424 – Doomwatch – You Killed Toby Wren

Toby Wren is dead.  (Oops, spoilers.) Ben and Eugene discuss the second series opener, “You Killed Toby Wren.” “You Killed Toby Wren” is a follow-up episode to the Series One finale, “Survival Code,” one of the missing episodes.  For more information on Survival Code, see this link at the Variant 14 blog:  https://variant14.wordpress.com/category/s1e13-survival-code/ Episode Synopsis:  Our story opens with a tense scene.  Toby Wren is suspended beneath a pier, attempting to defuse a ticking nuclear bomb, while Quist and Ridge watch nervously from a shack at the other end of the pier.  With 60 seconds to go, the bomb disposal boys arrive, but it’s too late, Wren has successfully defused the detonation charge.  Or has he?  There’s one more wire and he has dropped his cutters into the sea. [expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”] When the estimated detonation time passes without a boom,  Quist is overjoyed… for all of about 5 seconds until the explosion goes off, killing Wren and the bomb squad.  It is, at least, only a conventional explosion and the nuclear fuel had been dropped into the sea. The Minister is overjoyed!  Quist has been a pain in his butt since the beginning and now he can finally get rid of him over his mishandling of this situation.  Now there will be a tribunal, after which he’ll be able to get rid of Quist once and for all. Back at Doomwatch, things aren’t happy.  Ridge is very much about blaming Quist for Toby’s death, and he is openly hostile to Quist.  He’s completely out of sorts and barely has time to put the mash on Barbara Mason, Ms. Honeysett’s replacement.  Ms Honeysett fell ill after the death of Toby and returned to Yorkshire.  Ms. Mason has arrived at a very bad time at Doomwatch. A man called Hardcastle is trying to reach Quist, but instead bumps into Ridge at the pub.  He tells him that he needs Doomwatch to stop the work of his former mentor, Professor Hayland, preferably without exposing and ruining the man in the public eye.  He is doing genetic hybrid research and has created chickens with human heads. Ridge is called to the Minister, where he sounds out Ridge on being the new head of Doomwatch.  Not the old Doomwatch: an exciting new Doomwatch with more power, more staff, more exciting stuff to do, it just relies on Quist being gone.  The words are never spoken, but the Minister is relying on Ridge to crucify Quist at the tribunal. Ridge returns to tell Quist what happened, but Hardcastle is meeting with Quist, and when Ridge discovers that Quist is strangely dismissive of an intervention on Hardcastle’s request, Ridge goes on another righteous rant, prompting Quist to fire him on the spot. The Minister’s Permanent Undersecretary isn’t entirely against Quist, and sends him to speak with a psychologist, to get a report on his mental health for the Tribunal.  At the session, Quist confronts his guilt over the development of the atomic bomb and the death of his wife, who also worked with and died on the Manhattan Project. Ridge; however, has decided that he has the moral high ground and needs to shut down Hayland’s hybrid abominations and uses his magic penis powers to seduce Dr. Lennox, an associate of Hayland, into getting an opportunity to see what’s happening at the facility. Inside he sees both a chicken AND a monkey with a human head and is disgusted.  He threatens to shut all the animal experiments down, but Lennox calls him out and shocks him further by revealing they don’t need the animal hybrids anymore – they’ve got willing human women helping them – including herself and she’s already pregnant with a hybrid.  If their night of passion had been three months earlier, Ridge could have been the father to one of the hybrids.  This shuts him down completely.  Honestly, I’m not sure why. At the tribunal, Ridge gives testimony.  His testimony isn’t unfavorable to Quist.  He praises the man as having the most amazing brain and warns the tribunals science expert that Quist will cut him to ribbons.  Ridge says, while he argued against Quist’s actions at the time, in retrospect, he sees Quist was right all along. Later, Quist does cut the science expert to ribbons.  Not only is Quist cleared at the tribunal, but also gets a date with the psychologist.  A proper date – not another therapy session. [/expand]