Episode 3 narration, v2: a story, not a caption track
Same voice (Andrew). Facts checked: TEM-1 was first reported in 1965 from an E. coli isolated in Athens in 1963 from a patient named Temoneira (hence TEM), on a transferable plasmid; by 1974 the same gene was in Haemophilus influenzae and by 1976 in Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The F pilus is literally called the sex pilus; conjugation is bacterial sex. Nothing below is invented.
Short (about 65 s; the film needs ~5 s more than v1, see timing notes)
| # | Time | Picture | Line |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | 0:00.5 | The enzyme in the periplasm | This enzyme has a name. TEM. After Temoneira, a patient in Athens, 1963, whose E. coli ate penicillin. |
| 02 | 0:07.5 | Camera drops; the chromosome | Where did it come from? Not from the chromosome. |
| 03 | 0:11.5 | The plasmid; the gene lights | From this. A plasmid: a spare ring of DNA with one gene on it. A passenger. |
| 04 | 0:17.5 | New enzyme forms, crosses the membrane | The gene is read, the protein is made, and it is shipped across the inner membrane to wait by the door. |
| 05 | 0:26.0 | Wide: the second cell | Now the part that should worry you. Bacteria have sex. |
| 06 | 0:30.5 | Pilus; strand crosses; ring B completes | A pilus hooks a neighbour that has no enzyme. One strand of the ring crosses. The neighbour completes it. |
| 07 | 0:39.0 | Gene lights in B; enzyme forms | It did not evolve resistance. It was handed it. In minutes. |
| 08 | 0:46.5 | Drug enters B; ring breaks | Same drug. Same door. Ring broken. |
| 09 | 0:52.0 | Wide: both cells | Within ten years of Athens, the same gene was in gonorrhoea, and in the Haemophilus that gives children meningitis. Different species. Same passenger. |
| 10 | 0:60.0 | End card | Resistance does not need a stronger cell. It needs a gene that travels. |
About 145 words. Lines 01 and 09 carry the “gossip”: a real patient, a real year, real diseases.
Landscape version (2 to 2.5 min) adds, if we go that way
- A 15 s cold open: Athens 1963, a blood culture, one plate that should have cleared and did not (text over the wide envelope; no new 3D needed).
- A beat on how fast: “a plasmid can cross in minutes; a ward can turn in a week”.
- The ending expands: “this is why a resistance gene found in one species in one country is a problem for every species in every country”, over the two cells pulling back to a wider field of cells (Array of the pair).