Post by michael on Jul 7, 2010 11:41:53 GMT -5
THE RED SKY REVIEW AND ANALYSIS
The Red Sky is about as pure Doomwatch as you're likely to get: it takes a familiar concern, this time noise pollution and then gives it a twist. For those of you who have lived close to airports and listened to the venting of engines late at night, or for you poor souls who live underneath the flight-paths of major flight paths such as Heathrow, you can appreciate the view of Bernard Colley. Living next to military airbases isn't much fun either – one minute all is quiet, then suddenly the interminable shriek of a passing fighter. There was a period in the nineties when double glazing salesman were taking advantage of a new ruling where by you get a grant for sound proofing in those areas. This was certainly the case for a relative of mine. Sometimes you can choose where you live, sometimes you can't. And noise is as intrusive a nuisance to your home, whether it would be the thud thud of next doors double bass booster sound system (WHY!!!) or the interminable whine of a motor bike warming up for ten minutes at four in the morning.
It must have comes as a blessed relief for some when the skies earlier in 2010 were empty of planes thanks to the natural pollution of an erupting Icelandic volcano.
In the 1960s, the first super-sonic aircraft were being developed in a joint venture between the British and French governments. It would take less time to cross the Atlantic than it would by ordinary passenger jet. But not everyone was happy. The Treasury wasn't for a start, and whenever plans came about to scrap the project (despite the crippling cancellation costs and loss of face with a country whose support it was, was vital to join the Common Market), Tony Benn MP, fought to preserve it, despite perceiving the escalating costs and bureaucratic nightmares. This was a prime example of the white heat of technology that prime minister Harold Wilson envisaged – and that Kit Pedler was suspicious of; that the dawning of a new industrial revolution for Britain. Tony Benn was Minister of Technology at the time, and his constituency was Bristol South East – where parts of Concorde were being manufactured. He saw the battle as the battle for jobs. Concorde first flew in 1969. It broke the sound barrier and created a sonic boom.
Meanwhile in New York, their was growing opposition towards Concorde due to its noise. It became quite a heated issue although found to be quieter than expected.
The T9 in The Red Sky is a liquid fuel jet, akin to a rocket! It travels at Mach 4, about twice the speed of Concorde at full rate, and its shock waves in special circumstances, can kill. I imagine the exhaust fumes don't do the ozone much good either. Happily, I imagine the Oil crisis of the early 1970s put paid to the T9.
In the episode, the Palgon Air Corporation is built up to be this huge business of the usual type; a chairman who has direct access to the Minister and can brush aside local concerns. Opposing them and has been for years is Bernard Colley, the well known conservationist. His feeling of being nothing but a 'peripheral irritant' is a memorable phrase. 'A pimple on the Palgon Air backside.' But from small acorns, powerful pressure movements can grow!
It is perhaps the closest Doomwatch ever got to a Nigel Kneale supernatural type play – mysterious sounds coming from the ground, people scared to death... A couple of years later, noise will be activating ghosts in The Stone Tape, and something much nastier down in the ground. A few years earlier in The Road, eighteenth century people will be seeing fore-shadows of the nuclear age, and hear them too. One almost expects a supernatural presence to be unveiled at the end of the episode but – phew! Rationalism and scientific enquiry saves the day!
For once, Quist is doing the pushing rather than being persuaded as in Friday's Child, or acting on a hunch like in Burial At Sea. He has a more personal involvement. It also shows the risks he takes to prove a hypothesis. It is clear from the episode's beginning that the Minister is out to get Quist – and since this is a Davis/Pedler script, it is based around the Beeston affair from The Plastic Eaters.
He is not too concerned about pressure from the Minister at all. It is Ridge who is more concerned for the future of Doomwatch and Quist. It is an episode that examines Ridge's attitude towards Quist – he has huge respect but questions his judgement. The tensions that occasionally rise between them finally come to the boil as Ridge sees the 'old man' (he's not Superman yet) becoming more tired, irritable and more difficult to deal with than usual. The best bit is when Quist, probably under sedation, stalks Ridge as he is waiting for the ambulance to take him to a clinic, but collapses before he can do him a mischief! There is no doubt that Ridge is working in his boss's best interests, but it won't be long before they have another fall out over attitudes, and a near parting of the ways. At the top of the episode, Quist is beginning to fray at the edges with the sheer amount of work he has to get through on a daily basis. Quist is doing in the lab what Ellis will be doing in two weeks time – finding it difficult to pour in liquid with a shaky hand. And both are of similar ages and both are wanted out by their bosses. But even Quist concedes that 'the organisation is getting a little top heavy,' and he has to learn to delegate a bit better.
