30 Minutes After Noon

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30 Minutes After Noon is the seventh episode of the first season of the Supermarionation television series Thunderbirds. It was the eighteenth episode to be produced. Its original air date on ATV in the United Kingdom was 11 November 1965. It was written by Alan Fennell and directed by David Elliott.

Contents

[edit] Synopsis

When a mysterious fire is started, the Tracy brothers are assigned to rescue the man who was forced into committing arson. Dispatching a top agent to infiltrate the international gang responsible, the British Secret Service uncovers the next plot: to destroy a nuclear store and, in turn, half of England…

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Thomas Prescott, an employee at the Hudson Building, is driving calmly through the outskirts of Spoke City, USA, one night when he is flagged down by strange man. Claiming that his car battery has gone flat and that he urgently needs to see the doctor about his ill wife, the man is granted a lift by Prescott. When he stops the car on Princetown Avenue, however, the hitchhiker fixes a metal bracelet around his wrist. Holding Prescott at gunpoint, the stranger informs him that it contains a powerful explosive charge due to detonate in 30 minutes, and that the key required to unlock the bracelet is in a drawer in Prescott’s office. After ordering him to leave the bracelet in the drawer, the stranger gets out of the car and watches as Prescott rushes off to the Hudson Building.

In his desperation to survive, Prescott hardly notices the police cars pursuing his speeding vehicle and tears through a police barrier. Arriving at the building, he uses his own key to activate the lift to reach his floor. Ransacking various filing cabinets in his office, he finally discovers the bracelet key, unfastens the bracelet, places it in the cabinet and hurries back to the lift, time ticking away. Meanwhile, police officers wait impatiently for the janitor to arrive with a key to the building so that they can apprehend Prescott.

As the lift begins to descend, the charge detonates and the explosion rips through the upper levels of the building. The lift cables break and Prescott plunges to the bottom of the shaft ten floors underground. The building is quickly in flames and Police Officer Flanagan reports to his superior, Garfield that the sealed fire doors cannot be opened and that Prescott is trapped.

John Tracy and Brains relay a newscast on the disaster from the Thunderbird 5 space station to Tracy Island. Seeing the fire as an opportunity to test new fire-fighting equipment, Jeff sends out Scott in Thunderbird 1 and Virgil and Alan in Thunderbird 2. In transit, Scott learns that the Hudson Building’s automatic fire extinguishers were found empty and suspects that the fire was pre-meditated.

At the scene, the fire department controls the blaze while Virgil and Alan are lowered down the lift shaft in a protective cage. Activating dicetylene sprinklers to suppress the flames, the cage proceeds to the bottom of the shaft and Virgil makes contact with Prescott via a radio link. Clamping the lift, Virgil and Alan begin to ascend. Although they drain the dicetylene supply, they are able to raise Prescott to the ground floor unhurt. He is then promptly taken into police custody.

The next morning, there is much debate among the Spoke City authorities on the honesty of Prescott’s dubious story. The charred remains of the bracelet are then discovered and Police Commissioner Garfield, corroborating his theory with the presumed sabotage of the automatic fire extinguishers, is convinced that the fire was carefully engineered to destroy files on the Erdman Gang and other criminal organisations.

While the authorities report that Prescott was killed in the fire to tempt the perpetrators into the open, Sir William Frazer of the British Secret Service dispatches a top agent, Southern, to infiltrate the Erdman Gang’s next scheme. Posing as a criminal employed by the gang, Southern is equipped with a bracelet and sent to Glen Carrick Castle in Scotland to rendezvous with fellow gang members Dempsey and Kenyon.

After 36 hours, the Gang Leader radios his three operatives to give details of the plan. At 9am, they will leave for the Nuclear Plutonium Store, where isotopes for power stations across Britain are kept. The alarms will have been sabotaged and they will have a ray gun to subdue the robotic guards inside the complex. Accessing the plutonium vault, they will set explosives to detonate at 12.30pm, creating the largest nuclear explosion in history and destroying half of England. Beforehand, they will drive south to rendezvous with the Leader and flee the country by helijet. The catch is that the charges are already set – and are in the bracelets attached to their wrists. Using the same key that opens the vault, Southern, Dempsey and Kenyon must unlock their bracelets or they will be dead men.

