Breakout

With COVID-19 and sewage in the water supply still in the news and the authorities fretting over jumps between species here's a timely revival of this prescient BBC drama that treats it's audience as grown-ups and keeps you guessing whether the crisis will be result of pesticides or a baccular virus.

The title suggests a gritty prison drama, but after an opening sequence of a man scaling a wall in a balaclava and entering a laboratory full of bottles labelled 'Test Sample' it then proceeds by stealth to a lad developing a cough, quickly gaining in drama when the next to succumb is an asthmatic with a weak heart.

Director Moira Armstrong adroitly marshals a well-defined set of characters beset by money worries and office politics who look upon animal rights activists as a nuisance; while Samantha Bond refreshingly plays a female scientist who actually seems to understand the subject.

Breakout was an eco thriller broadcast by the BBC in 1997. Directed by Moira Armstrong a respectable veteran who started out in the early 1960s.

Two people nearby are struck down by a mystery virus. The doctors at the hospital are left stumped. Later a third person is struck down, one of them later dies.

Dr Lisa Temple (Samantha Bond) worked for a research lab. It created a genetically engineered pesticide to kill insects. It seems that the virus meant to affect insects has jumped into mammals.

Dr Temple together with her ex, Dr Neil McFarlane (Neil Dudgeon) investigate. They figure that someone in their research labs might have cut corners or did unethical research.

Breakout was a television movie hot on the heels of feature films such as Outbreak.

Unfortunately this was is too talky and turgid. It drags and the thriller element is tacked on at the end.

It needed a newer director with fresher ideas.

Not be confused with Outbreak starring Dustin Hoffman though the idea is the same. But this is the BBC drama from 1997 on a slightly lesser budget.

The storyline is decent though and it has a decent cast for anyone who has watched British telly since the nineties. Something dodgy has happened at a laboratory in the UK and people have started becoming very ill because of it. This being a tv story there aren't a lot of people catching the illness. This is part of the programme's problem as there isn't any suspense in the storyline.

A shame because with Neil Dudgeon and Samantha Bond it has at least a decent cast, just a shame it couldn't have been more exciting.