Gerry Anderson Day 2023

Gerry Anderson's Favourite Episodes

The total number of episodes encompassing Gerry Anderson's groundbreaking series range over 600 individual television and film programs. Over the course of his career, Anderson has reflected carefully on which stories he classes as his favourites. Of course, Anderson had series he preferred, series he made that he disliked, and characters and actors that he favoured over others. Nevertheless, Anderson's favourite episodes were typically the episodes that he had a close attachment towards personally or that they were crucial episodes to a particular series and his career in the film/television industry. 

Some of the episodes on this list were inspired by real-life events Anderson experienced or could relate to. In contrast, others episodes were the first television production to pioneer special visual effects. In 2021, Britbox released a special selection of episodes that Anderson described as his favourite episodes across his career. Each episode in the selection also included a short introduction from Anderson, explaining why he favoured these episodes over others. Many of them are featured in this list. Each episode listed below accounts for why Anderson favoured these special episodes that he deemed were his favourite stories from his catalogue of filmmaking.

Stingray: Stingray - Anderson could claim the pioneering credit of making the first ever episode (and series) of the first British children's TV series was made entirely in colour. This episode also pioneered many brilliant techniques in the visual effects industry of underwater filming which was refined specifically for Stingray. Inspired from German U boats and the mysteries surrounding the deep, Anderson was also influenced from World War Two from the aerial bomb shelters. The descending of Marineville underground was taken directly from the shelters of aerial bombardments of British cities from the Nazis. The pilot of the series is also an excellent opener and is one of the strongest episodes of the series.

Thunderbirds: Trapped In The Sky - Towards the end of his life, Anderson pointed out the opening episode of Thunderbirds as his single most proudest achievement in life. The opening Thunderbirds story remains undisputedly one of the greatest episodes of 1960s television. Having the 25 minute run of the story alone be declared as Lew Grade as a "feature film", the story excellently introduces us to the International Rescue organisation and its set-up. Combined with the iconic moment of the Fireflash landing sequence, and the dramatic increase of visual effects required for the story, many more pioneering techniques in the film industry were created from this episode. These range from the Thunderbirds launches to the moving background technique for scenes of the Fireflash rising and descending towards the runway for takeoff and the gripping finale. One particular moment where Elevator Car 3 accidentally diverted off course in shot looked so convincing that it was added into the finished episode. The Fireflash unable to land on the ground due to the Hood's bomb placed in the landing gear of the aircraft was inspired from Anderson's own experiences. Anderson was inspired from his experiences while working as a radio telephone operator for RAF air traffic control. A plane was about to touchdown with its wheels up, but the pilot was warned just in time. To this day, Trapped In The Sky remains essential viewing to any Gerry Anderson fan or television enthusiast.

Thunderbirds: Terror In New York City - My all time favourite episode of the Gerry Anderson series! Originally filmed under the title of Terror In New York, inspiration for this fan-favourite episode came from Gerry Anderson himself. Anderson had read a newspaper article about the relocation of a Japanese department store as part of a highway redevelopment scheme. Anderson later remembered that "because of its huge value as a going concern, [the store] was not demolished, but jacked up and moved inch by inch to a new site". This particularly inspired Anderson, and has remained one of his favourite episodes since. This was not the only episode to be inspired from real life events (e/g Ricochet). Barry Gray's epic score for the episode is some of his best music ever composed (i/e World Exclusive Foiled, Moving The Empire State Building), and the tension throughout the episode never stops. From the opening rescue mission and the US Sentinel attack on Thunderbird 2 to the collapse of the Empire State Building to the desperate search of Ned and Joe trapped in the underground rivers, Terror In New York City are quintessential Thunderbirds viewing and a gripping episode of the series. The story constructively builds new threats gradually for International Rescue to face off and remains as arguably the best episode of the series. The story predicts terrifying possibilities regarding the safety of megacities, and arguably predicted the terrorist attack on the World Trade on September 11th 2001. "Tell International Rescue they got about two and one half minute before that building goes over. The geologists reckon that after that, anything can happen".