1990

In a dystopian future, Britain is under the grip of the Home Office's Public Control Department (PCD), a tyrannically oppressive bureaucracy riding roughshod over the population's civil liberties.

Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Cast:Edward Woodward , Robert Lang , Tony Doyle , Paul Hardwick , Barbara Kellerman , Lisa Harrow , Yvonne Mitchell , George Murcell , David McKail , Clifton Jones , Michael Napier Brown , John Savident , Honor Shepherd , Donald Gee , Mathias Kilroy , Stacy Davies , Harry Fielder , Clive Swift

1Season 1

S1.E1 ∙ Creed of Slaves

Sat, Sep 17, 1977

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves" (William Pitt). Home Affairs correspondent Jim Kyle, a journalist for one of Britain's three remaining newspapers, provides secret assistance to people trying to escape the repressive regime. His activities continually bring him into contact with the Public Control Department, its tools of bureaucratic repression and its ruthless Controller Herbert Skardon. However, Kyle's current attempts to help a doctor struggling to help his asthmatic daughter leave the United Kingdom may be hampered by Kyle's ambiguous personal relationship with Deputy PCD Controller Delly Lomas.

2Season 1

S1.E2 ∙ When Did You Last See Your Father?

Sun, Sep 18, 1977

"We don't make laws, we only carry them out". Despite the Home Secretary's abolition of all exit visa appeals, Kyle successfully helps Doctor Vickers leave the United Kingdom, but without his wife and daughter. Dr. Vickers invests his hopes in the international law which states that his family can join him one month later, provided he can attain residency status in another country. However, the Public Control Department are determined to seal up any possible legal loopholes to block Vickers' efforts and in so doing put an end to Kyle's interference - permanently.

3Season 1

S1.E3 ∙ Health Farm

Sun, Sep 25, 1977

"...no barbed-wire, no strait-jackets, no padded cells. After all, this is 1990". When the Public Control Department send union leader Charles Wainwright to the United States of America to promote their cause, the plan backfires disastrously when his speech is littered with dissident criticisms of the bureaucratic nightmare the United Kingdom has become under the stewardship. When he returns home, the PCD are quick to repay the compliment by sending him to an Adult Rehabilitation Centre, a place where offenders against the state (political activists, murderers, thieves, etc) are sent for "correction" under a combination of drug therapy and severe treatments which change their way of thinking. Kyle determines to interview Wainwright and infiltrates the centre, unaware the PCD are ranging their forces against him...

4Season 1

S1.E4 ∙ Decoy

Sun, Oct 2, 1977

"This is an island prison. Getting us all together is one thing. Getting us out is something else". High-profile political adviser Doctor Sondeberg, a man responsible for the rising fortunes of a variety of presidents, pays a state visit to the United Kingdom on a fact-finding mission to understand the workings of the Public Control Department. However, his motives are far more covert than first appearances. Meanwhile, Dave Brett persuades Kyle to obtain permits to allow them to travel around the country to advance his deal with underworld figure Sammy Calhoun - a deal which involves a motorised caravan as a passport for top academics to flee the oppressive regime of the PCD.

5Season 1

S1.E5 ∙ Voice from the Past

Sun, Oct 9, 1977

"The age of the common man seems to be degenerating into the age of the common denominator". When the Public Control Department take steps to shut down an underground newspaper peddling dissident stories critical of the regime, Kyle provides assistance to its publisher, Avery, in a bid to prevent their interference.

6Season 1

S1.E6 ∙ Whatever Happened to Cardinal Wolsey?

Sun, Oct 16, 1977

The Ombudsman's Court supposedly exists to hear and review appeals by citizens and consists of a tribunal of judges, but every appeal is rejected despite the legitimacy of the claim. However, one judge, Philip Carter, is determined to fight the corrupt legal system and continually votes to uphold legitimate claims despite always being outvoted by the Chairperson and a weak-willed third judge. Angered by Carter's defiance, the Attorney General demands that Skardon and the PCD find a way to silence Carter. The PCD's plan: a campaign of threats and intimidation against Carter's pregnant wife, who has already miscarried twice. With the help of an American news colleague, Kyle tries to find a way to help the Carters, but the PCD's sadistic Inspector Jones may have already struck too hard at Mrs. Carter.

7Season 1

S1.E7 ∙ Witness

Sun, Oct 23, 1977

Dr. Alan Vickers, whom Kyle and Brett helped escape, has been campaigning throughout the United States to get public and world opinion to force the PCD to let his wife and daughter emigrate. The problem is that in his speeches, he might have let clues drop that may lead Skardon and the PCD to Kyle. When the PCD goes after Kyle's family, and a plot to frame Kyle blows up in the PCD's face, Delly Lomas goes to America to persuade Dr. Vickers to return to England to testify against Kyle in return for exit visas for his wife and daughter. Soon Kyle finds himself on trial, with the man he helped as the main witness against him.

8Season 1

S1.E8 ∙ Non-Citizen

Sun, Oct 30, 1977

After the Kyle Trial fiasco, Skardon takes his revenge by turning Kyle into a Non-Citizen: stripping Kyle of his ID and Union cards, freezing his bank account and seizing all his assets. With no home, no car, no job, no money, only the clothes on his back and his family missing (and a bugged Non-Citizen ID card so the PCD can track him), Kyle is forced to wander the streets in what seems like a hopeless attempt to survive, especially when he is constantly and sadistically harassed by Skardon and Inspector Nichols. His only hope is that Dave Brett and black marketeer Sammy Calhoun can find him before his mind and will are permanently broken.

1Season 2

S2.E1 ∙ Pentagons

Sun, Feb 19, 1978

There's good news and bad news in Britain. The good news: Home Secretary Dan Mellor has been replaced by Kate Smith, and a "pentagon" - one of a growing army of dissident groups - is preparing to take on the hatred PCD. The bad news: the PCD's new Deputy Controller is Lynn Blake, Jim Kyle's former romantic interest, and her first job is the exposure of "Faceless", Kyle's source within the PCD.

2Season 2

S2.E2 ∙ The Market Price

Sun, Feb 26, 1978

"This mate of yours is a shark. With his jaws into whole cargoes. Petrol. Fags. Booze. Grub. It's up to us to nanny him?". When availability of food in the supermarkets steadily vanishes, Kate Smith's government turns its attention to black marketeers profiting from illicit supplies. Ministry of Food MP Peter Greville feeds Kyle information about the matter, but soon both he and his family become the focus of suspicion from the Public Control Department.

3Season 2

S2.E3 ∙ Trapline

Sun, Mar 5, 1978

"Who are we out to nail? Careguard, the Home Secretary or Skardon and the PCD?" Jim Kyle is in trouble - he has fallen into the hands of Police Commissioner Hallam. The question is, will Hallam hand Kyle over to the PCD or is Hallam working on his own?

4Season 2

S2.E4 ∙ Ordeal by Small Brown Envelope

Sun, Mar 12, 1978

"Authorised Systematic Harassment has enormous potential. The slow and noiseless steamroller of the State. The daily brown envelope dropping on the mat". The Public Control Department, in response to more dissident remarks printed in the underground press from Kyle and Tony Doran, devise a plan to turn the heat up on the pair by employing a systematic campaign of Authorised Systematic Harrassment (ASH). Using all the bureaucratic mechanisms at his disposal, Skardon launches a tirade of officialdom against both men, which succeeds in pushing Doran and his wife to breaking-point.

5Season 2

S2.E5 ∙ Hire and Fire

Sun, Mar 19, 1978

"If Kyle can uncover those extortionists where an expert PCD man failed, he is obviously implicated with them." When workers fall prey to an extortionist network collecting money in exchange for their continued silence, Kyle's involvement attracts the attention of PCD controller Skardon, who recognizes an opportunity to eliminate the network and the thorn in his side in one stroke.

6Season 2

S2.E6 ∙ You'll Never Walk Alone

Sun, Mar 26, 1978

"The authorities have refused me an exit visa for the Chess Championship because they fear I might not come back." Having lost his job as the home affairs correspondent at The Star, Kyle is reduced to covering the European Chess Championship. While there, he meets the chess prodigy Philip Ross, an old friend from the early protests against the dictatorship who has turned into a PCD hack. His victories have resulted in him being hailed as a national hero, becoming known as one of Skardon's Lions. In the meantime, three dissidents plot to take Lynn hostage but Kyle informs her of the plan in advance. Kyle then convinces Ross' American opponent Cyrus Asher to challenge him to a game in New York City before warning Lynn that Ross may plan to remain in the United States as he always takes his family with him when he travels. The dissidents manage to take Lynn hostage, albeit briefly, as she promptly rescued. They question Kyle's loyalty. Kyle advises Ross to tell Asher that he wants to play him in the US but that the authorities refuse to grant him an exit visa since they fear that he won't return to Britain. Ross makes an announcement to that effect on television and the transmission is immediately cut off. Skardon threatens to send him to an Adult Rehabilitation Centre if it happens again. This shakes Ross to the core.

7Season 2

S2.E7 ∙ Young Sparks

Sun, Apr 2, 1978

"Kyle'll be back to normal in about an hour. Until then he'll probably show an amusing tendency to tell the truth." Groups of dissidents, once-divided in their opposition to the Public Control Department, are putting aside their differences in a bid to bring down the bureaucratic machine in a consolidated movement. Meanwhile, Skardon increases his pursuit of Kyle, whom he believes he can break and thereby shatter the plans of the opposition.

8Season 2

S2.E8 ∙ What Pleases the Prince...

Sun, Apr 9, 1978

"We always said there'd be Peace Crimes Trials one day ... We're winning now. There'll have to be a purge of the PCD soon." The dissident assault on the Public Control Department has been successful, but the public suicide of a cell member has resulted in world condemnation of Britain's policies and the PCD being plunged into bitter in-fighting. Have Kyle and the dissidents finally won? Will Skardon and the PCD fall for good, and if they do will the cure prove worse than the disease?