Pit of Peril

In the African jungle, the United States Army is testing a new all-terrain Sidewinder, a giant four-legged walker developed for use in brushfire wars. Disaster strikes when the ground gives way beneath the Sidewinder and it falls into a blazing pit, with its crew of three – Colonel Sweeney, Frank and Johnny – trapped inside, hundreds of feet below ground. Their air and other life support systems are failing and the outside temperature is rising rapidly. An air support unit, comprising a helicopter crew and the Sidewinder relief crew, evaluate the situation. The leader, General Peters, states that the Sidewinder weighs over 500 tons and the equipment needed to lift it would take weeks to arrive. Lieutenant Mead volunteers to be hoisted into the pit to assess the Sidewinder's condition but can only glimpse the vehicle before he is overwhelmed by the heat and forced to withdraw. A plan is devised to set the Sidewinder upright using the helicopter, so that the machine may be able to climb to the surface, and Sergeant Reynolds goes in to attach a line to one of the legs. He succeeds but also emerges from the pit badly burnt. Mead and Reynolds are airlifted to hospital in the relief crew's helijet. The Sidewinder proves too heavy for the helicopter and the line slips off during the rescue attempt. Prompted by his aide, Ralph, Peters sends out an emergency call to International Rescue. The transmissions have already been picked up by John Tracy on the Thunderbird 5 space station and relayed to Tracy Island. After confirmation from John that the army needs their help, Jeff immediately dispatches Scott in Thunderbird 1, followed by Virgil and Brains in Thunderbird 2 carrying the Mole and two Recovery Vehicles. Reaching the scene, the team survey the pit using Thunderbird 1s remote camera, which sights old army wreckage. They determine that the pit was once an open-cast mine which had been used as a military equipment dump after World War II; a crust of earth has formed over the top and spontaneous combustion has caused the wreckage in the pit to burn up. Brains deduces that they must remove the remainder of the crust before the Recovery Vehicles will be able to drag the Sidewinder up the side of the pit. Wearing a protective suit, Virgil enters the pit to lay explosive charges around the perimeter. Scott uses the Mole to drill through the side of the crater to recover Virgil. Brains detonates the charges and the explosions successfully clear the crust over the pit. Virgil takes control of two Recovery Vehicles equipped with magnetic lines attached to winch cables. The electromagnets are fired at the Sidewinder and the recovery vehicles begin to haul it up the side of the pit. One of the electromagnets fails and becomes detached from the Sidewinder, so Virgil has to winch it in and fire again. This time, the magnet holds firm and on the second attempt, the Recovery Vehicles finally manage to pull the Sidewinder up to the surface. Sweeney, Frank and Johnny are airlifted to hospital in a medical helicopter, and International Rescue depart. A grateful Peters, agreeing to Scott's guarantee of secrecy for the organisation, voices his wish that the Tracys were in his army. ==Regular voice cast==

"Pit of Peril" is one of several early Thunderbirds episodes that were originally 25 minutes long but subsequently extended to 50 minutes after Lew Grade – APF's owner and financial backer, who had been highly impressed by the 25-minute pilot version of "Trapped in the Sky" – ordered that the running time be doubled so that Thunderbirds would fill an hour-long TV timeslot. For "Pit of Peril", this involved adding new supporting elements in the form of the relief helijet and its crew (Lieutenant Mead, Sergeant Reynolds and Pilot Charlie) as well as a subplot in which the army personnel attempt to recover the Sidewinder using their own equipment before calling International Rescue. Continuity errors in the design of the army helicopter cockpit set distinguish the episode's original footage from the new scenes filmed during the reshoot. A scene set inside the pit uses camera movement and a carefully timed edit to give the impression that the Virgil puppet and scale model of the Mole are in the same shot, even though they were filmed by different units: when the camera pans away from the effects unit's shot of the Mole, its view passes through thick smoke, hiding a cut separating this footage from the puppet unit's shot of Virgil. This episode marks the first use of Thunderbirds regular ending theme music: a modified version of the instrumental that accompanies the launch of Thunderbird 1 in "Trapped in the Sky". The incidental music for "Pit of Peril", composed by Barry Gray was recorded on 24 April 1965 in a four-hour studio session with a 22-piece orchestra. In 2025, an original version of the episode was discovered in which International Rescue only first learn of the disaster upon being contacted by General Peters. Design The Sidewinder's look was designed by director Desmond Saunders. The studio model used wood and card for the main body and chains of cake tins for the arms. The simple interior set, which incorporated the Mobile Control console used by Scott, was embellished for future appearances. ==Broadcast and reception==

In the series' alternative two-part format that was broadcast in some UK regions, part one of "Pit of Peril" ended with Thunderbird 1 blasting off from Tracy Island while part two began with an abridged version of a scene in which the army personnel discuss the situation while standing at the edge of the pit. Several other scenes were also shortened. Tom Fox of Starburst magazine rates the episode three out of five, calling the Sidewinder a "great but hilariously awkward invention" and likening it to the giant mechanical spider in the film Wild Wild West (1999). Simon Archer and Marcus Hearn describe "Pit of Peril" as one of several early Thunderbirds episodes that focus on "seemingly inescapable dangers on land, under the sea and in the air". For Chris Bentley, it is one of a number that use "incredible technology in a developing world as a springboard to disaster". He compares the plot to that of Series Two's "Path of Destruction" but regards that episode as superior in nearly all respects. Bentley and Hearn also argue that the premise is similar to that of "Trapped in the Sky". In an essay analysing Thunderbirds along gender lines, Ian Haywood believes that the Sidewinder's fall into the pit reflects a broader conflict in the series between "masculine" science and "maternal" nature. According to Haywood, the army walker's undoing literally shows that "Mother Nature will not be walked over. Is this the transmogrified mother taking her revenge, or is she continuing her role as society's moral conscience?" Nicholas J. Cull views the Sidewinder's defeat by a 20th-century military dump as symbolic of "the way in which the political residue of one war can dog a future generation." He also considers the reference to brushfires "topical" for a TV episode made "in the opening years of the Vietnam conflict". In a review of the series' soundtrack, Heather Phares of AllMusic cites the incidental piece "The Fate of the Sidewinder" as an example of how Barry Gray's work on Thunderbirds "[sent] up the spy and action/adventure conventions of the '60s very stylishly and subtly." She characterises the track as "only slightly more over the top than the scores for the James Bond films or for TV series like The Prisoner". ==References==