488 – Doomwatch – Doomwatch (Movie)

Doomwatch hits the big screen! Movie Synopsis: Nighttime on the Cornish island of Balfe and a grieving family bury the body of young girl in a shallow grave.  This looks like a job for Doomwatch! At Doomwatch’s ultra-modern, hi-tech command centre. Dr. Quist, and his staff, Dr. John Ridge, Colin Bradley and fan favorite Doomwatch team member, Dr. Dell Shaw, are reviewing the situation with regards to the island of Balfe.  One year ago an oil spill occurred off the coast of the island, Dr, Shaw is being dispatched to the island to collect environmental samples to see how the spill, and the chemical detergents used to clean up the spill have impacted the ecology of the island. [expand title=”More…” swaptitle=”Less” tag=”strong”] Shaw arrives for an overnight collection mission and is met with the unfriendly locals, who don’t like outsiders.  There’s no room at the pub, or the rectory, but the local police constable directs him to the Bothy, which he finds a room for the night, and the attractive, also outsider, school teacher, Victoria Brown.  She’s also not particularly warm to Shaw and, when he spies an odd procession of people outside forcing a man down the path against his will, she closes the drapes and passes it off as folks “just going for a walk.” The next day, while collecting samples, he spies a local watching him from a distance, with a shotgun.  When he leaves his sample case behind to collect some gull eggs, he finds that his case has been disturbed, probably by his mysterious watcher. Later, in the pub, he witnesses the locals interacting with each other.  A simple disagreement over who pays the tab turns violence, but the constable quickly rushes the aggressor out of the pub. Shaw sends his samples back to Doomwatch, then, over Quist’s objections, decides to stay a few more days on the island. Later we see that the publican, Mrs. Straker, has her husband, who is obviously ill, locked in an upstairs room. The next day, Shaw is playing shutterbug, taking pictures of all the locals without their permission, until Mrs. Murray tells him off for his rude behavior. He agrees to stop unless he gets permission first.  On his way back to the Bothy, he finds two dogs fighting over something.  When one runs away, Shaw tries to shoo off the other, but it attacks him savagely, but without injuring him at all.  He digs into the ground to see what fascinated the dogs and finds the body of a dead girl, which he caresses rather disturbingly. He reports it to the constable, who rushes to the scene, but the grave has been emptied and filed in.  He dismisses Shaw’s concerns as being a mistake.  Meanwhile, Mrs Straker, with the landlady’s complicity, searches Shaw’s room to find out what he’s doing.  She also destroys his film. Shaw has gone to Victoria Brown.  He is visibly shaken by the revelation of the dead girl.  While she seems disturbed at the news, she still won’t help.  She’s an outsider, and she needs not rock the boat to be able to function.  These people have enough problems already. Back at the pub, Shaw overhears Mrs Straker talking with the Vicar.  Maybe we should tell Dr. Shaw what’s happening.  Maybe he can help? “No,” says the Vicar, “this is God’s Devine plan.” “But maybe God sent Dr. Shaw?” “No, God is not so trivial as to use scientists to do his work.” Later, Shaw tries to get Mrs. Straker to open up, but she doesn’t. At Doomwatch, they’ve analyzed the samples and it’s all a bit weird.  Everything seems to have an unnatural abundance about it.  Quist asks for some fish samples. That night, Shaw sees the late night walking party again and this time follows them to an old barn.  When they leave, he hears animal sounds inside and sneaks in.  He is confronted with a disfigured man who attacks him and brutally beats him. He awakes the next morning with Victoria looking over him.  He was found on the beach, they said.  He must have fallen trying to collect samples.  He takes her to the barn, but the man is no longer there.  He convinces her that he needs help to help these people. Victoria gets a fisherman friend on the mainland to help collect fish samples since the locals will not.  The samples are unusually large, and the fisherman comments that they’re all like that around the island, but the locals don’t export them and keep them for local consumption.  The fisherman also takes them near Castle Rock, which is a prohibited area by the Royal Navy.  It’s been that way for about 8 or 9 years. It’s on the opposite side of the island from the oil spill. Returning to Doomwatch, the fish samples reveal that they have unusual levels of pituitary hormones.  Excess pituitary hormones causes a disease called Acromegaly, the symptoms of which match the physical abnormalities of the islanders.  Abnormalities that Shaw had assumed were from in-breeding.  Just one problem, you can’t absorb pituitary hormones by eating them.  Unless, it was a chemically modified substance. Shaw goes to the Admiralty and speaks with Sir Geoffrey, who was in charge of the Navy dumping in the area.  When he confronts him with the possibility that the Navy was dumping pituitary hormones into the sea, he dismisses the notion.  We didn’t dump dangerous pituitary hormones into the sea, just safe radioactive waste.  You’re barking up the wrong tree. Quist sends Ridge back with Shaw to get underwater photos of the dump.  Ridge finds the nuclear waster and also canisters of something else.  Canisters which are popping open due to their proximity to the radioactive waste. Shaw goes back to the island to try to convince the islanders to… do something… cooperate, I’m not entirely sure, While the rest of the Doomwatch team cause international incidents when word of the contaminated fish gets out.  The also track down the canisters to a chemical company. Ridge questions Sir Henry, head of the company.  Yes, we did attempt to make a feed additive based on Pituitary hormones, but it failed and we disposed of the chemicals properly, by awarding the disposal contract to the lowest reputable bidder. That company is based on the mainland, just across from the island of Balfe.  Shaw and Victoria go there and collect an as-yet undisposed of sample of the chemical and give the owner the the company a bit of a tongue lashing for their irresponsible dumping. On the island, Shaw tries to setup a meeting to discuss the issue with the islanders.  They are getting distinctly hostile towards him.  On his way to the meeting, he encounters young Brian Murray, grandson of the man that was in the barn.  He too is getting the uglies and has been the person watching Shaw.  He decides to trust him and agrees to go to the meeting. At the meeting, Shaw explains Acromegaly, using Brian as his lab dummy, and he explains that it can be cured!  You just need to go to the mainland for treatment for a year or so.  Quist has a medical team ready to arrive.  But they refuse to have their way of life destroyed, and when Shaw tries to call Quist to send in the team, they bring in some of the uglier of the uglies and threaten to kill him.  But they don’t, and the police and medical team arrive and evacuate the island. Chalk up another victory for everyone’s favorite Doomwatch team member, Dr. Dell Shaw! [/expand]