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Private Notes
The Cult of.. looks behind the scenes of Doomwatch and reveals the inspiration for their the stories and discovers the team behind the programme knew they were upsetting the government and big business and Robert Powell explains why he left the show at the height of its popularity. The documentary also demonstrates that despite the show's foresight, how they misjudged the changing gender politics of the early 70’s and also exposes a behind the scenes rift between the show's creators and its producer.
Based on the TV series; this movie was released in 1972. The waters surrounding an island become contaminated by chemical dumping, and people who eat fish caught in those waters become deformed and violent.
What if a man-made virus with the power to melt all plastic became as infectious as the common cold? When a plane crashes in South America, in quite extrodinary circumstances, it's up to Dr Quist's team to avert further disaster.
Genetic engineering? Tampering with nature in a quest to make Superman? The experimentation is still only being carried out on rats, but with dangerous, and deadly results...
The time is fast approaching when a person's entire history - educational, medical, criminal, even financial - may end up as a foot of computer tape in some impenetrable central file. Worse still, a man's future career may depend upon the computer's evaluation. This week the Doomwatch team fall under the baleful eye of a newly established security section.
A new, nuclear-powered rocket is being tested, with the first British astronaut aboard. The smallest error could turn it into a flying nuclear bomb spreading radioactive fallout over a wide area of Europe. And an error does occur.
Four strangely dressed young ladies wearing a checker board patterned miniskirt and silver tights ambush two City Gents with a tray of sweets which they eagerly sample...
A land rover pulls up underneath a light house high up on a cliff overlooking the English channel. Bernard Colley and his daughter Dana sees their friend Captain Tommy Gort coming out of the building to greet them – they think. But instead he is lurching, a haunted expression on his face towards the edge of the cliff. The Colleys are horrified. 'Why the hell isn't Quist here?' says Bernard. They run after him but they are too late. Gort stops at the edge of the cliff, clutching his head in pain. Inevitably, he topples over and plunges to his death.
In order to decide on new proposals for dealing with the dangers of pollution on the environment, Doctor Quist assembles a conference amongst the world's top scientists. But soon several of the delegates become ill, apparently from food-poisoning. However, Quist becomes suspicious, and suspects that the sickness may have been caused deliberately.
A small boy runs across a field into a forest, snapping a stick of a tree as he goes. Stick in hand he pauses by a tree to catch his breath while looking around the forest. He hears a noise from the tree above which scares him and he runs off. He sees a squirrel in the tree and throws the stick at it and hides behind another tree. He makes his way up the tree trying to reach the squirrel he threw the stick at. As he gets close the animal falls stiffly from the tree. The squirrel lies dead on the forest floor....
Tough ex-miners in South Wales drinking gin instead of the traditional beer, giving their wives the cold shoulder and secretly turning to cock-fighting. It all sounds wildly out of character to Dr Quist and his team, who investigate despite the fact that all this is taking place in the Minister's own constituency.
In an effort to prevent unofficial strikes by its workforce, a company in the North of England decides to use the latest scientific discovery, and attempts to manipulate both the working and the private lives of its employees by bugging them with listening devices. However, when Quist hears of this underhanded practice he is furious and decides that the only way to stop the unethical management is to turn their own method against them.
... 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....
DOOMWATCH MAN HELD DR JOHN RIDGE, 38, a member of the controversial Doomwatch team was held for 24 hours today by a 'mystery' Army unit in a remote Yorkshire village.....
ISLANDERS FLEE The 200 inhabitants of the tiny Pacific Island of St Simon are to be evacuated. The British Government believes that this mini protectorate is in grave danger following recent earth tremors. A Royal Navy frigate is now steaming towards the island to bring people home to the country their forefathers left two centuries ago.
We see a distressed young girl being made comfortable in an isolation ward. The Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Ian Phelps is told by the hospital's Senior House Officer that the young girl, Doreen Taylor, who has typhoid, is not responding to any of the other antibiotics. It is a totally resistant strain. There are four other suspect cases, all from Doreen's school and they have visited a lot of areas. 'So it's bad, we could be on the verge of an epidemic,' says Phelps. 'Yes. And absolutely no effective drug to fight it with.'...
A school chemistry lab and some unsupervised senior students, MacPherson and Jenkins are preparing a prank on one of their own... However, a friend of theirs, a very tall boy called Stephen Franklin is worried if they have calculated the amount that the others are pouring into a test tube... Paignton, a rather obnoxious Billy Bunter type victim of the prank gets a face full of test tube fragments and scalding liquid as it explodes in his face. The boys watch in horror as Paignton screams and screams and screams....
A geriatric hospital ward at Parkway and a very elderly patient, George Mason, connected to a drip feed, is delighted with a letter he has received telling him that his great-grandson is to be named after him. His fellow patient in the next bed, Mr Faber is pleased for him. Watching George on a small monitor screen are Doctors Carson, Eric Godfrey and the Duty Nurse who are all pleased for him. Godfrey thinks it is all thanks to the monitoring equipment which dominates the room in the form of huge units. 'The computer?' sneers Carson. 'It did not give him his great grand-son.' 'Kept him alive to see him,' points out Godfrey. They can hear voices from the monitor as the boss of the hospital is giving a conducted tour to VIPs of their impressive outfit. 'Whitaker's sunshine tours!' says Carson.
