When a good web goesbad

In the 1990s the Skynet Funding Bill was passed.

The Cyberdine Systems' creation went online on August 4, 1997.

Human decisions were removed from strategic defence.

Skynet began to learn at a geometric rate. It became self-aware at 2.14am eastern time, August 29.

In a panic, they tried to pull the plug ... Well, that didn't work.

It was judgement day: a nuclear strike on major continents killed three billion people and the age of the machine - and the terminator - was upon us.

Fiction?

Maybe.

Jump to modern times, and at the Quareshi Nuclear Facility in Iran, things are going awry.

The computer screens go down, then come back up, and then show some alarming red bars heading for the hot zone.

''The temperature of the reactor core,'' one Iranian technician says in alarmed Iranian (I actually don't recognise Iranian - I'm guessing that's the language they used). ''it's rising.''

''There's something wrong with the coolant systems,'' another chimes in.

''They're not responding. We're going to critical.''

Some quick work saved the day, but it was too late for poor Farid, the only schmuck willing to run into the reactor room and turn the really, really big wheel to close down something or other nuclear.

Meanwhile, at the Pentagon, men talk in concerned tones.

Then lickety-split it's off to the Pittsburgh Times where a keen young reporter decides she doesn't want to do a story on a city bylaw.

She would rather do something about the cover-up of a nuclear meltdown in Iran.

Someone texted her to say that's what happened.

In a rare moment of reality, her managing editor gives her some advice.

''I know you want to break a big story, but a power outage halfway around the world? Just file the story you were assigned.''

Reality ends at that point as the reporter (the delightfully named Canadian actor Erin Karpluk) heads off in search of her source, a nerd called Daniel (Keir Gilchrist), who lives down the road and knows a thing or two about computers.

Meanwhile, at the Vernon Springs Air Force Base, a weapons trial goes horribly wrong, and a missile spins out of control and lands in ... San Francisco!

We all know, of course, that the world wide interweb is well rotten, and Edward Snowden is reading our Facebook pages (or something like that).

So it's not a big stretch to imagine the web become sentient and trying to destroy mankind.

That's the plot of Delete, a two-part thriller on The Box starting tonight at 8.30pm.

Silly ?

Yes.

Watchable?

Well, Seth Green (Chris Griffin in Family Guy) turns up at some point with a big gun.

Whaddyawant?

Culture?

- Charles Loughrey

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