Fake Show 2: Heroes of the Revolution (Part Two)
(Finally finished it!! \o/)
Part Two: Recurring Characters & Episode Guide.
From jjpor: It's the morning after the revolution before. The Evil Empire has fallen; the Plucky Rebels won against impossible odds, as Plucky Rebels tend to do. Now they've just got to deal with the messy aftermath and, you know, actually govern the place. Preferably without becoming like the regime they've just defeated.
HEROES OF THE REVOLUTION
"The state has failed us, over and over, so we decide ourselves who to protect and who to betray, who to save and who to kill. This was no more, no less than that. Another act of conscience, if you like. Let's call it the final act of revolution - and remember we're all complicit in the crime."
A critically-acclaimed but long-forgotten 13 episode drama series from 1973/4 that starred Gemma Jones, Alfred Burke, Julian Glover and Diane Keen.
Set in the near-future in an alternate (but not too different) reality, where a tyrannical regime has been in power in Britain for nearly three decades, a group of freedom fighters led by a man known as "Arran", finally defeat the dictator Hallam - and then a new battle begins, one where the lines are even less clear than before. It explores the ethics of power as a drama plays out between the victorious rebel leaders, the remnant of the old guard, and those who want to find more peaceful solutions for the future.
Part One: Main Cast & Premise
Anna | Catherine Miller - Gemma Jones
Charles Terrell - Alfred Burke
Arran | Colonel Michael Seaton - Julian Glover
Liesa | Louise Seaton - Diane Keen
Liz Cardew - Sheila Allen
Daniel Robbins - Paul Eddington
Edward Woodfield - Morris Perry
Incidental music & theme composed by Wilfred Josephs
OTHER REGULARS / RECURRING CHARACTERS
Captain Andrew Williams (David Gwillim)
Another former rebel, now part of the official military under Arran. He's assigned to provide security for Charles Terrell - and to keep an eye on him, if he acts against Arran's interests. He soon finds his loyalties divided.
Dr. Anil Basu (Madhav Sharma)
Colleague of Dr. Cardew's on the Emergency Medical Committee, who winds up getting more involved with the new government than he expected.
James (Jamie) Bradley (Stewart Bevan)
Another former rebel (part of the intelligence network, though some people find that hard to believe), now Terrell's secretary. How seriously he's taking this and how much he reports to Arran are two more things Terrell's not sure of. Or Arran, to be honest.
Ella Gabell (Mona Hammond)
Another former rebel and a chemist, now also on the Advisory Committee, and expected to turn her skills to things more constructive than destructive this time. She also works closely with Liesa on various projects.
Clive Procter (Simon Lack)
Chairman of the Advisory Committee (now resurrected after being disbanded by Hallam), Procter, a physicist (helping with the power crisis), merely hopes that now they can get things done. He's no stranger to politics himself, either.
Jill Edgington (Elisabeth Sladen)
Secretary to Woodfield, and as a believer in the previous regime, she thinks Woodfield's too self-interested and is more supportive of John Neville, his deputy.
(And I think, timing-wise, this just managed to squeak in its filming before Doctor Who. *nods*)
John Neville (David Langton)
Woodfield's deputy, more into the ideology of the previous regime (utilitarianism) than Woodfield.
EPISODE GUIDE
1. Blood Red Dawn
Anna: "You and I, we know how to fight too well. What we need now are people who know how to fight with words, not weapons."
Arran: "Something tells me you have someone in mind."
A political leader is holding an apparently calm cabinet meeting - but this is the dictator Thomas Hallam (Laurence Hardy), and it's to be the last meeting he ever attends. Minutes later, the rebel leader known as "Arran" has arrived, most of Hallam's guards defecting - the regime's measures have grown ever more extreme, and Hallam's health and mental state have been worrying even his closest followers. Now it's time for a new regime to take the place of the old one and take its chances in an ever more uncertain climate.
Meanwhile Arran's second in command - "Anna" - goes hunting for a potential new prime minister among the political prisoners they've just collected. On the other side, there's a power struggle of sorts going on between the more moderate Edward Woodfield and the extremist John Neville.
Charles: "You must have another name. I know how it worked in the rebellion, so -"
Anna: "The person who went by that name died a long time ago. Suppose you'd have to call it suicide. Anna will do."
Robbins: "I never meant to end up here."
Anna: "Don't look too down about it. You're alive, aren't you, and being useful?"
Robbins: "It's not much of a comfort. If I tell you something, you won't have me shot, will you?"
Anna: "I'll try to restrain myself."
Robbins: "I don't approve of your Colonel. I don't like what Hallam did more than anybody else, but I don't see blowing things up as a solution."
Anna: "It was never supposed to be a solution. Means to an end."
Robbins: "It wasn't your lot, but not that long ago, there was a terrible thing happened at Salisbury. It all adds up to the same thing, as far as I'm concerned."
Anna: "Not quite."
Robbins: "Oh?"
Anna: "Well, I haven't shot you, and I'm not going to report you. And I'm still trying to offer you a position in the emergency government."
Robbins: "I suppose being useful could have a novelty appeal."
Anna: "I thought you were a utilitarian!"
Woodfield: "You may not agree with me, but you need me. At this precise moment, Colonel Seaton is a very popular man. How do you plan to deal with that? Shoot him, I suppose."
Charles Terrell: "I'm hardly going to be a popular choice. Most of your people would call me a collaborator. Arran is not going to make me the leader of his party. You know that!"
Anna: "Most of us, what we are - we're fighters. You're still a politician."
Charles: "You know, you almost managed to make that sound like a compliment."
Anna: "I have every faith in you."
Charles: "And I still haven't agreed, or perhaps you hadn't noticed?"
Jill: "Sir. You can't trust [Woodfield]."
Neville: "I can make use of him."
2. Out With the Old
Edward Woodfield: "The previous regime was extreme - distastefully so - but there were reasons for some of its decisions, as I think you are coming to understand. Your Colonel certainly is. What are you going to do? Control information, minimise panic, maintain military rule - that, my dear fellow, is how it begins. But isn't it better than anarchy?"
Charles: "Let's give anarchy a try and find out, shall we? Or at least, comparative anarchy."
