FIVE-O YOUR ENTHUSIASM (18)

By: Richard McKenna
May 31, 2021

One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of our favorite TV shows of the Sixties (in our periodization: 1964–1973).

DOOMWATCH | 1970–1972

Welcome to the 1970s, an optimistic age of scientific progress which, unfortunately, is going to melt your flesh off with weird new chemicals while giant mutant rats chew your face.

British science-fiction TV drama Doomwatch focuses on the exploits of the ‘Department for the Observation and Measurement of Scientific Work’. Originally intended by the Powers That Be as a PR exercise meant to pay lip service to environmental issues, the department’s mandate to investigate potentially dangerous scientific research without actually stirring things up has been upended by its director, ex-Manhattan Project scientist Spencer Quist (John Paul), who has turned it into a thorn in the establishment’s side.

Wracked with guilt over his involvement in developing the bomb and his wife’s death from radiation poisoning, Quist’s outlook tends towards the pessimistic, earning the department its sarcastic nickname – ‘Doomwatch’, natch. But it turns out that Quist’s got a point, because as we repeatedly discover over the course of the show’s three seasons, plenty of scientific developments actually are likely to kill us, maim us, manipulate us or make us go nuts, and the establishment and big business are going to do their worst to avoid being held to account if they’re eventually found out.

The perennially glowering Quist is assisted in his work by long-suffering secretary Pat Hunnisett, suave ladies man (sex pest, in modern terminology) Dr John Ridge, gentle researcher Toby Wren and bluff Yorkshire scientist Colin Bradley, and the various dooms that the team watch run the gamut from plastic-eating bacteria, genetic engineering, chemical weapons, mutant rats, pesticides, nuclear power, subliminal advertising, corporate espionage, sterile fish workers, illicit surveillance, computer bias, wonder drugs, toxic waste and nuclear weaponry to killer dolphins, millionaires funding conservative pressure groups and the suicide-triggering roar of experimental jets. Arrayed against the team are the massed forces of The System, represented by snooty civil service toffs in dusty offices, irked by Doomwatch’s attempts to thwart the plans of the elites.

With its often downbeat picture of a confusing new world and an atmosphere which is a defining example of the gloomy, haunted mood of 1970s British TV, Doomwatch remains hugely watchable, the overlap of power, money, science, conspiracy and manipulation which was its focus having revealed itself over the decades as perhaps the defining vector in modern life. The cast are uniformly engaging even when involved in high ’70s hammery, especially Powell, who left the series at the end of the first season with a convincing proof of the talent for martyrdom he’d later put to good use in Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth. Despite a fluffed line here and the odd bit of wooden BBC rep acting there, Doomwatch feels as modern and gripping now as when it was first broadcast, balancing awe at mankind’s capacity for inventiveness with despair and frustration at our short-sightedness and self-interest.

***

FIVE-O YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Lynn Peril on DARK SHADOWS (1966–1971) | Mark Kingwell on THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. (1964–1968) | Elizabeth Foy Larsen on I DREAM OF JEANNIE (1965–1970) | Luc Sante on SECRET AGENT/DANGER MAN (1964–1968 seasons) | Erin M. Routson on THE PATTY DUKE SHOW (1963–1966 run) | Gordon Dahlquist on HAWAII FIVE-O (1968–1973 seasons) | Annie Nocenti on GET SMART (1965–1970) | Sara Driver on THE ADDAMS FAMILY (1964–1966) | Carlo Rotella on MANNIX (1967–1973 seasons) | Adam McGovern on JULIA (1968–1971) | Mimi Lipson on THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW (1970–1973 seasons) | Josh Glenn on BATMAN (1966–1968) | Tom Nealon on HOGAN’S HEROES (1965–1971) | Miranda Mellis on THE ODD COUPLE (1970–1973 seasons) | Peggy Nelson on GILLIGAN’S ISLAND (1964–1967) | Susan Roe on THE BRADY BUNCH (1969–1973 seasons) | Michael Grasso on UFO (1970–1973) | Richard McKenna on DOOMWATCH (1970–1972) | Adrienne Crew on BEWITCHED (1964–1972) | Michael Lewy on STAR TREK (1966–1969) | Greg Rowland on THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY (1970–1973 seasons) | David Smay on THE MONKEES (1966–1968) | Vijay Parthasarathy on THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW (1964–1966 seasons) | Carl Wilson on THE CAROL BURNETT SHOW (1967–1973 seasons) | Jessamyn West on EMERGENCY! (1972–1973 seasons).

MORE ENTHUSIASM at HILOBROW

FIVE-O YOUR ENTHUSIASM (18)

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