Quist is this week's sufferer – his hallucinations are a camera effects trickery tour de force. There were no video effects men at the BBC in 1970; these 'tricks' were performed by the Inlay Operators, who would be assistant cameramen on temporary attachment.
We also get a good example of how scientists behave - evidence rather than hearsay – the esp and water divining remark is very instructive, and by the end of the decade, Kit Pedler is investigating these issues to see if there is evidence to be found. Forty years on, we are still waiting for it.
This is the first time we meet Richard Duncan, who does not live up to the description of him being the Minister's hatchet man, indeed he stands up for Quist to Reynolds! He is quite a nice chap. He is described as the Minister's assistant but in Invasion he is a parliamentary secretary – which makes him an MP. His life is saved by Toby Wren, therefore Doomwatch, and in later episodes we see that he is not hostile towards them but acts as his master's voice. Perhaps it is the reported continual presence of Duncan that is pushing Quist over the edge, in much the same way noise has pushed Captain Gort over the cliff in Kent.
This episode is the complete antithesis to the story which follows, a Terence Dudley script Spectre at the Feast, where the debates are across desks, much longer and oratorical than, say Quists and Reynolds. In The Red Sky, we have the issues but don't feel we are being lectured at.
Paul Eddington seen here as Reynolds would play the Special Branch link to the government in a few years time, a manipulative figure quite unlike the characters which made him a household name in comedy for the BBC in either The Good Life or Yes, Minister. One wonders what did happen to Reynolds? He was one of the few opponents to Doomwatch who had no choice but to accept the results. Did it damage his career irreparably? How could it not? Did he join Admiral Tranton in the dole queue? Better than following Mary Bryant to the morgue...
The Red Sky is about as pure Doomwatch as you're likely to get: it takes a familiar concern, this time noise pollution and then gives it a twist. For those of you who have lived close to airports and listened to the venting of engines late at night, or for you poor souls who live underneath the flight-paths of major flight paths such as Heathrow, you can appreciate the view of Bernard Colley. Living next to military airbases isn't much fun either – one minute all is quiet, then suddenly the interminable shriek of a passing fighter. There was a period in the nineties when double glazing salesman were taking advantage of a new ruling where by you get a grant for sound proofing in those areas. This was certainly the case for a relative of mine. Sometimes you can choose where you live, sometimes you can't. And noise is as intrusive a nuisance to your home, whether it would be the thud thud of next doors double bass booster sound system (WHY!!!) or the interminable whine of a motor bike warming up for ten minutes at four in the morning.
It must have comes as a blessed relief for some when the skies earlier in 2010 were empty of planes thanks to the natural pollution of an erupting Icelandic volcano.
In the 1960s, the first super-sonic aircraft were being developed in a joint venture between the British and French governments. It would take less time to cross the Atlantic than it would by ordinary passenger jet. But not everyone was happy. The Treasury wasn't for a start, and whenever plans came about to scrap the project (despite the crippling cancellation costs and loss of face with a country whose support it was, was vital to join the Common Market), Tony Benn MP, fought to preserve it, despite perceiving the escalating costs and bureaucratic nightmares. This was a prime example of the white heat of technology that prime minister Harold Wilson envisaged – and that Kit Pedler was suspicious of; that the dawning of a new industrial revolution for Britain. Tony Benn was Minister of Technology at the time, and his constituency was Bristol South East – where parts of Concorde were being manufactured. He saw the battle as the battle for jobs. Concorde first flew in 1969. It broke the sound barrier and created a sonic boom.
Meanwhile in New York, their was growing opposition towards Concorde due to its noise. It became quite a heated issue although found to be quieter than expected.