Arriving at the site, the three men move from door to door, neutralising the robots along the way. Inside the plutonium vault, Southern finds the key but then draws a gun on Dempsey and Kenyon, revealing himself to be a double agent. However, while ordering the two men to capture the Leader, he fails to notice a robot approaching him from behind and is caught in its unbreakable grip. Dempsey and Kenyon remove all their bracelets and depart, jamming the entrance doors and leaving the treacherous Southern trapped on top of a nuclear explosion. Southern commands his superiors via radio to evacuate the surrounding area. Sir William Frazer, knowing that time is too short, calls International Rescue. Jeff sends out Scott in Thunderbird 1 and Virgil in Thunderbird 2 to tend to Southern and the bracelets, and contacts Lady Penelope to intercept the Erdman rendezvous in FAB1.

Having landed next to the Plutonium Store, Scott and Virgil deploy the Laser Cutter Vehicle from Thunderbird 2’s pod and start to move through the complex, cutting through each of the sealed doors and blasting them down with jets of air. At 12.23, the brothers gain access to the vault. While Virgil gets to work on Southern’s robotic captor, Scott collects the bracelets and boards Thunderbird 1. He jettisons the charges over the sea and they explode harmlessly in the water. Meanwhile, Penelope and Parker crash FAB1 through a fence into a field, where they sight the Leader, Dempsey and Kenyon taking off in their helijet. With a short burst from FAB1’s machine-gun, the craft comes crashing back to the ground and explodes.

Scott rejoins Virgil outside the Plutonium Store and finds that the released Southern needs medical attention. Penelope soon pulls up in FAB1 and offers to see to it herself. That night, while dining at the Creighton-Ward Mansion, Southern announces that he can no longer be a secret agent because his cover has been blown. He tells Penelope that a secret agent would not be her ideal job, oblivious to the fact that she is International Rescue’s London Agent.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Regular Voice Cast

[edit] Guest Voice Cast

  • Thomas Prescott — Matt Zimmerman
  • Stranger — Ray Barrett
  • Police Officer Flanagan — Ray Barrett
  • Police Officer Jones — Peter Dyneley
  • Police Officer (Police Barrier) — Matt Zimmerman
  • Sam Saltzman — David Graham
  • Gladys Saltzman — Sylvia Anderson
  • Police Commissioner Garfield — David Graham
  • Frank Forrester — Matt Zimmerman
  • Sir William Frazer (Two-One) — David Graham
  • BSS Assistant — David Graham
  • Southern (Agent Tiger-Four) — Ray Barrett
  • Erdman Gang Member — Peter Dyneley
  • Dempsey — Peter Dyneley
  • Kenyon — David Graham
  • Erdman Gang Leader — David Graham

[edit] Main Equipment

The vehicles and equipment featured in this episode are:

  • Thunderbird 1
  • Thunderbird 2 (carrying Pod 5)
  • Thunderbird 5
  • FAB1
  • Dicetylene Cage
  • Laser Cutter Vehicle
  • Helijet

[edit] Goofs

  • On the night of the Hudson fire, the date seen in Garfield’s office is written as 12/7/65 (12 July). The next day, it is 13/7/65 (13 July). However, due to the American setting, the second date does not make sense (the American custom is for the month numeral to be placed before the day). Thus, the dates should be 7/12/65 (July 12) and 7/13/65 (July 13), or the second date should be 12/8/65 (December 8).
  • Although in the film Thunderbirds Are Go it is stated that there is a five-hour time difference between Tracy Island and England, when Jeff calls Lady Penelope it is 10am in England and broad daylight on Tracy Island (Alan, Gordon and Tin-Tin have also been fishing offshore for some time).

[edit] Notes

  • The "March of the Oysters" track from the Stingray episode Secret of the Giant Oyster can be heard coming the television owned by the Hudson Building janitor, Sam Saltzman. The Highland theme from Loch Ness Monster is used during the castle scenes, and the Glen Carrick Castle model previously appeared as Castle McGregor in the same episode.
  • Southern is given his bracelet in a skyscraper which looks exactly like the Thompson Tower featured in City of Fire.
  • The Braman robot puppet from Sun Probe plays all the Plutonium Store guards.
  • The Leader’s helijet is also seen as the World TV helijet in The Impostors.
  • 30 Minutes After Noon was serialised in issues 18-20 of Thunderbirds: The Comic by Alan Fennell and Malcolm Stokes in 1992.

[edit] External links

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