michaellevenson
Member: Rank 8
Review by Archivetvmusings, plus highlighted additions by me. In my thread "Doomwatch ranked Worst to Best" this episode ranked high at number 3, but for reasons of comedic entertainment, this after watching it again, first time in 6 years, I find unfair. It's definitely worthy of its high ranking but for a serious tale of scientific knowledge being used wrongly. Dr Who fans will recognise Olaf Pooley playing here a very Stahlmann type role. Patsy Burns, Nursie in Blackadder 2 appears as does Bernard Hepton of Secret Army fame, and Sally Thomsett who was the blonde one in Man About The House.
In a school classroom three students spike another boy's chemistry experiment by replacing one liquid with another, when the student returns to the lab the three miscreants watch at a safe distance as the victim gets showered with glass from an exploding beaker, suffering burns.
Professor Ensor (Olaf Pooley) has been granted time and space at Doomwatch to conduct experiments into the extra Y chromosome, much to Quist’s disdain, who doesn’t believe a word of it. “Only yesterday I was reading an article by a colleague of yours, Ensor, in The Lancet. Once again he cast grave and honest doubt on the theory that the extra Y chromosome predisposes one to criminal behaviour.”
Ensor has been conducting tests at a local school, asking the pupils to fill out questionnaires, as well as taking blood samples (hence the pun in the episode’s title). This is an early indication that Ensor’s methods are suspect in the extreme – Fay has been assigned to work with him and she’s under the impression that the samples they’re studying have been taken from criminals (totally unaware that later samples have come from the school).
( Ensor and Fay at Doomwatch HQ)
If this is an example of the casual way he treats his scientific research, then worse is to come. The school’s headmaster, Botting (Colin Jeavons) has a problem – a boy was badly injured in the chemistry lab after three other pupils (MacPherson, Jenkins and Franklin) tampered with his experiment. Botting is convinced that one of them must be the ringleader, but which one? He discusses the matter with Ensor and, after learning that Stephen Franklin (Barry Stokes) is taller than normal for a boy of his age (he’s seventeen), the Professor decides he must be guilty. Carriers of the extra Y chromosome are known to be taller than average, Stephen is taller than average, QED.
(Stephen Franklin)
It’s an astonishingly thin amount of evidence, but Botting is convinced and expels Stephen, which leaves us unsure as to who’s the most culpable – Botting or Ensor. It’s plain that Botting lacks judgement, as whilst he’s portrayed as a progressive headmaster – keen to encourage his pupils to express themselves – he’s blinded by Ensor’s apparent scientific credibility (allowing the true culprits, MacPherson and Jenkins to get off scot free). Ensor’s reasons for picking Stephen seem very vague. Apart from his height, the other major factor seems to be that he was adopted. Bad blood …..
( Headmaster Botting)
It is revealed that Stephen was once in an institute for young offenders, that is where his would be parents got him out of for adoption. Ensor did some of his earlier research there, so that is how he finds out that Stephen is XYY. Dr Ridge sends Geoff Hardcastle (John Nolan) to the Franklin's to interview them and discovers Stephen has run away, taking a short wave radio with him. The assumption is that he's gone to Gatwick Airport as his hobby is watching planes land and take off whilst listening to the aircraft communications. Stephen’s sister returning from school tells her parents and Hardcastle that her year at school 13 - 15 ,middle years, are taking part in Ensor’s experiments by having their thumbs pricked for blood.
So only now Ensor is moving up the age groups, so how did Ensor know Stephen was XYY? Hardcastle phones Quist and reveals Stephen’s institute background, and Quist realises that Ensor’s knowledge came from there.
( Hardcastle)
Quist obviously furious as Ensor lied to Doomwatch about where he was getting blood from, he said it was from prisoners only. And Ensor has used Stephen’s chromosome peculiarity to get him expelled.
(Mr and Mrs Franklin)
Stephen’s father, Oscar (Bernard Hepton), is appalled by the way his son’s been treated and after he gets nowhere with Botting he heads off to speak to Quist. They know each other, but Quist can barely tolerate the man. Oscar is a freelance journalist, working in the science field, and Quist has a poor opinion of his skills as a writer. The always watchable Hepton gives a fine performance. Oscar is full of bluff and bluster, but he’s a fundamentally decent man who obviously cares for his son, which makes the way Quist treats him even harder to take. He’s curt and dismissive and it’s only after Oscar leaves, and Ridge piques Quist’s interest with information about Ensor’s school experiments, that he begins to get interested.
