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Post by DR. QUIST on Jun 13, 2009 15:13:36 GMT -5
Please post your discussion relating to series 2 here please Thank you
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Post by iankmclachlan on Jun 22, 2009 12:27:30 GMT -5
I know that Robert Powell had always intended on staying in Doomwatch for one season. However I have never heard if Wendy Hall was similarily only signed for one season two. While I like Barbara it would have been nice if Wendy had been in season 2.
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Post by DR. QUIST on Jun 23, 2009 15:20:18 GMT -5
I don't know if this is true or not but apparantly Simon Oates actually received hate mail from some strange and confused viewers thinking his character let Toby Wren die. 'It's not as if I wrote the bloody episode!' he said. When he joined the series, Robert Powell asked that Toby Wren be killed off after a year.
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Post by colley on Aug 26, 2009 7:13:59 GMT -5
I know that Robert Powell had always intended on staying in Doomwatch for one season. However I have never heard if Wendy Hall was similarily only signed for one season two. While I like Barbara it would have been nice if Wendy had been in season 2. Although IMDB isn't the last word in terms of accuracy, it was interesting to note that nothing is listed for Wendy after her stint on Doomwatch in 1970 - perhaps she gave up her acting career soon after?
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Post by DR. QUIST on Jan 3, 2010 16:42:59 GMT -5
SEASON 2 EPISODE 10 THE HUMAN TIME BOMB by Louis Marks
At the Institute of Town Planning, property millionaire Sir Billy Langly foresees that by the year 2000 there will be eighty million people living in the country, which will result in a demand for new kinds of housing. Tower blocks are the way forward, but this ‘battery’ idea of living can result in a particularly depressing urban neurosis - something that Fay is forced to experience first hand…
Review THE HUMAN TIME BOMB Reviewed by Matthew See Added 19th February 2010
The Human Time Bomb is metaphoric in its meaning as it is about throwing a tantrum caused by paranoia.
Paranoia that is being caused by living in a high rise building. Jean Trend delivers well in her performance as Fay Chantry in her stressful state from being very upset when the photo frame of her daughter was accidentally broken to her fear that a handyman was going to attack her, even though she herself invited him into her place.
Appearing at the beginning of the episode as Mr Hetherington before he got killed off was Talfryn Thomas. Thomas would later appear as Tom Price in Survivors also produced by Terence Dudley.
Episode Synopsis
Mr Hetherington lives with his wife and three children at No. 207, Block D, on the 20th floor of a block of flats referred to as the Langly Estate.
He leaves in the morning for work. He is fearful of the residents and the tower block feels crammed with people. The lift especially so. As he leaves the building in a hurry feeling oppressed by the neighbours who taunted him, he is accidentally run over and killed. Doctor Fay Chantry happens to be in her car at the scene.
At Doomwatch Quist talks to Cavendish about Bill Langly and tells him he is in charge of the Amblethorpe project (how we ought to live for the next 100 years.) and explains there is negligible research and asks Doomwatch to look into it…
Doctor Fay Chantry (who is temporarily living in the same block of flats) helps another woman take Mrs Hetherington back to her own flat and attempts to console her. In the flat the other woman tells her that Mrs Hetherington has an older son and she leaves to attempt to find him. After a short while the Police arrive. The children are crying constantly. Inspector Drew has the situation under control. He telephones for a Doctor to see Mrs Hetherington while Doctor Chantry makes tea. She is not impressed by Inspector Drew’s manners. After the telephone conversation the door rings and the woman who helped Doctor Chantry with Mrs Hetherington back to her flat returns with Mrs Hetherington’s older son and immediately tells the Inspector the boy knows what has happened as she has told him. The boy wants to console his mother, climbing onto her bed but the Inspector wants to talk with her and pulls him off. The boy tells him to ‘Go away, leave us alone’ and starts punching the inspector…
At Doomwatch Quist is annoyed there is no contact from Doctor Chantry. He calls for John (Ridge) to come into his office using the intercom. Quist asks him if he has spoken to Doctor Chantry in the last couple of days. Ridge thinks about it for a moment and then tells Quist that he has but only briefly. She asked him to go and see how her child was as she had been worried about her explaining that she has had a bad attack of heyfever. Quist is surprised. Ridge tells him it might be Asthma and then explains that her seven year old has been left with her Gran for six weeks. Quist thinks that she should be back by now and he has tried telephoning her several times with no reply. He is concerned for her despite Ridge trying to be light-hearted and telling Quist she might be out on the job, knocking on doors asking rude questions! Quist thinks the job should be finished as she has been at it six weeks. Ridge reminds him that this is the length of time he gave her. Quist relents but thinks that with no reply and no word it is not like her to act like this. He asks Ridge if she mentioned having any problems she might be having. Ridge says ‘Nothing’ and Quist is satisfied. Ridge leaves Quist’s office. Quist mulls it over…
It’s day time and on Floor 15 Doctor Chantry is wolf whistled by a neighbour as she is on her way to her front door. She ignores it and takes her keys out to her door. She lives at No.150. She enters her studio flat, takes off her scarf, puts her handbag down and places her keys inside it. A metallic sounding noise is heard behind her. Startled, she turns around to see a man crouching down on her kitchen floor. In relief, she recognises him and she exclaims “ Oh, it’s you, Mr Donovan”. The man is dressed in overalls and is clearly the maintenance man who services the flats. He is attempting to fix the lights and thinks he has found the cause, while Doctor Chantry complains that she was in the dark the previous night and she has a lot of work to get through. Donovan tells her that he is annoyed and tells her he is doing his best and then exclaims ‘Oh, blast the bloody thing’ as the lights go out again while he fiddles with them. He thinks it is a bad connection. Doctor Chantry takes off her coat and asks him how he got in. He tells her he has a master key, the same type of key he has for all of the flats. Fay asks him how long he is going to be and he says it depends and asks her not to bother about him as he won’t get in her way. Fay resigns herself to the situation. The door bell then rings. A Mr Grant is at the door enquiring if he is late. She lets him in and tells him that he isn’t and she has only just got in herself. She explains that she had got up early to check some points about commuter traffic and on her way back there was an accident involving a man from her block. Mr Grant tells her he knows. Fay offers him a small drink (alcoholic), but he declines at it is too soon in the day for him. Fay asks him to sit down while she goes into the kitchen area and while Mr Grant sits down she complains that the flats aren’t exactly spacious. He tells her that it is a Family B 2 unit and that he doesn’t get many complaints. Doctor Fay says that it was a special concession to her to let her have it. Mr Grant tells her that naturally they wanted to make her as comfortable as possible. She reminds him that normally a person on their own would qualify for a B1 and she complains how pokey they are. Mr Grant is defensive and reminds her that she wanted to stay right in the middle of the complex so that she could get a feel of it. At this point Mr Donovan drops one of his tools (a hammer) on the floor in the kitchen. Fay is startled and stands up. After a moment she sits back down. Mr Grant asks her why she wanted to see him. Fay tells him that she gets the impression that there are certain aspects of the planning operations that he would rather she didn’t look into. He wants to know what she means. She explains that the costings on building materials and some of the economies made on living conditions. She is interrupted as Mr Grant reminds her that he isn’t from the Amblethorpe Development Corporation and he is from the planning department at the council. She knows this. Mr Grant doesn’t feel she should be complaining to him over the short cuts made in construction. Fay explains that she is there to file a report and she wants it to be as full as possible. Mr Grant wants to know exactly what she is accusing him of. She thinks the windows are too small and if she was to spend a long amount of her time here, it would drive her mad. Mr Grant says that they are the same size all over. Doctor Fay says they make her feel oppressed and claustrophobic. Mr Grant is defensive and assures her that a thorough series of tests were carried out before the flats were designed. She agrees, but not in the way Mr Grant wants to hear. She thinks that the tests were used to discover the limit that people could tolerate. She goes on to speculate that the tests were conducted to measure how large before people feel exposed and how small before they feel suffocated and feels that the best answer lies somewhere in the middle. Find the answer to that and the development corporation can pair the costs to the bare bone and still get the blessing from his council planning department. Mr Grant sits listening to this horrified. He retorts by suggesting that this sort of thing isn’t came within the scope of her work. She follows this up by saying she didn’t know that suppressing vital material came within his. He resents this. Fay says she has been told five times it would be inconvenient for her to see the original plans of Langly’s new scheme. Aware that Mr Donovan is listening in, Mr Grant says that he is very short staffed and a while looking over at Mr Donovan he explains that a lot of material is of a highly confidential nature. Mr Donovan appears to have repaired the lights and leaves the kitchen area towards the flat door and back to the kitchen. Mr Grant offers to get permission for Doctor Fay to access the information. She tells him she believes Mr Scobie is in charge of the records department and asks to have a word with him. Mr Grant approves. At that moment Mr Donovan has accidentally breaks a photograph of Doctor Fay’s daughter by knocking it off the side with his elbow. She is mortified as this is the only photo she has and Mr Donovan is apologetic. Mr Grant sees an opportune moment to leave and tells her that if Mr Scobie has the time to spare Mr Grant will phone her, but Doctor Fay doesn’t appear to be listening as she is really upset over the photograph. She can’t believe how careless Mr Donovan has been.
The next morning Doctor Fay brings the milk in to her flat, shakes it ready to open and the phone rings. She picks it up. It’s Mr Grant. He has considered what she said yesterday and wants her to come to the planning office and see Mr Scobie at 5.20pm. She agrees.
At the planning office Mr Grant introduces Doctor Fay to Mr Scobie (a Scotsman) telling him she is from the department of observation and measurement and tells him she is carrying out an environmental study into the Amblethorpe project. Mr Grant reminds him about an earlier conversation they had about her. He assures Fay that he will have some satisfactory answers for her, but Mr Scobie is already being difficult in his attitude. Mr Scobie is acting like her visit and report will be a waste of time. Mr Scobie is acting oddly aggressive but he thinks he is being amusing by assuring Mr Grant he isn’t going to give any of their secrets away. Mr Scobie tells Fay she is looking in the wrong place for answers and in his office this is where all the dirty work gets done like filing and programming. Mr Scobie is very aggressive towards Mr Grant telling him that Mr Langly’s development company doesn’t give a damn for him and all they want to do is get hold of that building and rake in the profits. Mr Scobie takes out a file and shows it to Doctor Fay. He tells her it has the requirements for passenger lift development. He reckons they need ten to cope with peak traffic through his calculations. He says the company says that six is sufficient. He is unhappy that his report is ignored and he is told to get on with it. Mr Grant tries to argue but Mr Scobie accuses him of being in Langly’s pocket. Mr Scobie is very angry and thinks the department is nothing more than a bunch of puppet’s dancing for its masters and demands that this information is put into Doctor Fay’s report. Mr Grant tells Mr Scobie he thinks he has a little bit too much to drink during his lunch. Mr Scobie demands he takes the accusation back. He doesn’t and is about to suggest that he and Doctor Fay leave when Scobie aggressive manhandles him down to a graphical drawing workbench twisting his left arm behind his back while Fay looks on in horror. Aggressively Scobie threatens to blow the projects sky high with the truth. He shouts ‘Understand!’ as he suddenly lets him go and recomposes himself. Doctor Fay and Mr Grant quickly leave. Mr Scobie starts to trash his office, screwing up drawing plans and throwing them on the floor. He then takes a large ruler and smashes items of his desk and throws files everywhere.
