Special Bulletin

Chorus: RBS, we're moving up!
Announcer: We interrupt this program with a Special Bulletin...

Thus begins this 1983 Made for TV movie about a group of people who have allegedly placed a home-made nuclear bomb on a boat in Charleston, South Carolina harbor. They want to make a stand against the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and demand a beginning to the end of such weaponry. Unless they receive some 400 trigger devices (which would make it impossible for the U.S. to detonate the nuclear weapons requiring those triggers) which they will then dump into Charleston Harbor, they will detonate their own weapon. The U.S. has 48 hours to comply.

We watch as the media doesn't just cover this event, but becomes part of it as a camera crew, covering an unrelated story, are kidnapped as part of the terrorists taking over that part of the harbor facilities. The movie actually asks the question, does the presence of the media make this sort of incident more likely to happen? By the next day, TV coverage of the event continues with a professionally done graphic introduction, "America Held Hostage" and a zoom in on South Carolina and the City of Charleston, along with an up-tempo music track.

During the film, we discover many pieces of information about the terrorists, their motivations, and the media's hunger to cover a story at any cost -- even asking if the presence of the media makes this sort of incident more likely to happen. But the big question is: Do the terrorists really have both the technical capacity to construct a nuclear weapon, and obtain the fissile material to arm it, or is this an elaborate hoax? If it isn't a hoax, will the government give in to blackmail or will they attempt to stop the plot with an assault team?

The Department of Energy (which is responsible for civilian control of nuclear weapons), realizing that the leader has the technical capacity to design a nuke (that was his former job) and some of his contacts had the capacity to steal nuclear material, decide to announce a limited evacuation of the City of Charleston as a precaution. Meanwhile, they set up a diversion to pretend to bring the nuclear triggers to the boat, while having an assault team take over the boat on the presumption the Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST) can override any anti-tamper mechanisms the designer might have installed if the bomb is real...

While the assault is happening, on TV no less because of the crew that is still on the boat, a nuclear expert at the network is listening on-camera to the remarks of the NEST team as they disarm the bomb, and realizes from what they are saying that the NEST team has realized they've made a mistake and armed the bomb, as the video cuts off. Subsequent events and video being recorded at the exact moment from a mile away show that there was no hoax, it was a real nuclear bomb, and it went off. The nightly news several weeks later shows the devastation of the city of Charleston, then goes on to the typical problems and strife in the rest of the world.

The movie was shot on videotape rather than film, recreating the look of a "live" TV broadcast. Faux-impromptu dialogue (hesitations, stumbles, overlaps) and technical glitches intensify the effect.

Tropes used in Special Bulletin include:
  • A Nuclear Error: Averted in that the film is quite accurate about showing the effects of a 10-kiloton nuclear groundburst at that location.
    • But played entirely straight in the entire 'bomb detonation' denouement. In real life, as soon as the NEST team had physical control of the bomb site for any period of time the problem just de-escalated from 'Will we lose the city of Charleston?' to 'Will we lose the tugboat?' Nuclear bombs don't work unless the conventional explosive elements detonate with exact symmetry, literally to the nanosecond. Regardless of the level of anti-tamper technology built into the detonator, so much as moving one of the explosive blocks marginally out of position would turn the atomic warhead into a mere 'dirty bomb', a conventional explosion that scattered plutonium dust into the atmosphere. Still nothing you'd want to be in the immediate vicinity of, but no real hazard outside that.
  • All for Nothing
  • Anyone Can Die
  • Biting the Hand Humor - A terrorist remarks, "NBC would kill its mother for this footage."
  • Dead Line News - A reporter fails to evacuate the area, thinking the time limit given by the terrorists still applies.
  • Delayed Explosion - Averted. The video showing the mushroom cloud has it going off, followed almost immediately by a blast wave.
  • Downer Ending
  • False Reassurance - Department of Energy (DOE) spokesman claims there's no danger.
  • Hey, It's That Guy! - Dr. Westphall is the senior RBS anchor.
  • It Got Worse
  • Killed Mid-Sentence - Just before the bomb detonates, reporter Steve Levitt says, "No, things seem pretty calm here right now. There's not..."
  • Oh Crap - "OH NO, LARRY, WE'RE LOSING IT NOW!"
  • Phony Newscast
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here - After the NEST technicians accidentally trip one of the anti-tamper devices built into the bomb, one of them panics and bolts from the ship, ending any chance they have of stopping it from detonating.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial - The DOE spokesman comes back later and orders an evacuation of Charleston "as a precaution" and "not because there is a real danger".
  • Viewers are Morons - Yes, there were people who thought this was real despite disclaimers when it first aired. Disclaimers ran during every break, at least on the original broadcast. Additionally, the NBC affiliate in Charleston, for obvious reasons, also superimposed the word "FICTION" during the entire broadcast. (It didn't help that the fictional "RBS" affilate's call letters were WPIV, while those of the real-life NBC affiliate were WCIV. A little close for comfort...) As for "other indications," a quick flip of the channel would have shown that no one else was covering this supposedly major news event (of such a magnitude that one would assume all networks would be breaking into regular programming).
  • We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties - Goodbye, Charleston.
  • Western Terrorists
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