Doombolt Secret Project
| Television series | |
|---|---|
| German title | Doombolt Secret Project |
| Original title | The Doombolt Chase |
| Country of production | Great Britain |
| original language | English |
| year | 1978 |
| Production company |
HTV |
| length | 25 minutes |
| Episodes | 6 in 1 season |
| genre | Action , youth series, science fiction |
| First broadcast | March 12, 1978 (UK) on HTV |
| German-language first broadcast |
August 21, 1979 on ARD |
Secret project Doombolt (original title: The Doombolt Chase - "The Doombolt Hunt") is a six-part British adventure youth series from 1978. It was broadcast in Great Britain by HTV and in Germany by ARD . Directed by Robert Fuest and Peter Graham Scott .
action
During a night patrol in the Bristol Channel , the captain of the frigate HMS Crescendo from the British Navy , David Wheeler, receives a radio message encoded in an unknown code. Then Wheeler seems to be playing crazy: He changes course and purposefully rams a small fishing boat that sinks completely into the canal. He was immediately tried before a military tribunal, but, strangely enough, did not comment on the case - not even to his friend and defense lawyer, Commander Jeffrey Vallance, or to his only son Richard.
Disturbed by the incident and the strange demeanor of his father, Richard and his friends Lucy and Pete, a crew member of the Crescendo , decide to investigate the case on their own and prove his father's innocence. Coincidentally, he knows the code his father deciphered and who invented it: Hugh Spencer, a former naval officer and a friend of his father's. Richard decides to visit him, but since the Navy has decided to send him away for the time being and has put him under guard until he leaves, he piles up with his friends and his father's sailboat. To save time, they sail straight through a Navy exclusion zone; they find a radio-controlled boat with a strange antenna device. But before they can examine the boat more closely, it drives away by itself.
When they get to Spencer's house, they find Spencer's house empty and traces of a fight. With the few clues that remain, they find the word "Doombolt" and a tagged map slide that leads them to a country house called Scudmore. There they see its residents marching around in strange silver suits that turn out to be protective suits against ultrasound , and they secretly witness a demonstration of a new type of weapon system invented by Franz Bayard.
The doombolt system turns out to be a novel, advanced missile guidance system that the Navy has already been working on. The design stipulates that a nuclear missile, embedded in the seabed around the British main island, is to be triggered by an inconspicuous, radio-controlled sonar boat and guided to the target by the doombolt after surfacing. However, the Navy's system had a few flaws that Bayard has since corrected: Instead of a steering beam, as the Navy had in mind, two independently transmitted beams bundled at a central point should guide the rocket. However, Bayard, who worked on the Doombolt for the Navy, now wants to work for his own profit and is ready to sell the design to a foreign power; as a demonstration he wants to sink a new supertanker , the Fiddig Brey, with the help of the doombolt and a stolen missile. Only a few in the Navy knew of the Doombolt Project, including Wheeler and his superior Captain Hatfield, but there are indications that there is a mole in the Navy. Hugh Spencer had worked undercover against Bayard but was discovered and captured. The boat Wheeler sunk was the Navy sonar signal boat that Bayard was trying to kidnap; but this has already been replaced by the mysterious boat in the exclusion zone.
After Richard, Pete and Lucy find out, they flee Scudmore and try to inform the Navy in Bristol . They meet Vallance, who offers to drive them to the base commandant's house in the Brecon Beacons . During the ride, however, the teens discover that Vallance knows more things than he should, and as it turns out, he's actually Bayard's mole in the Navy. Immediately they escape from the car, but after a long wandering they are captured by Vallance and Bayard's men who tried to set up the first doombolt transmitter in the area. After he had to find out that his son was very close and now also knows about the Doombolt, David Wheeler also drives to the Beacons; he manages to find Spencer, but then both are caught and put with the teens.
While Bayard's people get ready to set up the second transmitter, the prisoners exchange their information and, through targeted eavesdropping, learn the angles of the transmitter. When they are to be brought to the Doombolt command center after their work is done, Lucy manages to remove her bonds and flee. After a desperate escape, she can finally contact the Navy and give them the vital information they need to locate the Doombolt: Cragfest Island, a rocky island in the middle of the canal. A company of the Royal Marines is immediately sent there to take out the Doombolt.
Meanwhile, Bayard brags about the Doombolt to his prisoners and prepares to start the demonstration when the Marines storm the island. Pete and Wheeler manage to break free; they pounce on Bayard and Vallance, and in the ensuing battle the Doombolt is so badly damaged that it overcharges. Those present manage to escape in the last second before the command center explodes, but Bayard and Vallance escape in a mini submarine. Rehabilitated, David Wheeler prepares with his son, Lucy and Pete for a boat trip that begins with Lucy accidentally landing Pete in the dock.
media
In December 2009 the series was released on DVD in the UK.
Web links
- The Doombolt Chase in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Doombolt secret project on fernsehserien.de
Individual evidence
- ^ The Doombolt Chase - The Complete Series . February 19, 2010. Archived from the original on February 26, 2010 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved May 17, 2010.