Doctor Faye leaves the building and is shortly followed by Mr Grant. Fay goes to get in her car, but is startled and has to move out of the way of youths on motorbikes. As she is about to get in her car she discovers her front tyre has been slashed. While she examines it, she has to move out of the way quickly again as the youths come past again on their motorbikes from the opposite direction.
At Fay’s flat Ridge must have been pressing her doorbell for sometime as he is leaning against her door making a tune with the bell looking bored just as Fay approaches behind him. He spots her and exclaims ‘Well, Hooray!’ sarcastically. Fay is delighted to see him. She asks him what he is doing at the flat and he likewise wants to know. She tells him she has been spending the last four hours waiting for a garage to repair the tyres on her car. She tells him three of them had been vandalised. As they enter the flat she offers him a drink. Cheekily he says ‘I thought you’d never ask’. He asks her what she has been up to and suggests she has been waging a solo war against the hooligans of Amblethorpe. She agrees with him and tells him it’s been a losing war. In all seriousness he tells her he has been worried about her and the government were pushing for an answer by the end of the week and the office had been sweating for her report. She turns away from him and tells him the bad news that ‘There isn’t going to be a report’. Ridge can’t believe it. Fay says she has had enough and can’t take anymore of it and starts to breakdown tearfully in front of Ridge. Ridge comforts her and offers her his drink.
Quist is an evening meeting with Langly for an informal chat about Amblethorpe. Quist is having a drink. Quist is expressing his doubts and he has a lot of unanswered questions. Langly tells Quist by the year 2000, there will be 80 million living in the UK and that is a hard brutal fact. They will want cars, places to park the, feeding, clothing and educating and work to do, to say nothing of housing. He says that he wants to plan everything down to the last detail without a penny being wasted. Quist chimes in suggesting Amblethorpe as an example. Langly says the project doesn’t have all the answers but is a step in the right direction. While Smoking a big cigar and drinking, he asks in an over the top manner if Quist wants the whole thing (society) to collapse into anarchy, with the countryside being wrecked by unchecked development and towns to get bigger. Of course, Quist doesn’t but does wonder if life in one of Langly’s so called “Urban Units” would be worth living. Quist understands the problem and wonders if Langly has the right solution.
Ridge and Fay are finishing off a bottle while Fay complains she can’t carry on working in the way she has as there are too many frustrating obstacles to completing her report including slow lifts (because the kids on the estate are playing in them) and even obscene phone calls. Ridge isn’t convinced and thinks Quist won’t be either, whilst waiving the report at Fay obviously slightly tipsy. Fay continues to tell him more of what Langly has been up to.
Quist and Langly are now having dinner. Langly explains that he wants everybody to be happy. Quist agrees and cites chickens as an example saying that unhappy ones, go off their feed. Langly wants to know what Quist thinks makes people happy as his computer doesn’t come up with the answers. Quist thinks freedom of choice is a good start. Langly thinks the economy would collapse if everyone had their own little dream house. Langly thinks happiness and economics go together. Langly is goading Quist by saying that high standards of living means mass production no-one is complaining except Quist and a few sentimentalists. After careful thought Quist thinks that anyone who wants anything differing from Langly’s ideals must be an eccentric. Langly uses the original Ford motor car colouring scheme (anything as long as it is Black) as a further example of people being happy to accept what is given to them without question. Quist argues manufacturers are doing their best to give everybody what they need as it is in their own interest to do so but Langly sights the car industry as conditioning the public to want what they get and the people don’t mind. Langly thinks people make their family fit the car and not the car fitting the family. He explains this to Quist by saying that there is no room extended relatives and this is one of the reasons they get packed off to an old people’s home! Langly says all he is doing is carrying this style of thinking through to its logical conclusion. Quist thinks that plans like Amblethorpe could leave the country full of apathetic, totally conditioned, dehumanized zombies!
Langly asks him if this will be the final word from Quist when he reports back to the minister. ‘Of course not’ Quist jokes. Langly turns on him, saying that it wouldn’t surprise him if it was what he really thought as this was the sort of emotionally loaded language he’d expect from the research being done at Amblethorpe. Quist guesses he means something to do with Doctor Chantry. Langly wants Fay replaced as he feels a scientific basis on the report won’t be done as Fay is prejudiced. Quist is stunned by this news. Langly says she is causing a lot of trouble in areas that she wasn’t asked to look at. He warns Quist that Doomwatch will look like a laughing stock in the eyes of the Minister if she puts any of her findings in the report. Quist is visibly unhappy.
Back at the flat Mrs Scobie is in tears. The doorbell rings. She wipes her nose and answers the door. It’s Dr. Chantry. She introduces herself, explaining that she knows her husband. She is invited inside. Dr. Chantry explains that she met him that afternoon. Mrs Scobie wants to know what happened. Dr Chantry explains that he was very upset and said a few things that she wants to ask her about. She explains she was going to telephone but as she discovered that they live in the same tower block she decided to visit. Mrs Scobie is upset. She says that her husband was shouting and he attacked someone and it took six men to control him. Mrs Scobie is very upset and explains a doctor visited and took her husband away. Dr. Chantry asks her if she has seen him, but she hasn’t. She was told that he is sedated and must not see anyone. Dr. Chantry wants to know where her husband is but Mrs Scobie is too upset to tell her.
At Doomwatch Ridge and Quist are discussing Dr. Chantry. They think she is exaggerating things. Ridge thinks she wants to spend more time at home because of her child’s asthma, causing her anxiety and guilt. Quist explains he needs that report or Langly gets everything he wants. Ridge suggests Quist visits himself to salvage the report. Ridge feels her report could be valueless. Quist has heard this before. Langly said the same thing. Quist decides to arrange a visit.
Dr Chantry is drying her hands in her flat when the telephone rings. She is shocked by what is obviously another crank phone call she must have been receiving and replaces the handset. The doorbell then rings. A lady is outside. Dr. Chantry invites her in as she recognises her from the scene of the accident. She excitedly looks out of the window and explains that her flat is on the other side of the estate. She thinks her view from the window is better. Dr Chantry asks her if she would like a cup of tea, she accepts and tells Dr Chantry that she is Mrs Frank. Mrs Frank spots a photo of Dr Chantry daughter and tells her that she is a lovely child and explains that she has three daughters, all of which are now married and living apart from her. One in London working as a secretary and one in Canada. She is interrupted by Dr Chantry asking if she likes living on the estate. She thinks they are convenient and efficient and she is quite happy apart from one thing. Thunder and Lightening. She explains that the last storm was deafening and the building shook like it was going to come crashing down. The doorbell rings. It’s Quist. Dr Chantry invites him in. She can’t believe how quickly he has come over. She introduces Mrs Frank to him who is seated at the table. Dr Chantry apologises, but asks her to leave. She is a bit annoyed, but understands and leaves. Quist remarks, that she seems like a strange woman. Dr Chantry tells him that she isn’t strange, just lonely. Quist wants to know what is going on. Dr Chantry wants to know if Dr. Ridge told him. Quist explains that Dr Chantry has put him in a difficult position. Dr Chantry is obviously quite taken aback by this and feels she is the one who has been out in a difficult position. Quist explains that John told him that she was finding things difficult. Quist reminds her that he wanted an absolutely objective environmental study. Dr Chantry says that was what she was doing but she has uncovered something else. Quist is angry that she hasn’t done what he asked and in so doing has labelled his department with prejudice. He thinks she has played right into their hands. She feels that maybe this was in fact their plans. She is interrupted by the telephone ringing. Quist takes the phone from Dr Chantry as she explains it is another one…
Quist is appalled by the obscene phone call and slams it down. He wants to know how many calls like that a day she is getting. She tells him that she has had three a day since she moved in. He tries to reassure her, asking if she has contacted the Police. She has, but Dr Chantry can’t take anymore and tells Quist that she doesn’t want to end up in a mental hospital like Mr. Scobie. Quist wants to know who Mr Scoby is but Dr Chantry doesn’t want to explain, she just wants to have a few days away. She shuffles some paperwork with her back to Quist, quite visibly upset. Quist is agrees she should have some time off but Dr Chantry is no longer listening as she suddenly finds a file in the paperwork.
She picks up a file labelled Hetherington. She remembers that when she first came to Amblethorpe she took some material from him about the original planning specifications. Hetherington worked for the development corporation in the assessor’s office. She explains he was killed and she witnessed him being run over as he ran from the flats and under it for no reason. Dr Chantry suddenly remembers something and asks Quist to come with her to convince him something is wrong. They leave her flat on floor 15 and make their way up to floor 20.
Mrs Hetherington is ironing whilst listening to the radio and her two boys are playing. The doorbell rings, she puts the iron down and switches off the radio. She invites Quist and Dr Chantry inside. Lawrence is bashing away at a wooden toy with a hammer. Mrs Hetherington asks Lawrence to take the younger Stephen who is in a high chair and play in the bedroom. Mrs Hetherington lifts Stephen out of the high chair and sends them off. Stephen grabs a toy before leaving. Dr Chantry assures Mrs Hetherington that the children wouldn’t bother them but she has already sent them to their room. She complains that they don’t go down to the play area despite her asking several times. She offers them some tea and Dr Chantry wants to speak to her about what happened to her husband. Quist moves the high chair away and brings a chair to the table with some difficult with all the clutter in the flat. Dr Chantry explains that she feels her husband’s death wasn’t entirely accidental. Mrs Hetherington says that the Police seem to thinks so. Dr Chantry wants to know why there isn’t going to be an inquest. Dr Chantry confirms her husband’s position in the planning office. Dr Chantry wants to know if at anytime he mentioned that he was frightened of anyone. Mrs Hetherington is upset by this but tells Dr Chantry she is right. She tells them that he was always nervous but got worse after taking on that job and moving into the flat. He kept talking about “they’d get him” but she just put it down to his nerves, but it was getting progressively worse. The morning of his death he hadn’t slept all night and didn’t finish his breakfast. Quist asks if she has told any of this to the Police. She hasn’t. He asks her if she would mind if they did, but Mrs Hetherington is quite upset and says she doesn’t know and bursts into tears. Quist and Dr Chantry take this as a que to leave. Before they do Dr Chantry thanks her. Lawrence comes running from the bedroom and tries to comfort his mum but she is inconsolable. Lawrence goes to the front door and looks out unsure what to do.
