Intergalactic Rescue 4

A distant emergency. An extraordinary spacecraft. A team whose job is to go where help is needed. Intergalactic Rescue 4 takes a familiar Anderson ideal — using ingenuity and technology to save lives — into a much wider universe.

Gerry Anderson and Fred Freiberger developed the concept during the Space: 1999 period. It was proposed as a live-action television series, but never reached production. Decades later, its ideas found a new audience in Stellar Patrol, a novel by Richard James and an audiobook performed by Wayne Forester.

In the twenty-second century, the League of Planets needs a rescue team able to work far beyond Earth. Jason Stone and Anne Warran join the robots Alpha and Zeta aboard the versatile Intergalactic Rescue 4. Their assignments take them into dangerous situations where a conventional rescue vehicle would be out of its depth.

The craft is the heart of the idea: a combination of spacecraft, aircraft, hovercraft and submersible. It brings something of Supercar's go-anywhere promise to missions on an interplanetary scale. Its crew must be just as adaptable as their vehicle.

Many television ideas leave only a title or a few sketches behind. Intergalactic Rescue 4 retained enough of its original story material for Richard James to build a connected adventure around the proposed missions. Stellar Patrol brings together ten adventures, turning the outlines of an unmade production into a story that can be read or heard.

The first book edition appeared in November 2022. Wayne Forester's audiobook gives the crew their voices, with music and sound effects by Benji Clifford and production by Jamie Anderson. These adaptations are the way to encounter the world itself; there is no completed Intergalactic Rescue 4 television series to watch.

Listen to the opening chapter of Stellar Patrol on the official Gerry Anderson YouTube channel. It is a free introduction to the setting, the crew and the kind of adventures this rescue service undertakes.

The book and audio editions form part of Anderson Entertainment's exploration of Gerry's unmade projects. This page is an introduction to that creative history as well as to the story itself.

The relationship with Thunderbirds is easy to recognise: an exceptional machine and a small team respond when lives are at risk. Supercar provides another useful comparison through its ability to travel across different environments. Space: 1999 places the project in the period when Gerry was working on live-action space adventure.

Explore the lost worlds of Gerry Anderson for the development story, or look inside the Anderson Entertainment archive for more unmade concepts and original material.