Hallam's dead, but the majority of the previous government isn't. There's a vocal section of the party who want them summarily executed and are threatening to take matters into their own hands if they're not - led by John Harrison (Robin Ellis). This is exactly what Anna doesn't want to see; it's also something Charles Terrell has got every reason to want to oppose - and how Anna persuades both Colonel Seaton/Arran and Charles to accept his new role. Edward Woodfield, newly appointed head of what was Hallam's party, is out to make the most of any such killings - and disappointed by Charles's intervention. (As he says, "I thought you were going to create a power vacuum, especially for me!")
Also Dr Elizabeth Cardew of the Emergency Medical Committee arrives and makes demands of the Colonel, who then makes demands of her in return. Daniel Robbins is charged with re-establishing the Advisory Committee. And, finally, now that Charles has agreed to join the emergency government, Anna interviews him. ("It's not going to be all that exciting," he says. "Probably not that edifying, either...") And the Colonel assigns Captain Williams to keep an eye on Charles - in more senses than one.
Charles (to Anna): "You know, I still don't understand why you want me to do something you're perfectly capable of doing yourself. You're the obvious choice for this position. Not me, you!"
Harrison: "You'd rather listen to a traitor than to the people who got out there and did something!"
Dr Cardew: "This isn't irrelevant. Fail to meet people's basic needs, and they'll die. I'd say that makes it your first priority, Colonel."
Arran: "What the hell is it now?"
Captain Williams: "Sir. It's Major Harrison. He's going to have the prisoners shot. He sent me to deal with Mr Robbins, and he's gone after Mr Terrell."
Arran: "Then you and Anna get after him now, and I'll deal with the rest!"
Charles: "Shoot him, and the Colonel'll have you shot!"
Woodfield: "I'm touched, but it's your office... I doubt it's me he's after."
Williams (examining Harrison): "I'm afraid he's dead."
Charles (to Anna): "I suppose you couldn't have been - Anna? [Pause] Come on, this can't be the first time."
Anna: "No, but I thought I'd already seen the last time."
Robbins: "I'm trying to find our lost experts. At this rate, I might as well hold a seance and have done with it."
Charles: "I just don't see the point of discussing things that happened thirty years ago!"
Charles: "I suppose you've never known anything else, have you? This life of mistrust. I can remember what it was like before. There was enough trouble, of course, but it wasn't like this."
3. Divide and Conquer
Arran: "Observe - assess the situation. Note your enemy's weaknesses. Play on them - direct your attack at the heart."
Woodfield approaches Dr Cardew, and also the Advisory Committee - his party, he says, will be much more practical about the important issues of survival than the new emergency government who don't seem able to act at all. In return, Terrell enlists Robbins's help in finding ways to widen the cracks between Woodfield and his deputy, John Neville.
Dr Cardew's colleague, Dr Basu, has been dealing with former prisoners of the notorious "Detention Centre". Liesa has been following up some of his work there & among other things, finds that Charles was based there, something he omitted from his interview with Anna - and has Anna worrying that she's made a mistake.
Woodfield: "There's no future with a violent figurehead like Colonel Seaton. Modified continuity is the way to make progress."
Liz Cardew: "I might agree, but when your party thinks you are dangerously moderate, I think progress is unlikely. Or are you unaware of your deputy's policies? In which case, you're worryingly out of touch with your own people."
Dr Basu: "They're still terrorists."
Liz Cardew: "And the previous, supposedly legitimate government wanted to use our diagnoses as death warrants. If we can start to build a society that's even a little more civilised, I don't think I care any more."
Dr Basu: "You might find some of this upsetting."
Liesa: "Do you think I haven't had to fight, and survive, same as the rest of us?"
Dr Basu: "Even so."
Liesa: "I shall cope."
Procter: "My position is neutral."
Woodfield: "Naive, my dear fellow, naive."
Procter: "Oh, you want me to choose sides? Well, in that case, do you remember the last occasion we met?"
Woodfield: "I'm not sure I've had the pleasure, though if you say so -"
Procter: "And there you see, we have it. I'm only a simple physicist, Mr Woodfield. No doubt I can't quite follow your complicated politics, of course, but I do dislike being locked up and threatened."
Woodfield: "And what did [Hallam] do?"
Procter: "He cried. It was terrifying."
Liesa: "I thought Anna was going to speak to you. The records say you were based there for a short time, and we need to know -"
Charles: "Is that how they put it? I've been there, several times. Too many. I was asked to do what I did, remember."
Liesa: "Yes, I know that. But Anna was concerned. That's why I thought -"
Charles: "Yes, well, if I'm supposed to remember all the times I've been locked up by one side or the other -! And that one I've tried to shut out of my mind. Hallam was as bad as they all say by the end - unstable, arbitrary. I don't know what made him have me sent there. I don't know what made him suddenly change his mind, either. I was lucky."
Dr Basu: "And how did you decide? Who to save, I mean?"
Charles: "I didn't. Orders. Importance to the Rebellion. Timing. Can't release too many people in one month, or people notice."
Dr Basu: "That's -"
Charles: "Yes."
4. Shadows of Yesterday
Woodfield: "I do think there are some things the people ought to be told."
Everybody's concerned about power - electricity and gas, that is, and the issue of dwindling resources that brought about all the initial emergency measures and Hallam's rise to power in the first place. Charles Terrell wants the Advisory Committee (especially Ella Gabell) to make it their first priority, but rumours that Hallam had a solution to the issue are spreading further, giving rise to more unrest in the country.
Dr Basu is continuing his work at the former Detention Centre and comes across rumours of his own, better-founded ones, of another such centre in the north. On going to inform Liesa, he finds Arran, who immediately sets off with him to that location, even as Charles gets his information from Woodfield, and the two things prove to be one and the same - based on Hallam's deluded belief in a fantasy solution to the problem.
Meanwhile, Liesa wants Anna to help her find one of the few surviving members of her family, which ends in heartbreak. Anna, on the other hand, won't go home at all, but she writes a letter she then burns: not to her mother, Elizabeth Miller (nee White), but to Charles Terrell - her father.
Dr Basu (on Arran): "He gets things done, after all."