Quist explains he is a scientist to Inspector Drew, he explains that Dr Chantry a member of his team has been conducting a survey when witnessing the accident. Inspector Drew remembers her and her reports about obscene phone calls also. Inspector Drew thinks she is a nervous woman but Quist doesn’t agree. He wants to know what ideas Quist has about Mr Hetherington’s death. Quist is about to explain that he agrees it was an extraordinary accident, but is interrupted by a female police officer giving a message to Drew. He tells her he will see the gentleman in a few minutes. Quist continues explaining that Mr Hetherington told his wife that he had been threatened. Drew wants to know what Quist is Quist is implying an unlikely sounding murder. He changes tack and offers suicide as another unlikely death to Quist hoping that not knowing where he is going and running out in front of a car is not the best way of going about it. Drew wants evidence but Quist has none. Quist is obviously clutching at straws now and Drew is now treating the situation as a general police failure complaint. Quist is angry that he is not being taken seriously and sees himself out. Outside Dr Chantry is waiting in her car for Quist. He gets in and tells her the Inspector thinks the whole thing is utterly absurd. Quist wants her to pack up her things and return to London by tomorrow morning. Both visibly uncomfortable they drive off in silence.
On the estate a group of children are playing with a football. Lawrence is also there as the other children run past him and down the drive towards the oncoming car driven by Dr Chantry. She beeps her horn for them to move, but they don’t, instead creating a fuss. Quist gets out of the car and tries to get them to move but is shoved to the ground. Lawrence watches this happen. Dr Chantry again presses her car horn.
Lawrence has his hammer resting to his chin. Dr Chantry continues to press her car horn. The children run away and Dr Chantry is horrified to see Lawrence behind Quist, who is getting up, about to strike him from behind with the hammer. Dr Chantry drives the car towards them both and Quist dives out of the way. Quist is livid and asks her “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You could have killed us all!” She explains that a boy was about to hit him. Quist asks her to pull herself together and she is imagining the whole thing. Dr Chantry is really upset and goes to park up.
Later, Quist telephones Dr Ridge and asks him to contact Cavendish before he leaves and to arrange a meeting. John explains that he has been asking for the report all morning. Quist tells him that that there isn’t a report and he will have to dictate one in the car on the way back home. He explains that he has asked Dr Chantry to leave tomorrow and that he himself is driving straight back after dinner and he can’t wait to have a drink when he gets back. He puts on his Dictaphone in preparation.
Dr Chantry is back in her flat and the lights suddenly go out. She makes it clear this isn’t the first time it has happened. She opens the door to her flat to see the electricity is still on in the hallway and there is a sound of music. She spots a neighbour and shuts her flat door and rushes down the hallway to talk to him, but by the time she arrives at his door he has gone inside. She presses the doorbell to the flat numbered 156. The man comes to the door eating. She apologises and asks for help as her lights aren’t working. The man tells her that it is the Porters job, not his. Dr Chantry explains that the Porter is off duty. He tells her again it his not his problem and shuts the door on her rudely. Dr Chantry is exasperated. Three drunken men approach singing the Beatles “Yellow Submarine” as she makes her way back to her flat. Foolishly she asks for them to move as she is trying to get back to her flat. They jeer and one of them smashes a milk bottle at her doorstep before laughing and moving on. Dr Chantry is horrified to find that she has locked herself out. Another man, who had obviously fallen behind the group of the others, shocks her by running past and shouting “Sexy!”
In Quist’s car he is formulating the report on the Dictaphone whilst driving. In it he says
“Memo, to Minister of Town and country planning. Subject Amblethorpe project. In view of the urgency that now exists regarding a decision on the next stage of this important development, I feel it may help if I set down my main conclusions in the light of the research conducted to date… Which brings us to our main human problem, how to reconcile the needs of individual freedom with the requirements of the planning process. I’ve always felt that this is one of the biggest difficulties thrown up by a large scale development of this sort. Too little is known of the true nature of human personality to be able to come to a firm conclusion. It’s been thought that a certain conditioning process must inevitably lead to a certain result. But was has happened is the human personality has asserted itself when least expected and surprised all the experts. If we take an example from the animal world, it might be thought that chickens living in batteries would become totally docile and devoid of any aggressive urges. On the contrary, we find that even after considerable periods of conditioning, when they are allowed contact with other birds they immediately start attacking them. For this reason their beaks have to be cut off to prevent them tearing each other to pieces”
Quist suddenly realises the implications of what he has just said. Especially the “Tearing each other to pieces” part. He turns the car around.
Dr Chantry rings Mr Donovan, the caretaker’s doorbell at flat number 22. When he answers she explains she is having trouble with her lights again. He tells her he if off duty and he got off at six. She knows this but asks him anyway as she thinks it is just a fuse. He asks her if she is up there on her own and she offers to pay him for his help. He asks her to wait at the door while he gets his things. Dr Chantry shouts through the door asking him to get his master key as well as she has left her keys inside. He tells her that is a silly thing to do. They both make their way to her flat. In the lift Mr Donovan asks Dr Chantry if she is lonely. When the lift reaches her floor two men waiting for the lift eye up Dr Chantry.
They both enter the darkened flat and Mr Donovan shuts the door. Dr Chantry is suddenly afraid and backs herself up near the window. Mr Donovan makes a show or looking for the problem.
Quist has now arrived back at the flats and enters the lift.
The lights in the flat come back on. Relieved Dr Chantry thanks Mr Donovan. He asks her if she is going away. Still nervous she tells him she is leaving the next day. He wants to know where she is going and moves closer to her. She is now quite visibly afraid and Mr Donovan asks her if she is alright. Mr Donovan isn’t convinced she is alright, despite her assurances and he asks her if she wants him to call a Doctor. She simply tells him to “Go away”. Mr Donovan is upset as he feels he is only trying to help her. Dr Chantry pleads to be left alone and is acting very afraid. Mr Donovan reminds her that she asked him to come up and sort the problem and it was his evening off and he doesn’t like people messing him about. He reminds her that she’d make it worth his while… Dr Chantry pleads for him to leave. He says he will go when he is ready. Panic stricken, Dr Chantry grabs a hammer from his tool bag and demands that she now do what she says. The doorbell rings and briefly distracted by it, Mr Donovan grabs the hammer back from her and answers the door leaving Dr Chantry in tears. Quist enters and asks what has happened. Mr Donovan tells him that Dr Chantry asked her to fix the lights then suddenly turned on him with the hammer he holds. He thinks she has gone mad. Quist tells him that he will deal with things now. He comforts her and tells her that the sooner he gets her away the better.
Later, Quist is in a meeting with Cavendish again. Cavendish is sorry to hear about what happened to Dr Chantry. Quist chastises himself for not spotting the early warning signs of her condition straight away. Cavendish wants to know what the cause of her breakdown was and suggests that it might be the height of the building. Quist thinks that putting people in numbered boxes robs them of their identity, creating insecurity and the onset of fear. He thinks that Mr Hetherington was suffering a similar condition and running from an imaginary enemy in panic. John Ridge enters and Quist asks him how Dr Chantry is. Relieved he tells him that she is much better. Quist thinks that and her own personal stress made her more vulnerable giving her a feeling of total isolation. Cavendish asks him if he is putting all of this in his report. Quist reluctantly says he will, but the matter needs more than just one report and suggests a Royal commission on the roots of violence in modern society.
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Post by DR. QUIST on Feb 6, 2010 5:07:59 GMT -5
SEASON 2 EPISODE 6 THE IRON DOCTOR by Brian Hayles
Cast
Series Devised by KIT PEDLER and GERRY DAVIS
Dr. Spencer Quist JOHN PAUL
Dr. John Ridge SIMON OATES
Geoff Hardcastle JOHN NOLAN
Colin Bradley JOBY BLANSHARD
Dr. Fay Chantry JEAN TREND
Barbara Mason VIVIEN SHERRARD
Dr. Eric Godfrey KEITH GRENVILLE
Sister Trewin AMANDA WALKER
Duty Nurse GLORIA CONNELL
Mr. Tearson RAYMOND YOUNG
Mr. Faber FREDERICK SCHILLER
George Mason HAROLD BENNETT
Mr. Kemp FRANK LITTLEWOOD
Second Nurse JEANNIE JAMES
Doctor PAUL NEMEER
Visitors MICHAEL ELY CLIVE ROGERS JOYCE FREEMAN
And Guest Stars
Dr Whittaker JAMES MAXWELL
Dr. Carson BARRY FOSTER
Crew
Theme Music by MAX HARRIS
Film Cameraman KENNETH WESTBURY
Sound Recordist MALCOLM CAMPBELL
Film Editor SHEILA S. TOMLINSON
Video Tape Editor RONALD SANGSTER
Studio Lighting JIMMY PURDIE
Studio Sound JOHN HOLMES
Script Editor GERRY DAVIS
Designer IAN WATSON
Producer TERENCE DUDLEY
Director JOAN KEMP-WELCH
TX: 25th January, 1971 9.20pm - 10.10pm This episode exists as a black and white film telerecording and colour NTSC videotape
Synopsis by Mark Chappell March 1991 Patients in Britain’s newest hospital ward are being cared for by a computer. At Parkway Hospital’s new Intensive Care Unit, the regular round of doctors and nurses has been replaced by an electronic watchdog which constantly monitors the health of the patients, diagnoses any change in their condition and then prescribes treatment.
The Story
PARKWAY Hospital’s Intensive Care Ward, 2.30pm. A group of elderly men are kept alive by the miracles of modern drugs and the 20/90, a new computer which monitors their vital signs, administers care when necessary, and according to Whittaker, the consultant in charge, a great step forward for medicine. One of the patients, George Mason, is telling a Greek patient, Faber, about his new great grandson, also called George.
They are disturbed by Whittaker leading a party of experts, including Doomwatch’s Dr Quist, around the ward to show them the new ‘Iron Doctor’. As he leads them into the Data Surveillance Room, where Doctor Godfrey monitors the 20/90’s video recordings and data on the patients, George Mason offers to tell Sister Trewin about his new relation. Whittaker meanwhile introduces Godfrey and his Duty Ward doctor, Carson, to the assembled experts - it is clear Carson has no love for the computer, though. Suddenly Mason goes into convulsions and despite Carson’s efforts, he dies just under an hour later. Later, Whittaker and Carson argue over Mason’s death, the second death Carson has attributed to the computer. He blames the 20/90 for turning off Mason’s life support too early, Whittaker has programmed it with a Survival Index Scheme which Carson claims is unreliable. The argument becomes very circular and eventually Whittaker orders Carson out.
Carson goes to Doomwatch with his theories, although at first Quist is not too interested. However, once Carson explains about the Survival Index Scheme - it assesses the survival prospects of patients and decides upon the exact moment of withdrawal of life support - Quist begins to be concerned. On hearing that Whittaker is possibly accepting the 20/90’s advice without referral to the human Committee at Parkway, Quist gathers the rest of his team together and they opt to investigate Carson’s claims.
