify the production, the flashbacks were taken from early episodes that had first been filmed in Thunderbirds' original 25-minute format (before ITC's Lew Grade ordered the running time doubled), as these episodes were easier to truncate.[4]
The frame story re-used several puppets and scale models from earlier episodes. The puppet playing Chip previously appeared in "Cry Wolf" as Bob Williams, while Chip's father is also seen in the flashback to "Day of Disaster" as one of that episode's guest characters.[1] The International Rescue fire truck was modified from the explosives truck seen in "End of the Road", while the Morrison house previously appeared as Grandma Tracy's cottage in "Move – and You're Dead" and the Williams residence in "Cry Wolf".[9][10]
Reception
In her 1991 autobiography, Sylvia Anderson called the episode "lightweight but charming" and "refreshingly" different from most Thunderbirds episodes. She also wrote that doing the voice of Chip reminded her of her work on Supercar (in which she voiced the boy Jonathan Zero and other characters).[11]
Rating "Security Hazard" one out of five, Tom Fox of
Michael Coldwell calls the episode "highly entertaining" and likens it to a "
References
- ^ a b c Bentley 2005, p. 89.
- ^ Anderson 1991, p. 66.
- ^ Although Anderson wrote in her autobiography that the voice was hers, some secondary sources, including Marcus Hearn's Thunderbirds: The Vault, state that it was provided by Christine Finn.
- ^ a b c Bentley 2005, pp. 30–31.
- ISBN 978-0-563-53481-5.
- ISBN 978-1-932563-23-8.
- ISBN 978-0-992-9766-0-6.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-753-55635-1.
- ISBN 978-1-905287-74-1.
- ^ Jones, Mike (2015). Thunderbirds: Close-Up. Fanderson. p. 55.
- ^ Anderson 1991, pp. 66; 112.
- ISSN 0958-7128.
- ^ Thunderbirds – A Complete Guide to the Classic Series, p. 87.
- ^ Thunderbirds – A Complete Guide to the Classic Series, p. 16.
Works cited
- ISBN 978-1-85685-011-7. Archived from the originalon 30 December 2012.
- Bentley, Chris (2005) [2000]. The Complete Book of Thunderbirds (2nd ed.). London, UK: ISBN 978-1-84442-454-2.
- Hearn, Marcus, ed. (September 2015). Thunderbirds – A Complete Guide to the Classic Series. Tunbridge Wells, UK: ISBN 978-1-84653-212-2.
External links
- "Security Hazard" at IMDb
| Characters | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vehicles and locations | |||||||||
| Episodes | |||||||||
| Derivative works |
| ||||||||
| See also | |||||||||
