Gerry Anderson’s puppet based television shows like Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, and Terrahawks, have delighted children and adults for decades.

After Gerry’s tragic death in 2012, his son Jamie announced that some of his father’s unfinished projects would be completed and released, funded by Kickstarter.

Firestorm is one of those projects.

Set eighty years in the future, an organization calling itself Black Orchid has started terrorist attacks, disrupting the relative peace that the Earth’s societies have achieved. Firestorm has been raised as Earth’s last line of defense against them.

On YouTube we have seen their first steps. A mini-episode, a minisode, of Firestorm introduces us to the main characters, Nagisa Kisaragi, Sam Scott, and Drew MacAllister, and their fight against the forces of Black Orchid.

As a long time fan of Gerry Anderson’s past series I’m excited to see someone continuing his work and now Supermarionation has been upgraded to Ultramarionation.

Firestorm is filmed with a combination of live action puppetry working against a mix of scale sets and green screen, with CGI work done afterward.

Gerry Anderson’s work was characterized by a general optimism, looking forward to a future where technology has solved most of our social problems. A Roddenberry like science fiction utopia. Villains tended to be aberrations rather than the norm. Although such a view might be a bit naive, it is undoubtedly a more healthy perspective than those who subscribe to the doom-and-gloom cults.

His puppet theater with its exquisite model making and practical special effects made his shows some of the best around when I was growing up, and they are much loved around the world, especially in Japan.

I can only wish the creators of Firestorm the best in their ongoing work. When the series makes it to screen I will watch it.