2025 has been a hugely significant year for the worlds of Gerry Anderson. This year has marked several landmark anniversaries of several of his television creations across Supermarionation, live action, and computer generated imagery.

Throughout 2025, we've been celebrating 60 years of Thunderbirds, 50 years of Space: 1999, and 20 years of New Captain Scarlet. The year has also brought major anniversaries for Four Feather Falls (65 years), UFO (55 years), and TV Century 21 (60 years).

With such a variety of celebrations to acknowledge, and with 2025 drawing to a close, let's take stock on the lasting significance of these creations from Gerry Anderson!

International Rescues & Alphan Odysseys

60 years ago this year, on September 30th, the heroic adventures of International Rescue blasted off onto television screens with the debut of Thunderbirds, the fifth Supermarionation television series from A.P. Films, produced by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. 

Thunderbirds' enthralling blend of state-of-the-art pyrotechnics, heroic storytelling, and imaginative futuristic adventure continues to captivate generations of fans around the world. The life-saving missions undertaken by the Tracy family in their astounding Thunderbird machines are a perfectly natural extension of the thematic identities explored throughout Supercar, Fireball XL5, and Stingray. Yet Thunderbirds' unique appeal of positive, rescue-driven action in the face of technological disaster enables the series to stand alone, a defining chapter in the Supermarionation story, a saga already studded with a multitude of distinct entries as the puppet-based art form evolved across the 1960s. 

Over half a century since its debut, Thunderbirds' emphasis on the preservation of life in the face of overwhelmingly impossible odds remains a surprisingly rare approach for a science fiction television series to embrace. With such a winning premise packaged into an intoxicating mixture of daredevil heroics and some of the most brilliantly memorable hardware designs in sci-fi history, Thunderbirds remains as enthralling today as it did 60 years ago.

50 years ago, on September 4th, the world witnessed a startlingly horrific event - a nuclear explosion blasting our Moon out of orbit! Gerry and Sylvia's final television series produced before their separation is held in high regard as their most narratively mature and visually ambitious undertaking. The adventures of the 311 men and women of Moonbase Alpha, thrust into the deepest, most unknowable chasms of outer space, remain thrilling to watch unfold. Space: 1999 presented its 1975 audience with a determined effort to bring the mystic grandeur of 2001: A Space Odyssey into a digestible package for commercial television - and mostly succeeds.

With a troubled production history and astronomical budget, the series' longevity was only made possible when it was forced to undergo a substantial reinvention for its second series. While much of the awe-struck metaphysical storytelling was eschewed in favour of simpler, monster-of-the-week styled plotlines, Space: 1999 retained its wide-eyed sense of adventure from beginning to end. The series is often called upon as a connective link in the evolution of science fiction's depiction on TV/film, binding the likes of the earlier Star Trek and the later Star Wars. Space: 1999's absurdly daring premise of the Moon being propelled out of the Earth's orbit, transforming Moonbase Alpha from a stationary outpost to a travelling hub across the stars, continues to invite ridicule and celebration in fairly equal measure. Yet the series' compelling blend of human-centred drama, spectacular visual effects, and challenging science fiction remains compelling viewing, 50 years on.

Supermarionation Spin-offs & Reinventions

Two other crucial Anderson works celebrated significant anniversaries this year - the debut of the newspaper of the future, and Gerry's final television series. 60 years ago on January 20th, a brand new an altogether different style of sci-fi adventure comic hit the newsstands. Liberally borrowing from the format established by the sensational boys' own paper Eagle but eschewing that comic's line-up in favour of A.P. Films' growing stable of science fiction heroes, TV Century 21 became one of the hottest comic of the decade.

Stylised as a newspaper of the future and merging many of Gerry and Sylvia's characters into a shared, cohesive timeline, TV Century 21 launched newly thrilling dimensions of danger, drama, and excitement for Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, and more, all illustrated by much of the UK's top comic strip talent of the era. Running for 242 issues for nearly five years, TV Century 21 (later shortened to TV21) proved a revolutionary marketing tool for A.P. Films' own productions, as well as being a brilliantly imaginative science fiction comic.

20 years ago in February, Gerry Anderson's last fully realised television production endured an arduous existence on the madcap Saturday morning children's variety show, Ministry of Mayhem. Shunted into the series with no clear indication of its actual timing, New Captain Scarlet deserved magnitudes more respect than it received, both from its unceremonious debut to the insincere pearl-clutching of strands of fandom who struggle to comprehend a version of Captain Scarlet not made in Supermarionation.

New Captain Scarlet is an invigorating and unflinching reinvention of the War of Nerves. Reflecting Gerry's endless fascination for pursuing new and emerging film-making techniques and technologies, New Captain Scarlet's blend of contemporary CGI animation and boldly dark storytelling and characterisation make for a fantastically compelling action-drama that refused to talk down to its young audience.

The Feather's SHADO

Two further creations from A.P. Films/Century 21 Productions also mark celebratory events; the Western with a difference, and Century 21's solitary live action television drama. Four Feather Falls, the first Gerry Anderson puppet production to utilise Supermarionation techniques, celebrates 65 years in 2025. Meanwhile, the darkly riveting adventures of the Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation celebrates 55 years.

Four Feather Falls' revolutionary puppetry techniques were a world away from the earlier, archaic stringed puppets of The Adventures of Twizzle or Torchy the Battery Boy. Developed from an idea by series composer Barry Gray, Four Feather Falls celebrated 65 years in March of 2025. The series follows the adventures of the sharp-shooting, fair-minded, brave-hearted Tex Tucker, sheriff of the Western town of Four Feather Falls. Tex is armed with four magic feathers gifted to him by a Red Indian chief, whose powers allow his dog and horse to speak - and his guns to fire without him even touching them!

Although the term 'Supermarionation' wouldn't emerge until the second series of Supercar in 1962, Four Feather Falls saw the first usage of puppets suspended with metallic wires that allowed for electrical impulses to allow the characters' lips to move perfectly in sync with their pre-recorded dialogue. The ambitious production design and delightful characterisations, all gleefully stereotyped from the classic personas of the Western genre, makes Four Feather Falls a charmingly endearing homage to the Western feature films of its era.

September 2025 marked 55 years of UFO, Century 21 Productions' first and only foray into producing a live-action television drama. Building on almost a decades' worth of producing family friendly puppet-based entertainment, UFO propelled the Century 21 team into tonal territory that was far less upbeat or heroic. Dominated by the powerfully smouldering Ed Straker, commander of SHADO and brilliantly portrayed by Ed Bishop, UFO balanced danger from the stars with power struggles from within. 

Straker leads SHADO's deadly efforts against a seemingly unending alien invasion of lifeforms who are intent on harvesting human organs for their own survival. Often humourless and sometimes outright tragic, UFO's clandestine war regularly came at the expense of personal relationships breaking down for the members of SHADO, all in the name of Earth's defence. Perhaps lingering in the shadow of Space: 1999, UFO's focus on the heart-breaking tragedy and political power struggles that come with protecting the Earth against aggressive invaders enliven the series with dramatic pathos. 

Now that 2025 is winding down, it's worth taking stock and surveying the long-lasting fruits yielded from all of these spectacular and ground-breaking creations. From rescue-themed puppetry to cosmic dangers, CGI reinventions, and Westerns with a difference, 2025 saw Thunderbirds, Space: 1999, New Captain Scarlet, TV Century 21, Four Feather Falls, and UFO all celebrate landmark milestones in their continuing longevity of popularity. 

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