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 can't belive that all of Gerry Adersons other series (like Stingray, Thunderbirds, Capt Scarlet, Joe 90 and Space 1999) get repeated every couple of years but Terrahawks has been left unshown since the early 80's. I luckily managed to track down a copy of series 5 though a Blackstar Video hunt and belive it was well worth the wait. What sets Terrahawks apart from the other Anderson shows is that it does'nt take itself too seriously which can be seen in such plot lines as the evil Zelda challenging Kate Kestral to the Intersteller Song Contest! For me the best thing about the series is the army of robotic sphere's known as the Zeroids under the command of Sargent Majoir Zero who I can only describe as Obidia Hakeswell from ITV's Sharpe turned into a goodie and a small robot football type thing! Also the inventiveness of having secret launch exits for ships by creating stately homes that open up and turbines to enable Hawkwing to fly up though a whilepool is more than the equal of anything on Tracy Island. Zelda dispite being an old hag of an android is a truly briliant Villan! "We're ready Earth scum!!!"

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 was the first Gerry Anderson programme I ever saw when I was a kid, and I still love it. Okay, so it CAN be cheesy at times, especially with Zelda and her family always doing the 'evil laugh' thing and the joke about Lt. Hiro's accent (Exactry!), but I still like it as it has a great sense of humour and adventure about it.

I was glad when the series was released on DVD because that means I could now see the entire series! The extras on the DVDs are great as well, particularly the original shooting scripts which are contained. TERRAHAWKS also has some unintentional laughs in the guise of the preposterous sounding writer's pseudonyms used by Tony Barwick to disguise the fact that he wrote 98% of the episodes (examples include T.I. Gerstein, Koo Garstein, Leo Pardstein and P.U. Mastein, geddit?).

The Terrahawks are a colourful team themselves, although team leader Dr. Ninestein is a real jerk most of the time, particularly towards Sgt. Major Zero, leader of the Terrahawk robots the Zeroids. But Zero more often than not gets his own back on Ninestein. The Zeroids are a rather enjoyable set of characters too. Each one has his own personality: there's the aforementioned Zero, who is a real soldier type, Five-Five, who always talks in rhyme, the French-accented Dix-Huit (or Dicks-Hu-It, as Zero pronounces it) and the camp Space Sergeant 101). Villainess Zelda and her family are rather two-dimensional but at times, they display interesting personalities.

One element of the show which could be overdone is the amount of time Terrahawk pilot/pop star Kate Kestrel spends singing, but the songs are generally good. The storylines are pretty good too. One of the best is when some kind of mind control force is loose in the Terrahawk base, causing the team to face their worst fears.

I give TERRAHAWKS a thumbs-up. It may probably never be considered a classic, but it is certainly enjoyable!

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!