466 – Doomwatch – The Human Time Bomb

The population of the UK is exploding and they must find a way to deal with the surplus population.  Are high-rise apartments the way forward or is it a human time bomb waiting to happen? Simon and Eugene discuss. Episode Synopsis: Our story opens on the ugliest building they could find in the stock footage library – a horrid cement block of 1970s Council flats.  Here we meet a harried, squalid little family without access to adequate birth control.  The head of the family is Mr. Heatherington, and he’s late for work at the Council Planning office, and the crying children and crowded lifts aren’t calming him down much.  If fact, he runs right under a car, killing himself in the process – and he does so right in front of Fay Chantry, intrepid member of Doomwatch. [expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”] Meanwhile, Quist is being pressured by the Minister of Somethingerother for a report on a development, but Quist’s report isn’t ready yet.  While he will get a report out, there just isn’t sufficient scientific research out to reach a conclusion.  His gut instinct, though, is against the project. It turns out the project is a continuation of the horrid block of flats that, it seems Fay Chantry is now living in.  In fact, she’s been planted there by Doomwatch for the last six weeks to produce the report on the success or failure of this type of planed development, and she is feeling stressed. He quarters are cramped, she gets constant obscene phone calls, wolf whistles in the hallway, apathetic neighbors, inadequate elevators, building failures, pathetic windows and truly, truly hideous doors. She’s also feeling that the Council Planning Office is stonewalling her about aspects of the construction, and even implies, to Mr. Grant (from the Planning Office) that there might have been something shady going on during construction. The next day, Chantry is granted access to Mr. Scobie, in the Planning Office’s Records department.  He makes accusations, in front of Grant and Chantry, that they’re all in the developer, Langley’s, pockets, and that there’s a huge scandal.  He grows violent and they leave.    Ridge comes to see Chantry to urge her to finish, but she tells him she cannot take it anymore.  She explains the stress she’s been under. Meanwhile, Langley is wining and dining Quist, where they have a philosophical debate about the future of planning and development in the UK.  Langley sees standardization and mass production as the logical way forward while Quist advocates for more organic and, some would say, eccentric growth patterns.  They both acknowledge that growth and resource pressures are problems that need to be addressed, but Quist is not sure Langley’s approach is the right answer. Langley wants to know what will be in Quist’s report, but warns him that Fay Chantry is prejudiced against him and grinding a not-at-all-impartial axe against him. Later, when Ridge reports back to Quist, he tells him Chantry appears to be suffering from a case of the vapors or something, because, you know…. womenfolk, amirite? This confirms Quist’s worst fears.  He heads to see Chantry. Chantry, meanwhile, goes to visit Scobie at home (he also lives in the same building) only to find that, he had a violent, nervous breakdown and is being held, sedated, totally incommunicado.  When Quist arrives, Chantry realizes that the man who died also worked in the planning office.  Could it be he was murdered? They visit the wife, and she confirms he was afraid, since shortly after they’d come here.  Quist takes this to the police, who basically laugh at him, so, he agrees it was a dumb idea and takes Chantry off the assignment. Back at the apartment, Quist is attacked by a rowdy group of children, and when the eldest Heatherington child goes after him with a hammer, Chantry tries to run them both over with her car.  Well, technically she was only trying to run the child over. Quist is not convinced. While Chantry packs up that night, her lights go out, and she locks herself out of the apartment.  She goes to the caretaker, who is put out doing caretaker duties on his off time, but he goes to help anyway, probably not just because Chantry is sexy lady and promised to “pay him” for his services. Quist, returning to London via car and  dictating a report based on… basically nothing… starts to compare the apartments to battery chicken, but when he realizes chickens are nasty animals, the light bulb goes off and he heads back to Fay.  Finding her about to kill the caretaker with his hammer. Chantry was suffering, like the other residents, from the (somewhat paradoxical) isolation and overcrowded conditions, resulting, progressively in a loss of self-identity, insecurity and fear.  In his report he proposes a Royal Commission be formed on the roots of violence in modern society. [/expand]