It is night-time at Parkway and Carson goes around his ward. He talks with Faber, who expresses concern about the computer, preferring Carson’s humanitarian approach to the cold, mechanical one Whittaker prefers.
The following morning Carson receives Fay Chantry and introduces her to Kemp, a patient who seems quite at ease with the 20/90. Carson then introduces her to Godfrey who explains that the computer is constantly referring to patients’ records and history to enable it to make correct judgements. Godfrey clearly has pride in the computer and ignores Carson’s cynical observations and shows Mason’s records to Fay. She sees that Mason had a Survival Index rating of -9, which Carson explains is a low priority rating based on the cost of keeping Mason alive and his survival chances without treatment. As Godfrey nervously tries to retrieve the documentation, Fay asks what ‘DAT’ written at the bottom means. Carson declares it to be Discontinue Active Treatment - virtually the death sentence for any patient the 20/90 applies the rating to.
Whittaker arrives and wonders why Fay is there, and why Doomwatch should be interested in his computer. He assures Fay that the Committee can always overrule the 20/90’s findings - it is just a tool, and when she confronts him with Carson’s fears, he merely reminds her that Carson is a doctor, not a qualified computer technician. Fay requests full access to the deceased patients’ records, but Whittaker refuses, which is no surprise to Fay. Then Sister Trewin phones, another patient, Mr White has died and Carson renews his bitter attack on the computer.
The next day Faber re-iterates his fears to Carson whilst Fay reports to Quist, believing that Carson may have a case - a computer is only as good as its programmer, in this case Whittaker.
Whittaker and Carson have another meeting where the consultant suggests the doctor go on leave, but Carson sees this as an attempt to silence him. Whittaker immediately suspends Carson who goes and seeks help from Sister Trewin whom he knows is none too fond of the 20/90. She won’t actively help him, but agrees not to stop him stealing the computer’s circuit boards to take to Doomwatch. As he enters the Data Surveillance Room and opens up the 20/90, he receives a massive electric shock.
Later a bewildered Godfrey explains to Whittaker that there is no way Carson could have got a shock from just opening the computer, but they are interrupted by a phone call from Fay Chantry asking to speak with Carson. The consultant informs her that Carson has been severely injured. On hearing this Quist sends Hardcastle to meet the computer’s builder, Tearson, who explains that the 20/90 is based on an old Ministry of Defence War Games Simulator and it has a built in defence mechanism.
At Parkway Ridge confronts Godfrey with the possibility of human error in the 20/90’s programming but Godfrey says that is not possible, he actually programmed the machine. It could not possibly kill by mistake - so Ridge muses whether it could be programmed to kill, but Godfrey refutes that absolutely. Ridge asks why, therefore, does it need a defence mechanism?
The Doomwatch team swap notes, electing to get hold of some of the 20/90’s video taped data, but are interrupted by a call from Sister Trewin, who has stolen a video tape pertaining to White, and arranges for Fay Chantry to collect it.
Ridge tells Quist of the 20/90’s potential lethal defence mechanism and Bradley shows Quist proof from the stolen tape that the computer made a suggestion about terminating White, and then carried out DAT without reference to the Committee. Trewin phones - the computer has been monitoring Carson and has suddenly switched off- Whittaker is going to perform emergency brain surgery on the doctor to try to save him. As Fay heads for the hospital, the rest of the team overhear via the videotape, one of Carson and Whittaker’s arguments. Quist wonders if it is possible for the 20/90 to have evolved enough to recognise a potential enemy. Having failed to kill Carson twice, will it try again after the operation?
Fay gets Whittaker’s agreement to watch the operation, although he thinks Carson’s chances are slim. But the best help is available, the 20/90 will monitor him throughout the surgery.
As the Doomwatch team race to the hospital, Whittaker starts. Once the operation is completed, Whittaker agrees to see Quist, leaving Carson in the ‘hands’ of the computer. Quist demands that Carson is taken off the computer for his own safety but Whittaker refuses, the computer is currently keeping him alive, to take him off will certainly kill him, and Quist cannot provide any rational proof against the 20/90. Ridge and the others have entered the Data Surveillance Room and attempt to cut the computer off from there. They plan to remove the circuit board with Carson’s details on and replace it with a fresh one. Godfrey arrives, livid but eventually agrees, cutting off the computer to Carson. In the operating theatre the 20/90 shuts down, leaving Carson in peril but, just in time, Godfrey inserts the new board and the computer, now unaware that it is saving Carson, continues. Although his recovery is by no means certain, Whittaker is elated that the computer proved Quist wrong, until it is pointed out by Godfrey that he had to use the clean circuit board. Whittaker is left realising that, although no one can prove it, the computer may have been responsible for three deaths and Carson’s injuries, and as a machine is only as good as the man who writes the program, he may be responsible himself...
Background by Mark Chappell March 1991
Doomwatch was, in every sense, a product of it’s time - as a concept and as a television programme made by the BBC. It was modern in its outlook, forward in its intentions and very radical - the capitalist money-makers in Science, Industry and Government were all the common enemy. It saw that Science and scientists, in their never-ending quest for knowledge could, and would, end up making the most terrible errors with their tools and knowledge. However, by the time of The Iron Doctor (transmitted 25/1/71), which was well into the second series, the programme had begun to lose direction. That direction was first stipulated by Doctor Christopher (Kit) Pedler and Gerry Davis (who had first teamed up in the mid-Sixties to create the Cybermen for Doctor Who), and was Pedler’s doomridden vision of mankind’s future. Without doubt the scenario for Doomwatch lay heavily at Pedler’s door - he was the scientist, the visionary of the team. Davis, the writer, shared Pedler’s ideals and enthusiasm, but was the more capable of turning an idea into a script or novel.
Doomwatch actually began life in 1969 when the two writers, concerned about the direction man’s reliance on non-natural resources were going, contacted Terence Dudley, a like-minded BBC producer. The three men took great pains at the time to promote the series and spread their fears, so much so that the popular Press of the time refused to take the programme seriously, concentrating on the ‘crankiness’ of the team. But the first series was an immediate success, mainly because of the three central cast - Spencer Quist, a middle-aged scientist; John Ridge, his trendy second in command, and young Tobias Wren, the ladies’ man - mister average in the street who came to believe the prophecies of the Doomwatch team and joined them as a sort of unofficial troubleshooter.
The first series ended with the death of Wren, killed whilst defusing a bomb. With Wren’s departure (and more importantly, the disappearance of heart-throb actor Robert Powell) the series began a decline. Certainly the intentions and ideas were there in the second and third series, but the solid base in fact was wavering. Whereas the first series featured everyday things the public were familiar with which could/were going wrong, the later shows tended to concentrate on possibilities not probabilities. The Iron Doctor is a good case in point. It is undoubtedly fifty minutes of excellent drama, with tension and worry about man’s reliance on computers, but the actual 20/90 computer was not the sort of thing Joe Public saw in the local NHS hospital every day. Writer Brian Hayles had already expressed his distrust of computers doing a man’s thinking for him in one of his Sixties Doctor Who stories, The Ice Warriors, and this was just a less futuristic version of that.
Review THE IRON DOCTOR Reviewed by Matthew See Added 24th January 2010
The title refers to a computer who performs the function of a physician at a hospital but kills some patients.
While The Iron Doctor's excitement level is low it does however illustrates how much attention human doctors are needed to oversee the operations of machines doctors. Machine doctors should be considered as a complement not a replacement to their human counterparts.
Human doctors have compassion in wanting to heal their patients, the Iron Doctor devoid of any compassion makes its decision based on logical reasoning which has been shown here is in itself not enough to prolong patients' lives.
It is because of its logical reasoning is why the Iron Doctor attacked Dr Carson. Dr Carson' thinking that are flaws with the Iron Doctor makes Carson himself are threat to it. It therefore attacked Carson as its form of self-defence. As Dr Maxwell says at the end of the episode it is man who has to take responsibilities for the machines.
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Post by colley on Jun 3, 2010 7:25:57 GMT -5
I'm normally quite forgiving of the series' "lesser"" entries, but The Iron Doctor was never one of my favourites episodes and a recent reviewing has done little to change my opinion. Perhaps it's the rather lacklustre direction of the episode and the repetitive squabbling between Whitaker and Carson - I'm never quite sure. By the time we get to the final dash to the hospital, what could have been a tense race against the clock becomes a little pedestrian and anti-climatic - and I can't help but feel that there are too many contending lead characters with too little to do by the time everyone herds into the computer room.
Still, there are redeeming features to be found - I've always like the the slow zoom into the computer's lens as the machine records Carson's heated statement that the program needs to shut down ; Sister Trewin's theft of the tape is a nice touch (as she begins to realise that Carson's rantings had some basis in fact after all) and the revelation that the computer program was modelled on a "war games" prototype adds a suitably sinister overtone to the proceedings.
The UK Gold version appears to have been cut by the way - the attack on Carson (as I vaguely recall from a bootleg recording) was a little more graphic first time around.
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Post by DR. QUIST on Jun 27, 2010 16:48:16 GMT -5
ACTRESS Jean Trend is going up in the world. Formerly Staff Nurse Webb, of Emergency Ward 10, Jean has risen to become a doctor in her latest TV role, Dr. Fay Chantry of Doomwatch. Yes, Quist and Ridge have a woman colleague from Monday onwards. “So many viewers wrote to the BBC asking why there wasn’t a woman in the team that they decided to write one in,” says a very happy Miss Trend. Monday’s Doomwatch story No Room for Error, concerns a new drug distributed among school children during a typhoid epidemic. Catastrophic side-effects follow. (BBC1 9.20 p.m. Monday)
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Post by michael on Jul 27, 2010 11:10:35 GMT -5
... Ninety seconds to go, says Quist from the end of the pier as Toby Wren on the other side is cutting wires leading inside a ticking nuclear bomb, wedged amongst the struts of the pier support. As two suited men arrive to take over, Toby, full of relief, thinks he has succeeded in disarming the explosive. But to his horror, he discovers one more wire, and he has dropped the clippers into the sea. As he tries to manually undo the wire from its terminal, the trip motor activates.
The conventional explosion throws Quist, Ridge and Air Commodore Parks to the ground... Climbing up to look through the shattered windows, Quist murmurs 'Non-nuclear.' Ridge stares at him. 'Wren... who told Toby?' Air Commodore Parks snarls: 'When will you people learn not to interfere?'
TITLES
The Minister is reading a report on the Byfield bomb business and can barely contain his excitement. Not only did Quist interfere, he did not follow instructions from the police! Listening to this is Harry, the Permanent Secretary who understands the subtext only too well. If the police doesn't get Quist, the Minister will. The Minister accepts that Doomwatch is an excellent watchdog but it must learn to come to heel and it will do it a lot better without Doctor Quist. 'I believe Quist to be unstable... he's responsible for the deaths of three men.' Harry leaves with orders to set up a tribunal of enquiry. 'Without delay, please. There'll be questions in the house.'
