Documentary filmmaker Alan (Peter Davison) breaks into the headquarters
of the Airzone Corporation, a corporation that promises to save humankind
from pollution but seems to have more sinister motives. Alan is shot dead
trying to gather evidence, but he helps Rachel (Heather Tracy) escape, who
the corporation has experimented on. Mysteriously, Alan appears to
popular weatherman Arnold (Colin Baker) after death, whom he causes to
start to investigate against Airzone and even use one of his weather
shows as a political editorial. Eventually, Arnold teams up with
enviromentalist Stanwick (Sylvester McCoy) to get more dirt on Airzone,
and the two of them even get their hands on Rachel, but then an
armed-to-the-teeth battalion of Airzone itself relieves them of her. Finally,
Airzone wants to reveal its solution in a big press conference, with the
company's head Robin (Bernadette Gepheart) acting as keynote speaker, but
Arnold has by now gone so off his hook that he pulls a gun on her and
tries to force her to reveal all the crooked goings-on in the company to
the public instead - which she is far to experienced to spill even under
threat though. Thing is, her right-hand-man (Alan Cumming) is actually an
undercover secret service agent, and he has seen to it that Stanwick gets
his hands on Rachel after alol and brings her to the press conference -
where it is found out that Airzone's solution was not to reduce air
pollution but genetically alter man to adapt to it. When this is found
out, the corporation is dropped by everyone who once supported it ... Jon
Pertwee plays Alan's mentor, a role not essential to the film's plot but
written into the film at his request, Nicola Bryant plays Arnold's
colleague and lover. At first glance, this can of course be
seen as a Doctor
Who cash-in that coincides with the series' 30th birthday and
features no less than four actors who have played the part over the years.
On closer inspection though, it's much less so: None of the Doctor
Who-actors involved play their parts as they would play the
Doctor, and in story this is (apart from the finale) more an (totally
earthbound) enviromental thriller than science fiction. And as such, it's
actually a pretty ok movie, one that's strong on content and characters
rather than special effects, and that features a pretty good cast to carry
it. Sure, the directorial effort is a bit stagey, but at the same time,
director Bill Baggs understands to get the most out of his meagre budget,
and the whole thing never once looks embarrassingly cheap. Pretty decent
movie, actually.
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