''Smallpox 2002: Silent Weapon'' is a

fictional Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...

docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television show, television and feature film, film, which features Drama (film and television), dramatized Historical reenactment, re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of docu ...

produced by Wall to Wall, showing how a single act of

bioterrorism Bioterrorism is terrorism involving the intentional release or dissemination of biological agents. These agents include bacteria, viruses, insects, fungi, and/or their toxins, and may be in a naturally occurring or a human-modified form, in mu ...

leads to terrifying consequences globally.

Background

The premise of it was one man who, in 2002, creates the

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by Variola virus (often called Smallpox virus), which belongs to the genus '' Orthopoxvirus''. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (W ...

virus himself, infects himself, and touches ten people in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. This eventually leads to a

pandemic A pandemic ( ) is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has a sudden increase in cases and spreads across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. Widespread endemic (epi ...

across the world that is later defeated, but not before 60 million people are killed. The film was commissioned before the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

and is presented in the form of a

fictional documentary A mockumentary (a portmanteau of ''mock'' and ''documentary'') is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events, but presented as a documentary. Mockumentaries are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues in a ...

, including false interviews and stock footage. The tagline for the movie was, "Drama, until it happens".

Reception

Newspaper reviews of the documentary were mixed, varying from "a sick stunt" to "extraordinarily good". The docudrama proved very popular with viewers, attracting 3.4m viewers, 15% of the audience, to a 9:00pm slot on

BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matter, incorporating genres such as comedy, drama and ...

according to overnight returns.Smallpox proves infectious for BBC2

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

, 6 February 2002

Notes

*The film was renamed ''Smallpox'' when it aired on FX on 2 January 2005.

References

External links

* {{IMDb title, 0320482, Smallpox 2002: Silent Weapon BBC television docudramas Films about viral outbreaks Science docudramas Fiction about smallpox