Threads (infamous TV drama)

[Bungle73]

Anyone watch this infamous piece of TV history this evening?

Watched it for the first time tonight. Boy was it bleak. TBH it was just about what I expected, based on its reputation, and the little I know about the effects of a nuclear attack.

I was 11 when it was broadcast the first time, so never got to watch it then. Recently I've seen it mentioned quite a few times, so I thought I must give a watch when the opportuning arises. Saw on Twitter this morning that it was being broadcast tonight on BBC 4, so I tuned in.

Apparently it's on the fourth time it's been broadcast.

 

[Cowley]

Anyone watch this infamous piece of TV history this evening?

Watched it for the first time tonight. Boy was it bleak. TBH it was just about what I expected, based on its reputation, and the little I know about the effects of a nuclear attack.

I was 11 when it was broadcast the first time, so never got to watch it then. Recently I've seen it mentioned quite a few times, so I thought I must give a watch when the opportuning arises. Saw on Twitter this morning that it was being broadcast tonight on BBC 4, so I tuned in.

Apparently it's on the fourth time it's been broadcast.

I’m pretty much exactly the same age as you and I don’t think I saw it until a few years ago. It’s still extremely hard hitting despite its age. It’s an incredible bit of work really.

 

[ASharpe]

Watched it for the first time last night. It was brutal.

 

[Peter C]

There was a great documentary about Threads that I listened to on BBC Sounds the other day - I'm yet to watch the real thing (certainly not after 10pm when they showed it last night!) so this was an interesting look into it as I'd heard lots about it, but didn't actually know much of what happened (aside from the obvious). Link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00236xg

40 years ago, a BBC film showing the grim reality of a post-nuclear world terrified a generation. Jude Rogers meets its cast and crew to unravel why it still haunts so many today.

BBC Four seemed to have something of a theme last night - after what looks like quite a tame programme about insects, there was a documentary about Porton Down, then one about Sellafield, followed by a twenty-minute interview type thing with Mick Jackson (director of Threads), then Threads itself, before 'On The 8th Day', a programme about nuclear war. And then in pure Auntie Beeb fashion, the series of nightmarish programmes ended with the same documentary about insects.

-Peter

 

[DarloRich]

One of the most brutally horrifying films ever produced ( although the War Game 1966 BBC is equally hard hitting and was pulled by the BBC before broadcast). It is certainly a hard watch and in these snowflakey times also actually requires a trigger warning. It is not for the fainthearted!

Last night was only the 4th time Threads has been broadcast and, tbh, you can see why - it is nightmare inducing. The American film of similar age called the Day After is available on you tube and isn't a patch on Threads.

 

[Gloster]

Infamous, as in the heading, means being well-known for some negative property. I have never seen the programme, but it can hardly be regarded as infamous if it was deliberately intended to shock for a positive reason and did so very effectively.

 

[Bungle73]

Actuallly took me a while to feel ready to go to sleep. I had to give myself time to (at least in part) get over what I'd just watched.

I did watch the Mick Jackson intro, and while it was interesting, it did slightly lesson the impact of the scene where
as I expected it and knew how it was done.

It's on the iPlayer for anyone who fancies giving it a watch.... https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02kgkkg/threads

Infamous, as in the heading, means being well-known for some negative property. I have never seen the programme, but it can hardly be regarded as infamous if it was deliberately intended to shock for a positive reason and did so very effectively.

I think you need to watch it...........................

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Oct 2024 ==

I’m pretty much exactly the same age as you and I don’t think I saw it until a few years ago. It’s still extremely hard hitting despite its age. It’s an incredible bit of work really.

Indeed.

 

[Gloster]

I think you need to watch it...........................

Infamous is a measure of moral judgement: something that is infamous is morally (very) bad. Unless you think that it is morally bad to produce a programme that graphically reports on the horrors of nuclear conflict, which is what I think Threads is, then it is not infamous. Merely being horrific because of the accuracy of its depiction does not make it infamous if the intention of that accuracy was well-intentioned: to highlight just how awful such a conflict could be.

 

[DarloRich]

I had to give myself time to (at least in part) get over what I'd just watched.

it is enough to make you reach for a stiff drink!

 

[AlistairCowell]

Watch Threads when it was on YouTube 16 years ago, very scary film indeed. The hospital scene was very ville and graphic.

Still infamous because it is only shown on BBC four times now. The next showing will be in 20 years time and will scare the next generation!

 

[Benters]

I saw it when originally broadcast in 1984. I was 22 and doing my degree via day release then. I'd just returned home from a long day at college and Threads was on BBC1 (IIRC) that evening.
It spooked me then, and after watching it again last night, it still has the power to shock 40 years on.

 

[nw1]

Even reading about it is enough to send shivers down your spine.

I didn't watch it at the time, still being well below the age of majority then, and not sure I'd watch it even now. Nuclear war is staggeringly unlikely but Putin's antics means that watching it right now is outside of my comfort zone. Perhaps I could have watched it 30 years ago, during the era Russia was relatively benign.

I note that it's a 15 certificate, but it sounds considerably more disturbing than many films rated 18.

 

[Trackman]

Great TV film, watched it first time around, Love the build up to 'Attack warning red!'.
Seems they changed background sounds/music for BBC iPlayer.
The melting milk bottles are iconic, but what is burning at exactly 50:16? (on BBC iPlayer) was going on? Was going to post a pic but thought it might be disturbing, basically it looks a like a cross between ET and a cat, but it ain't human.

 

[AlistairCowell]

Great TV film, watched it first time around, Love the build up to 'Attack warning red!'.
Seems they changed background sounds/music for BBC iPlayer.
The melting milk bottles are iconic, but what is burning at exactly 50:16? (on BBC iPlayer) was going on? Was going to post a pic but thought it might be disturbing, basically it looks a like a cross between ET and a cat, but it ain't human.

It was ET Toy being incinerated in a nuke. Once the attack happened (the aftermath), it's all far too scary.
There was a cat suffocating shortly after, though.

 

[PeterY]

I vaguely remember seeing bits of Threads when it was first released 1984 but the bits I did see were truly horrific and they stayed in my mind. The day after it's been on TV it was all the talk at where I worked. A 15 certificate is about right.

Roll ahead a few years and somewhere I saw it was available on Blu-Ray DVD remastered, with all the bonus material, so I brought it and watched it in its entirety . OK it's of it times but the content will never change and even at 66, it's still frightening.

Anyway it must've made an impression with some members for Threads to have its own thread .

 

[Bungle73]

It was ET Toy being incinerated in a nuke. Once the attack happened (the aftermath), it's all far too scary.
There was a cat suffocating shortly after, though.

I was reading about that last night, after watching it. Apparently the intent was to symbolise how normal life, and everything people knew, was breaking down and being destroyed.

I vaguely remember seeing bits of Threads when it was first released 1984 but the bits I did see were truly horrific and they stayed in my mind. The day after it's been on TV it was all the talk at where I worked. A 15 certificate is about right.

Roll ahead a few years and somewhere I saw it was available on Blu-Ray DVD remastered, with all the bonus material, so I brought it and watched it in its entirety . OK it's of it times but the content will never change and even at 66, it's still frightening.

Anyway it must've made an impression with some members for Threads to have its own thread .

Ha!

 

[AlistairCowell]

I was reading about that last night, after watching it. Apparently the intent was to symbolise how normal life, and everything people knew, was breaking down and being destroyed.

That's how Threads got its name! And even the English language would be broken down.

Oh, another thing, having such draconian strict law and order in the aftermath is unimaginable, especially when it comes to food rationing.
People got shot for stealing, and also people are being fed at feeding centres. People in the movie are having to suffer consequences very badly caused by a nuclear war even though it is nobody's fault.

Look at the hospital scene, a poor man bit his rag as loses his leg without anesthetic, and staff used Saxa salt to make sterilized water. Rags does not replace anesthetic, nor Saxa salt replace sterilized water. Everything we take for granted would have been destroyed in a nuclear war, so when the bomb drops, we're all done for big time.

I can't imagine the horrors and consequences of its aftermath in the 13 years that followed. The ending was not a happy ending, either.
What would the world would have looked after the ending scene of Threads?

 

[londonbridge]

I was working late shift last night so recorded it intending to watch today (my day off) or over the weekend. (Wasn’t going to sit up till 2:30 watching it by the time I got home). Anyway, got home, it was recording okay, made some supper, put the news on, then my Sky box decided to shut down and reboot for no obvious reason, so it ended up recording the last five minutes or so by the time it came back up. So still not seen it yet and it’ll be an iPlayer showing for me.

 

[Bungle73]

One of the most brutally horrifying films ever produced ( although the War Game 1966 BBC is equally hard hitting and was pulled by the BBC before broadcast). It is certainly a hard watch and in these snowflakey times also actually requires a trigger warning. It is not for the fainthearted!

Last night was only the 4th time Threads has been broadcast and, tbh, you can see why - it is nightmare inducing. The American film of similar age called the Day After is available on you tube and isn't a patch on Threads.

A pretty interesting article about The War Game has appeared on the local rag's website.

Why this Kent-based movie was banned

It's been 55 years since a controversial film in Kent about nuclear war was banned, so we took a look at the lasting impact it had on the world stage.

www.kentonline.co.uk

It's 9.11am on September 18 and a doctor is visiting a sick patient in Canterbury when an air-raid siren sounds.

A single-megaton nuclear missile has just overshot Manston airfield and burst six miles from this position, turning the county into a dead zone. The year is 1965 and this is The War Game.

Fifty-five years ago a trailblazing film director named Peter Watkins created a powerful docu-drama foretelling a fictional Soviet nuclear attack on Kent .

