It's definitely not Rodinal; Rodinal's developing agent is
para-aminophenol (or para-aminophenol hydrochloride; the official current
Agfa [or A&O, now] Rodinal formula is unpublished, and clones can use
either). This formula uses phenidone and hydroquinone -- it's a "PQ"
developer. Rodinal contains neither of these ingredients, and other
ingredients are wrong, too.

More generally, assuming equal units (grams, say), the proportion of
phenidone to hydroquinone is very odd. Browsing through Anchell's
_Darkroom Cookbook, 2nd Edition_, I see several PQ developers, most of
which have a hydroquinone:phenidone ratio of between 10:1 and 40:1. The
above formula, assuming equal units, has a ratio of 0.98:1. The potassium
bromide level also seems awfully high, again assuming equal units. In
fact, the range of numbers (5.91 to 7.99, assuming the greatest possible
range for potassium metabisulphite) is suspiciously narrow overall. Of
course, if the units are different (grams vs. ounces, say), all bets are
off. I didn't notice any formulas in Anchell that had the exact other
ingredients listed, but I also didn't check every recipe in the book. The
lack of sodium sulfite, which is very common in B&W developers, is odd but
not conclusive proof that this formula is fictitious.

If I had to guess, I'd say that they did one of three things:

1) Found a formula in a book, used the ingredients list, but made up
  the numbers, either to avoid copyright/patent/whatever issues or
  because whoever did the research failed to copy down the numbers.

2) Looked up information on the ingredients for a developer in an MSDS
  sheet, which lacks precise quantities, so they made them up. I looked
  up the MSDS sheets for a few PQ developers but didn't find a good
  match. Of course, that doesn't mean they didn't use this approach, but
  if they did, I can't say what they used as a model.

3) Took a list of common developer ingredients from a book, made a list,
  and added some random numbers.

In any of these cases, this probably isn't a real developer, although it's
conceivable that it's based on one. If so, I don't know which one it's
based on. If they identified the substance in the show as a developer,
then they clearly did SOME research on the topic, as opposed to the
approach commonly seen on Star Trek, where they just pull something out
from where the sun don't shine. ;-)

Not Rodinal. Rodinal would have shown paraminophenolate, sodium and/or
potassium, sulfite and hydroxide ions. The residue of any developer
would not likely show the exact compounds that went into it. You
probably cannot get the metabisulfite back after it has been dissolved
in water and evaporated. Oxidation would have changed things, too. If I
had seen that episode, I would probably still be laughing. I don't know
many developers that would leave a white powder residue. Now, if it had
never been dissolved, maybe.

 Definitely NOT Rodinal. I suspect its just made up. It has
aspects of a very high contrast (lithographic) developer
with the hydroxide and large amount of bromide, but the
ratio of Phenidone to Hydroquinone is wrong. Metabilulfite
can be used with Hydroxide to produce Sulfite in solution,
so that part is OK.
 So, what did they use to analyse it? A gas chromatograph
maybe. There was a recent news story that watching CSI is
teaching criminals how to leave fewer clues.

Nonsense. Completely made up. No film developer I know of(and I know
most of them)  used both carbonate and hydroxide.

==
        John - Photographer & Webmaster
     www.puresilver.org - www.xs750.net