Thunderbirds

Thunderbirds was a TV series that, according to the Eighth Doctor, aired in the 1980s. (PROSE: Trading Futures)

Megali Scoblow once described a swimming pool sliding away to reveal something, prompting Jason Kane to shout out, "Thunderbirds Are Go!" (PROSE: Beige Planet Mars) Samantha Jones once said the same thing to Amy Saraband to prompt them into action, (PROSE: Kursaal) as did Rose Tyler to the Ninth Doctor when Mickey Smith was kidnapped by the Quevvils. (PROSE: Winner Takes All)

Anji Kapoor once saw a red spaceship that she thought looked exactly like Thunderbird Three, right down to the white "3" on its side. (PROSE: Trading Futures)

Having studied Thunderbirds, Bernice Summerfield could tell that the flashing red light on Irving Braxiatel's pen meant something important. Braxiatel recalled that, in the show, it was a tea pot that did this. (PROSE: The Doomsday Manuscript)

Christine Summerfield stuck with the name 'control room' because she had seen too much Thunderbirds. (PROSE: Dead Romance)

Trix once described the person who kidnapped Fitz Kreiner as "a bit like a skinny version of the baddie out of Thunderbirds. Only with worse dress sense." (PROSE: To the Slaughter)

Osgood recognised the Twelfth Doctor's reference to "Cloudbase" as being from Thunderbirds, but was corrected by Colonel Ahmed rightly saying that Cloudbase was from Captain Scarlet. (TV: Death in Heaven)

References

There have also been several references to Thunderbirds, which allude to the series without mentioning it specifically:

• * In The Lodger, the Eleventh Doctor states that he is "Captain Troy Handsome of International Rescue", which is the name of the show's main organisation.
• Lance Parkin includes the character Lady Penelope from Thunderbirds in the party scene from his Virgin New Adventures novel The Dying Days.

Behind the scenes

• Though the link isn't directly made in Death in Heaven, in the real world, Sylvia Anderson co-created both Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet.
• While Trading Futures stated that Thunderbirds aired in the 80s, it originally ran between 1965 and 1966, but was repeated various times throughout subsequent decades.
• In Resurrection of the Daleks, the guards on the Prison Station wear uniforms similar to those worn by the main characters in Thunderbirds.
• The original Thunderbirds TV series from 1965-1966 features the voices of a number of actors who also played roles on Doctor Who, such as Shane Rimmer, Jeremy Wilkin, David Graham and Ray Barrett. Cliff Richard and John Carson were involved in the feature-lengths films Thunderbirds Are Go (1966) and Thunderbird 6 (1968) respectively.
  • The 2015 reboot, Thunderbirds Are Go, also includes several actors involved in Doctor Who and its spin-off materials, such as David Menkin, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Angel Coulby, Kayvan Novak, David Graham, Reggie Yates, Sandra Dickinson, Adjoa Andoh and Teresa Gallagher.
  • Sophia Myles, Ron Cook, Lex Shrapnel and Bhasker Patel all had roles in the 2004 live-action Thunderbirds film.
• Dennis Spooner also wrote episodes of both Doctor Who and Thunderbirds.
• John Peel is the author of Thunderbirds, Stingray, Captain Scarlet: The Authorized Programme Guide, as noted on the back of his Virgin Missing Adventures novel Evolution.
• Christopher Fowler, writing the foreword for Simon Clark's Telos novella The Dalek Factor, compares the Daleks to Thunderbird 2 in how familiar and iconic they are.