British Invaders 490: Thunderbirds 60th Anniversary!
September 30, 2025 Leave a Comment
Thunderbirds was first broadcast on September 30, 1965 — 60 years ago today! This classic Supermarionation series from Gerry Anderson featured the Tracy family and their amazing Thunderbird vehicles as they carry out daring rescues!
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The Trap Door was a claymation series for children that was first broadcast in 1986. It featured strange yet cheerful creatures in a castle cellar. Even stranger creatures would emerge when the trap door was opened!
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Schalcken the Painter was a 1979 adaptation of the ghost story by Sheridan Le Fanu. A terrifying man confronts two 17th-century Dutch painters with an offer of gold to “buy” a young woman’s hand in marriage. As they deal with this, we see the paintings come to life on screen. 
The City & The City was a 2018 BBC adaptation of the book by China Miéville. Two cities occupy the same space but are also somehow very separate. Someone from one city is murdered after crossing into the other. Which police force will investigate? Can they avoid involvement by mysterious organization know as Breach?
Four Feather Falls was an early supermarionation show from Gerry Anderson. Tex Tucker is a sheriff with a talking dog, a talking horse and guns that can fire without him even touching them! Four magic feathers make this possible in this western series from 1960. 
Noughts + Crosses was a BBC alternate-history series that ran in 2020 and 2022. It showed us a world where an African empire colonized Europe, and African “Crosses” rule over European “Noughts”. Striking inequities are on display, and a resistance movement is brewing.
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Survivors was first broadcast on April 16, 1975 on the BBC — 50 years ago today! After a disease wipes out 99% of the population, what will the survivors do? What challenges will they encounter, and how will they meet those challenges? 
The Living and the Dead was a 2016 six-episode ghost-story series from the BBC. It’s 1894 and Nathan and Charlotte Appleby have taken over a farming estate. As they struggle to learn how to run this farm, strange and ghostly things from the past start to appear….
Simon and the Witch was a 1987 BBC children’s series. Simon is a schoolboy and the Witch is his friend. She can’t read very well, so she becomes a student in Simon’s class. Magic and comedy ensues! 
The Aphrodite Inheritance was a 1979 BBC serial set on the Greek island of Cypress. David Collier travels to Cypress after his brother is in a car accident there. David is soon caught up in the search for a cave containing some valuable artifacts. Three mysterious characters seem to be involved, but we don’t know why….
Intergalactic was a 2021 series from Sky One about a group of female convicts who steal the prison spaceship transporting them. Will they find their way to the free world of Arcadia? 
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