Weird Britannia: Nuclear disasters on British TV

In perhaps Doctor Who’s bleakest episode, ‘Turn Left’, a simple ‘What If?’ is posed to viewers: what if the Doctor wasn’t there to save the day?

Retracing past events in the series from the perspective of Donna, who in the altered timeline never became the Doctors’ companion, the episode conveys a growing sense of helplessness on behalf of the Doctor’s absence. Once light-hearted episodes are recontextualised after the antagonist’s plans become realised. However, it is the events of the Christmas of 2007 that prove most disturbing.

In the main timeline, in the episode ‘Voyage of the Damned’, the Doctor prevents a spaceship replica of the Titanic from crashing into Buckingham Palace. Should it crash, the nuclear heart of the engine would implode in the centre of London. Yet, since the Doctor was always going to prevent this, the threat of nuclear disaster goes largely unnoticed.

Back in the altered timeline, as Donna vacates London after a tip-off from former companion, Rose, the city is plunged into nuclear disaster after the Titanic makes impact. The initial novelty soon passes as the characters realise what has occurred.

Not only is the city wiped out but the entirety of the South-East is struck by radiation sickness. Donna and her family are relocated to Leeds, the country is put under martial law, and migrant communities are rounded up into ‘Labour camps’.

It’s a terrifying look at British nuclear response. However, bleak as it is, it’s on the tamer side when it comes to depictions of nuclear disaster on British TV.

Protect and Survive

In 1965, the BBC pulled a film titled, The War Game, at the last-minute. Shot in black and white, the film realistically portrays how a nuclear attack on British Isles would play out. Its horrifying realism proved too much for the BBC.

However, flash forward to 1975, the Central Office of Information produced a series of twenty short animations titled ‘Protect and Survive’ depicting both how events would play out and the recommended response for ordinary citizens. These were to be broadcast on television but only in the event of imminent nuclear attack. In 1980 though, they were broadcast anyway on the BBC as part of Panorama.

The animations are disturbingly matter-of-fact. Conveyed throughout is a sense of the inevitability of nuclear disaster. Coupled with the cold and detached voice of the narrator, like a modern-day Grim Reaper, Protect and Survive appears as the harbinger of the deaths of the citizens of Britain.

Even eerier are its more cheerful qualities: the blocky yet colourful animation, and chirpy theme music. The series is a haunting and uncanny reminder of the persistent threat of annihilation at the hands of nuclear weapons during this period. Nonetheless, Protect and Survive in its blunt realism, lays bare how the British sensibility approached the subject and captures the true horrors of nuclear warfare.

Threads

In 1984, the BBC rectified its decision to cancel The War Game by commissioning a similar speculative drama about the effects of a nuclear attack on the British people. What followed, Threads, airing during the height of Cold War tensions, is perhaps the most disturbing programme to air in the history of the channel.

In parts, taking a Kitchen-sink approach, the programme follows the lives of a working-class family in Sheffield alongside civil servants working to mitigate nuclear disaster. However, when the bomb drops around halfway through, Threads devolves into outright horror territory.

As in ‘Turn Left’, Britain is placed under martial law as authority is desperately reasserted amidst the chaos. Nonetheless, it appears to no avail. The population panic and governing the country after disaster becomes an impossible task. The lasting image of a policeman with a bandaged face (the image most typically associated with Threads) speaks to this destruction of authority in the face of a nation crumbling more and more by the day.

It is when the radiation sickness kicks in that Threads makes its most lasting impact: the series of grotesque and disturbing injuries that follow are so shocking and potent that they make the overall experience of viewing extremely harrowing. Its effectiveness is therefore clear. However, it is in the final implication that it would be better to die in the blast than survive to see a world falling apart, that the bleakness of Threads is truly encapsulated.

The 21st Century

Following the end of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear warfare has become less prominent in the popular imagination, although that’s not to say it’s any less real today.

2004’s Dirty Bomb would reconfigure the threat of nuclear warfare for the age of terror. Depicting a nuclear attack on London by Islamist terrorists, the 90-minute film, as shown on the BBC, is similar to Threads yet far less emotionally involved in its presentation, creating a chilling viewing experience.

In recent times, though war continues, nuclear depictions on British TV have become far less frequent. While British TV once laid bare the terrifying prospect of nuclear attack, the threat of nuclear threat now goes largely unnoticed.

Perhaps this is owing to an increased sense of acceptance of the inevitability of war. Nevertheless, if the British public were to view something like Threads, Protect and Survive or perhaps a modern iteration of a nuclear drama, it is undeniable that this air of complacency would soon disappear.