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Doomwatch Season 2 Episodes
Season 2 Episode Guide
13 Episodes 1970 - 1971
Episode 1
You Killed Toby Wren
While attempting to defuse the bomb washed up at Byfield Regis pier, Toby Wren was tragically killed. Quist finds himself wracked with guilt, and facing an investigating tribunal. Under pressure from the inquiry, and confronted by a furious Ridge - who holds Quist personally responsible for Toby's death - Quist turns to a psychiatrist for help. Then Geoff Hardcastle arrives at the Doomwatch office, bringing with him disturbing news concerning horrific genetic experiments being conducted by Professor Hayland. Ridge decides to investigate, but becomes more involved than he was expecting to.
Episode 2
Invasion
While exploring in some caves, two boys go missing. Ridge and Hardcastle investigate, but when they visit a local building they are strongly warned off by an army unit, which has taken over the entire area, killing any intruding animals and showing hostility to any human intruders. Doomwatch soon discover that during the Second World War, the mansion was used as a base for the development of bacterial warfare, and that the chemical weapons which were stored there have now somehow leaked into the local water supply.
Episode 3
The Islanders
When the remote Pacific island of St. Simon begins to suffer from dangerous earth tremors, the British government evacuates the two hundred inhabitants and brings them to the safety of mainland Britain. Forced into the bustle of busy life on the mainland, the vast majority of the islanders soon find themselves unable to cope with the modern world, and become objects of curiosity and the butt of jokes. When one of them dies and others get ill, Quist has strong fears about their lack of resistance to colds and flues in mainland Britain. However, Quist later discovers that the food they ate on St. Simon causes early deaths, and the islanders are faced with a decision: should they try and stay in a world they don't understand, or should they face early death by returning to their island home?
Episode 4
No Room for Error
Dr. Fay Chantry contacts the team at Doomwatch, asking for their urgent assistance. She is extremely concerned about the work that her company has been carrying out on a new 'wonder-drug' known as Stellamycin. Several children have died, and it appears that their deaths are attributable to the new drug - the country could be on the verge of an epidemic..
Episode 5
By the Pricking of My Thumbs...
Sixteen-year-old Stephen Franklin stages a prank while in a school science class, but the joke goes wrong, and a classmate suffers horrible facial injuries. When Stephen is then expelled from the grammar school, his father, journalist Oscar Franklin, inquires as to why, and how does a scientist named Ensor know of Stephen's genetic past? Stephen suffers from an abnormality of his hands, and he has an obscure genetic defect: an extra Y chromosome. Doomwatch become involved when it seems that there may be a genetic explanation for violent and unpredictable behaviour.
Episode 6
The Iron Doctor
The intensive care unit at Parkway hospital is using a computer to monitor the patients, but the computer inexplicably allows a patient to die. Quist is warned by the hospital's Doctor Carson that the computer is a model 20/90 that has been modified by Doctor Whittaker, and that it is able to think for itself, making decisions based upon its observations. The only problem is the computer is deliberately killing the patients that it decides are beyond reasonable help.
Episode 7
Flight Into Yesterday
Quist flies to Los Angeles in order to address an important ecological conference, but at the last minute, he is recalled by the Minister. After the long flight home, he suffers from extreme jet-lag, but this is misinterpreted as drunkenness. Believing Quist to be unable to fulfil his obligations, the Minister orders him to be replaced by Ridge, and the Minister decides to accompany Ridge to the conference. But then the Minister too falls victim to the rigours of excessive jet-lag in a scheme by rival businesses.
Episode 8
The Web of Fear
What appears to be a Yellow Fever epidemic breaks out at an exclusive health clinic on one of the Scilly Isles. After the island is sealed off from visitors and any possible mosquitoes exterminated, Doomwatch is granted permission to investigate, but Quist's team soon discovers that the illness is actually a mutated new virus. It seems that an experiment into vaccines has gone wildly out of control, and hundreds of spiders are now carrying a deadly new disease.
Episode 9
In the Dark
An Irishman named O'Mullin dies of mustard gas after swimming off the south coast of Ireland. Ridge discovers that the mustard gas originates from February 1946, when a Royal Naval escort vessel sank under the command of Lyon McArthur, an old colleague of Quist's from Oxford. Quist learns that McArthur is now increasingly being kept alive purely by machines, and soon he will lose all physical sensations, existing purely as a mind kept alive by mechanical means.
Episode 10
The Human Time Bomb
At a tower block constructed by the Ampleforth Development Corporation, Fay is working on an environmental report into the conditions there. Property millionaire Sir Billy Langly foresees that by the year 2000 there will be eighty million people living in the country, which will result in a demand for new kinds of housing. He believes that Tower blocks are the way forward, but this 'battery' idea of living can result in a particularly depressing urban neurosis - something that Fay is forced to experience first hand.
Episode 11
The Inquest
In the town of Sileby, a schoolgirl named Marion Duffy dies of rabies, but no-one is able to identify the source. The inquest into her death is highly controversial, but even more shocking is Colin Bradley's recommendation that every dog within a five-mile radius be destroyed.
Episode 12
The Logicians
Thieves break into Beresford Pharmaceuticals in Hampshire and steal vital papers. The company's managing director, Jack Priestland is understandably concerned, particularly when the police are unable to find any clues as to how the culprits were able to penetrate the sophisticated electronic security system at the plant. But no-one has considered that Priestland's son Malcolm, a mathematical genius who has been taught by computers, may be the true perpetrator.
Episode 13
Public Enemy
When a boy named Jimmy tries to retrieve his football from the roof of the Carlingham Alloys factory, he collapses and later dies in hospital. An inquest reveals that his lungs burnt out as a result of Beryllium poisoning. The highly unusual circumstances of Jimmy's death leads to Doomwatch investigating the factory, where a new alloy process is being developed. Then one of the workers named Nicholls dies from a high fall after also getting Beryllium poisoning. Quist then starts making health and safety recommendations for the factory costing many thousands of pounds, causing the International company to shut their Carlingham factory down and move production to their Leicester factory, much to the locals disagreement and anger. Both management and the workforce become increasingly angry about the Doomwatch investigation, which they see as a threat to their profits, ambitions, expansion plans and jobs.