Anna: "Do you really want to? I always think - well, to do what we do - what we did - you shut the door on your old life, lock it up. Then you can do what you have to."
Liesa: "Maybe you did. I never had to. There was never any different life for me, not like that."
Arran: "How did it go? As bad as you thought, or worse?"
Liesa: "As bad as I thought, I suppose. I think you had better results?"
Arran: "I liberated about a hundred prisoners and managed to answer Terrell's damn questions about non-existent power projects at the same time. Not bad, no."
Liesa: "Then tell me about it. Tell me something terrible ended."
Anna (writing): "The truth is, there's something I lied about. Only because it would be inconvenient, because everybody else would think it mattered, and it doesn't. It doesn't at all."
5. The Tyrant's Widow
Anna: "Can you be part of something like that and be allowed to live?"
Charles: "We have to hope so, for all our sakes. Isn't that the point?"
The rebels have Sylvia Hallam (Helen Shingler) in custody, and the issue can no longer be ignored: let Hallam's widow go, despite public opinion, or punish her for her husband's crimes. As far as anyone can discover, there's no evidence against her - more to suggest that Hallam treated her as badly as anyone else. However, releasing her will both anger the hardliners in Arran's party and, given the mood of the country, leave her in danger, and needing costly police protection. Exile is an option, but her health is not good and leaving her to face the conditions in much of mainland Europe would be a sentence of death in itself. Travelling elsewhere would be a better option, if it could be arranged.
Sylvia's nephew, Colin Walker (Ian Marter) asks Charles and Anna to help. Charles is trying, but Anna's now got reservations about Sylvia's innocence. Woodfield's protesting about the government's cruelty, Neville's of the opinion she's a traitor anyway, Arran's losing patience, and there are a group of former rebels determined to take action...
6. Business As Usual
Robbins: "Self-sufficiency is one of those things people always like the sound of, and politicians like to promise, but it's not very practical for nations, not in general."
Anna: "Presumably Mr. Hallam never listened to you, then?"
Robbins: "No, but then so few people do."
Money makes the world go round, and it certainly helps with running a country, too. Continuing international trading, and opening up new trading avenues is vital, difficult as travel can be these days. Robbins is setting up important negotiations, and Anna and Charles are helping, dealing with bankers and businessmen from home and abroad. Arran is making preparations for the elections, as is Woodfield, who's keen to suggest any international conferences like this are tantamount to treason.
Ella Gabell picks up on a threat to Arran from one of their visitors, and Captain Williams is attacked in Charles's office (though he's saved by Charles's unexpected return with Jamie for some mislaid notes). And in Arran's absence, Charles makes a move forward in the negotiations. It's not what the Colonel had in mind.
Robbins: "Of course, we still haven't got the Governor the Bank of England -"
Charles: "That seems a bit of an oversight."
Robbins: "We haven't made a reappointment yet, and Hallam had the last one shot."
Charles: "These are not the correct notes, it's not the right file - can you please make an effort at some point?"
Jamie: "I have no idea how that happened, sir."
Charles: "Miss Edgington drop by to make an appointment again?"
Jamie: "Sir, I -"
Charles: "Ought to stop flirting with someone who'd happily have you shot?"
Jamie: "Only once I got to sixty, and who wants to live that long?"
Charles: "I was hoping to. Beyond, even. But don't worry - since they're all for usefulness, I doubt you'd make it to forty."
7. Power Loss
Procter: "It's a fantasy. We've been through this before. It's based on completely unsound principles, and is a waste of time, money, resources. In the wrong hands, it could even be dangerous."
Arran: "And these are unquestionably the wrong hands."
Belief in Hallam's solution persists and a new group appears, who are prepared to take any means to get the useless and expensive project back into action. Arran considers whether this should mean postponing the upcoming election. Anna won't hear of it.
Jamie's got an issue with Charles for passing on incorrect information to the Resistance two years ago, which resulted in unnecessary deaths.
Jamie: "Accidents happen, is that it? Sir."
Charles: "Oh, yes. Plenty of them. But no, not that. That was deliberate. We thought we had a break in our chain of communications. And it had to be something important enough that if that were so, someone would act. What was an accident - if you can call it that - was that the second message was never received. Hallam's men shot the messenger. As you say, accidents happen."
Jamie: "And you're terribly sorry about it."
Charles: "No, not for that."
Charles (to Anna): "You always think what I did was better. It wasn't. Just different, that's all."
Anna: "And I believe the difference is important."
8. The Old and the Weak
Woodfield: "It's no good promising a happy ending you can't deliver. You have to be realistic. You can't save everyone."
Charles: "Yes, but we don't have to start throwing people overboard before the ship has started sinking."
The previous government's policies of putting down less useful members of society can't be continued even though Anna and Arran are trying to deal with a radical group who are carrying out attacks based on those policies, but that still leaves issues of food and medical supplies on top of the power supply problem.
The advisory committee are trying to find both short-term and long-term solutions. International help might be available, on terms, and will also require Britain to reinstate the independent media, also on proviso that the upcoming election does happen. Woodfield thinks that sort of thing is the thin end of the wedge; Charles doesn't much care, he's just hoping he can get information about the radical group for Arran from him.
Arran: "It's not them that's the problem - oh, I'm sure it's one of their people stirring up panic and hysteria. This is what people do, and then you wonder what the bloody point was. Rationing's not improved, the power shortages aren't miraculously solved, so let's all go back to attacking any members of society who don't contribute properly!"
Charles: "It's been a long time under Hallam. There are too many people who don't know any other way. It'll take years to change that."
Charles (to Woodfield): "You don't have any belief in utilitarianism, do you? Not really. So, if you know about this group, then tell us. Virtuously hand them over and look like a hero. Much better all round."
Woodfield: "You knew about this?"
Neville: "We're wasting time - wasting everything. Every day we wait for them to fall apart before it's too late. No, I didn't, but if someone wants to act, I've got no difficulty with that."
Woodfield: "Well, I have. If you ask me, the election is already lost."
Neville: "If the Colonel can't seem to stop them, I doubt it'll do much for people's confidence in him."
Arran: "You gave the advantage to the opposition. You don't do that."
Charles: "To stop this."
Arran: "And you're so sure we couldn't have done that ourselves?"
