MAYBE IT’S IN THE BLOOD, BUT Jamie Anderson is a self-confessed Terrahawks fan. “You make it sound like it’s a bad thing!” laughs the son of television legend Gerry, quick to defend the honour of a series often regarded as a lesser entry in his dad’s iconic canon. “I don’t think it is for a minute.
“Much like every fan of Doctor Who has their Doctor, which is normally the one they joined the show with, every Anderson fan has their Anderson show. Obviously for many that’s Thunderbirds, or Space: 1999. But then you’ve got the ’80s kids, and for those people Terrahawks is their first Anderson love.”
For Jamie, now flame-keeper of the Anderson empire, it’s a series he grew up with. Literally. “Technically I was on set during production, although in utero!” he smiles.
“At home we had an old wooden bookshelf, which was used to store videos, and alongside Thunderbirds and UFO there were three VHS tapes of Terrahawks. I just started watching them one day. I loved the Zeroids – just the idea of these spherical, bouncing robots versus the baddies’ Cube robots was so cool and exciting, and the slightly comedic edge really sold it to me as a kid.
“Then around the house dadastoundingly hi-tech Rolls Royce, owned by clone hero Dr “Tiger” Ninestein]. He had the same for one of the Cubes. He kept very few things, so he must have liked those elements. He also had a very small toy cabinet, where he kept a few odds and sods from over the years, and in there was a Zeroid toy, which I was allowed to take out and play with. The show was alive at home. It was my first exposure to science fiction, my first exposure to dad’s shows.”
