Post by michael on Jul 10, 2010 15:52:10 GMT -5
TOMORROW, THE RAT
The Animals (Cruel Poisons) act 1962 is the villain of the piece, at least so Terence Dudley's script seems to suggest.
Because they cannot use the strongest poisons on the market, they have to use other forms of attack, including wafarin, an anti coagulant (stops blood clotting) which the rats are forming an immunity in. So the unnamed Ministry in this episode – presumably Health - (although the same Minister pops up in Survival Code) is having to develop more like term solutions to the rat problem – the final solution, the Minister thinks is hilariously funny, according to Dr. Mary Bryant. And now they are developing a genetic form of attack. By the end of the episode, with mutant rats now out there and capable of producing several million others, Quist says 'To hell with the cruel poisons act,' - three children have died. Much earlier, Bryant is quoted in the newspapers and attacks the cruel poisons act (eight years old) as only being possible in a country that loves animals more than children. Well, to be fair, the UK loves cute animals and doesn't mind eating others, but there can't be that many rat lovers.... Although, having said that, you can buy rats from a nearby pet store from me. To help the Minister justify their attack on the mutant rats, Quist uses a number of military metaphors. This is Terence Dudley trying to write High Dialogue. Concerted attacks, all out war, etc.
If that was Dudley's agenda (and it probably wasn't), Kit Pedler's concern would have been over genetic engineering, and how it goes wrong. Mary Bryant succeeds in increasing the intelligence rats, trying to put them off human flesh. She creates a breed of flesh eating rats – cannibal rats – well, cannibals suggest they eat each other, as well as other species. Her experiments have made them so clever they can use spoons and forks to jam open traps, jam pressure sensitive plates, and use levers to remove a back plate to gnaw through wood which although treated with aversion therapy, they nibble through. They have nests in sewers and herd mice as we would cattle. They are cunning and intelligent. Initially, the blame for the attacks were blamed on the gradual release of the sterilised first generation of experiments. The rats were not inside government property but in a London house. This was too keep costs down, science on the cheap. Quist and Ridge are quite impressed by her rudimentary outfit and that she has a basic knowledge of electronics as well as her own expertise in genetics. This is why the intelligent rats escaped and no one knew. As Wren discovered, they could easily solve tests.
Genetic engineering gets the Terence Dudley debate too. He likes to have people sitting down, having a good debate. He can't resist them in his writing! Bryant explains how she eventually hopes to create a super-man, believing that the height of irresponsibility is knowingly to conceive a disabled or abnormal child. This is definitely Hitlerian as Ridge points out – but he screws her all the same. Later, Quist warns her that if you create a biologically perfect being, you may come face to face with God, a risk she is willing to take!
Here is a problem. The door to the observation room hasn't been opened that often so how do the rats get fed? The feeding boxes with the plate sensitive boxes and back plates are at the other end of the room. If the human meat is never registered on the meter, does she or her assistant never notice it isn't there next time they feed them? I'm confused! And come to think of it, where DID the rats find the spoons and forks to jam the trap during that famous scene. Wren in a confusing bit of dialogue says that they are not in the kitchen so obviously they either brought them with them or hidden them somewhere.
Sometimes, Dudley's dialogue is so convoluted at times, so clever clever, with ripostes, and attempts to be high brow that sometimes you are scratching your head over the actual meaning of the scene! Well, in my case certainly. Since this is normally 'Episode 2' for those of us discovering Doomwatch, it is a complete and total contrast to the spartan, direct, scientific dialogue that Gerry Davis and Kit Pedler produced for The Plastic Eaters and their two other scripts and here are two very distinctive styles.
Dudley also directs this episode. Rats, like a lot of animals, are perilously difficult to shoot. The animal trainer for this episode handled similar requirements in Dudley's next big sci-fi series, Survivors. The problem initially were rather tame dogs but by the third they had genuinely viscous Alsations. Rats too made an appearance in that series, and they tried their best on that one too...
Dudley goes to town on the gruesome elements on the episode with its gnawed horses, and Bryant's corpse at the end. A rat attacks his real life son out of vision in the opening and his wife is one of the house wives terrorised by rats too. Dudley will never write such a hard hitting, high casualty rate script again. He pours on the grief for the Chambers family. Their son is first attacked and later killed, and two other children's deaths are reported. Then Mrs Chambers goes for Mary Bryant with a kitchen knife in a superbly acted scene. The way Mary Bryant tries to comfort Mrs Chambers, comfort her own guilt, and is instantly repelled with a vicious look is a powerful moment.
Here is another problem for the episode, although it may well not be a problem. What did happen to Mary? She looked at her arm and went 'eugh!' and obviously runs off to clean up the wound. Did the rats go for her in the toilet and drive her into the observation room before they killed her? When other writers have written about Doomwatch in magazines during the eighties, they frequently cited her death as suicide. But then again, Ridge arrives ('looking fantastic!') and finds that the lights are off. Had the Chambers' knife scene occurred during the day this would make sense but the scene was played at night. So, who turned off the lights? Mary did not shut the door either. Did she indeed commit suicide by letting her creations kill her, and left the door open for Ridge to find her?
