Terrahawks

I've just purchased a copy of 'Terrahawks' from my local blockbuster as they are getting rid of all their old tapes (b@st@rds) and it's the first time I've seen this in years. It's GREAT! Although this seems to be the forgotten Gerry Anderson series I think it's one of the best, the bad guys really are quite scary lookin. The ships are great! Those ball things rolling about the place if dead cool! It's all very sci-fi! If you liked the Thunderbirds and you get a chance to see this, DO SO because you won't regret it, I just wish I had more tapes!

I have recently bought all the re-released Terrahawks programmes on DVD and I think its great. I never really liked Thunderbirds as it seemed a bit bland, but this has a continuous theme going throughout the shows.

Just a quick thought, what is Gerry Andersons obsession with Mars, I mean first it was the Mysterons and now its Zelda and her rabble.

Strange.

Terrahawks is EASILY THE MOST BRILLIANT of ANY of Gerry Anderson's puppetry programmes/series. I have not seen it since the early eighties and it is the ONLY one I wish they would repeat. Why has it, like so many other programmes and films from various people, been forgotten about? There is nothing bad that I can think about the programme. If you like science-fiction then you will love Terrahawks! it is THE most sci-fi of the lot, is FULL of humour and constantly takes the mickey out of itself.

Oh what a fantastic, classic struggle of good against bad. Thankfully good ALWAYS won by the end of each episode/story line.

Some people have written that it is childish and is now dated; how wrong can they be?! It worked on an adult level as well and it is only dated because nobody learns the lessons and values it teaches anymore due to an ever deteriorating society. As a child I would much rather watch a programme that teaches that if you do something wrong you will get punished for it and that if you do something right you will get rewarded. In the programme, as in life, you don't get anywhere if you are bad whereas the good side were always pleased that they had yet again thwarted Zelda's plans and saved the earth from yet another horrible invasion attempt. That was the basic message. If you do good you will like the feeling it gives you and therefore want more of those wonderful feelings. If you do bad the complete opposite happens. To learn morals such as these as a child is great and doesn't happen anymore.

So if you can, beg, borrow, buy or steal (no don't steal. It's wrong to steal) one or more of the programmes. Get every one ever made and sit and enjoy a science-fiction programme that has, in my eyes, EASILY stood the test of time and is as good today as it was back in the eighties! How do I know it has easily stood the test of time if I haven't seen it for twenty years? Well if other series are being shown again now and this, as I stated at the start of this review, is EASILY THE MOST BRILLIANT of ANY of Gerry Anderson's puppetry programmes/series, will also have stood the test of time and therefore be as good now as it was back in the eighties!

I have read the other reviews for this series and was quite pleased to note that there were very few criticisms. I suspect that I may have been one of the few who was an adult when I saw these programmes yet still sat through every episode - and looked forward to each new one beforehand. The great thing for me about these 30-minute gems was the fact that the stories were not deep (it was for young kids after all) yet they still worked on both an adult's and a child's level thereby ensuring that dad could sit down and watch this with the kids and be entertained too. Surprisingly nobody seems to have picked up on the clever casting of Windsor Davies who effectively reprised his role as the Sergeant-Major from the BBC sitcom "It Ain't Half Hot Mum". I reckon that for good all-round entertainment this is one of the best things Gerry Anderson ever did.

This show is so under-rated, and I'm glad other people here know how to speak through their mouths, as they have praised it (they deserve a wonderful life, full of blessings). I'm not generally a Gerry Anderson fan (the only other show of the genre that I love is Starfleet, the Japanese puppet series from the same era as Terrahawks). Getting Terrahawks back in my life is one of the best things that has happened to me this century. I love the music, the zeroids, Yung-Star (I would marry him if I wasn't so reluctant to have the most ghastly mother-in-law possible!), and Mary. My favourite Kate Kestrel songs are Responsible, and Be My Star Tonight.

I ask you, what other programme has robots as adorable as the zeroids? Not Stink-ray or Chunderbirds, for sure. I'm definitely a hawk-brain, not a bird-brain!