421 – Doomwatch – The Battery People

People with batteries in them?  Does it make them monsters?  Will they run down?  Will this bear any resemblance to today’s episode of Doomwatch, the Battery People? Ben and Eugene find out. Episode Synopsis:  Men, poorly outfitted in protective gear are working a fish farm, injecting the fish with hypodermic needles, as you do, when a fight breaks out between the foreman and one of the workers.  It seems to be all about thumping their chests and proving who is the most manly.  The fight is broken up when the Colonel, the plant owner, arrives and fires the troublemaker.  He tells the foreman that their local MP has just been made Minister of National Security and that a visit may be in the offing.  He also reminds the foreman and all the men are to be wearing protective gloves – which they aren’t, but they immediately put them on – just long enough for the Colonel to leave the room.  As this is Doomwatch, the viewer is left in no doubt that the fate of these men isn’t promising. [expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”] The new Minister of National Security is on Quist’s mind, too.  As Quist’s new superior, he has called a meeting.  Quist realizes that Doomwatch has a negative perception – they don’t do things – they prevent things.  One could say, they hold back progress.  Quist concocts the idea that Doomwatch should come up with series of “positive” programs to propose to the Minister to show that they aren’t all about breaking things.  He asks Toby to come up with some ideas that might be pitched.   Ideas that could impact the Minister’s local constituency. It turns out to be the typical, “You guys are a bunch of negative nellies, spoiling everything and antagonizing things.  Lay low on my watch,” meeting.  Quist returns to Doomwatch and declares that they will not lay low. Toby’s brilliant plans go out the window, but not before some curious data has come out of the computer.  One of the valleys in the Minister’s local constituency has the highest incidence of divorce in Great Britain.  That’s curious. So too is the fact that it has a very high incidence of drunkenness – and not what you’d expect: a bunch old coal miners drinking beer down at the pub.  Their poison of choice is a very un-welsh-miner-like gin.  Which is not very many of them at all.  And there’s been incidents of cock fighting, which strikes Quist as very odd indeed.  Sure, he can imagine English people doing that, but not the Welsh!  Cock fighting is all about a sexual frenzy! (Naive me:  Up till this point in my life, I always though cock fighting meant roosters.) Ridge puts it indelicately – imagine, a bunch of burly Welsh miners, daintily sipping gin, giving their wives the cold shoulder and watching cock fighting. Quist thinks it sounds like a job for Doomwatch and sends Ridge in undercover as a reporter to find out what’s going on. First Ridge visits the cockfights, which he finds quite disturbing.  Also, it turns out that cock fighting really is about roosters, and if that’s what gets people into a sexual frenzy, the last remaining dregs of my faith in humanity just got poured down a urinal. Colonel Smithson is very helpful with Ridge’s inquiries, he wants the publicity.  His farm is basically a standard battery farm for chicken and turkey and he’s happy to show it off – all but a couple “trade secret” areas, that is – which includes the fish we saw previously. Ridge tours the facility and is disturbed by what he sees.  Not that there’s anything wrong, just that battery farming is an unpleasant business. Back at Doomwatch, the computer has turned up something interesting.  Colonel Smithson, when he was in the military, was assigned to a project involving secret chemical weapons.  One of those weapons would chemically dissolve the bones of an enemy.  It was abandoned due to problems with the health of the workers on the project, specifically, chemical castration resulted. That night, Ridge is not so keen on eating chicken or turkey, but luckily, Smithson has provided one of his new fish products for Ridge to try.  It’s called Tastaway Trout and, amazingly, it has no bones!  Unaware of the information about the chemical weapons, Ridge eats the fish, but, he has the presence of mind to break into the kitchen and secure a sample to send back to Doomwatch for analysis. The next day, he visits the quite attractive ex-wife of the foreman.  They’re divorced because he couldn’t… satisfy her urges anymore and she took to looking for it elsewhere.  She makes it quite clear to Ridge that he could satisfy her urges right now, if he’d like.  Amazingly, he wouldn’t like, and leaves. Quist approaches the Minister and requests a formal inquiry.  The Minister is reluctant but takes Quist to see Col. Smithson to confront him.  Smithson denies everything, but also refuses to touch the fish in the same fashion as his workers.  The Minister, to his credit, realizes that Smithson is aware of the problem and hiding it and authorizes the inquiry. The foreman overhears the conversion and realizes that he and boys have been castrated and the Colonel knew about it.  He surreptitiously trips the Colonel, who falls in the fish vat. Quist is convinced the submersion will be fatal and he saw the foreman trip Smithson.  Quist covers for the murderer and also posits that, even the Colonel would probably agree that, when all the men in the farm find out what he’d done to them, dying now was his best option. [/expand]