It was set against the backdrop of the Cold War as heated exchanges between the competing superpowers of the US and the Soviet Union threatened to push the world to the brink of nuclear devastation.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Unfortunately I’ve had to watched it a few times. Once with an old girlfriend who, when the end credits started to roll, promptly burst into tears.

 

[DarloRich]

Once with an old girlfriend who, when the end credits started to roll, promptly burst into tears.

i think that is the idea!

PS: Not sure on your choice of date night movie!

A pretty interesting article about The War Game has appeared on the local rag's website.

It is worth watching if you can find it - i don't think it has been shown on BBC in modern times - and this kind of thing is of interest to you.

So still not seen it yet and it’ll be an iPlayer showing for me.

it is on Iplayer - if you or anyone else watches make sure you are ready to watch it and able to deal with it. I am not one the modern fad of wokey trigger warnings. This film deserves one. a big one.

 

[AlistairCowell]

So still not seen it yet and it’ll be an iPlayer showing for me.

It is on Iplayer - if you or anyone else watches make sure you are ready to watch it and able to deal with it. I am not one the modern fad of wokey trigger warnings. This film deserves one. A big one.

It's a very hard movie to watch, be prepared for graphically shocking images.

 

[GatwickDepress]

It's a very harrowing programme. We watched in History during a module on the Cold War and it was the quietest I ever remember a classroom being. My mum told me when she watched it a kid, it sent her into a depression for months - one girl never returned to school.

Some footage such as the melting milk bottles was reused from Q.E.D. A Guide to Armageddon, a very frightening matter of-fact documentary that makes an excellent companion piece to Threads. I'd also recommend When the Wind Blows, both the graphic novel and animated adaption.

It was ET Toy being incinerated in a nuke. Once the attack happened (the aftermath), it's all far too scary.
There was a cat suffocating shortly after, though.

On the bright side, Barry Hines mentioned they got that shot by getting the owner on set near the cat, so it was just rolling around affectionately. No animals were asphyxiated during nuclear Armageddon in the making of this film!

 

[Benters]

There's some nice bits of black humour courtesy of Barry Hines , to lighten the mood (slightly):
Jimmy's dad, Bill, is talking to his neighbours just before they flee to relatives in deepest Lincolnshire;
" I hope you remember to turn the gas off before you go, we don't want the whole street blowing up while you're gone!"
Two days later the whole of Sheffield has been blown up.
Bill is on the toilet doing his business two days later when the nuclear flash from the attack on RAF Finningley illuminates his bathroom "Bloody 'ell !!!" he exclaims, hitching up his ttrousers without wiping.
'Bloody 'ell !!!' indeed

 

[GusB]

I didn't see Threads until a bit later in life when it was available on YouTube, along with a studio discussion that was broadcast immediately after (Panorama, I think) and it made for some sobering viewing. I do remember watching When the Wind Blows when I was in my early teens and, although it wasn't quite so hard-hitting as Threads, at that age it had quite an impact.

I'd suggest watching the Protect and Survive public information films - they are available on YouTube - but I wouldn't bother taking any of the precautions contained within because there's absolutely no point.

If ever there is an imminent nuclear attack and I have sufficient warning, I'll be buying an expensive bottle of malt and heading to Duffus Castle - less than a mile from the end of the runway of RAF Lossiemouth - to consume the contents; I'm not sure if my house is sheltered enough from the initial effects and I certainly don't fancy having to deal with the aftermath!

 

[Cheshire Rover]

I watched the original broadcast in 1984. I was 14. The background then of course was we were genuinely living in fear of an attack and Threads just amplified that fear. I seem to recall another programme being on just before Threads was broadcast detailing the effects of a nuclear war, could have been QED or Panorama I can't remember. Anyway it is good to hear that it can still shock because it certainly shocked us back in 1984.

 

[AlistairCowell]

I seem to recall another programme being on just before Threads was broadcast detailing the effects of a nuclear war, could have been QED or Panorama I can't remember.

Might have been QED - A Guide To Armageddon, broadcast some two years prior to Threads.

 

[BrandanM]

Well I shan't forget that in a hurry.

I recorded Threads when it was broadcast on BBC4 last week and watched it for the first ever time over the weekend.

I found it quite shocking and unsettling, in particular the panic during the 4 minute warning and the immediate aftermath. I can imagine it must have been even more disturbing to view in 1984.

 

[nw1]

Just reading about the details of it has caused me to feel not so good for a few days now, particularly over the weekend (slightly better now), so it goes without saying that I could never watch it.

Sounds far more horrifying than the worst horror film. It's ironic that it's a 15 when the far more harmless The Meaning Of Life (Monty Python) is an 18, presumably due to the sex scene.

If anything I'd probably introduce a new "18X" certificate for any film or programme which could cause long-lasting psychological effects on the viewer, even if they are adult, with a clear warning. To hear that someone had to drop out of school as a result is clear evidence that people under 18 should certainly be warned off it.

 

[westv]

I watched it when it first came out in 84. "Attack warning red!" and all that.