The episode titles roll over the Minister working on the report.
Barbara Mason is waiting in the Doomwatch office for someone to arrive and takes a call from Geoff Hardcastle, phoning from the pub close by hoping to speak to Quist. He had written to him sometime again. She introduces herself to Colin Bradley who welcomes her to the outfit, tells her where the coffee is to be found! She relaxes and enjoys his gentle humour.
The Minister has a preliminary meeting with Air Commodore Parks in his office and as he pours him a sherry quizzes him over his role in the operation to recover the missing warheads. He explains it was standard procedure to call in Doomwatch in situations of technological hazard, ever since the Minister made it so. Parks also explains that the other weapons were recovered. 'Without the doubtful aid of Doctor Quist,' conjectures the Minister. Presumably the bomb at Byfield Regis would have presented them with as little problem. Parks would rather the tribunal answer that as there had been interference before Quist arrived there. The Minister does not get the point, and focuses on Quist not following advice from Parks – and from Quist's own team! Parks recalls Ridge's attitude – vehement. 'There's certainly no love lost.' The Minister is intrigued...
After a bit of misunderstanding, Ridge meets Barbara and they shake hands. Colin tells John that Pat is now out of hospital and has gone home back to Yorkshire. 'Poor kid,' says Ridge. 'She fancied him rotten. Mind you, no taste.' He walks off, carrying a large envelope. Colin explains Ridge's appearance to Barbara. 'Most people think of scientists as stockbrokers in white coats but what they really are are a bunch of weirdies!' Ridge wants to know where Quist is – he has something to show him... Colin explains that he's gone to see Toby's parents. That's a coincidence as Ridge wants his opinion on this... A large photograph of Toby, which he pins to the noticeboard next to his desk. Barbara recognises the picture. Ridge: 'How does that grab your apples?' Barbara replies: 'Would you like some coffee?'
A little later, sipping his coffee and his feet in his desk, Ridge waits for Quist's return. With his arm bandaged up, Quist walks in, and stops at the sight of the photo. He looks down at Ridge in silence and walks to his office, ignoring Bradley and Barbara. Geoff telephones again and Barbara asks Ridge how do you get through to Doctor Quist? 'Always been a mystery to me darling.' She goes through to see the man, warned by Ridge not to let him frighten you. Quist is initially distracted and irritable as she goes in to tell him about the call. Quist is more concerned about getting an advert in the Times and the civilised Sundays and The New Scientist and the Ecologist. But as she leaves and asks him if he likes a cup of coffee, he smiles and relaxes and would like some very much. Outside, Barbara asks Bradley what does she do with the paper? Ridge is appalled by the advert and gets angry over Quist's haste. 'He's not bloody human.' Quist rushes out, he finally recognises the name Hardcastle. 'The boy who resigned from Norfolk last week, it was in all the papers. Hardcastle the biologist, extra uterine conception. Test tube babies. He resigned in protest. He's applied to come here.' Ridge has been bubbling under all this... 'Well, his heart's in the right place. Doesn't believe in substitutes, ambitious too, obviously spends all his time with situations fatal.' Quist is lost for words but then tells Barbara if Geoff phones again, he would like to speak to him. Ridge wants a confrontation but Colin holds him back and Quist goes back to his office. Ridge goes to the Feathers to get quietly stoned. Whilst Quist, perched on his desk staring into the distance...
At the bar, Ridge's banter with the elderly bar maid gives Geoff Hardcastle an introduction. Ridge is hostile and contemptuous at first but takes a drink from him. Geoff denies that he wants to join Doomwatch, he wants their help. 'To stop my professor's work without crucifying him.' His professor, Eric Hayland is trying to produce the first animal/man hybrid. Human material has been inserted into an animal's egg cell although it is a lot more complicated than that. Fertilisation is then standard procedure. 'Your man is merely making a monster,' says Ridge in summary. 'In this case, a chicken with a human head.'
Quist goes to see Harry, the Minister's permanent secretary and tells him that he has had enough. He wants to resign. It will be seen as a confession and it is a personal indulgence, interprets Harry. Did he kill three men or saved three million? Harry will not accept his resignation. Quist ponders. 'It was a long time ago... that I realised the most important thing in life... is life. Not science, not technology, politics, religion, riches, power, none of these were sacred. Only life. Sum total of man's knowledge written down for all to read. What is it amount to? Better to be a live idiot than a dead genius.' 'How would you rate a live genius?' Quist cheers up a little bit at this flattery. Harry recommends some leave. Quist takes the bait: he has too much to do. He needs a replacement for Wren, needs to increase his establishment. He needs a doctor as he is swamped with medical enquiries. Harry suggests a holiday again. It is not sick leave and the routine chop. 'Stop feeling sorry for yourself. And see a doctor.' Harry hands him a card. A head shrinker. Quist is alarmed when the implication sinks in. 'you think I'm bonkers!' It's a friendly warning – prove them wrong.
Bradley is showing Barbara the computer when Ridge brings Geoff into the office but is told he has been summoned to see the Minister and is virtually forced to go home and change!
Ridge is in a respectable suit and faces the Minister who asks him if he enjoys his work. 'Most of the time,' Is any job hugely enjoyable? The Minister says his is. 'Perhaps that's because you're the boss.' 'Greater responsibility does not extend greater enjoyment.' 'No, but power does.' The Minister thinks that is what Ridge wants, his record shows traces of irresponsibility.' Ridge defends himself: he goes for short cuts, they're running out of time. The Minister gets to the point: Quist may have to be replaced. 'without Quist, there would be no Doomwatch.' 'You're too modest.' The Minister is not offering Ridge Quist's job. He is simply sounding him out should the need arise to advertise the post externally. In the future. Ridge understands. 'Doomwatch is becoming a nuisance, you're clipping our wings.' The Minister disagrees. The notion is to expand Doomwatch. 'Words like pollution and environment have become increasingly fashionable and so have the pressure groups that use them. There is a very good case of increasing your establishment. Lack of investigation into an increasing number of complaints could, if the complaints are pressed, could result in considerable embarrassment to the economy. Then there are feelers from the States. They're very impressed with Doomwatch over there – there the problem is even greater than here. The White House is suggesting a liaison, an exchange of information that could give us a certain political advantage...' He tells Ridge to think it over.
Talking the matter over with Geoff, Quist thinks his squeamishness is indulgent. Finish his PHD. It's the triviality of his work in infertility during a population explosion that concerns Geoff. Quist can't see how he can hope. Ridge bursts in and Quist tries to engage him and Geoff explains Quist thinks he is being squeamish. Ridge thinks it's disgusting and is amazed Quist condones it. Quist tells him to keep a sense of proportion. Ridge explodes! ' Proportion! It's filthy! It makes me sick! It's the worst imaginable kind of debauchery and believe me, I've been around, including the back streets of Cairo and if you don't do anything about it-!' Quist sharpens and asks Geoff to leave and he hurriedly exits.. Quist coldly tells Ridge to continue. 'You were saying...' Ridge tells him that he will do something, and throws aside a chair. 'You're sacked! ... You've outgrown your usefulness. It's not only your insolence, it's your total lack of judgement.' Ridge finds that almost funny. Quist continues: 'You've been needling me ever since y-' He stops, Ridge picks up. 'Ever since you killed Toby Wren...' 'You bastard.' 'I may be, but if you didn't enjoy wallowing in guilt up to here about that (pointing at the nuclear mushroom clouds on the walls) Toby Wren would be alive today.' 'Enjoy...' gasps Quist. 'You haven't got an honest feeling in your body. You're an emotional hypocrite. You're a self-indulgent bloody murderer. What's more you're finished, bust, kaput!' 'Get out!' shouts Quist. 'With pleasure.!' Ridge storms out of the office and of the building, Geoff scurrying behind him. Shaken, Barbara had a letter for him and one for Quist, which Bradley takes in and is allowed to read it. It's the Tribunal of Enquiry. He is expected to attend on Thursday, the second day. Bradley tries to help the shaken Quist but is quietly turned down. He is left alone, thinking...
In the pub, Geoff brings Ridge over a drink, feeling slightly guilty but Ridge tells him it goes back a long way. He wants to see the lab, despite Geoff's assurance that his professor is not a monster but a gentle and dedicated man. They discuss strategies to see the lab without arousing suspicion. Geoff doesn't want Hayland pilloried by sentimentalists. Geoff suggests he works on Judith Lennox
Quist gets to meet his psychiatrist – a woman, Doctor Anne Tarrant who tries to make him feel relaxed and at ease, which is difficult for Quist. They run through brief details of his life, and then she asks him about the bomb. 'Which one?'
Ridge is taking out Judith Lennox for dinner in Norwich and it costs quite a lot! Ridge is seducing her quite successfully it seems, but Judith doesn't think she can show him around the lab without asking the professor. They fix it for tomorrow – the Professor will want to show him himself. 'He's really rather like a child!' Ridge agrees... 'I've met children like that... Your place or mine?'
The gruff Sam Billings is before the Tribunal: The Chairman is flanked seated between Dr. Warren, a nuclear physicist and another unidentified gentleman. Billings explains he thought the bomb was a bit of flotsam and jetsam and that it was his daughter who got in touch with Dr. Quist (or Twist, as he insists on calling him!). Warren asks him if he tampered with the bomb: the fact that Billings' son in law 'squirted a few drops of juice' the bomb appals him! The Chairman moves onto the arrival of the police.
Barbara is trying to locate Ridge and is astonished to learn that he is in Norwich!
The next man before the tribunal is Air Commodore Parks who relays what happened when Ridge phoned him to tell him that they had found the third bomb. Parks was amused when Ridge told him that the chances of a conventional explosion was probable but not a nuclear one, something he had been saying since the incident began. He then told Quist through Ridge to clear the pier as he was sending in a unit to deal with it. Quist refused to do this. 'With tragic results,' says the Chairman. Parks states that Quist's conduct was reprehensible. 'I formed the opinion that he was unbalanced. Under considerable stress. There was even a time when I thought he and Doctor Ridge would come to blows.' Ridge was suggesting that he was over-compensating for his part in the Manhattan Project. This is explained to the third member of the tribunal as the first atomic bomb.
Later that day, Quist asks Tarrant if it is an indulgence not to forgive oneself? They never thought the atom bomb would be used. They even wrote letters to the White house, all 130 of them, drop it out in the ocean. But then they would have the real thing to come, says Tarrant. 'Your bomb stopped the war. It saved more lives than it took.'
At the end of the first day of the Tribunal, the Minister is delighted. He thinks Quist's goose is absolutely cooked. Positively overdone! Harry isn't too sure. Not all witnesses have been heard. Who remains to be heard but Ridge?
