They use technologically-advanced craft for land, sea, air and space rescues in their operations, the most important of which are a set of vehicles called the Thunderbirds, piloted by the five Tracy brothers.
With more quakes occurring, John and Brains must track down the control source for the seismic de-stabilisers, in a race against time, after the Hood orders International Rescue and the World Council to give up the Thunderbirds.
Kayo is riding aboard Fireflash, a supersonic airliner that was recently improved by Brains, unaware that the Hood is planning to hijack it in mid-flight.
A large solar flare causes a malfunction at a mining operation on an asteroid, sending it careening towards the sun and endangering its only crewman, Ned Tedford.
Suspecting something is wrong, Scott and Virgil head to the scene to provide assistance, as Gordon, Penelope and Parker attempt to escape from the temple's many traps.
A giant heavy metal extraction plant, moving along the Pacific seabed and collecting toxic waste, has a sudden compartment fire, leaving it out of control and heading for an undersea chasm.
Meanwhile, Lady Penelope investigates the company that owns the extraction plant, when both John and Gordon suspect the owner was more concerned for the cargo than the crew, and soon has trouble from the Hood.
While everyone is organising a surprise birthday party for Virgil, John directs his brother in Thunderbird 2 to a glacial ice shelf to investigate a 'breakdown' emergency call.
Virgil quickly discovers that the lone figure he finds on arrival is part of a larger expedition trapped in a cavern beneath the ice.
On an underwater hyper loop train, Lady Penelope and Parker are escorting Professor Moffat to a rendezvouses with the Global Defence Force in Iceland in order to safely deliver a particle born from the Supreme Hadron Collider disaster - Centurium 21.
Seismologist Robert Williams and his son Aidan alert the authorities to the presence of a rogue hydromethane mining vehicle, only for the machinery to trigger an earthquake that swallows both them and the equipment.
In the wake of the botched mission, Colonel Martin Janus takes over the GDF, imposing a strict set of restrictions on International Rescue.
A geological survey team becomes trapped when a huge earth-breaking vehicle, controlled by a villain known only as the Mechanic, causes them to fall into a narrow crevice.
When Thunderbird 2 is badly damaged and must return to Tracy Island, and the GDF is neutralised by the Mechanic, Kayo is left to stop him and his drones while Scott must rescue the survey team.
A distress call is received from Captain Ridley O'Bannon, a GDF astronaut, on the abandoned interstellar ship Eden orbiting between the Earth and the Moon.
On Jupiter's moon Europa, the stars of Gordon's favourite explorer program (Buddy and Ellie Pendergast) are searching for extra-terrestrial life.
At Bay City, a town that was flooded due to global warming, the Mechanic, in a crab-like submarine, searches through the ruins of the Creighton-Ward building for a safe containing the plans for Parkmoor Scrubs prison so he can break the Hood out.
While Gordon and Kayo work together to rescue the family, Lady Penelope and Parker, using FAB 1's submarine mode, must reach the safe before the Mechanic gets there first.
After a seaquake near the coast of Greece reveals the lost city of Atlantis, Francois Lemaire ignores International Rescue's warning about aftershocks and with his wife, Melanie, venture below the depths to explore the area.
When the rocket doesn't fire the comet ends up on a collision course with both the Earth and Globe One, a GDF space station with Captain Ridley O'Bannon aboard.
Thunderbirds 2 and Shadow race to the danger zone to rescue Fischler and his guests, while Parker's flying skills are put to the test as he uses FAB 1's flight mod to lure the drones away from the tower.
John is out of his element in the large social setting but his obscurity pays off when the Hood crashes the party when he threatens to destroy the chateau unless the guests allow him to rob them.
In London, the Crystal Spire, the tallest building in the world, catches fire due to an electrical overload and the local firefighters are rendered helpless.
When gas from a dangerous hydro-methane reserve begins to leak, fire-fighter expert and Virgil's hero Kip Harris asks International Rescue to assist.
Scott and Brains get aboard the plummeting ship and locate the two astronauts in suspended animation along with an old robot named Braman, who sent the original distress call.
A young GDF officer gets trapped inside a lift shaft in Shackleton, a haunted nuclear power station that was abandoned after a meltdown.
One part of the show involves test pilot, Professor Kwark, hoping to break the world airspeed record using the ultra fast Icarus superjet.
All five Thunderbirds are combined into the Zero-XL as International Rescue begin their deep-space search for Jeff Tracy, only for the Chaos Crew to attempt to disrupt the craft's launch.
While Havoc and Fuse hide soon afterwards, waiting to strike, the Tracy boys finally reach their father's current position and achieve their long sought-after reunion with him.
Meanwhile, with Jeff Tracy recovered, the rest of International Rescue find themselves dealing with one more problem - the sudden attempt by the Hood to steal the Zero-XL, having stowed away on it.