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The not-too-far future (seen from 1958 of course): The East and the
West are still playing their silly wargames, and this time around, they
are trying to reach a deal to end H-bomb tests, because they ... really
make no sense and could damage humankind as such via radiation and the
like. Thing is, neither side is willing to give up anything, and the
negotiations are actually just a big ruse to keep everyone happy while
both sides happily continue to irradiate the world they claim to protect.
Then suddenly and quite simultaneously, the delegates from Moscow (Jan
Conrad), Washington (Robert Ayres) and London (John Robinson, Robert
James) receive threats from an "unbalanced anonymous" who claims
he has the ability to blow up the sun ... and to demonstrate his ability
he has already destroyed a dwarf planet - as Dr Lunn (Maurice Denham) from
the local (and best in the world) observatory confirms. He then invites
all those involved in the H-bomb talks to observe as he destroys another
dwarf planet (again successfully), and then forces them to sign a treaty
to give up the H-bomb once and for all. So everything is good, humankind
is saved, right? Right ... and wrong, because the human is pretty much
the only beast not able or willing to learn from its past mistakes, so
super indendant Travers (Leslie Sands), the man instrumental in bringing
all forces to the negotiation table for good, is ordered to find the
person responsible for all of this and apprehend him, because he seems to
have a weapon that's ... well, magnificent, even more deadly than the
H-bomb as it can kill much more persons in one sweep, in fact all of them. Mainly
because of a hidden and deadly clause in the treaty to end the H-bomb,
Travers does manage to track the "unbalanced anonymous" who
threatened to blow up the sun down ... and it's Dr Lunn himself (no big
surprise here), who has never developed the weapon he claimed to have, but
his super-telescope gave him knowledge so far advanced that he could
foresee the destruction of the two dwarf-planets nobody else could. Now
that Travers arrests him though, Lunn throws in a threat or two that might
mean the survival or destruction of our planet ... In the
1950's, when Cold War propaganda on both sides of the curtain painted a
very black-and-white picture of who's right and who's the enemy (to
sometimes gruesome results especially in the "free world"), this
episode of Armchair Theatre must have come as a fresh breath
of air - simply because it unmasks the whole concept of nuclear detterence
as utter stupidity, and humankind's (or rather humankind's leaders')
desire to wipe out humans by the millions as the utter madness that it is.
What's ingenious about this episode though is that it does so not in a patronizing
way (as so many pieces of pacifist cinema and TV are) but via satire and
subtle irony. And add to this a great cast that makes up for the obvious
shortcomings of a live low budget broadcast, and you've got a piece of
great television that - probably also because of the Cold War-mood of its
era - has never really achieved the cult status it somehow deserves.
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