Medic “Flash in the Darkness” (February 14, 1955)

Medic was a doctor show created by ex-Dragnet writer James E. Moser, but nothing in its earnest provenance prepared viewers for the uncompromising bleakness of this what-if story that projected the aftermath of a nuclear strike on Los Angeles.  Dr. Konrad Styner (Richard Boone) assembles with some other medical professionals at a warehouse in the suburbs for what at first seems like a drill, but a sudden, blinding light makes it clear that the worst has happened.  They make their way back into the city as far as they can to provide first aid, but it’s mostly futile.  A boy is blinded and dying of radiation poisoning; another little girl, wailing in pain, is denied morphine because the dwindling supply must be conserved for those with a chance of survival.  Writer-director John Meredyth Lucas turns the miniscule budget to his advantage, confining the show’s perspective to that of Styner as he performs operation after operation in blood-soaked scrubs, learning of the outside world only from frantic messengers and the leaden voice of a radio announcer, who tells of multiple strikes against major cities, looting, and retaliatory attacks against “the enemy.”  The ending tries for a dubious note of hope (“It’ll be a better day tomorrow,” Styner says), but on the whole this was a rare dose of reality in the era of the duck-and-cover drill.