Originally published at: Watch: The BBC's 1982 guide to nuclear armageddon | Boing Boing
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Bit scary, that is.
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There’s absolutely no way that sort of programme would get out on BBC1 in prime time these days. QED and ‘Equinox’ on Channel 4 really raised the bar on science broadcasting.
I can’t remember the last time they had a regular science series on either main channel. ‘Horizon’ is just an occasional special that gets almost no publicity on BBC 2, and ‘The Sky at Night’ is hidden away without fanfare on BBC FOUR.
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"… or is it? "
(A very ‘in’ joke. You have to have watched too many of the more recent - post-classic-era - Horizons to have clocked that this infuriating link between two segments of a Horizon documentary became almost ubiquitous at one point.)
Also, the first video in the post is the BBC programme discussed. The second video is … what? All I see is ‘this video not available’.
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I remember watching this went it went out. I was 8!
I then watched Threads 2 years later.
The 80s really were a different time!
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I saw Threads many years ago. It is still a horrifying depiction of what could happen post-nuclear conflict.
#NeverVoteRepublican
#TaxTheChurches
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And post apocalypse
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There was an animated film too.
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Sounds a bit like The Day After on US TV in the same time frame. I was forbidden from watching it. I was 10 or 11, it may have been the right parental call.
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‘The Day After’ is the family matinee to the R-rated nightmare that is ‘Threads’. I still remember the impact of its first showing, and then the confected tabloid outrage that such things could be shown.
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there was a very dark strand of UK drama during the 1980s and early 1990s that has not been attempted since. Dramas like ‘A Very British Coup’, ‘House of Cards’ and the ultimate paranoid television of ‘Edge of Darkness’.
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Nah, with some judicious “duck and cover” we’ll all be fine…
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At some point in the 80s - I can’t have been older than 10 or 11 - my school went to some sort of expo in the Mansion House in Dublin. We were basically running around picking up all the pamphlets and fliers we could with no regard for what they actually were, and when I got home I realised one of mine was a Civil Defence booklet about what to do if Ireland got caught up in a nuclear detonation. It chilled tiny me to the bone.
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You might well think that, I couldn’t possibly comment.
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I am not ashamed to say I picked this up in a book shop a couple of years ago and reduced myself to tears in minutes.
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I was aware of it, but haven’t seen it.
It was certainly impactful on me. Can’t quite remember when, 14 or 16.
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It’s also worth looking up The War Game. Filmed in the 60s, but wasn’t shown on the BBC until the 80s, as it was too horrifying.
Side note, Threads is my go to film when I’m feeling down. Nothing really seems as bad after you’ve watched Threads.
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Seems like there should have been more information about what to do before the coming emergency. And of course, as everyone knows, after The Event we should all remain indoors.
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