Posted on 02/24/2005 6:22:27 AM PST by traumer
“Dirty War” The first of three movies HBO will share with PBS in coming months, this docudrama imagines what kind of panic would break out were terrorists to set off a radioactive “dirty bomb” in downtown London.
As I wrote last month when the film aired on pay cable, “Although the hypothetical attack is deadly, the most riveting scenes in ‘Dirty War' record the bomb's aftermath, as London's emergency forces buckle under the ensuing mass panic.”
The public TV version will be missing a few frames, which is great timing given the decision by PBS to sanitize a “Frontline” war documentary that aired Tuesday. The most notable thing missing is a scene of a woman being stripped naked and given a decontamination shower.
PBS decided that was, what, too dirty? Yeah, and I understand that next week, in deference to viewers who are offended by displays of raw covetousness, PBS will bleep all the appraisal prices from “Antiques Roadshow.”
Teletubbies are actually watchable if you pretend all the funny sounds are things being bleeped.
but anyone with any sense should know that it would be done, what surprised me was the didn't have everyone in the crowd strip and use fire hoses on them... kind of a WMP for the WMD ( Wash Masses of People)
I watched this. I guess it was the sanitized version since I have to think that the language actually used is saltier than what I was hearing. However, I find it hard to believe that anyone who watched this could feel anything but admiration and gratitutde for these fine young men.
I thought teletubbies were the weirdest thing on PBS until I saw Boohbas. Now those things are weird.
"...they DID show the people being stripped and showered...."
I'd be interested to know what they did to rinse inhaled radioactive particulate from the lungs of the people.....did they even address this?..or are we deemed better off with the illusion that an external rinse would be sufficient?
Yeh, they did seem overwhelmed, tremendously.
I was wondering whether, as the cloud began to rise, if hitting it with water sprays and water-bearing aircraft would force the radiation down and help keep it from spreading.
Perhaps someone knowlegeable could weigh in on such a concept. [Of course, cities would have to have units on some kind of standby for them to be effective, as the smoke rises and spreads quickly.]
The script was saturated with their muslim identity, including a muslim woman on the police force chasing them, as a counterbalance. It was very clever and not very PC at all.
It airs in the overnight tonight, and I plan to stay up to see it again, from the beginning. (1 AM, I think.)
Great quote at the end of the movie, when they are interrogating one of them. They tell him that the Pakis have his wife and his 4 yo is in an orphanage. The interrogators mention that the Brits will retaliate. The terrorist says "We expect you to retaliate...it is what unites us and divides you."
That sure seems to be true.....
Some PBS stations air it more than one viewing.
PBS Oklahoma scheduled 3 showings, but PBS Arkansas scheduled only the Wednesday pm showing. HBO may still be showing it occasionally.
Inhalation was discussed, including one scene when the idea of offering victims food and drink was shot down because inhalation would be compounded if victims got their hands near their mouths, and another with a loudspeaker warning to the cordoned victims to avoid drinking, eating or touching their mouths, again, because it might aggravate the inhalation problem.
I know someone who is in the business of knowing about that, Tom, and intend to ask her about just that.
but in my little knowledge of it, I think they use the controlled showers to also collect the drained contaminated water.... even so, there could be something better than the mess they had in that scenario
The film went into quite a bit of detail on the terrorists who were all Muslim. The part I found interesting was the way they set up terror cells. It showed the logisitics group and the two suicide bombers, as well as how all this could possibly be done.
I get two PBS stations here in western Pennsylvania, and they both routinely reair things overnight, the day after the prime time airing.
Re your post 4, I saw the "unsanitized" version and amazingly enough, I was not traumatized.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.