Awakened by the incongruous sound of a helicopter flying overhead, Abby tries to get the pilot’s attention, to no avail. The pilot, Greg Preston, stole the helicopter to rush home from Holland, only to find his wife dead of the plague. He sets out by car and happens upon a woman named Anne Tranter, who’s trying to flag down someone who can help her husband, trapped under a flipped tractor. Once Greg has helped to rescue Anne’s husband, however, he is stunned by her attitude – she’s more concerned with regaining some semblence of material wealth than with trying to rebuild society. Abby’s travels take her to a large country house where Arthur Wormley, a well-known union boss, has set up shop. At first, Wormley’s ideas are attractive: rebuilding society and restoring normalcy. But slowly, Abby realizes that Wormley’s rhetoric is merely a smokescreen to cover for his real motive – a grab for power, forming a new government with himself at the top. When he admits that the spacious house is something that he and his supporters “took over,” and decides that he has the authority to order the execution of anyone who tries to oppose his idea of law and order, Abby leaves quickly. Jenny Richards – still wandering – meets Preston, who is raiding a pharmacy for medicine for Anne Tranter’s husband. But as he races back to help, he finds Anne has already left her husband, claiming he is dead.
written by Terry Nation
directed by Gerald Blake
title music by Anthony IsaacCast: Carolyn Seymour (Abby Grant), Ian McCullouch (Greg Preston), Lucy Fleming (Jenny Richards), Talfryn Thomas (Tom Price), George Baker (Arthur Wormley), Myra Frances (Anne Tranter), Terry Scully (Vic Thatcher), Brian Peck (Dave Long), Edward Brooks (Colonel), Peter Jolley (First Man)
LogBook entry by Earl Green