Quist remembers how he watched his wife die over a very long time. 'I suppose an obscenity needs an obscene sacrifice. The last thing she said to me was “Start again, Put it right.” I was 37. most mathematicians did their best work before they're 25. Mine was killing a quarter of a million Japanese, and the only woman I ever loved. And now Toby Wren, sacrificed on that altar.' Anne asks him if he feels guilty that he didn't die with the bomb. Suicide? No, not if he disarmed it. He made The Bomb and he atones by disarming this one. Quist disagrees. He believed there to be a risk of nuclear explosion. He then relates how he saw the parents of Toby Wren, nice, decent people, who were proud of their son, and how proud he was to have worked for Quist. He felt like a murderer.' Emotion overwhelms him.
The next morning, the search is still on for Quist.
Ridge meets Hayland who is an avuncular, gentle little man but starts to raise suspicions when Lennox remembers that Geoff promised not to say anything about the experiment to the press when he resigned. Ridge wants to see the hybrid. 'There's nothing for Doomwatch here,' says Judith. 'Well, I'll be the judge of that.' Judith is shocked, and Hayland confused. 'Show him nothing, Professor.' Ridge accuses Hayland of creating monstrosities just for fun. Lennox defends the man, we can see why Hayland is well loved in his department. He is on the way for discovering the problem of immune rejection. He has made it possible for a sterile woman to host her eggs in another uterus. Ridge enters a restricted area and see the experiments. He sees the two headed chicken, with a human head. Coldly, Lennox shows him a mammal – a monkey with a human head. Ridge goes to attack Hayland but a lab assistant gets the blow. 'You ape!' says Anne Lennox, as equally disgusted as Ridge is by what he has seen. 'There's worse horrors than this,' warns Ridge. 'It's what goes on inside your head.' 'does anything go on inside yours?' Hayland thinks the man's jaw is broken and the police should be called. 'I'll see the home office cancels your license. There'll be no more animals, this is where your experiments stop.' 'How wrong you are,' says Anne, 'we have all the animals we need to complete the experiment.' She decides to tell him everything. It will appeal to his morbid little mind. 'Give this to the newspapers: those are animal/man hybrids. What we are working on is a man/animal hybrid. We have women volunteers. ... I'm three months pregnant myself. Think of it, John Ridge. Had we met three months ago, ... you would have been its father.' Ridge is lost for words and returns into the major lab, slowly and almost uncertain on his feet. Lennox twists the knife in. 'You're not only a narcissistic, nasty thug, you're a hypocrite. A sick hypocrite. I don't think you're capable of any genuine feeling. You came here knowing exactly what you find... and yet you're shocked, aren't you? .. But you enjoy it, don't you? You enjoy it. You're wallowing in morbidity up to here. You make me sick.'
Quist is waiting to see the tribunal with Harry. He wants to see them now but Ridge is first... Quist is gloomy at the thought of any support from him.
Ridge, with a bandaged hand, answers the Chairman of the Tribunal what he said to him in the operations room. He thought at the time that Quist was indulging in a morbid sense of guilt. The Chairman then runs through the events but Ridge corrects him. Quist did not continue disarming the bomb after order to leave. They had learned after the phone call that the 'idiots' on the pier had shoved an electric charge into the bomb. The shield motors were running, they calculated twenty five minutes before they triggered the explosion. 'Conventional explosion,' says Warren. 'Or nuclear.' 'Impossible, ' declares Warren. 'Prove it,' says Ridge. How can Warren be sure that the damage might not have armed it, considering the arming mechanism is inside the bomb? What about the leakage? The boy who found it is still in hospital. The chairman calms Ridge down. 'I'm sorry, our friend here had better do his homework. He's no match for Quist, he'll make mince meat out of him.' 'We shall see.' Ridge concludes that Quist did the right thing and wasn't indulging in a sense of guilt. It wasn't his fault that he didn't die. 'He has the sharpest, most elegant mind I know, he is also the most morally courageous. Without him there would be no Doomwatch. So if you want Doomwatch, you're stuck with him.' The Chairman, who seems to have been taking against Quist, does not look too happy.
Harry tells Quist that he is now on. 'Good luck, Spencer.' On the way to the enquiry, he passes Dr. Tarrant who has been giving evidence. This time Quist does not disguise his surprise, pleasant he hopes. She tells him to put it right, start again. Quist asks her if he can see her again, not professionally. 'You have my number.' He walks in.
Bradley is on the phone and is relieved to hear that Ridge had arrived at the enquiry.
Quist tells the enquiry why he ordered the Superintendent of police to leave the pier with no authority to do so. He believed the chance of explosion to be certain, even nuclear. 'The weapon had been tampered with and digital countdown commenced.' Twenty five minutes to the trigger mechanism being activated. Warren thought that this time was best spent evacuating the pier. The explosion would have just damaged the pier, two thousand pounds worth of damage. 'You, Doctor Warren, are a very important physicist. Are you saying that the fault locks always fail-safe?' The dismantled parts were recovered and showed that to be so. But this is evidence in hindsight. Damage had caused radiation leakage. Had these parts not been jettisoned into the sea by Toby Wren, the area would have been irradiated by the conventional explosion. 'A safe dose dissipated at sea.' Quist would call it off-shore... What is a safe dose? Quist quotes from another important physicist -Dr Alan Moore of Stamford University. No one knows what constitutes a safe dose. Warren differs with some of Dr. Moore's conclusions. Quist has sprung his trap. 'As I differ with some of yours.' Even the Chairman seems satisfied.
The Minister sits glumly at his desk and tries to perk up when Quist enters, having been cleared by the Tribunal. He pretends to be delighted. 'We shall have to be more careful in future.' Quist thinks that would look very good on his letter headings...
Ridge is clearing his desk in to a brief case. Quist enters and tells Barbara to get in touch with Hardcastle. Quist goes up to John and asks him what is he doing? 'Bits and pieces. I'm a sentimentalist.' 'So am I.' 'Yes, I know.' Quist holds out his hand which is taken. Quist goes into his office. Ridge glances at Barbara and Colin who have been watching, and then quickly look away. Ridge takes down the picture of Toby Wren and puts it into a drawer, and slams it shut.
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Post by michael on Jul 27, 2010 11:11:17 GMT -5
INVASION SYNOPSIS
The Yorkshire dales on a day threatening rain. A jeep pulls up next to a cave entrance where John Ridge and Geoff Hardcastle meet two brothers, Reggie and Dave, both in wet suits, and some rather expensive pot-holing equipment, the invoice for which they present to the scientists from the government! Ridge is a little shocked! Geoff is going to go into the caves with them. Ridge, on the other hand, opts to stay outside. 'I get claustrophobia on the Piccadilly line!' 'You should try the Bakerloo,' replies Geoff. Ridge expects to see them back within an hour and settles down for a nap back in the Jeep as the weather turns for the worse.
Inside the cave system, Geoff points to an area of an underground lake where he wants a water sample from. With their goggles, snorkels and flippers on, the two brothers descend into the water whilst Geoff watches. But the brothers do not return as quickly as Geoff expects and he begins to get worried.
TITLES
Ridge and Hardcastle pull up outside the Devonshire Hotel in a picturesque Yorkshire village. Inside, the pensioner Sandy Larch is already having a pint with his beloved dog by his side. The landlord Joe Bates is there too. They are discussing the disappearance of the lads. Joe is not amused; it is the second time half of the village has been out looking for them. 'Happens every year, a spot of fun for some, next thing folk are out there risking their lives in this weather... ' But Ridge and Geoff defend the boys: they were there at their request, helping in their nitrate level check. Larch reports that there is a reporter asking questions at the shop. Sergeant Harris and dairy farmer Tom Hadley arrive having been down into the caves. They have abandoned the search since the caves are awash with rain water. They've checked all the possible entrances. There isn't anything they can do until morning.
In the shop, the sound of a passing motor bike makes Mrs Smith wonder if its her two grandchildren. Mrs Hunter and her young daughter are in for eggs... She thinks the lads know how to look after themselves.
Quist is still in Paris and won't be back until later tonight so Ridge and Geoff will have to act on their own accord. A map of the cave system interests Geoff. The lads have told Joe in the past that there are more caves to the west than shown on the map. Geoff thinks that if the water is still rising they could have made their way west, and emerged from a hitherto unknown exit, and there is a fault in the limestone, a possible narrow crack. Close by is a big house also on the fault line, Wensdale Grange.
It is surrounded by a huge fence with warning signs, and an army Jeep pulls up and the unfriendly soldier inside carrying a shot gun and wearing wellingtons tells them to hop it. The soldier reports to base – two civvies, inquisitive types. Ridge decides to look around. Electrified wire all around the wall. They look for an entrance.
At the entrance, Ridge introduces themselves as being from the Ministry of National Security, Doomwatch, and wants to see the man in charge. They try to explain what they are looking for but the soldier is not interested: no admittance without an appointment. Over hearing the argument is Major Simms. He calls down to the sergeant to let them in, but to make them take off their boots, they look so dirty....
Let in through the barrier, ridge is exasperated at having to take off his boots. 'Are you looking for your mates or just trouble?' replies the Sergeant. Reluctantly, Ridge and Hardcastle take off their boots and walk into Simms office in their socks! Simms is reading the account of the missing boys in his newspaper. 'Is this how Doomwatch operates? Couple of lost cavers as a pretext to get your foot inside the door?' 'We don't want to open doors. It's our job to keep them shut: tight shut.' Simms assures them security is tight here, they might have noticed during their tour of the perimeter. Ridge isn't sure if two boys stumbling inside a top security establishment would be released. Simms assures them no one has been found in the Grange. There is a gun shot from outside. Rabbits, says Simms. 'We can't always keep them out, they burrow under the wall.' 'Do you mean to say that anything that comes out from under the ground in this place gets shot?' asks Geoff.
Whilst Ridge is on the phone to the Minister's parliamentary secretary, Duncan, Bates tells Geoff back in the hotel what he knows about the Grange. It was the big house of the area, owned by mill owners but then taken over during the war by the government and used as a research station. Mr Larch enters and says a party of potholers is coming over from Skipton. He is uneasy at mention of the Grange. He's thinking of the time before Geoff was born when the Farren family lived there.... He knows the place is haunted. The scientists that settled down there got more than they bargained for... 'Head to foot in silver, they were... Tall, they say, moving along the terrace at night. Silver.' Bates is sceptical. A man died there, and they wouldn't let his wife see his body, body smuggled out at night and the place closed down... Bates remembers that all the security was put up after the place was closed down five years ago. Ridge overhears the conversation before Duncan tells him nothing about the Grange and warns him off the place. Geoff is outraged and wants to go inside. 'Leave off,' says Ridge. 'Want to do a man out of a job?'
That night Ridge breaks into the Grange, cutting through the electrified fence and climbing over the wall. Geoff waits outside. As he approaches the house, he hides from a passing patrol carrying shot guns. He looks at the house, sealed up. Suddenly a gun shot rings out and he dives for cover...
The next morning Duncan is expressing his outrage about Ridge breaking and entering a secret government research unit to Quist. 'So called responsible civil servants acting like school boys.' Quist isn't impressed by the security! 'What goes on there, Duncan?'
