The lowdown:  Coinciding with the 30th anniversary of Doctor Who, 'The Airzone Solution' is a direct-to-video drama from
BBV, and featured no less than four of the then-surviving actors who had played the Doctor, plus several other actors who
are well-known to Who fans, including Michael 'Davros' Wisher as Richard Allenby, the Minister for the Environment. The
story is set in the near-future, in a Britain where the air is so polluted that people must carry a filtration mask with them at
all times. The British Government has signed a deal for AirZone Corporation to clean up the air, but environmentalists and
other doubters have their suspicions about the company's plans to construct filtration plants. Al Dunbar (Peter Davison) is
an investigative film-maker who is producing an expose on AirZone with the help of Anthony Stanwick (Sylvester McCoy),
the head of a radical environmental group.  Dunbar's mentor, Oliver Trethewey (Jon Pertwee in a very brief role) warns that
the documentary will be worthless without proof of what AirZone is really doing. Dunbar breaks into an AirZone facility while
Stanwick keeps watch outside, and discovers the horrible truth about AirZone.

Meanwhile, Colin Baker plays Arnie Davies, the weather presenter at the local TV station, who regularly warns his viewers
to carry their air masks with them at all times (and shows off the gifts he receives from admirers, such as tasteless items
of clothing). Nicola Bryant features as Davies' lover, a TV journalist named Ellie Brown, while Nicholas Briggs (of Dalek and
Cybermen voices fames) has a brief role as Davies' boss, Sam Flint. Davies begins doing his own research on AirZone, and
discovers that AirZone's average level of toxic emissions has risen by 11 per cent in the last year, even though the company
is supposed to be reducing emissions. Even worse, many people who live near its air filtration plans have died or disppeared
under mysterious circumstances.

Dunbar dies while escaping from the AirZone facility, but not before he releases a young woman named Rachel, an AirZone
employee who has been covertly assisting Stanwick. She has been subjected to an experiment of some kind, but its exact
nature is not revealed until the end. Stanwick and Davies both have a vision of Dunbar at the moment of his death. Davies is
then visited by Dunbar at his home and at work, where he learns that Dunbar died the previous night. The head of AirZone, 
Robin Archer (Bernadette Gepheart) holds a press conference to reveal its plans to reduce air pollution; Davies gatecrashes
the event and holds her at gunpoint, and Stanwick reveals that artificial gills have been grafted onto Rachel's neck. Archer
explains that she is a prototype, and AirZone has decided that it is easier for mankind must adapt to breathe the toxic air
than it would be to clean up the atmosphere.

Video clips:     Trethewey and Dunbar     6.9mb            An afterimage     2.9mb            MI5 agent     1.8mb
 
VHS
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