Okay, y’all, explain this to me. Downton Abbey is an English period drama right? Set around 1920? Then why, oh why did someone cross it over with Thunderbirds, set over a century later? Why?? Who in blazes thought that would work?? SMH.

Well, I skimmed it over. Seems like Scott is just smushed in there to “save” Mary — mostly by being a packhorse and helping her cover up the fact that some man died in her room. Jeff is shoehorned in as a reason for Scott to be at Downton. There’s a brief mention of Lady Penelope and the Island, but really, is this a Thunderbirds cross-over? I don’t think so.

The tricky thing about writing cross-overs is making them plausible while keeping each universe true to itself. For example, someone has written a Doctor Who/Thunderbirds cross-over which manages to do that. Doctor Who is a very flexible universe which can stand being woven together with other fandoms. There could be a case made for movie-verse Thunderbirds and something modern day, such as Supernatural. One writer has done a lovely job melding TV-verse Thunderbirds with the anime Battle of the Planets. Of course, it’s fairly simple to cross Thunderbirds over with some of the other Gerry Anderson properties. Most of them are supposed to be set around the same time. But if you have to create an OC (such as a “long-lost Tracy sister”) in order to make the fandoms cross, you’ve done it poorly, IMO. It ends up being implausible, and stretches a reader’s willingness to suspend disbelief beyond its limits.

Yes, people have the right to write what they want. Yes, I’m ranting like a persnickety old geezer who wants the kids off her lawn. But I just can’t fathom how this Downton Abbey story could be called a cross-over with Thunderbirds when, if you change the names of the Tracys, you have some generic Americans visiting the manor for some unspecified reason.