Ridge is dropped off by a Jeep outside the hotel. He quietly goes inside, but Geoff is waiting and is greatly amused by his new army clothes!
To Quist's great surprise, the Minister has intervened and ordered Ridge's release. 'He is trying to keep the wraps on, isn't he?' To his even greater surprise, Duncan has been ordered to put Quist in the picture.
Ridge tells Geoff and Bates what he went through inside the Grange. They apparently made him walk through a foot pool, the sort used for cattle during a foot and mouth epidemic, stripped him and sprayed him with more disinfectant. Then they gave him sterilised army clothes to wear. But one thing he did learn: nothing is happening there 'But they did do something once, something that went bad on them. And it's still in there. Waiting to get out'
Duncan explains that the bug developed at the Grange was developed for defensive purposes. Quist doesn't know what is defensive about a bug that can wipe out a city in six weeks. Wensdale Grange was shut down five years ago, because it got out of hand. Duncan isn't keen to discuss this. Quist wants to know how many research workers died before a halt was called. The whole affair was hushed up. Quist thinks germ warfare should be taught in schools and examines the effects of the virus. 'This disease starts with a sore on the skin, usually the fingers, or an irritation in the eyes. A few days later...' And what is left behind? 'An area like anthrax island where no one can live for the next half century because of a war time government experiment? Do they have any idea in the Dales what they have in their midst?' Duncan assures him that the house has been sealed off. All animals are shot and carcases examined. What about water, the rain, asks Quist. He wants to check their safeguards. What if those boys had got into the grounds?
Quist is giving Major Simms and Doctor Wilson, the chief scientist at the Grange a hard time examining their precautions. No one denies what is inside the house and there is no contamination in the grounds. The circus that Ridge went through was partly to teach him a lesson, and that extermination of a pest was out of the question. Geoff asks if the two boys have been shot? 'I'm only trying to say that anyone who flouts are security and breaks in here regardless deserves to be.' Quist wants to make sure that the boys haven't got into the house and reassure everyone. Wilson says that they are not saying that the bug couldn't escape the house, that it hasn't yet. Quist is invited to inspect their records on animal and vegetation tests. Quist agrees, he also wants to inspect the house. Simms is surprised. 'What do you expect to find?' 'Two very sick boys.'
Suited up, Quist approaches the house and puts on a respirator...
Quist explores the house along with the equally protected Ridge and Hardcastle. Wilson escorts them. The house is indeed a preserved relic from the Farren days, with paintings on the wall, antique furniture, all covered in dust and cobwebs. They look around the house looking for signs of the boys, exploring every room. Geoff notices an uncorked bottle but its significance does not register.
The boys turn up, outside the shop as their grandmother is tidying their room. 'Did you miss us?'
Simms tells Quist once he emerges from the house that the boys have turned up. 'They've never been anywhere near us.'
Sergeant Harris wants to have a word with the Dave when he goes into the shop and speaks to Mrs Smith. Ridge and Geoff enter and the policeman tells them that the lads got lost and emerged this morning, on Tommy Hedley's lands. Reggie has hopped it to fetch his bike.
Geoff finds Reggie looking for his girl friend Molly. He wants to know what happened.
Ridge hears the story from the Sergeant. They apparently came back and found Geoff had gone and then with all their new equipment decided upon a grand tour of the caves.
Geoff asks Reggie to swear that they haven't been anywhere near Wensdale Grange. But Reggie is more concerned about his bird... He does say that Hedley's son found them on the fields.
Hedley picks up the story. He and his wife gave the lads a good meal, they had been missing for over a day and a half. Bates isn't so genial, thinking they need a good clip around the ear, but he still got a lift up to the moor from him – and a pint from Sandy Larch! Geoff enters the packed hotel and settles up with the landlord but then he notices a half empty bottle...
Ridge is back in the shop, passing to tug at Mrs Hunter's daughters hair asking if it was a wig, and getting a frosty look! Ridge asks the boys' grandmother if she thinks they are telling the truth? At the moment they are at the police station. Poor Mrs Smith had brought up the boys after her daughter died. They've been nothing but trouble. Ridge notices some glass objects on the counter, left behind by the little girl.
Quist discusses the Grange with Geoff. Their safe guards are as sound as they can be although he did make one or two suggestions. 'There's only one thing wrong with that place: that it exists.' He finishes his pint with a heroic gulp and wants to get home tonight. But Geoff explains his concern: he had seen a wine bottle in the Grange with its cork pushed through. The liquid could have been there for thirty years. It should have had a fungus on it by now. But this one didn't. He wished he had checked it. Quist decides to go back to the Grange.
Suited up once more, Geoff takes Quist to the bottle and he searches the room. There was a door blocked by bits and pieces that they didn't notice before that leads down into the cellar. The lights still work and at the bottom is a wine wrack with evidence of moved bottles. They also find some loose flag stones... Quist signals to the others to fetch a lever from upstairs. Ridge goes back upstairs to fetch a poker from the fire place where he notices before the grand stair case a display of flintlock pistols – two are missing, judging by the staining on the wall. He also spots on the floor pieces of glass – like the one he saw in the shop – and it came from the chandelier above...
In Major Simm's office, he telephones the police. Wilson is shocked: there is a way down from the cellar. This route is not marked on the plan. It looks like an old well, thinks Ridge. And they must lead to the caves. He tells them what he discovered. Quist speaks to Harris and discovers that Reggie and Dave have been let out of the police station... They've gone off for the evening on their bike. They could be anywhere.
The search for the boys begin. Quist finds Harris at Mrs Smith's shop. Harris searches the boy's room for the pistols but Quist wants to go back to his station. Harris asks what is going on?
Geoff asks in the hotel and speaks quietly to Bates, telling him that the boys are very ill. Larch comes in having heard the boys have been let out of the station. They hadn't broken any laws...
Quist tells the policeman about the virus. 'I don't know what chances the boys have got. They've had the infection for three days now.' Everyone else can be protected providing they round up the contacts in time. Ridge is putting Mrs Hunter in the picture. She had been down at Hedley's Farm – and Harris's own children had been there too. It seems that those two boys have been in contact with most of the village. Quist tells him that the vaccines is on its way. 'Vaccine? Where's it going to stop, Doctor Quist? Those two lads are on the loose. Where are they spreading it now?'
We see a fairground. Reggie and Dave pull up outside Sadler's antique shop. Dave pulls out the two pistols from a side bag and finds that the shop is closed. He is scratching his hand. Reggie is rubbing his eyes. Returning to his brother, Dave finds Reggie is unconscious...
Wilson takes a call from Quist. They discuss Hedley's farm. Simm's men are on their way there now.
The soldiers approach a herd of cattle coming up the road. They point their guns at them. Meanwhile, a policeman on a motorbike has found the bike – and the two dying, if not dead, boys in a field.
An emergency vaccination unit is dealing with the entire village out in the main square. Quist watches from a Jeep. Sergeant Harris is trying to convince Mr Larch to have an injection but he sullenly refuses. Quist enters the packed hotel and tells them that the boys have been found and wants to call a meeting of the whole village. Harris is pleased and hopes it will reassure the village. But then Hedley enters. Hedley blames Quist for all this. He was the man who sent the lads into the caves. 'No one knew there was a way into the cellars,' says Quist firmly. 'Then they bloody well should have! God knew, didn't he? And you lot play God. Wasn't to know? You people can't afford excuses.' Quist stares into the distance. 'They're slaughtering my cattle, dressed up like something from the moon... those lads must have tramped all over it.' Quietly, Quist tells the truth: all livestock must be slaughtered. Larch looks in horror at his dog. Hedley has also lost his house and land. Simms enter as Quist tells the village that they must be evacuated. Fully and immediately.
Army vehicles head towards the village...
Larch is refusing to co-operate, he doesn't want to go into any home. And as for the dog... Harris tries to persuade him that it is only until the village has been disinfected. Larch says he speaks as if they're some sort of cesspool... 'There's 650 of us, you can't split us up!' Eventually, he agrees to go. Soon, all who are left in the hotel is Dr Quist and the landlord. Bates can't take it in. Quist asks him to pack his things and join them outside, they need his help. 'Just a minute. They had the Grange shut up for five years.' Quist speaks quietly but firmly, and not sympathetically. 'As long as these places exist, the best we can do is contain them... We fence a bit more off, try again, do better next time.' Quist is suppressing his anger at the tragedy. Bates asks him if they will ever come back. Quist has no answer. Bates looks around his life for the last time.
The whole village is being herded onto coaches. The Doomwatch team help and they are left alone with the police as a special army moves in and wastes no time in sterilising the village with sprays, shooting animals. Quist helps direct them
When the last of the coaches leaves the perimeter of the village, a sign is placed in the middle of the road: EXTREME DANGER KEEP OUT...
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Post by michael on Jul 27, 2010 11:12:25 GMT -5
THE ISLANDERS SYNOPSIS
Ridge is taking fingerprints in what looks like a hut with a group of nervous and reluctant looking men. Suddenly, entering the room in a state of anger comes Thomas Prentice, an older man wearing a cloth cap. He is furious and wants to know why they are being treating like criminals? Without giving Ridge a chance to reply, Thomas tells the men that if they are criminals, perhaps they should act like them. He rips up the fingerprint papers and the group start to smash up the room. Ridge is held back by two of them.
Isaac Prentice is walking down alongside a row of huts, some with washing hanging out to dry when he sees the disturbance. He runs to a phone box and asks to be put through to Doctor Quist...
TITLES
By the time Quist has turned up, the police are already there. The Inspector tells him that it has quietened down now, they usually look in once a day to see if there are any problems. Quist asks if this was necessary. The Inspector explains that his instructions is to help the villagers any way they can. Isaac comes over to Quist and apologises for bothering him, but he said if they ever had any problems... A crowd approaches headed by Thomas... 'There you see, brethren, the man of science and the guardian of the law. They go well together.' Quist asks what all this is about? 'I thought you were our friend, the only man who understood our problems.' 'I try my best.' 'Then why did you give orders to have our fingerprints taken as if we were thieves and murderers?' Quietly, Quist tells the Inspector that there has been a misunderstanding. Reluctantly the Inspector agrees and Quist with Thomas and Isaac go to talk to the people inside one of the buildings.
Quist finds Ridge, smoking a cigar, in the room full of up turned desks, papers and equipment scattered about the place. 'All this because of a few fingerprints?' 'We seem to have hit them on a sensitive spot.' Ridge did try to explain, sniffing. He's got a bug which he can't seem to shake off. They go to address the meeting. He begins by assuring them that their fingerprints have nothing to do with the police. It is a purely scientific matter and he explains about genetics and how the remarkable community of St Simons whose settlers came from England 150 years ago, and living in isolation, a thousand miles away from civilisation. By studying them they can then study themselves to see how we have changed during the years of progress. Quist apologises for any offence this has caused. Thomas is mollified, and apologises for himself and his people which he leads, but he asks Doctor Quist to see it from their point of view – they have been uprooted from their homes, 'We were a happy people. Every man and woman had a job to do and did it with a good heart. Our lives had some purpose. Then came the earth tremor. We would still have stayed. But your government told us it was not safe to stay and so we were brought here.' The problem is what are they supposed to do here? They fear for the future of their community, they are confused by this new world, there is no work that they can do, they thought they could trust Quist but he needs them for their experiments, and he singles out his son, Isaac as an example... 'They see new things, they are influenced by new ideas, bad ideas, so little by little we are being broken up...' Isaac walks out, followed by Alice, a young woman. He angrily kicks a tin.