In an ironic twist , Oscar back in the 60's wrote about XYY peculiarities and suggested that it could lead to personality abnormalities. So Quist reasons that Oscar has in effect been hoisted by his own petard. Botting a headmaster suckered into believing this pseudo scientific claptrap has used this , with Ensor’s advice, to expel his son. The boy injured in the classroom prank does recover and the other two boys get as punishment and essay to do only, the subject is Behaviour and Heridity. When Stephen tells his father that, Oscar Franklin goes ape crazy, Botting the head is implying Stephen has bad blood. No wonder Stephen becomes disturbed and while his father is giving Botting a rollicking in the school office, Stephen has ransacked his father's office, upstairs in the house, and found his previous articles on XYY chromosomes and the conclusion he reached about personality abnormalities. Stephen runs off to Gatwick to kill himself.
Stephen attempts to kill himself in a rather unexpected way (by walking onto the runway at Gatwick). He’s obviously in a confused state as before this he was heading for a plane which was flying to Jersey. Geoff Hardcastle pops up again briefly to talk the boy down and luckily he comes away unscathed.
Everything’s built up for the big confrontation between Quist and Ensor. It’s been stated on several occasions that Quist can’t stand him and also has little respect for him as a scientist. Ensor attempts to defend his knowledge, but Quist simply steamrollers on. “Your knowledge that condemns a child unheard, that drives him to risk death on an airport runway at night. You say yourself that there could be 45,000 males with the extra Y chromosome, yet your sample was only 100, taken from prisoners, so where are the others Ensor? Could it be they are leading normal lives? Your views of the damage the extra Y does twisted by the origin of your samples. Can we say with certainty that XY is normal and XYY abnormal " It’s possibly not as powerful a diatribe as it could have been (it’s interesting that Quist seemed more angry at Oscar than he does at Ensor) but it’s still a nicely played scene by John Paul.
After a couple of indifferent episodes, By The Pricking of My Thumbs gets Doomwatch back on track. Bernard Hepton and Olaf Pooley are both excellent, although Ensor isn’t as central to the plot as you might expect. In many ways he’s more of a catalyst for the drama that’s triggered once he makes his disastrous prognosis. Patsy Byrne, Sally Thomsett and Colin Jeavons are more familiar faces who help to enliven the story. Byrne is good value as Stephen’s mother whilst a young Thomsett is his (slightly irritating) younger sister.
In a school classroom three students spike another boy's chemistry experiment by replacing one liquid with another, when the student returns to the lab the three miscreants watch at a safe distance as the victim gets showered with glass from an exploding beaker, suffering burns.
Professor Ensor (Olaf Pooley) has been granted time and space at Doomwatch to conduct experiments into the extra Y chromosome, much to Quist’s disdain, who doesn’t believe a word of it. “Only yesterday I was reading an article by a colleague of yours, Ensor, in The Lancet. Once again he cast grave and honest doubt on the theory that the extra Y chromosome predisposes one to criminal behaviour.”
Ensor has been conducting tests at a local school, asking the pupils to fill out questionnaires, as well as taking blood samples (hence the pun in the episode’s title). This is an early indication that Ensor’s methods are suspect in the extreme – Fay has been assigned to work with him and she’s under the impression that the samples they’re studying have been taken from criminals (totally unaware that later samples have come from the school).
( Ensor and Fay at Doomwatch HQ)
If this is an example of the casual way he treats his scientific research, then worse is to come. The school’s headmaster, Botting (Colin Jeavons) has a problem – a boy was badly injured in the chemistry lab after three other pupils (MacPherson, Jenkins and Franklin) tampered with his experiment. Botting is convinced that one of them must be the ringleader, but which one? He discusses the matter with Ensor and, after learning that Stephen Franklin (Barry Stokes) is taller than normal for a boy of his age (he’s seventeen), the Professor decides he must be guilty. Carriers of the extra Y chromosome are known to be taller than average, Stephen is taller than average, QED.
(Stephen Franklin)
It’s an astonishingly thin amount of evidence, but Botting is convinced and expels Stephen, which leaves us unsure as to who’s the most culpable – Botting or Ensor. It’s plain that Botting lacks judgement, as whilst he’s portrayed as a progressive headmaster – keen to encourage his pupils to express themselves – he’s blinded by Ensor’s apparent scientific credibility (allowing the true culprits, MacPherson and Jenkins to get off scot free). Ensor’s reasons for picking Stephen seem very vague. Apart from his height, the other major factor seems to be that he was adopted. Bad blood …..
