Fireball XL5

Loved this show as a kid. It definitely shaped my interest in Sci Fi. Also, the theme songs still strike a chord with me, no matter how dated they are! They are simply great in their tone and straight-forward sincerity.

Also, as a Star Trek fan, I can not help but wonder if Roddenberry had not been influenced by the XL5 design. After all, the saucer section of the original Enterprise was detachable, just as XL5's nose, even though they never showed it in the original series. Mention was made of it once, when Kirk told Scotty to 'Break out of there with the main section, if you have to', or something along those lines, when the machine Val was pulling the Enterprise down from orbit.

XL5 FOREVER!

It has been so long I hardly remember the show, but I do remember the begging and pleading I did to get my parents to let me watch the show. It was, at the time, my favorite television show. It was my introduction to science fiction. It is genre that I almost always prefer. I just saw a show recently, and it is still great fun. It is particularly interesting to compare this to the latter shows of the Andersons like Stingray, Thunderbirds, Capt. Scarlet, UFO, Space:1999, and journey to the farside of the sun. They always are fun to watch. I grew up being a fan of their work without always knowing it was the same producers.

Fireball XL5 is one of my favourite Gerry Anderson shows.The theme tune is a great one as well.It took along time,but I managed to find a copy on ebay.They tend to be rather expensive as they are rare.I was very glad when we won it.It was well worth the wait.

In the library,the only copy they had had gone missing.I can`t remember when but I was dissapointed. It speaks the same for other little known Gerry Anderson shows.They had all gone missing in the library for years and there were not any copies anywhere.Thankfully,a lot of Gerry Anderson shows are now being released on DVD.That goes for Fireball XL5 to. It is being released on DVD the 20th October.

Yippee!

I have read the previous comments and am delighted at how intelligent, sexy and wise all we XL-5 fans grew up to become! I too suffered from years of dirty looks from Old Boomers whenever I mentioned this show. They swore it never existed, I boldly proclaimed it did, it did! I saw it as a six-year-old so of course it imprints upon Primal Joy circuits: The now-extinct Saturday Morning Cartoon block, when you watched anything animated. But only a handful of shows like XL-5 exhibited imagination, most were machine-made Hanna-Barbara slop like Huckleberry Hound and Top Cat. Yes, back in them days, we had to wait for our TV set to 'warm up'-- thanks to a little something we used to call 'vacuum tubes' (they looked a lot like Robert the Robot!) And TVs had a smell to them too (ozone and the paper bits (!!) inside heating up)-- and we liked it!!! Reviving this show is why God created the DVD and the Internet! My only complaint is the DVDs do not have enough extras on them; they could benefit from more comments. Like from Sylvia and Gerry Anderson maybe? Anyway, if you have never seen the show-- well, decide for yourself. Okay, they're 45 year old children shows, but hey-- it's PUPPETS!! Oops, I mean, it's SUPERMARIONETTES!! If you can't like that, your strings need readjusting, baby.

From the very outset, I was hooked by this show as a child. In a lot of ways, it was very advanced with a WOMAN doctor...even though Venus spent most of her time making coffee, cleaning up, or needing to be rescued. Robert was the best robot around, and Professor Mattic was just eccentric enough to be interesting, too. Coulda lived without the Lazoon, though. This show even had a first rate music score, too. But, it was that ship that had me! It was unlike most of the cramped ships in sci fi at the time. This one had a lounge, sleeping quarters, too. Its nose cone was detachable, and could land on the planets they visited. Most of the plots were pretty simple, but some stood out. One episode had XL5 in an unexplored area of space. The ship had been hit by meteors, and was losing its oxygen. They knew they had just a short time left, and even as a child, I was fascinated with how they were facing death. Of course, they just HAPPENED to wander into a part of the universe with its own air pocket, but hey..!

I used to think I was the only person who even cared about this show, but thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I found out there were a LOT of fans out there world wide!

I loved this show when I was young. I got as many episodes as were available on VHS when I could, and now, I see the entire series is on DVD! It probably won't win too many new fans in this day and age, but if you loved this show as a child, its a little reminder of a more innocent time. Enjoy the ride!