In his own hut, Alice she asks him why he left the meeting, but how could he speak against his father in public? She tells him he has a duty to put his own ideas forwards. But Isaac doesn't want to make himself more unpopular than he is already. She feels they need to stay together, perhaps she's afraid... 'So, you're going to take that job in London then.'
Quist promises Thomas that he will go to see the Ministry but doesn't hold out any hope that they will help. 'This is England, Thomas, and like it or not you're going to have to face up to changes.' He'll see what they can do. After they leave, Thomas's wife, Joan, calls Quist a good man, at least he tries to understand. 'They're all good men. But they'd be a lot happier if we disappeared.'
Quist goes to see Mullery who warns him that a memo is on its way to his department asking why the islanders were not consulted about the finger printing? Quist gives him his assurance that it won't happen again but is not happy about being asked to discontinue the experiments for a few weeks. Quist wants to know what plans they have for the people. Mullery says it's up to them to decide what they want, they're not prisoners in the camp. They're British citizens and have exactly the same rights as the rest of them. 'Except we live in a highly technological society and they come from a place where there's no cars, no telephones, no televisions,' Mullery thinks they'll sort themselves out in time.
Isaac arrives in London, bemused by voices coming from tannoys, pushed about by commuters in a hurry, and goes to catch a bus.
Craxton's bakeries: Busby is on the phone firing a worker for taking another Monday off. Isaac walks in to be interviewed where Busby complains about absenteeism, 'Last week alone we lost a hundred and twenty working days. That means are production of home baked tea cakes is down to 17, 000! I don't suppose you have that sort of problem where you come from.' 'No, we bake our own cakes.' Busby sometimes wishes he could get away from it all. He warns Isaac that the pace here is pretty killing... Hard paced, fast tempo. 'If you do well, you should have a good future here. Start on Monday.' He is bustled out. Busby calls in Miss Marshall, the secretary thinking they could make some good publicity out of this. And Isaac didn't ask about wages! Busby supposes they don't need money back in St Simons... 'Union minimum, Miss Marshall. We don't know if he's any good, do we?'
Isaac returns to the camp in time to see his father being taken on a stretcher into an ambulance... His mother is being comforted by Alice. Later he talks to them. Mother says Thomas hasn't been alright since he came here. He's also got a fever. 'All his strength drained away...'
Dr Somerville talks to Quist at the camp about the number of influenza infections Thomas could have. He has had him hospitalised in case anything unusual comes to light. Isaac joins them, Somerville tries to reassure Isaac that there is nothing to worry about. Quist didn't see Thomas in order not to worry him some more, he's come to tell them the plans or lack of them, that the Ministry have for the islanders. Isaac is not surprised. They should make their own way like the English people do. Isaac wants to work with machines, he is quite impressed by what he saw at the factory and thinks this is new and exciting compared to working on the land. Quist wishes him luck.
Isaac's mother is anxious and depressed, she sees the illness as a reaction to Thomas's lack of a role here in England. Back home he had meaning. He was a leader, people looked to him. Isaac dismisses it as half a life. Thomas also felt guilty about their coming here. 'What if the whole thing was just a trick?' At the time he thought it for the best but now he's not too sure. Alice comes in and tells them that her mother is ill... 'I think it's the same illness.'
Bradley is getting rather excited over a set of results from a perception test Ridge had put some of the islanders through. A way of measuring the pollution of the mind. Ridge has been off ill for a few days, with 'flu he thinks – Quist reacts to this. He also tells them that the Ministry has forbidden any more tests on the islanders. 'Perhaps we should turn the computer over to working out the mental patterns of our top civil servants. I don't understand them' He gets a phone call from Dr Summerville. There are more islanders falling ill. Quist looks at ridge. 'You've been down to that camp quite a lot in the past few weeks... You sure it was 'flu you just had?' Now Ridge reacts. What else could it be?
Isaac is settling into his packaging job at the factory when Miss Marshall tells him Busby wants to see him. Busby is pleased with his progress and offers him a chance to take a training scheme. A phone call interrupts Busby's appreciation of the hard worker, and grudgingly allows a personal call – it's for Isaac. His father is dying. He turns to leave, despite Busby's protests.
Thomas's last words to his son are: 'Go back. Go back home. Home.'
Thomas is buried in a crowd cemetery, and a few mourners present. A plane roars overheard. Quist is there too, keeping a discreet distance. Isaac wants to speak to him, what exactly did father die of? He doesn't believe the flu story because of the post mortem. Quist thinks they ought to talk back at the camp. Once there, Quist explains that Thomas did die from the 'flu and the other cases have 'flu too. Some of them might die. They have no resistance to something they have never experienced before. Meanwhile, Joan Prentice angrily tells her son off for showing no respect to his father. 'We don't need scientists to tell us what we know already. That if we stay in this country we shall all die. That we should never have left our homes. It is a punishment.'
Quist goes to see Mullery the civil servant again. Quist demands an answer: why can't they go back? Mullery gives him a lecture. St Simon's is in the South Pacific, some fifteen hundred miles south east of the Fiji Group. The idea that they are self supporting is a romantic notion the islanders themselves like to promote but it is not entirely true. Their main food stuff, the fish is on the decline, the soil is nearly exhausted. A doctor visits them every six months and once a year they get supplies from Fiji. Government policy is cutting its commitments in the far east especially now Fiji is independent. 'Do you mean to say you would have abandoned them?' There's more to it than that, says Mullery. 'Now that communist China has joined the nuclear big boys, that whole area has become strategically important.' St Simon's would be ideally suited as an early warning station or even a missile base, perhaps to the Australians. The island is not uninhabitable to the military, just to cranks who want to get away from it all... It's only a matter of time before an approach is made. Quist tells him that they have a clear cut moral issue on their hands and sooner or later they are going to have to face it.
Isaac Prentice becomes more and more disillusioned with his work. The noise gets louder in the factory. Once more he is in Busby's office. The noise has got to him. This time the manager is worried about the news reports of the illness in his community. He is thinking of health and safety issues. Isaac gets aggressive, he doesn't care what it says in the paper. 'Don't you worry, Mr Busby. I won't contaminate your precious cakes for you.' And walks out. Outside he starts to see London for what it is, noisy and crowded.
Quist is surprised to see Isaac at the Doomwatch offices and welcomes him. Isaac tells him that his employers don't want him any more, because of the reports about the sickness. 'You're a clever man. What are we going to do?' Ridge asks to see Quist, it's important. Doctor Somerville has results of a post mortem. Hepatic failure. The liver. The peripheral nerves were also damaged on Thomas Prentice, that's what killed him. 'It's a miracle he lived as long as he did. It just needed a mild dose of the 'flu to finish him off.' The mystery is why? Mullery tells Quist that the subject of the islanders came up at this morning's cabinet meeting. They are going to send a small survey team there and that is the most opportune moment. Quist wants to go with them. He wants to look for something, and invites Isaac with him. He needs someone who knows exactly how they lived, how they fished and cooked...
The survey team of six with Quist and Isaac arrive by boat in a sandy bay. The island is rugged and beautiful. He shows Quist his home, walls propped up by planks of wood. 'Our feeble efforts to get the better of nature.' The survey begins. Isaac gets some fish for Quist to analyse, much to his surprise. What can fish tell him about an earth tremor...? Quist soon finds something... A little later, Quist finds Thomas in the churchyard. His father would have liked to have been buried here. 'When you're here, it's as if the rest of the world doesn't exist.' Quist agrees. It's a comforting illusion. 'But unfortunately, remote as it is, it isn't quite remote enough.'
'The Arizona Star? But that went down in 1915.' Quist is talking to Ridge. The cargo was stored in solid iron castes and that takes nearly forty years to break up. The wreck has never been located but it is in the area of St Simon's. 'Meanwhile it's lying at the bottom of the ocean slowly seeping out its poison.' Isaac comes in to see Quist. He is happy about the government decision for the islanders to vote as to whether they stay or go back to St Simons. Quist tells him the bad news. He cannot recommend their return. Their systems have been slowly absorbing a poison over many years – organic mercury. It builds up in the bodies, flu speeded up the process. The Arizona Star was sunk by a German boat. The fish absorb it; the sea gulls eat the fish and land on their fields... There is pollution in the soil. Isaac is shaken. 'Why did this have to happen to us? Never had any wars, never had any quarrel with anyone. Just wanted to live our own lives.' 'The world's too small for that, Isaac,' says Quist. As Isaac leaves the offices, Quist speaks to Mullery. 'It's absurd. How can you let them vote on an issue like this?' Mullery is surprised: he though Quist would approve of the decision. 'Not in these circumstances.' Quist does not want them to go back to a slow, lingering death. Mullery is relying on Quist's powers of persuasion – and puts the phone down.
'It's too late for us old ones,' says Joan. 'For us the damage has been done.' It's up to the young ones. Isaac and Alice, who are engaged talk the matter over. Alice knows that here in England, Isaac has more women to choose from, she is not holding him to the commitment. 'Each of us must vote as we feel.'
Quist tells the assembled islanders that if they vote to stay, the government will help them settle into our way of life. He warns them of the dangers of going back. 'But it's your decision.' He invites questions, and they are about whether there have been any more tremors, and any government help? Joan Prentice asks, if they go back, they say their lives will be shortened – but if they stay here, won't it be the same? Aren't there poisons here too? No one leaves England because of this. St Simons is their home. The vote is held. Isaac watches as the islanders quickly make their vote before coming to a decision, watched by Alice.
'They judged us and found us wanting,' remarks Quist to Ridge. They sail on Thursday. Ridge is not surprised; they saw the worst side of them. Isaac gave Quist a present – their family Bible. They had fine ideals all those years ago. 'We leave behind us an England of low wages and high prices, one law for the rich, another for the poor. A land of smoking factories, prisons, workhouses, and mines where children slaved ten hours a day. We set sail to live and work as one man, where there will be no rich or poor, no idlers, and all can exist by the sweat of their brow.' Ridge isn't impressed, those ideals have been pretty polluted in the last hundred years. 'Everywhere except St. Simons.' Ridge shows Quist the newspaper headline. CHINA LAUNCHES ICBM INTO SOUTH PACIFIC. NUCLEAR TEST ALARMS AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT. NEW DEFENCE SYSTEM URGED.
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