"5… 4… 3… 2… 1. Thunderbirds are go!"
John Williams fanfares, opening crawls, and Star Destroyers chasing blockade runners are all very well, but Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's puppet classic still has the edge when it comes to bombastic opening sequences. The first 30 seconds of every "Thunderbirds" instalment treat us to sightings of all five International Rescue craft, an action-heavy montage of clips from the episode to come, and a blast of (quite possibly) the most exciting soundtrack music ever recorded. And that's before the actual opening credits — accompanied by Barry Gray's famous theme tune — have even started in earnest. Dr Tiger Ninestein implored everyone watching "Terrahawks" (Anderson's 1980s offering) to "Stay on this channel". If he'd been fronting "Thunderbirds", he wouldn't have had to.