The T9 in The Red Sky is a liquid fuel jet, akin to a rocket! It travels at Mach 4, about twice the speed of Concorde at full rate, and its shock waves in special circumstances, can kill. I imagine the exhaust fumes don't do the ozone much good either. Happily, I imagine the Oil crisis of the early 1970s put paid to the T9.
In the episode, the Palgon Air Corporation is built up to be this huge business of the usual type; a chairman who has direct access to the Minister and can brush aside local concerns. Opposing them and has been for years is Bernard Colley, the well known conservationist. His feeling of being nothing but a 'peripheral irritant' is a memorable phrase. 'A pimple on the Palgon Air backside.' But from small acorns, powerful pressure movements can grow!
It is perhaps the closest Doomwatch ever got to a Nigel Kneale supernatural type play – mysterious sounds coming from the ground, people scared to death... A couple of years later, noise will be activating ghosts in The Stone Tape, and something much nastier down in the ground. A few years earlier in The Road, eighteenth century people will be seeing fore-shadows of the nuclear age, and hear them too. One almost expects a supernatural presence to be unveiled at the end of the episode but – phew! Rationalism and scientific enquiry saves the day!
For once, Quist is doing the pushing rather than being persuaded as in Friday's Child, or acting on a hunch like in Burial At Sea. He has a more personal involvement. It also shows the risks he takes to prove a hypothesis. It is clear from the episode's beginning that the Minister is out to get Quist – and since this is a Davis/Pedler script, it is based around the Beeston affair from The Plastic Eaters.
He is not too concerned about pressure from the Minister at all. It is Ridge who is more concerned for the future of Doomwatch and Quist. It is an episode that examines Ridge's attitude towards Quist – he has huge respect but questions his judgement. The tensions that occasionally rise between them finally come to the boil as Ridge sees the 'old man' (he's not Superman yet) becoming more tired, irritable and more difficult to deal with than usual. The best bit is when Quist, probably under sedation, stalks Ridge as he is waiting for the ambulance to take him to a clinic, but collapses before he can do him a mischief! There is no doubt that Ridge is working in his boss's best interests, but it won't be long before they have another fall out over attitudes, and a near parting of the ways. At the top of the episode, Quist is beginning to fray at the edges with the sheer amount of work he has to get through on a daily basis. Quist is doing in the lab what Ellis will be doing in two weeks time – finding it difficult to pour in liquid with a shaky hand. And both are of similar ages and both are wanted out by their bosses. But even Quist concedes that 'the organisation is getting a little top heavy,' and he has to learn to delegate a bit better.
Quist is this week's sufferer – his hallucinations are a camera effects trickery tour de force. There were no video effects men at the BBC in 1970; these 'tricks' were performed by the Inlay Operators, who would be assistant cameramen on temporary attachment.
We also get a good example of how scientists behave - evidence rather than hearsay – the esp and water divining remark is very instructive, and by the end of the decade, Kit Pedler is investigating these issues to see if there is evidence to be found. Forty years on, we are still waiting for it.
This is the first time we meet Richard Duncan, who does not live up to the description of him being the Minister's hatchet man, indeed he stands up for Quist to Reynolds! He is quite a nice chap. He is described as the Minister's assistant but in Invasion he is a parliamentary secretary – which makes him an MP. His life is saved by Toby Wren, therefore Doomwatch, and in later episodes we see that he is not hostile towards them but acts as his master's voice. Perhaps it is the reported continual presence of Duncan that is pushing Quist over the edge, in much the same way noise has pushed Captain Gort over the cliff in Kent.
This episode is the complete antithesis to the story which follows, a Terence Dudley script Spectre at the Feast, where the debates are across desks, much longer and oratorical than, say Quists and Reynolds. In The Red Sky, we have the issues but don't feel we are being lectured at.
Paul Eddington seen here as Reynolds would play the Special Branch link to the government in a few years time, a manipulative figure quite unlike the characters which made him a household name in comedy for the BBC in either The Good Life or Yes, Minister. One wonders what did happen to Reynolds? He was one of the few opponents to Doomwatch who had no choice but to accept the results. Did it damage his career irreparably? How could it not? Did he join Admiral Tranton in the dole queue? Better than following Mary Bryant to the morgue...