'And she seemed such a nice person, too.'
The Animals (Cruel Poisons) act 1962 is the villain of the piece, at least so Terence Dudley's script seems to suggest.
Because they cannot use the strongest poisons on the market, they have to use other forms of attack, including wafarin, an anti coagulant (stops blood clotting) which the rats are forming an immunity in. So the unnamed Ministry in this episode – presumably Health - (although the same Minister pops up in Survival Code) is having to develop more like term solutions to the rat problem – the final solution, the Minister thinks is hilariously funny, according to Dr. Mary Bryant. And now they are developing a genetic form of attack. By the end of the episode, with mutant rats now out there and capable of producing several million others, Quist says 'To hell with the cruel poisons act,' - three children have died. Much earlier, Bryant is quoted in the newspapers and attacks the cruel poisons act (eight years old) as only being possible in a country that loves animals more than children. Well, to be fair, the UK loves cute animals and doesn't mind eating others, but there can't be that many rat lovers.... Although, having said that, you can buy rats from a nearby pet store from me. To help the Minister justify their attack on the mutant rats, Quist uses a number of military metaphors. This is Terence Dudley trying to write High Dialogue. Concerted attacks, all out war, etc.
If that was Dudley's agenda (and it probably wasn't), Kit Pedler's concern would have been over genetic engineering, and how it goes wrong. Mary Bryant succeeds in increasing the intelligence rats, trying to put them off human flesh. She creates a breed of flesh eating rats – cannibal rats – well, cannibals suggest they eat each other, as well as other species. Her experiments have made them so clever they can use spoons and forks to jam open traps, jam pressure sensitive plates, and use levers to remove a back plate to gnaw through wood which although treated with aversion therapy, they nibble through. They have nests in sewers and herd mice as we would cattle. They are cunning and intelligent. Initially, the blame for the attacks were blamed on the gradual release of the sterilised first generation of experiments. The rats were not inside government property but in a London house. This was too keep costs down, science on the cheap. Quist and Ridge are quite impressed by her rudimentary outfit and that she has a basic knowledge of electronics as well as her own expertise in genetics. This is why the intelligent rats escaped and no one knew. As Wren discovered, they could easily solve tests.
Genetic engineering gets the Terence Dudley debate too. He likes to have people sitting down, having a good debate. He can't resist them in his writing! Bryant explains how she eventually hopes to create a super-man, believing that the height of irresponsibility is knowingly to conceive a disabled or abnormal child. This is definitely Hitlerian as Ridge points out – but he screws her all the same. Later, Quist warns her that if you create a biologically perfect being, you may come face to face with God, a risk she is willing to take!
Here is a problem. The door to the observation room hasn't been opened that often so how do the rats get fed? The feeding boxes with the plate sensitive boxes and back plates are at the other end of the room. If the human meat is never registered on the meter, does she or her assistant never notice it isn't there next time they feed them? I'm confused! And come to think of it, where DID the rats find the spoons and forks to jam the trap during that famous scene. Wren in a confusing bit of dialogue says that they are not in the kitchen so obviously they either brought them with them or hidden them somewhere.
Sometimes, Dudley's dialogue is so convoluted at times, so clever clever, with ripostes, and attempts to be high brow that sometimes you are scratching your head over the actual meaning of the scene! Well, in my case certainly. Since this is normally 'Episode 2' for those of us discovering Doomwatch, it is a complete and total contrast to the spartan, direct, scientific dialogue that Gerry Davis and Kit Pedler produced for The Plastic Eaters and their two other scripts and here are two very distinctive styles.
Dudley also directs this episode. Rats, like a lot of animals, are perilously difficult to shoot. The animal trainer for this episode handled similar requirements in Dudley's next big sci-fi series, Survivors. The problem initially were rather tame dogs but by the third they had genuinely viscous Alsations. Rats too made an appearance in that series, and they tried their best on that one too...
Dudley goes to town on the gruesome elements on the episode with its gnawed horses, and Bryant's corpse at the end. A rat attacks his real life son out of vision in the opening and his wife is one of the house wives terrorised by rats too. Dudley will never write such a hard hitting, high casualty rate script again. He pours on the grief for the Chambers family. Their son is first attacked and later killed, and two other children's deaths are reported. Then Mrs Chambers goes for Mary Bryant with a kitchen knife in a superbly acted scene. The way Mary Bryant tries to comfort Mrs Chambers, comfort her own guilt, and is instantly repelled with a vicious look is a powerful moment.
Here is another problem for the episode, although it may well not be a problem. What did happen to Mary? She looked at her arm and went 'eugh!' and obviously runs off to clean up the wound. Did the rats go for her in the toilet and drive her into the observation room before they killed her? When other writers have written about Doomwatch in magazines during the eighties, they frequently cited her death as suicide. But then again, Ridge arrives ('looking fantastic!') and finds that the lights are off. Had the Chambers' knife scene occurred during the day this would make sense but the scene was played at night. So, who turned off the lights? Mary did not shut the door either. Did she indeed commit suicide by letting her creations kill her, and left the door open for Ridge to find her?
'And she seemed such a nice person, too.'