TERRAHAWKS Series One
Zeroid tolerance
released 25 July 1983 | u | BLU-RAY/DVD Creators gerry anderson, Christopher Burr Cast denise Bryer, Windsor davies, Jeremy Hitchen, anne ridler
“Terrahawks! Stay on this channel! This is an emergency!” With this pulsequickening call to arms Gerry Anderson entered the ’80s, abandoning his live-action dreams to return to the puppets that made his legend. He may have dressed it up with box-fresh buzz-words like Hudsoncolor and Supermacromation, and made his new heroes out of flexible latex, not wood, but make no mistake: this is a bid to reignite old glories.
Terrahawks recycles classic Anderson tropes for post-Star Wars kids, delivering yet another worldwide defence force with a hidden base and a sleek fleet of vehicles, defending Earth against an alien menace. But there’s a new, contagious glibness: the villains, led by cackling space-hag Zelda, are killingly funny, far from the chilling threat of the Mysterons or UFO’s nameless invaders. There are droids, too, the ballbearing-like Zeroids, led by Windsor Davies’s Sergeant Major Zero, majestically Welsh for all that he’s circuits and wires.
You feel the absence of Anderson’s traditional collaborators. The miniature work has none of the grace or pure cool of Derek Meddings, while the characters miss Sylvia Anderson’s knack for bestowing TV immortality. But if you can shake the fact that hero Dr Tiger Ninestein sounds uncannily like Loyd Grossman, there’s enough of an echo of FABness here to keep you entertained.
Extras “Geronimo!”, a special effects featurette with original FX guys Steve Begg and Terry Adlam; “The Composer’s Perspective” with Richard Harvey; Big Finish audio episode “The Price Is Right”; a sampler of recent animated webseries “Zeroids Vs Cubes”; the music video for Glass Onion’s “Don’t Be Afraid”, starring Sergeant Zero; effects trims; PDFs of the Terrahawks annual and a script; image gallery; plus, your chance to watch the VHS version of “Expect The Unexpected” for that ultimate ’80s nostalgia high!
Voice actor Jeremy Hitchen based Tiger Ninestein on Jack Nicholson. He got the job after Anderson heard him on the radio.