Ten Downing Street, and the Minister is anxiously waiting the arrival of Doctor Quist who is late for an important meeting with the Prime Minister. Duncan blames the traffic, Quist is being driven by car from the airport. The Prime Minister's secretary is also alarmed. Quist suddenly bursts in, he is unsteady on his feet, confused, slurring his speech and looks exhausted. He blames the driver for getting lost. He asks to be briefed on the meeting and is taken into the meeting leaving the Minister in no doubt what is wrong with the man. 'He's drunk! Doctor Quist is drunk...'
In a sauna, the sweaty body of the Minister of Health, is dictating to the equally sweaty Richard Duncan a set of instructions for a commission to investigate flooding in the Thames Valley but has no intention of setting a date just yet. That won't satisfy Doctor Quist, comments Duncan. 'Blast Doctor Quist! I'm on holiday!' Fed up with being in this sweat box, the Minister tries talking to a third person in the sauna but the man has a fit, and starts convulsing on the floor. Together, Duncan and the Minister try to get the man on to a bed...
A swimmer, just off shore from the jagged Scottish coastline, swims, unaware, into a mustard coloured substance floating on the sea... It's effect upon him is swift. His skin feels like it is on fire, and he gasps for air as he lungs seize up....
By the year 2000 there'll be over eighty million people living in this country. They'll want cars and places to park them. They'll want clothing and feeding and educating and work to do...to say nothing of housing...
Geoff Hardcastle is visiting a laboratory talking to Doctor Henry Fane, who is surprised Doomwatch are taking the allegations seriously. There is an organised vendetta against his work, and him personally. There is a woman in the village called Miss Lincoln, a crank, thinks Fane. He blames her for the slashed tyres, broken windows, and water being put into the fuel for the boilers. She has turned everybody against them, it drives away his assistants. The problem is she is a dog lover. She found out that they had a license to experiment with animals and that was it. 'God knows what she is going to do next.' The shot that rings out, smashing a window seems to be his answer. Furious, Fane goes to phone the police– but then sees Geoff Hardcastle lying on the floor, clutching his arm, very still...
A plan of a building, its security, the location of a safe, a ventilator grille, a security alarm... and a group of three young teenagers are planning a raid. 'tomorrow's the big day!'
A street alongside a tall factory and a young teenager, Jimmy Brookes, is kicking his football along the road when an exceptionally high kick sees it land on the roof of the factory! Borrowing Mr Tom Walsh's ladder, Jimmy climbs onto the roof, and Walsh gets on with his window cleaning. Then he notices the boy is in distress, staggering along the roof, choking, gasping for air. Walsh quickly climbs up the ladder and brings the lad down to the road. ...
Many years ago, Quist worked on the infamous Manhattan Project, which was instrumental in the designing of the atomic bomb codenamed Fat Man, used to obliterate the seaside port of Nagasaki in World War II. This involvement has continued to weigh heavily on Quist's conscience ever since. Hearing the phrase "Say knife," he recognises a potential threat - one that is tied into a break in at a plutonium base. A group of young student activists has stolen several radioactive fuel rods, and are planning to construct their very own atomic device.
The episode begins with a vicar, the Reverend Frank Simpson giving a sermon to a half full congregation, one of whom is Dr. Anne Tarrant who begins to notice how the man is starting to ramble, and become incoherent. He looks drunk. He comes from the pulpit and starts to wander around... By the time he collapses, a party of school children are being escorted out by their teacher. Anne asks for an ambulance, watched by the vicar's concerned wife...
A revolutionary new lipstick goes on sale, containing pheromones designed to act as an aphrodisiac in order to make the wearer more attractive and desirable to men. This prompts Quist and Bradley to begin an investigation into the effects that pheromones have on people, and how they can alter the illusion of free will.
'Man isn't born free. For him...the dreadful has already happened. He has to live with the nightmare, or rise above it. And natural evolution is too slow. The episode begins with an establishing shot of the outside of Weatheroak Hall Maximum Security Medical Research Unit (Owned by The Department of Health and Social Security). The building is surrounded by a large wall covered in barbed wire and pointed glass shards....
Ridge continues his ecological crusade by warning against the dangerous side effects of the chemical insecticide known as D.D.T. upon the world's developing countries. He stages a publicity stunt by flying in an Indian family and setting them up in a tent in the middle of London's St. James Park. But the prank backfires when it is discovered that one of them is suffering from malaria.
Quist is concerned by the fact that, approximately every one hundred years, certain extreme weather conditions arise which lead to an increase in the water level of the Thames - and just one inch higher would result in the whole of London flooding. Even more disturbing is the fact that this increase is imminent.
Dolphins have long been established as highly-intelligent creatures, and the United States Navy has now begun using them in their new program. They are training the dolphins to act as underwater saboteurs, able to attach magnetic explosive devices to the undersides of enemy ships. Quist investigates the matter, and discovers that these apparently docile creatures are capable of becoming deadly killers - something that he experiences firsthand.
”Sex and Violence” was originally the untransmitted episode 5, this episode was banned before it could even reach the pages of 'Radio Times'. The episode contains real footage of a military execution in Lagos. It also features characters designed to be satirical analogues of Mary Whitehouse, Cliff Richard and Lord Longford used to debate the levels of Sex and Violence prevalent in society. The episode was also seen as too hot a potato politically for the time and was held back. The episode features a lot of dramatic debate.
Astrophysics lecturer Neil Tannahill receives an enigmatic note from Dr. Spencer Quist, former head of Doomwatch, and finds himself drawn into a sinister conspiracy involving Soviet nuclear waste secretly stored at a British nuclear facility.
