Attack of the Alligators!

A businessman, Blackmer, visits the reclusive Dr Orchard, a scientist who lives in a dilapidated house on the Ambro River. From the local plant Sidonicus americanus, Orchard has developed a food additive called "theramine" that increases the size of animals. Enlargement of animal stock presents a simple solution to world famine as well as other economic advantages. Blackmer's boatman, Culp, has been eavesdropping on the meeting. When a storm forces Blackmer to stay at the house overnight, Culp decides to steal the theramine and sell it to the highest bidder. Waiting until the house's other occupants are asleep, he breaks into Orchard's laboratory and pours some theramine into a vial; in the process, he accidentally tips some of the drug into a sink, washing it away into the Ambro River. When Blackmer and Culp leave the next morning, their boat is attacked by an alligator, now enormous due to the theramine contamination. Orchard's assistant, Hector McGill, manages to rescue Blackmer but Culp is seemingly lost. The house is quickly surrounded by three giant alligators that repeatedly hurl themselves at the building with Orchard, Blackmer, McGill and the housekeeper, Mrs Files, trapped inside. At Mrs Files' suggestion, McGill transmits a distress call to International Rescue. This is picked up by John Tracy on the Thunderbird 5 space station and relayed to Tracy Island, where Jeff immediately dispatches his other four sons to the danger zone in Thunderbirds 1 and 2. Arriving in Thunderbird 1 and transferring to a hover-jet, Scott fires the hover-jet's missile gun to disperse the alligators and accesses the house via the laboratory window. The room eventually caves in, forcing Scott and the others to retreat to the lounge. There, they are confronted by Culp, who holds them at gunpoint. Virgil, Alan and Gordon arrive in Thunderbird 2. Alan and Gordon man tranquiliser guns and subdue two of the alligators. When the third returns to the house, Alan exits Thunderbird 2 on another hover-jet to lure it away. He crashes and is knocked unconscious-jet but is saved by Gordon, who tranquilises the alligator before it reaches Alan. Threatening to empty the entire theramine vial into the Ambro unless he is given safe passage upriver, Culp sets off in Blackmer's boat. At the same time, Gordon launches Thunderbird 4. A fourth, large alligator appears and attacks the boat, killing Culp. Virgil disposes of the creature with a missile fired from Thunderbird 2. Gordon manages to recover the theramine vial intact on the riverbed. Back on Tracy Island, Jeff reveals that Blackmer and Orchard have announced that theramine will be subject to international security restrictions. Tin-Tin, who has been away on a shopping trip and missed the rescue, has bought Alan a present for his birthday – a pygmy alligator. ==Regular voice cast==

The episode was partly inspired by H. G. Wells' 1904 novel The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth and its theme of animal size change. both of which feature stalkers and a haunted house premise. In an interview, Gerry Anderson described housekeeper Mrs Files as a "Mrs Danvers-type character". Writer Alan Pattillo, who according to special effects supervisor Derek Meddings "had tried to come up with the most nightmarish rescue situation he could", had wanted to direct the episode as well. In the end, however, it was directed by David Lane. The opening scene features an insert shot of a stormy sky that later introduced the opening titles of The Prisoner. "Attack of the Alligators!" was filmed in October and November 1965. The production overran its one-month schedule, forcing the crew to work extra hours, and sometimes long into the night, to finish the filming. According to Lane, at one stage the shoot ran for 48 hours straight, with two editors processing the footage in shifts. He added: "I think Derek [Meddings] went three days, non-stop, just shooting." The alligators in the episode were portrayed not by actual alligators, as Gerry Anderson had originally intended, but juvenile crocodiles. These were acquired from a private zoo in the north of England to double as the enlarged alligators on the episode's scale model sets and water tanks. To make them more visible to the cameras, the crew attached them to guiding rods and coordinated their movements. According to Gerry Anderson, when the inspector arrived, "Meddings explained that his team were laying the crocodiles down and they weren't doing anything. They were just lying there. The RSPCA man said, well, they would, because of the warmth of the lamps. So Derek said, 'We've been giving them a touch with an electrode just to make them move.' The guy asked what voltage they were using and Derek said it was about 20 volts, and the guy said, 'Oh, they've got terribly thick skins, you know. If you want them to move, you'll have to pump it up to 60.'" While filming a scene, Meddings was pulling one of the crocodiles towards him on a rope when the animal slid out of its harness. Meddings wrote of the incident: "My crew never saw me move as fast as I did to get out of the tank when I pulled the rope and realised the creature was free." ==Broadcast and reception==

Originally transmitted on 10 March 1966, "Attack of the Alligators!" had its first UK-wide network broadcast on 20 March 1992 on BBC2. Critical response "Attack of the Alligators!" is a popular episode of Thunderbirds and is widely regarded as one of the series' best. It was well received by Sylvia Anderson, who described it as her favourite episode. Lew Grade, head of distributor ITC, expressed great satisfaction with the filming during a visit to APF Studios in 1965. while Peter Webber of DVD Monthly magazine calls the episode "just insane". In 2004, "Attack of the Alligators!" was reissued on DVD in North America as part of A&E Video's The Best of Thunderbirds: The Favorite Episodes. Reviewing the release for the website DVD Verdict, David Gutierrez awarded "Attack of the Alligators!" a perfect score of 100, declaring it the best episode in the collection and praising its production values: "It's like a beautifully directed short film". The techniques used to produce the footage have caused the episode to be described as "controversial" by some sources. Mark Pickavance of the website Den of Geek criticises the footage from a visual standpoint, arguing that the use of scale sets with young crocodiles, "shot in super close-up to make them seem huge", does not produce a convincing illusion of giant alligators. Author Dave Thompson compares the giant reptiles to Swamp Thing, a superorganism featured in the DC Comics Universe. Richard Farrell praises the episode as "one of the best remembered, albeit least typical, of International Rescue's adventures". Marcus Hearn suggests that the episode is praised for its effects but criticised for how the production's "painstaking approach paid dividends" in a scene where an alligator thrashes the house with its tail. In 1976, Thunderbirds writer Dennis Spooner adapted the premise of "Attack of the Alligators!" while writing "Gnaws", an episode of The New Avengers featuring an enlarged rat. ==References==