( Headmaster Botting)
It is revealed that Stephen was once in an institute for young offenders, that is where his would be parents got him out of for adoption. Ensor did some of his earlier research there, so that is how he finds out that Stephen is XYY. Dr Ridge sends Geoff Hardcastle (John Nolan) to the Franklin's to interview them and discovers Stephen has run away, taking a short wave radio with him. The assumption is that he's gone to Gatwick Airport as his hobby is watching planes land and take off whilst listening to the aircraft communications. Stephen’s sister returning from school tells her parents and Hardcastle that her year at school 13 - 15 ,middle years, are taking part in Ensor’s experiments by having their thumbs pricked for blood.
So only now Ensor is moving up the age groups, so how did Ensor know Stephen was XYY? Hardcastle phones Quist and reveals Stephen’s institute background, and Quist realises that Ensor’s knowledge came from there.
( Hardcastle)
Quist obviously furious as Ensor lied to Doomwatch about where he was getting blood from, he said it was from prisoners only. And Ensor has used Stephen’s chromosome peculiarity to get him expelled.
(Mr and Mrs Franklin)
Stephen’s father, Oscar (Bernard Hepton), is appalled by the way his son’s been treated and after he gets nowhere with Botting he heads off to speak to Quist. They know each other, but Quist can barely tolerate the man. Oscar is a freelance journalist, working in the science field, and Quist has a poor opinion of his skills as a writer. The always watchable Hepton gives a fine performance. Oscar is full of bluff and bluster, but he’s a fundamentally decent man who obviously cares for his son, which makes the way Quist treats him even harder to take. He’s curt and dismissive and it’s only after Oscar leaves, and Ridge piques Quist’s interest with information about Ensor’s school experiments, that he begins to get interested.
In an ironic twist , Oscar back in the 60's wrote about XYY peculiarities and suggested that it could lead to personality abnormalities. So Quist reasons that Oscar has in effect been hoisted by his own petard. Botting a headmaster suckered into believing this pseudo scientific claptrap has used this , with Ensor’s advice, to expel his son. The boy injured in the classroom prank does recover and the other two boys get as punishment and essay to do only, the subject is Behaviour and Heridity. When Stephen tells his father that, Oscar Franklin goes ape crazy, Botting the head is implying Stephen has bad blood. No wonder Stephen becomes disturbed and while his father is giving Botting a rollicking in the school office, Stephen has ransacked his father's office, upstairs in the house, and found his previous articles on XYY chromosomes and the conclusion he reached about personality abnormalities. Stephen runs off to Gatwick to kill himself.
Stephen attempts to kill himself in a rather unexpected way (by walking onto the runway at Gatwick). He’s obviously in a confused state as before this he was heading for a plane which was flying to Jersey. Geoff Hardcastle pops up again briefly to talk the boy down and luckily he comes away unscathed.
Everything’s built up for the big confrontation between Quist and Ensor. It’s been stated on several occasions that Quist can’t stand him and also has little respect for him as a scientist. Ensor attempts to defend his knowledge, but Quist simply steamrollers on. “Your knowledge that condemns a child unheard, that drives him to risk death on an airport runway at night. You say yourself that there could be 45,000 males with the extra Y chromosome, yet your sample was only 100, taken from prisoners, so where are the others Ensor? Could it be they are leading normal lives? Your views of the damage the extra Y does twisted by the origin of your samples. Can we say with certainty that XY is normal and XYY abnormal " It’s possibly not as powerful a diatribe as it could have been (it’s interesting that Quist seemed more angry at Oscar than he does at Ensor) but it’s still a nicely played scene by John Paul.
After a couple of indifferent episodes, By The Pricking of My Thumbs gets Doomwatch back on track. Bernard Hepton and Olaf Pooley are both excellent, although Ensor isn’t as central to the plot as you might expect. In many ways he’s more of a catalyst for the drama that’s triggered once he makes his disastrous prognosis. Patsy Byrne, Sally Thomsett and Colin Jeavons are more familiar faces who help to enliven the story. Byrne is good value as Stephen’s mother whilst a young Thomsett is his (slightly irritating) younger sister.
Last edited: