A quick introduction
Meet the series, its makers and the wonderfully strange world of Supermacromation.
Watch the primer →Supermacromation series
Terrahawks
Zelda is coming—and Earth’s last line of defence is an eccentric team with extraordinary machines. Meet the Terrahawks, the Zeroids and the monsters threatening their world.
- Hawknest
- 39 television episodes
- First broadcast in 1983
Terrahawks
Where to begin
A few rewarding routes into this world. Choose the one that catches your imagination.
Choose your first adventure
Find a starting point for the action, the Zeroids or Zelda’s unpredictable family.
Read the beginner’s guide →Behind the launch sequences
Discover the ideas Terrahawks inherited from Thunderbirds, then made its own.
Explore the creative connections →Terrahawks
Machines
Choose a machine to discover its role, its story and where it can take you next.
Battlehawk
The team’s heavy-duty craft carries equipment and personnel into major operations. Its departure transforms Hawknest’s apparently ordinary White House into a launch site, turning the mechanics of a hidden base into a spectacular part of the adventure.
- Base: Hawknest
- Role: Heavy transport and operations
Spacehawk
The team’s orbiting station forms a defensive line beyond Earth’s atmosphere. Hiro works aboard the large, open-frame spacecraft, supported by Zeroids and linked to the ground team by the Treehawk shuttle.
- Role: Orbital defence
- Associated with: Lieutenant Hiro
Hawkwing
The Terrahawks’ rapid-response aircraft pairs Kate Kestrel’s flying with Hawkeye’s weapons expertise. Its extraordinary launch takes it through an underground tunnel and out through an artificial whirlpool before it climbs into action.
- Crew: Kate Kestrel and Hawkeye
- Role: Air interception
Treehawk
The shuttle connects Hawknest with Spacehawk in orbit. Its name is also a clue to its concealed launch route: a tree opens to release the spacecraft from the jungle around the base.
- Route: Hawknest to Spacehawk
- Role: Shuttle
Terrahawk
The smaller command craft detaches from Battlehawk, allowing the larger machine to provide heavy support while a separate vehicle carries out closer operations. Together, the two craft give the team several ways to tackle a crisis.
- Parent craft: Battlehawk
HUDSON
Kate Kestrel’s extraordinary car has a personality as well as a practical role. The combination of transport and electronic companion brings the series’ taste for intelligent machines into Kate’s public life as a recording star.
- Associated with: Kate Kestrel
Terrahawks
Characters
Meet the people at the heart of this world. Open a card and follow their story.
Dr Tiger Ninestein
The Terrahawks’ commanding officer brings fierce determination and a famously short temper to Earth’s defence. His arguments with the Zeroids and his relationship with Mary Falconer reveal a more complicated figure than an untroubled action hero.
- Role: Terrahawks commander
- Voice: Jeremy Hitchen
Captain Mary Falconer
Mary is Ninestein’s second-in-command and a steady presence within the team. Her judgement and warmth often provide a counterweight to Tiger’s impatience, while her operational work places her directly in the rescue and defence missions.
- Role: Second-in-command
- Voice: Denise Bryer
Lieutenant Hawkeye
Hawkeye operates Hawkwing’s weapons alongside Kate. His computer-enhanced vision gives his role a distinctive technological edge, while his easy humour contributes to one of the team’s most familiar partnerships.
- Role: Hawkwing gunner
- Partner: Kate Kestrel
Sergeant Major Zero
The irrepressible leader of the spherical Zeroids insists that his robots deserve respect. Windsor Davies gives him a thunderous military voice, making his battles of will with Ninestein as memorable as his work against Zelda.
- Role: Leader of the Zeroids
- Voice: Windsor Davies
Zelda
The android ruler directs the assault on Earth from Mars, using a mixture of advanced machines, monsters and elaborate schemes. Denise Bryer’s performance moves between menace and exasperation, especially when Zelda must deal with her own unruly family.
- Role: Leader of the android invaders
- Voice: Denise Bryer
Sram
A monstrous roar makes Sram a destructive weapon in Zelda’s armoury, but the series also finds comedy in his unlikely musical potential. His appearances capture Terrahawks’ willingness to move from danger to absurdity within the same adventure.
- Also known as: Lord of Felony
Yuri
The small bear’s harmless appearance conceals formidable telekinetic powers. Yuri turns a familiar toy-like shape into a threat, one of the clearest examples of the series making the apparently cuddly unexpectedly dangerous.
- Ability: Telekinesis
Captain Goat
The space pirate arrives with the swagger and accessories of a seafaring buccaneer. In Jolly Roger One, his work with Yung-Star and It-Star turns pirate radio into a distinctly literal problem for the Terrahawks.
- First appearance: Jolly Roger One
Lord Tempo
Lord Tempo manipulates time, giving Zelda opportunities that cannot be answered by firepower alone. His sinister appearance and unusual abilities bring a supernatural flavour to a world already crowded with strange threats.
- Ability: Manipulation of time
Kate Kestrel
Kate combines her role as a fighter pilot with a public career as a pop singer. Music, recording sessions and celebrity provide a second setting for her adventures, while she and Hawkeye work together aboard Hawkwing.
- Role: Fighter pilot and recording artist
- Original speaking voice: Anne Ridler
Lieutenant Hiro
Hiro watches the skies from Spacehawk, providing the orbital side of the Terrahawks’ defence. His thoughtful, poetic manner gives the team another voice alongside Tiger’s forcefulness and the Zeroids’ military enthusiasm.
- Base: Spacehawk
- Voice: Jeremy Hitchen
Space Sergeant 101
The space-going Zeroid brings another strong personality to the robot ranks. Alongside Sergeant Major Zero, 101 helps make the Terrahawks’ mechanical support team a collection of individual characters rather than anonymous equipment.
- Type: Zeroid
Cy-Star
Zelda’s sister belongs to the dysfunctional household behind the invasion. Her priorities and reactions often complicate Zelda’s plans, and the arrival of her child It-Star adds an especially unpredictable new member to the family.
- Family: Zelda’s sister and It-Star’s parent
Yung-Star
Zelda’s son assists in the androids’ operations but rarely supplies the efficiency his mother demands. His complaints, mistakes and exchanges with the family help turn the Martian command centre into a comic household as well as a threat.
- Family: Zelda’s son
It-Star
The apparently infant android is one of the family’s most inventive and dangerous strategists. Introduced in Two for the Price of One, It-Star brings a new stream of elaborate plots and unsettling contrasts between appearance and intention.
- Parent: Cy-Star
- Debut: Two for the Price of One
MOID
The Master of Infinite Disguise can change his appearance to serve Zelda’s schemes. His story also explores a longing for beauty and kindness beyond her control, making him one of the series’ more unexpectedly poignant adversaries.
- Name: Master of Infinite Disguise
Terrahawks
Places
Explore the headquarters and locations that make this world possible.
Hawknest
Hidden in a South American jungle, the Terrahawks’ base disguises its work behind a country estate known as the White House. Beneath and around it are the hangars, tunnels and launch mechanisms that bring the whole landscape to life during an alert.
- Location: South America
- Public cover: The White House
The android base on Mars
Zelda’s headquarters combines spacecraft, command rooms and storage for the monsters she sends against Earth. It is also the setting for the family arguments and frustrated planning that make the invaders’ life on Mars so distinctive.
- Planet: Mars
- Occupants: Zelda and her android family
Watch, listen and discover
Watch Terrahawks
Start with Expect the Unexpected or choose your next adventure from the full television series on our official YouTube channel.
Browse the full episodes →Find services by country, with free and paid options.
Where to watch full episodes →Stories
Go deeper into this world
Fresh perspectives, familiar heroes and adventures beyond the screen.
Shop
Bring the adventure home
Explore the available editions and stories connected with this world.
![Terrahawks: The Complete Series [DVD] Set (Region 0 PAL) - The Gerry Anderson Store](http://gerryanderson.com/cdn/shop/files/terrahawks-the-complete-series-dvd-set-region-0-pal-754436.png?v=1736403134&width=500)
![Terrahawks Comic Anthology [DOWNLOAD] - The Gerry Anderson Store](http://gerryanderson.com/cdn/shop/files/terrahawks-comic-anthology-download-641754.png?v=1743831387&width=500)
![Terrahawks: Original TV Soundtrack [CD] - The Gerry Anderson Store](http://gerryanderson.com/cdn/shop/files/terrahawks-original-tv-soundtrack-cd-2383716.jpg?v=1779494048&width=500)
From the archive
The story of Terrahawks
Explore the production, the people and the original archive material behind this world.
Earth’s defenders, with a sense of humour
In the series’ imagined 2020, an android force led by Zelda occupies Mars and threatens Earth. Standing in its way are the Terrahawks, a specialist defence team led by Doctor Tiger Ninestein. From their concealed Hawknest base, they deploy aircraft, spacecraft and a force of spherical robot soldiers called Zeroids.
Terrahawks balances spectacular miniature action with sharp comedy. Ninestein may insist on military efficiency, but Sergeant Major Zero has a personality of his own, and Zelda’s family can be as difficult for her to manage as the humans she wants to defeat.
A new kind of puppet production
Created by Gerry Anderson and Christopher Burr, Terrahawks first reached television in 1983. It was Gerry’s first puppet series since The Secret Service, but it used a different technique. Latex hand puppets, operated from below, replaced the familiar strings of Supermarionation. The new approach was called Supermacromation.
The 39 episodes combine those expressive puppet characters with miniature craft and environments. Steven Begg led the special effects, Gary Tomkins served as art director, and Richard Harvey composed the music. The result belongs clearly to the Anderson tradition while having an unmistakable 1980s character of its own.
Inside Hawknest
Ninestein is one of nine clones, an idea that gives the team’s leadership an unusual science-fiction foundation. Captain Mary Falconer is his second-in-command. Kate Kestrel and Hawkeye operate Hawkwing, while Hiro works aboard the orbiting Spacehawk.
The Zeroids are far more than interchangeable equipment. Windsor Davies gives Sergeant Major Zero a commanding voice and a continuing battle of wills with Ninestein. Space Sergeant 101 and other robots add their own quirks to the organisation. Kate’s parallel life as a singer brings another kind of performance into the show, with Moya Griffiths providing her singing voice.
Zelda and the Martian household
Zelda is supported — and frequently exasperated — by Yung-star and Cy-star, with It-star joining the family later. Her forces include the robotic Cubes and a collection of powerful allies, including Sram, Yuri, Lord Tempo and the Master of Infinite Disguise.
The humour does not remove the danger. Instead, it makes the enemy household feel as distinctive as the team at Hawknest. The series moves between invasion plots, disguises, strange powers and episodes in which character and comedy take the lead.
Television and the audio return
Start with the two-part Expect the Unexpected to meet both sides and see how the defence system works. The episode index below provides a complete route through the original television production.
The first Big Finish audio volume was released in April 2015, following the revival’s announcement in 2014. Denise Bryer, Jeremy Hitchen and Robbie Stevens returned, with Beth Chalmers joining the cast. The new stories developed the characters and their world in a different medium, alongside the original television adventures.
Explore the first audio volume at Big Finish. The television series and later audio stories are labelled separately so you can choose where to begin.
The 39-episode television index
Choose a title to watch the full episode on our official YouTube channel. The two parts of Expect the Unexpected are listed separately. This retains the archive’s sequence; regional broadcast orders can differ.
- Expect The Unexpected
- Expect The Unexpected Part 2
- Gold
- Thunder-Roar
- Close Call
- From Here To Infinity
- Space Samurai
- The Sporilla
- Happy Madeday
- Gunfight At Oaky’s Corral
- The Ugliest Monster Of All
- The Gun
- Thunder Path
- Mind Monster
- To Catch A Tiger
- The Midas Touch
- Operation S.A.S.
- Ten Top Pop
- Unseen Menace
- A Christmas Miracle
- Midnight Blue
- Play It Again, Sram
- My Kingdom For A ZEAF
- Zero’s Finest Hour
- The Ultimate Menace
- Ma’s Monsters
- Two For The Price Of One
- Child’s Play
- Jolly Roger One
- Runaway
- First Strike
- Terratomb
- Doppelganger
- Cry UFO
- Space Cyclops
- Timewarp
- Space Giant
- Cold Finger
- Operation Zero
Production record
Anderson Burr Pictures / LWT. 39 episodes of approximately 25 minutes; first broadcast in 1983.
Producers: Gerry Anderson & Christopher Burr
Associate Producer: Bob Bell
Directors: Alan Pattillo, Desmond Saunders, Tony Bell & Tony Lenny
Lighting Cameramen: Harry Oakes BSC & Paddy Seale
Art Director: Gary Tomkins
Special Effects Director: Steven Begg
Music Composed & Performed by Richard Harvey
Additional Music Composed by Gerry Anderson & Christopher Burr
Original voice cast: Jeremy Hitchen, Anne Ridler, Denise Bryer, Ben Stevens and Windsor Davies.
Watch the introduction
Follow the creative thread
Your next world awaits
Shared makers, familiar ideas and unexpected connections. Choose your next world.
Thunderbirds
The rescue-team inheritance
Compare Hawknest’s specialist craft with the machines of International Rescue.
Explore the world →
DICK SPANNER
Another side of Anderson Burr
Exchange alien invasion for a wisecracking robot detective and a world made from visual puns.
Explore the world →
SPACE POLICE
A new approach to alien characters
Explore the Anderson Burr pilot that mixed human officers, alien creatures and an off-world police force.
Explore the world →