Tony Calvin
Channel 4 was barely a year old when G F Newman's searing drama about the NHS debuted. A commission from Euston Films, produced by the legendary Verity Lambert, The Nation's Health cemented the channel's reputation for hard hitting drama, particularly at a time when Thatcher's government was sharpening its knives ready to butcher the welfare state amidst her own drive to reverse what she saw as a national decline. There is no doubt she inherited a UK dubbed 'the sick man of Europe', crippled by high inflation, high unemployment and stagnant growth. The NHS was caught up in her desire to deregulate the finance sectors and labour markets and flog state owned assets and companies.
The TARDIS falls through a CVE into E-Space and arrives on the planet Alzarius. There the inhabitants of a crashed starliner and a group of young rebels called the Outlers, led by a boy named Varsh and including his brother Adric, are terrorised by a race of Marshmen who emerge from the marshes at a time known as Mistfall. The Doctor discovers that the starliner's inhabitants are not the descendants of its original crew, as claimed by their leaders, the Deciders, but evolved Marshmen. With the Time Lord's help and encouragement, the starliner is repaired and able to leave the planet.
In foggy London Dr Jekyll experiments on newly deceased women determined to discover an elixir for immortal life. Success enables his spectacular transformation into the beautiful but psychotic Sister Hyde who stalks the dark alleys of Whitechapel for young, innocent, female victims, ensuring continuation of the bloodstained research. With each transformation Sister Hyde becomes the more dominant personality, determined to eventually suppress the frail, ineffectual Dr Jekyll forever.
A lonely young man longing to be accepted lies his way into a local church. The priest and his congregation soon begin to unravel his tales as his actions become versatile.