9. Headlines
Arran: "You give somebody back their house, then, instead of being grateful and trying to get on and live in it, they tear it down and throw the bricks at you!"
The emergency government take measures to re-establish independent press and broadcasting in the run up to the first proper elections in twenty years. Which also means, of course, more criticism, rumours, scandal and means of spreading panic.
And there's one particular rumour that seems to be disturbing Arran and Anna in particular: something to do with an incident at Salisbury. Nobody else knows why.
Meanwhile, some small other business - there's a proper election about to be held for the first time in about thirty years...
Arran: "How the hell did they know?"
Anna: "They didn't. Random stabs in the dark. One of them was a little close for comfort. That's all."
Arran: "You're very certain of that, aren't you?"
10. Broken Instrument
Woodfield: "It was a promising project - until you people inconveniently blew up everyone involved."
Following the election, Charles appoints a survivor from Salisbury (the lone surviving scientist from a power-related project) to one of the sub-committees on power. Now Arran's worried and it's causing him to put two and two together in more equations than one, and not all the answers are true. Anna's not so much - until the man (David Collings) is found dead and it becomes possible that Woodfield might have learned something from him.
Liesa consults Dr Cardew about the Colonel. Ella and Clive Procter are trying to gather useful information from the fragments left from the project in question, but they don't know whether it can be done, or even if the project is worth following up.
Dr Cardew: "The man wasn't well enough to be here, in my opinion. You shouldn't have pushed him to do it."
Liesa: "I'd never betray you. Got nowhere else to go, have I?"
Ella: "How are you at jigsaw puzzles?"
Procter: "Excellent, but then I usually had all the pieces and the cover illustration to go by."
Ella: "More than I ever had."
11. Traitor's Gate
Anna: "A public execution and trial would undo everything. But there has to be justice, or we should never have even tried to fight Hallam."
Arran: "And you're the one to hand it out? Setting yourself above the rest of us, with the scales in your hand?"
Everybody else is still adjusting to the changes brought about by the emergency government being now an offical, elected government, but Anna and Arran have other matters on their mind. They both want to put Salisbury forever behind them, but they've got very different ideas about how.
Now that things are on official lines, Charles is dealing with various requests and suggestions from all kind of people, including Dr Cardew and Robbins. It could all be irrelevant soon: Arran's worked out the relationship between Charles and Anna and it's the last straw. Williams is facing a dilemma between an order and his conscience. And Anna sends Charles her file, and then sets off to confront Arran.
Arran: "It does show, doesn't it, how few people you can trust."
Charles: "That's it, is it? You wanted someone you had a hold on. But why? You could have taken this position yourself."
Charles: "I'll have to resign. If the Colonel wants to wait till the dust of the election's died down, I will, but you can't think that this won't look bad if it gets out."
Anna: "There's no reason it should. Don't do anything till I've spoken to Arran. Nobody else could have connected the dots, nobody else will. It doesn't matter."
Charles: "I'm sounding reasonable because there's always somebody about somewhere, watching, listening, or trying to, so maybe it isn't clear: I don't care what the Colonel thinks - I'm furious, and I will be resigning!"
Arran (to Anna): "If it were me, I'd disown you. And were you planning on telling your mother you were alive any time soon?"
Arran: "My God, all this time, you've been planning our executions."
Arran: "And you won't run away."
Anna: "I won't run. I'll be right here with you."
12. Heroes Never Die
Liesa: "You said we'd made a nice story out of him. That's it, isn't it? Protect the dream, the story. Remove the two people she blames the most."
Arran's dying; Anna's the one responsible. Charles is trying to think of the future before anything else, but he needs Arran's help if that's possible. Liesa agrees with him. Dr Basu really doesn't.
Woodfield thinks he's seen his chance at last, but he's got trouble in his own party to deal with first, as John Neville's trying for a takeover of his own. And it's not as if there aren't other groups still active out there with more violent agendas.
Charles: "Everyone always told me you had a head for strategy, never panicked under fire - lost that, now, have you? Want to hand the country over to the likes of Woodfield, sink back into the oppression before we've taken even the first few steps out of it? There's still something you can do!"
Charles: "Oh, I don't think it had anything to do with me."
Liesa: "But Anna thought -"
Charles: "Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. And that's what we're saying, I know. It makes an understandable reason, but I don't think it's the truth."
Charles: "We've all got too much of a life and death mentality. Anyone else want to commit murder, become a martyr, or anything else of that nature, how about we have a talk first? There might be other options."
13. Last Act of the Revolution
Charles: "The state has failed us, over and over, so we decide ourselves who to protect and who to betray, who to save and who to kill. This was no more, no less than that. Another act of conscience, if you like. Let's call it the final act of revolution - and remember that we're all complicit in the crime."
Arran's dead, but the country hasn't descended into chaos - yet. Anna's facing a trial, and Charles is trying to work out a way to save her. It would be hard enough, considering the charge, but she doesn't want to be saved, and he's not permitted to intervene. That leaves only one option: get Edward Woodfield to help. It might not be as crazy as it seems - Woodfield's currently in need of support, and Anna (and Williams) saved his life, too.
Liesa's got a plan, too, but is it better to feed people hope, or stick to the truth?
The series ends with Anna going into exile, and Woodfield bringing news to Charles of a new rebel group's attack in the north...
Anna: "I told you we needed someone who could fight with words."
Liesa: "I seem to be the only one left again."
Charles: "It all amounts to the same thing, over and over. I did all of it, too - the good and the bad, the times I kept my head down because it was easier, safer, under any excuse you care to name. And maybe I was right, maybe it saved me, maybe it saved other people. There ought to be something better, but we fought in our own ways, and now it's time to try and change that, if we can."
Anna: "I shot him. We worked together all that time. Fought together. Waited in the dark. Told terrible jokes. And I shot him."
Anna: "If I live long enough, I'll try and explain one day."
Charles: "Stay alive, yes. Do that."
Anna: "But not at any cost?"
Charles: "If anyone can last out there, it's you. I have every faith in you."
***
Obviously, being what it is, there's no fandom for it as such. It did get nominated one year for Yuletide (following the DVD release by Network), though nobody wrote the request for Anna in exile post-series in a ruined Europe, sadly. Maybe one day.
***
Part Two: Recurring Characters & Episode Guide.
From jjpor: It's the morning after the revolution before. The Evil Empire has fallen; the Plucky Rebels won against impossible odds, as Plucky Rebels tend to do. Now they've just got to deal with the messy aftermath and, you know, actually govern the place. Preferably without becoming like the regime they've just defeated.
HEROES OF THE REVOLUTION
"The state has failed us, over and over, so we decide ourselves who to protect and who to betray, who to save and who to kill. This was no more, no less than that. Another act of conscience, if you like. Let's call it the final act of revolution - and remember we're all complicit in the crime."
A critically-acclaimed but long-forgotten 13 episode drama series from 1973/4 that starred Gemma Jones, Alfred Burke, Julian Glover and Diane Keen.
Set in the near-future in an alternate (but not too different) reality, where a tyrannical regime has been in power in Britain for nearly three decades, a group of freedom fighters led by a man known as "Arran", finally defeat the dictator Hallam - and then a new battle begins, one where the lines are even less clear than before. It explores the ethics of power as a drama plays out between the victorious rebel leaders, the remnant of the old guard, and those who want to find more peaceful solutions for the future.
Part One: Main Cast & Premise
Anna | Catherine Miller - Gemma Jones
Charles Terrell - Alfred Burke
Arran | Colonel Michael Seaton - Julian Glover
Liesa | Louise Seaton - Diane Keen
Liz Cardew - Sheila Allen
Daniel Robbins - Paul Eddington
Edward Woodfield - Morris Perry
Incidental music & theme composed by Wilfred Josephs
OTHER REGULARS / RECURRING CHARACTERS
Captain Andrew Williams (David Gwillim)
Another former rebel, now part of the official military under Arran. He's assigned to provide security for Charles Terrell - and to keep an eye on him, if he acts against Arran's interests. He soon finds his loyalties divided.
Dr. Anil Basu (Madhav Sharma)
Colleague of Dr. Cardew's on the Emergency Medical Committee, who winds up getting more involved with the new government than he expected.
James (Jamie) Bradley (Stewart Bevan)
Another former rebel (part of the intelligence network, though some people find that hard to believe), now Terrell's secretary. How seriously he's taking this and how much he reports to Arran are two more things Terrell's not sure of. Or Arran, to be honest.
Ella Gabell (Mona Hammond)
Another former rebel and a chemist, now also on the Advisory Committee, and expected to turn her skills to things more constructive than destructive this time. She also works closely with Liesa on various projects.
Clive Procter (Simon Lack)
Chairman of the Advisory Committee (now resurrected after being disbanded by Hallam), Procter, a physicist (helping with the power crisis), merely hopes that now they can get things done. He's no stranger to politics himself, either.
Jill Edgington (Elisabeth Sladen)
Secretary to Woodfield, and as a believer in the previous regime, she thinks Woodfield's too self-interested and is more supportive of John Neville, his deputy.
(And I think, timing-wise, this just managed to squeak in its filming before Doctor Who. *nods*)
John Neville (David Langton)
Woodfield's deputy, more into the ideology of the previous regime (utilitarianism) than Woodfield.
EPISODE GUIDE
1. Blood Red Dawn
Anna: "You and I, we know how to fight too well. What we need now are people who know how to fight with words, not weapons."
Arran: "Something tells me you have someone in mind."
A political leader is holding an apparently calm cabinet meeting - but this is the dictator Thomas Hallam (Laurence Hardy), and it's to be the last meeting he ever attends. Minutes later, the rebel leader known as "Arran" has arrived, most of Hallam's guards defecting - the regime's measures have grown ever more extreme, and Hallam's health and mental state have been worrying even his closest followers. Now it's time for a new regime to take the place of the old one and take its chances in an ever more uncertain climate.
Meanwhile Arran's second in command - "Anna" - goes hunting for a potential new prime minister among the political prisoners they've just collected. On the other side, there's a power struggle of sorts going on between the more moderate Edward Woodfield and the extremist John Neville.
Charles: "You must have another name. I know how it worked in the rebellion, so -"
Anna: "The person who went by that name died a long time ago. Suppose you'd have to call it suicide. Anna will do."
Robbins: "I never meant to end up here."
Anna: "Don't look too down about it. You're alive, aren't you, and being useful?"
Robbins: "It's not much of a comfort. If I tell you something, you won't have me shot, will you?"
Anna: "I'll try to restrain myself."
Robbins: "I don't approve of your Colonel. I don't like what Hallam did more than anybody else, but I don't see blowing things up as a solution."
Anna: "It was never supposed to be a solution. Means to an end."
Robbins: "It wasn't your lot, but not that long ago, there was a terrible thing happened at Salisbury. It all adds up to the same thing, as far as I'm concerned."
Anna: "Not quite."
Robbins: "Oh?"
Anna: "Well, I haven't shot you, and I'm not going to report you. And I'm still trying to offer you a position in the emergency government."
Robbins: "I suppose being useful could have a novelty appeal."
Anna: "I thought you were a utilitarian!"
Woodfield: "You may not agree with me, but you need me. At this precise moment, Colonel Seaton is a very popular man. How do you plan to deal with that? Shoot him, I suppose."
Charles Terrell: "I'm hardly going to be a popular choice. Most of your people would call me a collaborator. Arran is not going to make me the leader of his party. You know that!"
Anna: "Most of us, what we are - we're fighters. You're still a politician."
Charles: "You know, you almost managed to make that sound like a compliment."
Anna: "I have every faith in you."
Charles: "And I still haven't agreed, or perhaps you hadn't noticed?"
Jill: "Sir. You can't trust [Woodfield]."
Neville: "I can make use of him."
2. Out With the Old
Edward Woodfield: "The previous regime was extreme - distastefully so - but there were reasons for some of its decisions, as I think you are coming to understand. Your Colonel certainly is. What are you going to do? Control information, minimise panic, maintain military rule - that, my dear fellow, is how it begins. But isn't it better than anarchy?"
Charles: "Let's give anarchy a try and find out, shall we? Or at least, comparative anarchy."
Hallam's dead, but the majority of the previous government isn't. There's a vocal section of the party who want them summarily executed and are threatening to take matters into their own hands if they're not - led by John Harrison (Robin Ellis). This is exactly what Anna doesn't want to see; it's also something Charles Terrell has got every reason to want to oppose - and how Anna persuades both Colonel Seaton/Arran and Charles to accept his new role. Edward Woodfield, newly appointed head of what was Hallam's party, is out to make the most of any such killings - and disappointed by Charles's intervention. (As he says, "I thought you were going to create a power vacuum, especially for me!")
Also Dr Elizabeth Cardew of the Emergency Medical Committee arrives and makes demands of the Colonel, who then makes demands of her in return. Daniel Robbins is charged with re-establishing the Advisory Committee. And, finally, now that Charles has agreed to join the emergency government, Anna interviews him. ("It's not going to be all that exciting," he says. "Probably not that edifying, either...") And the Colonel assigns Captain Williams to keep an eye on Charles - in more senses than one.
Charles (to Anna): "You know, I still don't understand why you want me to do something you're perfectly capable of doing yourself. You're the obvious choice for this position. Not me, you!"
Harrison: "You'd rather listen to a traitor than to the people who got out there and did something!"
Dr Cardew: "This isn't irrelevant. Fail to meet people's basic needs, and they'll die. I'd say that makes it your first priority, Colonel."
Arran: "What the hell is it now?"
Captain Williams: "Sir. It's Major Harrison. He's going to have the prisoners shot. He sent me to deal with Mr Robbins, and he's gone after Mr Terrell."
Arran: "Then you and Anna get after him now, and I'll deal with the rest!"
Charles: "Shoot him, and the Colonel'll have you shot!"
Woodfield: "I'm touched, but it's your office... I doubt it's me he's after."
Williams (examining Harrison): "I'm afraid he's dead."
Charles (to Anna): "I suppose you couldn't have been - Anna? [Pause] Come on, this can't be the first time."
Anna: "No, but I thought I'd already seen the last time."
Robbins: "I'm trying to find our lost experts. At this rate, I might as well hold a seance and have done with it."
Charles: "I just don't see the point of discussing things that happened thirty years ago!"
Charles: "I suppose you've never known anything else, have you? This life of mistrust. I can remember what it was like before. There was enough trouble, of course, but it wasn't like this."
3. Divide and Conquer
Arran: "Observe - assess the situation. Note your enemy's weaknesses. Play on them - direct your attack at the heart."
Woodfield approaches Dr Cardew, and also the Advisory Committee - his party, he says, will be much more practical about the important issues of survival than the new emergency government who don't seem able to act at all. In return, Terrell enlists Robbins's help in finding ways to widen the cracks between Woodfield and his deputy, John Neville.
Dr Cardew's colleague, Dr Basu, has been dealing with former prisoners of the notorious "Detention Centre". Liesa has been following up some of his work there & among other things, finds that Charles was based there, something he omitted from his interview with Anna - and has Anna worrying that she's made a mistake.
Woodfield: "There's no future with a violent figurehead like Colonel Seaton. Modified continuity is the way to make progress."
Liz Cardew: "I might agree, but when your party thinks you are dangerously moderate, I think progress is unlikely. Or are you unaware of your deputy's policies? In which case, you're worryingly out of touch with your own people."
Dr Basu: "They're still terrorists."
Liz Cardew: "And the previous, supposedly legitimate government wanted to use our diagnoses as death warrants. If we can start to build a society that's even a little more civilised, I don't think I care any more."
Dr Basu: "You might find some of this upsetting."
Liesa: "Do you think I haven't had to fight, and survive, same as the rest of us?"
Dr Basu: "Even so."
Liesa: "I shall cope."
Procter: "My position is neutral."
Woodfield: "Naive, my dear fellow, naive."
Procter: "Oh, you want me to choose sides? Well, in that case, do you remember the last occasion we met?"
Woodfield: "I'm not sure I've had the pleasure, though if you say so -"
Procter: "And there you see, we have it. I'm only a simple physicist, Mr Woodfield. No doubt I can't quite follow your complicated politics, of course, but I do dislike being locked up and threatened."
Woodfield: "And what did [Hallam] do?"
Procter: "He cried. It was terrifying."
Liesa: "I thought Anna was going to speak to you. The records say you were based there for a short time, and we need to know -"
Charles: "Is that how they put it? I've been there, several times. Too many. I was asked to do what I did, remember."
Liesa: "Yes, I know that. But Anna was concerned. That's why I thought -"
Charles: "Yes, well, if I'm supposed to remember all the times I've been locked up by one side or the other -! And that one I've tried to shut out of my mind. Hallam was as bad as they all say by the end - unstable, arbitrary. I don't know what made him have me sent there. I don't know what made him suddenly change his mind, either. I was lucky."
Dr Basu: "And how did you decide? Who to save, I mean?"
Charles: "I didn't. Orders. Importance to the Rebellion. Timing. Can't release too many people in one month, or people notice."
Dr Basu: "That's -"
Charles: "Yes."
4. Shadows of Yesterday
Woodfield: "I do think there are some things the people ought to be told."
Everybody's concerned about power - electricity and gas, that is, and the issue of dwindling resources that brought about all the initial emergency measures and Hallam's rise to power in the first place. Charles Terrell wants the Advisory Committee (especially Ella Gabell) to make it their first priority, but rumours that Hallam had a solution to the issue are spreading further, giving rise to more unrest in the country.
Dr Basu is continuing his work at the former Detention Centre and comes across rumours of his own, better-founded ones, of another such centre in the north. On going to inform Liesa, he finds Arran, who immediately sets off with him to that location, even as Charles gets his information from Woodfield, and the two things prove to be one and the same - based on Hallam's deluded belief in a fantasy solution to the problem.
Meanwhile, Liesa wants Anna to help her find one of the few surviving members of her family, which ends in heartbreak. Anna, on the other hand, won't go home at all, but she writes a letter she then burns: not to her mother, Elizabeth Miller (nee White), but to Charles Terrell - her father.
Dr Basu (on Arran): "He gets things done, after all."
Anna: "Do you really want to? I always think - well, to do what we do - what we did - you shut the door on your old life, lock it up. Then you can do what you have to."
Liesa: "Maybe you did. I never had to. There was never any different life for me, not like that."
Arran: "How did it go? As bad as you thought, or worse?"
Liesa: "As bad as I thought, I suppose. I think you had better results?"
Arran: "I liberated about a hundred prisoners and managed to answer Terrell's damn questions about non-existent power projects at the same time. Not bad, no."
Liesa: "Then tell me about it. Tell me something terrible ended."
Anna (writing): "The truth is, there's something I lied about. Only because it would be inconvenient, because everybody else would think it mattered, and it doesn't. It doesn't at all."
5. The Tyrant's Widow
Anna: "Can you be part of something like that and be allowed to live?"
Charles: "We have to hope so, for all our sakes. Isn't that the point?"
The rebels have Sylvia Hallam (Helen Shingler) in custody, and the issue can no longer be ignored: let Hallam's widow go, despite public opinion, or punish her for her husband's crimes. As far as anyone can discover, there's no evidence against her - more to suggest that Hallam treated her as badly as anyone else. However, releasing her will both anger the hardliners in Arran's party and, given the mood of the country, leave her in danger, and needing costly police protection. Exile is an option, but her health is not good and leaving her to face the conditions in much of mainland Europe would be a sentence of death in itself. Travelling elsewhere would be a better option, if it could be arranged.
Sylvia's nephew, Colin Walker (Ian Marter) asks Charles and Anna to help. Charles is trying, but Anna's now got reservations about Sylvia's innocence. Woodfield's protesting about the government's cruelty, Neville's of the opinion she's a traitor anyway, Arran's losing patience, and there are a group of former rebels determined to take action...
6. Business As Usual
Robbins: "Self-sufficiency is one of those things people always like the sound of, and politicians like to promise, but it's not very practical for nations, not in general."
Anna: "Presumably Mr. Hallam never listened to you, then?"
Robbins: "No, but then so few people do."
Money makes the world go round, and it certainly helps with running a country, too. Continuing international trading, and opening up new trading avenues is vital, difficult as travel can be these days. Robbins is setting up important negotiations, and Anna and Charles are helping, dealing with bankers and businessmen from home and abroad. Arran is making preparations for the elections, as is Woodfield, who's keen to suggest any international conferences like this are tantamount to treason.
Ella Gabell picks up on a threat to Arran from one of their visitors, and Captain Williams is attacked in Charles's office (though he's saved by Charles's unexpected return with Jamie for some mislaid notes). And in Arran's absence, Charles makes a move forward in the negotiations. It's not what the Colonel had in mind.
Robbins: "Of course, we still haven't got the Governor the Bank of England -"
Charles: "That seems a bit of an oversight."
Robbins: "We haven't made a reappointment yet, and Hallam had the last one shot."
Charles: "These are not the correct notes, it's not the right file - can you please make an effort at some point?"
Jamie: "I have no idea how that happened, sir."
Charles: "Miss Edgington drop by to make an appointment again?"
Jamie: "Sir, I -"
Charles: "Ought to stop flirting with someone who'd happily have you shot?"
Jamie: "Only once I got to sixty, and who wants to live that long?"
Charles: "I was hoping to. Beyond, even. But don't worry - since they're all for usefulness, I doubt you'd make it to forty."
7. Power Loss
Procter: "It's a fantasy. We've been through this before. It's based on completely unsound principles, and is a waste of time, money, resources. In the wrong hands, it could even be dangerous."
Arran: "And these are unquestionably the wrong hands."
Belief in Hallam's solution persists and a new group appears, who are prepared to take any means to get the useless and expensive project back into action. Arran considers whether this should mean postponing the upcoming election. Anna won't hear of it.
Jamie's got an issue with Charles for passing on incorrect information to the Resistance two years ago, which resulted in unnecessary deaths.
Jamie: "Accidents happen, is that it? Sir."
Charles: "Oh, yes. Plenty of them. But no, not that. That was deliberate. We thought we had a break in our chain of communications. And it had to be something important enough that if that were so, someone would act. What was an accident - if you can call it that - was that the second message was never received. Hallam's men shot the messenger. As you say, accidents happen."
Jamie: "And you're terribly sorry about it."
Charles: "No, not for that."
Charles (to Anna): "You always think what I did was better. It wasn't. Just different, that's all."
Anna: "And I believe the difference is important."
8. The Old and the Weak
Woodfield: "It's no good promising a happy ending you can't deliver. You have to be realistic. You can't save everyone."
Charles: "Yes, but we don't have to start throwing people overboard before the ship has started sinking."
The previous government's policies of putting down less useful members of society can't be continued even though Anna and Arran are trying to deal with a radical group who are carrying out attacks based on those policies, but that still leaves issues of food and medical supplies on top of the power supply problem.
The advisory committee are trying to find both short-term and long-term solutions. International help might be available, on terms, and will also require Britain to reinstate the independent media, also on proviso that the upcoming election does happen. Woodfield thinks that sort of thing is the thin end of the wedge; Charles doesn't much care, he's just hoping he can get information about the radical group for Arran from him.
Arran: "It's not them that's the problem - oh, I'm sure it's one of their people stirring up panic and hysteria. This is what people do, and then you wonder what the bloody point was. Rationing's not improved, the power shortages aren't miraculously solved, so let's all go back to attacking any members of society who don't contribute properly!"
Charles: "It's been a long time under Hallam. There are too many people who don't know any other way. It'll take years to change that."
Charles (to Woodfield): "You don't have any belief in utilitarianism, do you? Not really. So, if you know about this group, then tell us. Virtuously hand them over and look like a hero. Much better all round."
Woodfield: "You knew about this?"
Neville: "We're wasting time - wasting everything. Every day we wait for them to fall apart before it's too late. No, I didn't, but if someone wants to act, I've got no difficulty with that."
Woodfield: "Well, I have. If you ask me, the election is already lost."
Neville: "If the Colonel can't seem to stop them, I doubt it'll do much for people's confidence in him."
Arran: "You gave the advantage to the opposition. You don't do that."
Charles: "To stop this."
Arran: "And you're so sure we couldn't have done that ourselves?"
9. Headlines
Arran: "You give somebody back their house, then, instead of being grateful and trying to get on and live in it, they tear it down and throw the bricks at you!"
The emergency government take measures to re-establish independent press and broadcasting in the run up to the first proper elections in twenty years. Which also means, of course, more criticism, rumours, scandal and means of spreading panic.
And there's one particular rumour that seems to be disturbing Arran and Anna in particular: something to do with an incident at Salisbury. Nobody else knows why.
Meanwhile, some small other business - there's a proper election about to be held for the first time in about thirty years...
Arran: "How the hell did they know?"
Anna: "They didn't. Random stabs in the dark. One of them was a little close for comfort. That's all."
Arran: "You're very certain of that, aren't you?"
10. Broken Instrument
Woodfield: "It was a promising project - until you people inconveniently blew up everyone involved."
Following the election, Charles appoints a survivor from Salisbury (the lone surviving scientist from a power-related project) to one of the sub-committees on power. Now Arran's worried and it's causing him to put two and two together in more equations than one, and not all the answers are true. Anna's not so much - until the man (David Collings) is found dead and it becomes possible that Woodfield might have learned something from him.
Liesa consults Dr Cardew about the Colonel. Ella and Clive Procter are trying to gather useful information from the fragments left from the project in question, but they don't know whether it can be done, or even if the project is worth following up.
Dr Cardew: "The man wasn't well enough to be here, in my opinion. You shouldn't have pushed him to do it."
Liesa: "I'd never betray you. Got nowhere else to go, have I?"
Ella: "How are you at jigsaw puzzles?"
Procter: "Excellent, but then I usually had all the pieces and the cover illustration to go by."
Ella: "More than I ever had."
11. Traitor's Gate
Anna: "A public execution and trial would undo everything. But there has to be justice, or we should never have even tried to fight Hallam."
Arran: "And you're the one to hand it out? Setting yourself above the rest of us, with the scales in your hand?"
Everybody else is still adjusting to the changes brought about by the emergency government being now an offical, elected government, but Anna and Arran have other matters on their mind. They both want to put Salisbury forever behind them, but they've got very different ideas about how.
Now that things are on official lines, Charles is dealing with various requests and suggestions from all kind of people, including Dr Cardew and Robbins. It could all be irrelevant soon: Arran's worked out the relationship between Charles and Anna and it's the last straw. Williams is facing a dilemma between an order and his conscience. And Anna sends Charles her file, and then sets off to confront Arran.
Arran: "It does show, doesn't it, how few people you can trust."
Charles: "That's it, is it? You wanted someone you had a hold on. But why? You could have taken this position yourself."
Charles: "I'll have to resign. If the Colonel wants to wait till the dust of the election's died down, I will, but you can't think that this won't look bad if it gets out."
Anna: "There's no reason it should. Don't do anything till I've spoken to Arran. Nobody else could have connected the dots, nobody else will. It doesn't matter."
Charles: "I'm sounding reasonable because there's always somebody about somewhere, watching, listening, or trying to, so maybe it isn't clear: I don't care what the Colonel thinks - I'm furious, and I will be resigning!"
Arran (to Anna): "If it were me, I'd disown you. And were you planning on telling your mother you were alive any time soon?"
Arran: "My God, all this time, you've been planning our executions."
Arran: "And you won't run away."
Anna: "I won't run. I'll be right here with you."
12. Heroes Never Die
Liesa: "You said we'd made a nice story out of him. That's it, isn't it? Protect the dream, the story. Remove the two people she blames the most."
Arran's dying; Anna's the one responsible. Charles is trying to think of the future before anything else, but he needs Arran's help if that's possible. Liesa agrees with him. Dr Basu really doesn't.
Woodfield thinks he's seen his chance at last, but he's got trouble in his own party to deal with first, as John Neville's trying for a takeover of his own. And it's not as if there aren't other groups still active out there with more violent agendas.
Charles: "Everyone always told me you had a head for strategy, never panicked under fire - lost that, now, have you? Want to hand the country over to the likes of Woodfield, sink back into the oppression before we've taken even the first few steps out of it? There's still something you can do!"
Charles: "Oh, I don't think it had anything to do with me."
Liesa: "But Anna thought -"
Charles: "Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. And that's what we're saying, I know. It makes an understandable reason, but I don't think it's the truth."
Charles: "We've all got too much of a life and death mentality. Anyone else want to commit murder, become a martyr, or anything else of that nature, how about we have a talk first? There might be other options."
13. Last Act of the Revolution
Charles: "The state has failed us, over and over, so we decide ourselves who to protect and who to betray, who to save and who to kill. This was no more, no less than that. Another act of conscience, if you like. Let's call it the final act of revolution - and remember that we're all complicit in the crime."
Arran's dead, but the country hasn't descended into chaos - yet. Anna's facing a trial, and Charles is trying to work out a way to save her. It would be hard enough, considering the charge, but she doesn't want to be saved, and he's not permitted to intervene. That leaves only one option: get Edward Woodfield to help. It might not be as crazy as it seems - Woodfield's currently in need of support, and Anna (and Williams) saved his life, too.
Liesa's got a plan, too, but is it better to feed people hope, or stick to the truth?
The series ends with Anna going into exile, and Woodfield bringing news to Charles of a new rebel group's attack in the north...
Anna: "I told you we needed someone who could fight with words."
Liesa: "I seem to be the only one left again."
Charles: "It all amounts to the same thing, over and over. I did all of it, too - the good and the bad, the times I kept my head down because it was easier, safer, under any excuse you care to name. And maybe I was right, maybe it saved me, maybe it saved other people. There ought to be something better, but we fought in our own ways, and now it's time to try and change that, if we can."
Anna: "I shot him. We worked together all that time. Fought together. Waited in the dark. Told terrible jokes. And I shot him."
Anna: "If I live long enough, I'll try and explain one day."
Charles: "Stay alive, yes. Do that."
Anna: "But not at any cost?"
Charles: "If anyone can last out there, it's you. I have every faith in you."
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Obviously, being what it is, there's no fandom for it as such. It did get nominated one year for Yuletide (following the DVD release by Network), though nobody wrote the request for Anna in exile post-series in a ruined Europe, sadly. Maybe one day.
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