I first watched this presentation on TV in 1984 - I'm thinking it was aired in Canada first before it was shown on HBO in October. At the time I could only appreciate it as a film about nuclear war; some thirty years later, however, I've come to appreciate it as an extraordinary masterwork of television drama.
Patrick Watson, a well-known broadcaster in Canada, does a superb and almost surreal job straddling the line between actor and anchor, bringing a gravitas to Don Tobin to rival any U.S. news anchor on the air in 1983-4. Helen Shaver is perfect as the world-weary Dorian Waldorf, whose one shot at preventing the crisis from escalating and at boosting her profile as a journalist is blown by the tardiness of a would-be "Deep Throat". And then there's Scott Glenn: as the embedded Middle East correspondent Michael Boyle, he predates Arthur Kent's "Scud Stud" persona by a good six years and perfectly demonstrates the gritty glamour of foreign-assignment journalism during the 1980s. Any of them would have fit in on an actual news broadcast: all of them together make the presentation frighteningly realistic and compelling.
The production, though certainly low-budget, was extremely tight and took full advantage of its limitations to lend verisimilitude to the scenario of a TV station's news department. It also took advantage of the format to bring in real players on the national political stage, adding a degree of depth and organic exposition to the presentation that would have made Orson Welles green with envy. The combination of tight production and a commitment to realism presents a different kind of response from that to be felt watching _Threads_ or _The Day After_: instead of the predictable horror of the result of nuclear annihilation, we have instead the gut-churning, half-in- the-mind terror of the unknown but inevitable.
There's the glimmer of hope extinguished halfway through the program as the one piece of data that could provoke cooler heads to prevail is rejected for broadcast. Later, there is the confirmation of a nuclear exchange taking place, without showing, or the need to show, more than a flash of light and a garbled image in static of what might be interpreted as a mushroom cloud. We are so caught up in that point of no return and its implications that any technical shortcomings in its exposition are utterly absolved. The ending of that report, and what follows, fill viewers with a dread and terror that lingers long after the end of the program - most of it created in the imagination of the viewer.
Patrick Watson, a well-known broadcaster in Canada, does a superb and almost surreal job straddling the line between actor and anchor, bringing a gravitas to Don Tobin to rival any U.S. news anchor on the air in 1983-4. Helen Shaver is perfect as the world-weary Dorian Waldorf, whose one shot at preventing the crisis from escalating and at boosting her profile as a journalist is blown by the tardiness of a would-be "Deep Throat". And then there's Scott Glenn: as the embedded Middle East correspondent Michael Boyle, he predates Arthur Kent's "Scud Stud" persona by a good six years and perfectly demonstrates the gritty glamour of foreign-assignment journalism during the 1980s. Any of them would have fit in on an actual news broadcast: all of them together make the presentation frighteningly realistic and compelling.
The production, though certainly low-budget, was extremely tight and took full advantage of its limitations to lend verisimilitude to the scenario of a TV station's news department. It also took advantage of the format to bring in real players on the national political stage, adding a degree of depth and organic exposition to the presentation that would have made Orson Welles green with envy. The combination of tight production and a commitment to realism presents a different kind of response from that to be felt watching _Threads_ or _The Day After_: instead of the predictable horror of the result of nuclear annihilation, we have instead the gut-churning, half-in- the-mind terror of the unknown but inevitable.
There's the glimmer of hope extinguished halfway through the program as the one piece of data that could provoke cooler heads to prevail is rejected for broadcast. Later, there is the confirmation of a nuclear exchange taking place, without showing, or the need to show, more than a flash of light and a garbled image in static of what might be interpreted as a mushroom cloud. We are so caught up in that point of no return and its implications that any technical shortcomings in its exposition are utterly absolved. The ending of that report, and what follows, fill viewers with a dread and terror that lingers long after the end of the program - most of it created in the imagination of the viewer.