Superstorm (docudrama)

Infobox television
show_name=Superstorm
imdb_id=0835249
first_aired=flagicon|UK 15 April 2007
last_aired=flagicon|UK 29 April 2007
genre=Drama, docudrama, thriller, sci-fi
starring=Nicola Stephenson
Tom Sizemore
Chris Potter
JR Bourne
Cas Anvar
Nicolas Wright
Jana Carpenter
country=flagicon|UK United Kingdom
num_episodes=3
runtime=177 minutes
(3x59 minutes)
original_channel=BBC One
languages=English
location=Montreal, Quebec, Canada

"Superstorm" was a 2007 three-part miniseries docudrama produced by BBC Worldwide and was aired on BBC One in the United Kingdom for a period of three weeks, totaling three 59 minute episodes.It was released on DVD in the United Kingdom on July 2, 2007. [ [http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000P0JQ1Y Superstorm DVD] at Amazon (region 2) UK] The film was produced by the makers of the 2004 docudrama, "Supervolcano" and was written and directed by Julian Simpson.The main plot is based on a group of scientists working to try to weaken a hurricane using cloud seeding, for the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Each episode was followed by a half-hour documentary on BBC Two on the science of it, called "The Science of Superstorms". The series was also aired (after being edited for content) on the Discovery Channel in the U.S and Canada during the summer of 2007.

Plot

The plot begins with a team of scientists working on a US government project, known as Stormshield. Stormshield's goal is to control and manage storms, or, more to the point, hurricanes.

It is hurricane season, and a chain of storms are lined up to hit the United states. The most notable, and worrisome, is Hurricane Grace, a category 3 hurricane, which is slowly climbing to a category 5. Using predictive technology developed by Lance Resznick, named TEMPEST, they are able to simulate the effects of seeding the storm, which they hope will collapse the eye of the storm, which would slow the wind speeds, and thus lower the category of the storm.

However, not everyone is optimistic about the technology (Lance is openly sceptical that the theories are fantasy), and one simulation shows the storm intensifying, rather than weaking. But, the experiment goes ahead on a smaller hurricane, Agatha; a plane and several UAV, also carrying the seeds (in this case, supercooled liquid), fly into the storm. At first, the experiment is a success, but because the storm intensifies during the seeding, the plane, carrying Ralf DeWitt, crashes, killing everyone. It was to have carried the qualified field scientist, Sara, but she was refused clearance to go up because of a cold and she bullied Ralf into going in her place. She is devastated.

Weeks go by, the team is now faced with a serious problem: Grace is now a category 5 hurricane, and is headed straight for Miami. At the urgings of Katzenberg, the man who has got the funding for the project, they formulate a plan of 'distant atmospheric perturbation' to deflect Hurricane Grace, by creating a low pressure system on the Pacific coast, and allowing it to be carried across the nation to Grace, which will hopefully be deflected out into the Atlantic Ocean. Katzenberg has assured team leader Dan Abrams that there is no military involvement in their funding. While Abrams and mathematician Munish Loomba try to model the precise weather perturbation that will safely deflect Grace, Lance tells Sara that in fact her attempt to move Agatha was successful: the hurricane changed course after the seeding. She goes to Montana to tell her grandfather, who was head of a similar, discredited project in the 1970s. He tells her that his team knew they could make hurricanes change course but made their efforts appear fruitless because they realized the military were behind the project, looking for ways to make weather into a weapon. The same turns out to be true of Stormshield. Meanwhile the low pressure system approach is being prepared, requiring B-52 bombers to release trails of carbon over the West Coast. But at the last moment, Lance tells them they must halt the attempt; another storm, south of Grace, is likely to move up, and deflect the Hurricane in another direction, possibly back into the USA. Unimpressed, Katzenberg fires Lance, but the project leader, Dan Abrams, pulls the plug, stating the risk is too great. Katzenberg then fires the whole team.

All the members go home... However, they soon learn that the creation of the low pressure system went off, without them giving the data to the team of airplanes that were supposed to create the system. They have a mole on the team. (It turns out to be Bengali-born Munish, who lost his family in a hurricane while still a child and is desperate to make the theory of hurricane deflection work.) Breaking into the center, they scramble for a solution to the problem; the other storm did deflect the storm, but it is now headed right for New York City.

They find an answer; the supercooling of the areas of the storm in the first experiment altered the course of the weather by several degrees; not much, but enough to move the bulk of the storm away from New York City. The plan goes ahead and works; the storm is altered so that the eye of the storm passes over the city, doing less damage. However, the worst of the storm will hit Long Island, where the Stormshield HQ is located.

Sara, an English field scientist, is the only member of the team who survives without severe injury, and the series finishes with her about to either admit the terrible tragedy caused by their research, or, as Katzenberg would want, lie to cover it up and suggest to the American people and people of the world that the technology did work, and is to be expanded.

Cast

*Nicola Stephenson as "Sara Hughes"
*Tom Sizemore as "Katzenberg"
*Chris Potter as "Dan Abrams"
*JR Bourne as "Lance Resnick"
*Cas Anvar as "Munish Loomba"
*Nicolas Wright as "Ralf DeWitt"
*Jana Carpenter as "Holly Zabrieski"

ee also

*"The Day After Tomorrow", a 2004 apocalyptic science-fiction movie.
*"The Coming Global Superstorm", a 1999 science-fiction book co-authored by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber.
*Super storm
*Global warming
*Cloud seeding
*"Supervolcano", a 2005 docudrama on a hypothetical scenario where Yellowstone's "overdue" eruption occurs. Made by the same producers.

References and footnotes

External links

*youtube|GO3aPI1Dx_A (UK residents only)
*imdb title|id=0835249