485 – Doomwatch – Sex and Violence

“Sex and Violence?!” It must be ratings week! Simon and Eugene discuss the final episode of Doomwatch. Episode Synopsis: Things are getting all evangelical at a church hall meeting of the women of Housewives, a group of mothers concerned about permissiveness, filth, perversion and sex ed classes for kids by long-haired liberals. [expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”] And then, the Minister is assigning Doomwatch to look into the matter. There are growing calls for a re-introduction of stricter obscenity laws and the Minister thinks Doomwatch should look into the issue of “Moral Pollution.” Quist is unable to see the relevance to Doomwatch’s mission, until he realizes, and the Minister confirms that this is all about political expediency. The Purvis Sub-Committee is looking into the issue, and Doomwatch should, too. Afterwards, if they conclude nothing should be done to change the laws, that would probably fit the political situation the best for all around. The Minister also lets Quist know that they’ve appointed his wife, Dr. Anne Tarrant to the Purvis Sub-Committee. Well, at least we know that Quist and Tarrant’s pillow talk doesn’t revolve around their working lives. Try not to picture Quist and Tarrant having sex in your mind. As Anne begins to attend the committee meetings, she meets the other members, Lord Purvis, who seems a fair-minded and thoughtful committee chair, the Reverend Garrison, Mrs. Cressy, a clean-up campaigner and thinly disguised stand-in for Mary Whitehouse, Professor Fairbairn, a Psycho-sociologist, Steven Grainger, Educationist and Dick Burns, pop star. Their remit: To look over the laws of other countries, to study the legal analyses of these laws and their effectiveness, to review scientific research, to screen and analyze materials that might be considered obscene and then to render a recommendation back to the Parliamentary committee as consideration for potential parliamentary action. Pressure starts early as Dick Burns is accosted by Mrs Catchpole, organizer of the local chapter of Housewives we saw earlier, and another thinly-disguised stand-in for Mary Whitehouse, as she tries to convince him that there will be blood if action isn’t taken to stop obscenity. Burns is the “swing vote” on the committee. He is also clearly upset by the woman. Later, we see the Housewives protesting outside a play that features some naked people and sexy time, just as Anne Tarrant arrives to take in a play. They plead with her to think of the children and not go in! But when she continues to enter, violence erupts and Mrs. Hastings, one of the protesters, assaults Anne and hospitalizes her. In hospital, Quist is now ready to put Doomwatch on the case, but Anne is more interested in why that meek-seeming woman could turn to violence. Quist promises to find her so Anne can ask her. Quist puts Neil Stafford on the case to find both Mrs. Hastings and Mrs Catchpole. Neil isn’t having any of this because he’s got good, wholesome values and he already knows what Quist thinks about the subject despite them never having discussed it before. Stafford would shut this liberal permissive nonsense down. With fist or gun? Asks Quist. Laws, responds Stafford. So, Legal fists and legal guns. Nonetheless, he executes the assignment with efficiency and locates both women. Back at the committee, the educated members point out that lack of education, experience and knowledge of human sexuality is creating an environment that is being exploited for capital gain, but is that a problem because, exploiting ignorance isn’t illegal. Educated people would laugh at most of the claims marketers make, but it isn’t illegal. Next the committee watches a sex film. Burns finds the film unbelievable and funny. Tarrant begins interviewing Mrs. Hastings. She feels terrible for what she did, so she agrees to a little psychoanalysis to find the underlying cause. She’s a single mother, with a troublesome 9 year old son, and a husband who left them two years ago. It wasn’t a good marriage. She’s so lonely and she took to hanging out with the Housewives group because it seems a way to help get her son back on the straight and narrow. Tarrant probes her sex life and reveals that she was (and is) ashamed of sex. That she felt her parents would find sex disgusting. That she was, in fact, unprepared by her parents and her education to deal with her own sexuality and lacked the mental tools needed. She leaves and does not come back when Anne asks her to imagine her parents having sex, perhaps even doing something a bit non-standard. It’s clear she is stunted and maladjusted. Back at the committee similar lines lines is being discussed. Children are born full of love, it is the parents that give them absolute rights and wrongs, to discriminate between good and bad, when instead what children need to be given the ability to analyze and meet all challenges on their own. Failure to do that allows evil men to exploit these people and that is the fault of The System. Quist gives Bradley the assignment of putting all the source documents from the Purvis Sub-Committee into Doomwatch (the computer) and have it spit out a Doomwatch-type conclusion. Bradly points out that morality isn’t something that a computer can analyze and he cannot do it properly. “Just do it as properly as possible,” says Quist. “There is ‘properly’ and there is ‘not properly.’ There is no ‘properly as possible.’” Quist doesn’t relent and Bradley sets about the task. Stafford interviews Mrs. Catchpole and she is quite the talker, babbling on incessantly. She is racist, and longs for a strongman to take over and clean things up and it all keeps coming back to a man named Balentyne, who funds them and, we see, periodically crashes stages to make his points about obscenity. The committee turns its eye towards violence, and they screen a film that was shown on the BBC, after the watershed. It is a documentary and it shows Nigeria petty criminals being executed by firing squad to an eager crowd. Burns is devastated. Those we people. Real people. Quist goes to see Balentyne – I’d call him a thinly-veiled stand-in for Nigel Farage, but even Doomwatch isn’t that prescient. (Farage was only 8 when this aired.) Balentyne is a horrid, but candid upper-class-twit-of-the-year type. He is a multi-time failure at standing for parliament, and he quite honestly tells Quist that he wants to be the dictator and that he is intentionally exploiting the ignorance of these women – and other groups – to bring himself to power. He thinks his candor is one of his better qualities. He also makes some valid points – I hesitate to say it – valid points about the relative injustice in the world. About how the headlines read in horror about sex crimes, but millions die in Pakistan unheralded. People are ignorant and people are selective in what outrages them. And why shouldn’t he exploit that? Everyone else does, why shouldn’t he? [Narrator stepping back in here: When I said he made some valid points, that all stopped with “why shouldn’t he exploit that?” Just to be clear. Back to the recap.] Back at Doomwatch HQ, Quist reminds us that Hitler was a joke 10 years before he was elected to Chancellor of Germany on a platform of breaking down democracy. Just like Balentyne is now. The committee’s report is in, as is Doomwatch’s computer analysis. The committee votes along expected lines, with Burns being the swing vote. Final decision – leave the laws alone. Doomwatch’s analytical conclusion – leave the laws alone. That seems pretty conclusive, yet somehow I doubt this stopped being an issue after the early 1970s. The end, or is it? [/expand]