Stay On This Channel! This Is An Emergency Review!!

Sorry for the slight change to the line-up but I NEED to talk about this.

I am a Gerry Anderson fan. I wasn’t a huge fan, but I had heard of Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet and would watch them whenever they were on. And then there was…… that movie…… (we don’t talk about it anymore….) And I, like many, was deeply saddened to hear of his passing back in 2012, and even more recently, the passing of his wife Sylvia Anderson. Since then, I’ve been taking a bigger look at his other creations. Which lead to this…. HOW DID I NOT DISCOVER THIS EARLIER?!?!?!

TERRAHAWKS VOLUME 1 REVIEW

By Jack Ryan

BEWARE: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

Well, I’m finally getting around to my March Madness purchases. Terrahawks is an interesting case. You’re trying to do a show that was mainly done with puppets….. on audio. Well, if anyone can, it’s Big Finish. The original show was the last puppet based series made by Anderson, and employed a ‘muppet’ based method of puppeteering dubbed SuperMacroMation. Also, I’ve never seen the original series; bit before my time. But thanks to this, I’m beginning to discover the originals…. Why does this sound familiar?

The year is 2020, and the Planet Earth is under attack by a race of insane androids, led by the maniacal Queen Zelda of Guk. The only hope for the planet’s defence is the Terrahawks, an internationally renowned rescue team, helmed by Dr. “Tiger” Ninestein, an artificially created human clone with a penchant for precise military tactics and leadership. With his crack pilots, Lieutenant Hawkeye, Captains Mary Falconer and Kate Kestral, his scientific officer Lieutenant Hiro and his army of Zeroids, led by Sergeant Major Zero, The Terrahawks are primed and ready to defend Earth from all that Zelda has to throw at them…

Despite the original show being a puppet orientated series, Big Finish have made it their challenge to recapture the action and humour of the original series. And despite never having seen the original series (at least not yet!), I found this to be absolutely brilliant on both an action and comedic standpoint. With contributions from the late Gerry Anderson, his son Jamie, Mark Wollard, Terry Adlam and Chris Dale to name a few, the eight half-hour episodes  contained are as close to the brilliance of the original as I can ascertain. The humour contained, for me, is the stand-out of the writing, with an abundance of brilliant, sometimes subtle, jokes and stabs at pop-culture and events of the last few years. If you want the best comedic episode of the lot, Clubbed To Death is the one to go for, where a lot of things might sound very familiar to any Briton….

But with any series like this, the cast needs not only be perfect, but to stand out. And the good news is that nearly all the surviving cast members have reunited to once again give their vocal talents to these much loved characters. Jeremy Hitchen, Robbie Stevens and Denise Bryer return to voice Ninestein, Hiro, Hawkeye, Captain Falconer, Zelda, HUDSON, 101, Yung-Star, It-Star and a whole host of other characters. With the untimely passing of Anne Ridler in 2011, Big Finish regular Beth Chalmers has stepped in to deliver an uncanny performance as Kate Kestral and Cy-Star and with Windsor Davies seemingly enjoying retirement, Hitchen has perfectly taken on his role of Sergeant Major Zero.

As for music and sound design, director Jamie Anderson has re-employed the services of original series composer Richard Harvey, who has done a fantastic job of re-invigorating the style and feel of the music from the eighties. And along with assistance from sound designer Martin Montague and the classic, epic theme tune composed by Anderson, Burr and Harvey, the music and sound of this set is a blast and a pleasure to listen to.

HOW HAVE I NOT HEARD OF THIS BEFORE?!?!? Sorry, I really need to keep asking myself that. Because this is a fantastic set of stories, marking a perfect continuation of the classic eighties series. With this and another volume of stories out now, and the original series returning to DVD and Blu-ray later in the year, there has never been a better time to discover the Terrahawks.

VERDICT: 5/5 Stand by, Mr Anderson, you have a 10:50 for awesomeness! ;D