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Celtican In The UK Calls Part One Of BBC’s New DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS Miniseries ‘Exciting’!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
I am – Hercules!!
While American TV remains deader than Elvis for the holidays, the BBC continues to give the United Kingdom reasons to huddle around their flatscreens.
One of those reasons is the first digital-era “Day of the Triffids” miniseries, which apparently just launched.
“Celtican in the UK” says the killer-flora thriller is off to a swell start:
If any novel was rife for a 21st Century adaptation it was John Wyndham's celebrated 'The Day of the Triffids' and fortunately the BBC in their wisdom have given hour 3 hours of airtime to tell the story.
In this new and exciting 2009 version there are some major changes (as is to be expected) but most of the characters from the novel are featured in some capacity such as Masen, Playton, Coker, Durrant and Beadley with a nasty new character called Torrence played by Eddie Izzard. The premise remains the same, Triffids are grown and cultivated (for fuel in this version), a celestial lightshow blinds most of the world (even the half not facing the sun for some reason) and a small group of sighted survivors struggle to maintain order and fend off the horticultural nasties.
The cast is excellent boasting the likes of Dougray Scott, Joely Richardson, Eddie Izzard, Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Cox, Ewen Bremner and Jason Priestley (yes THAT Jason Priestley). The CGI effects are spectacular even making even the Triffids look believable. Of course there was the Howard Keel movie version followed by the 1970's BBC version starring John Duttine but the previous attempts suffered from the poor realisation of the Triffids.
Overall the first half offers a better than expected 90 minutes which does suffer from some stretches of believability, in particular is how Izzard's character survives a plane crash using an airplane bathroom and some inflated life jackets. The pacing is good with just enough menace and excitement to keep you interested.
No doubt some viewers unfamiliar with the source material may call this a '28 Days Later rip off with plants' based on Masen's time in the hospital (which is where Wyndham's novel begins) but the source material is one of the landmark sci-fi novels of the 20th century and with the advances in genetics and the threat of global warming has never been more relevant.
Part one was shown this evening on BBC One which can be watched on BBC iPlayer if you're in the UK but no word as to when it will be shown abroad. The concluding part is on BBC One at 9pm tomorrow.
We can confirm that we don’t yet know when the new “Triffids” will air in the states, or on which channel.
Other clips we posted a week ago:
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109 Blu Titles Under $10!!
Cousin? Business Is A-Boomin' Now!!
In this new and exciting 2009 version there are some major changes (as is to be expected) but most of the characters from the novel are featured in some capacity such as Masen, Playton, Coker, Durrant and Beadley with a nasty new character called Torrence played by Eddie Izzard. The premise remains the same, Triffids are grown and cultivated (for fuel in this version), a celestial lightshow blinds most of the world (even the half not facing the sun for some reason) and a small group of sighted survivors struggle to maintain order and fend off the horticultural nasties.
The cast is excellent boasting the likes of Dougray Scott, Joely Richardson, Eddie Izzard, Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Cox, Ewen Bremner and Jason Priestley (yes THAT Jason Priestley). The CGI effects are spectacular even making even the Triffids look believable. Of course there was the Howard Keel movie version followed by the 1970's BBC version starring John Duttine but the previous attempts suffered from the poor realisation of the Triffids.
Overall the first half offers a better than expected 90 minutes which does suffer from some stretches of believability, in particular is how Izzard's character survives a plane crash using an airplane bathroom and some inflated life jackets. The pacing is good with just enough menace and excitement to keep you interested.
No doubt some viewers unfamiliar with the source material may call this a '28 Days Later rip off with plants' based on Masen's time in the hospital (which is where Wyndham's novel begins) but the source material is one of the landmark sci-fi novels of the 20th century and with the advances in genetics and the threat of global warming has never been more relevant.
Part one was shown this evening on BBC One which can be watched on BBC iPlayer if you're in the UK but no word as to when it will be shown abroad. The concluding part is on BBC One at 9pm tomorrow.
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I really want to see this.
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Boy I finally get first and I screw it up. I suck.
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the radio personality emerges from moorgate tube station, home of the underground's worst crash in 1975. ponder this: if she was up in the millemium wheel, why didn't she emerge from the embankment station which is just yards from the wheel. moorgate is several blocks away and to get to it you need to get on at embankment and then transfer at euston square. silly bbc look at a tube map next time.
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I really hope Marky Mark gets a cameo in this. His work and challenging choice of creating his own dialect was underappreciated in the Happening.
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The Duttine version is superior in every way bar effects. This has some embarrassing dialogue and acting (like current Dr Who) and every time I see Izzard all I can think is 'oh look, Eddie Izzard. When will he start going off on an odd tangent' but no - he's just playing a cartoon villain. Still, I hated it less than I hated '28 Overrated Days Later'.
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I was shocked at both the production values and the fair pacing of what typically is a slow story.
Joely Richardson is very good, but MAN she looks like every other member of her family. -
If other people like something and you don't, or vice-versa, that just means other people like something and you don't. It does not make something "overrated" because every person rates to their own tastes.
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Sandra Bullock rocked in that. Didn't expect the sequel to go the zombie route, but whatever.
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28 Days sucked because I kept waiting fo rher to fight the Infected and it never happened. Anyone who hates on 28 Days Later I find to be overrated and tripe.
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when it was really the 80's? know your original airdates people!
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I'd pay more taxes to see happen it for real
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Even though it was made in the 80s, the budget, effects and general tackiness make it ostensibly a 70s show to young eyes. It's like the current Dr Who, even though it was made and aired in the 00's, years from now it's hackneyed storylines and shoddy CGI will belong with late 90s series (like Voyager) rather than with 00's shows.
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"moorgate is several blocks away and to get to it you need to get on at embankment and then transfer at euston square"
Oooo, so close, but FAIL. If you mean you take the northern line then you can't change at 'Euston Square', which is not even on the Northern Line - you change at 'Euston' - however I would personally take the Circle or Distrct to Bank and take the Northern there to Moorgate, but there is the walk between lines at bank so maybe it is best to go Northern line and change at Euston. -
I'm calling it.
(Ok, so the dump I took this morning was also better than The Happening, but whatever. ) -
http://bit.ly/8mH5yT - thanks to the official BBC Worldwide YouTube channel - all 6 eps. There's also a fair sample of other BBC output - loads of the Atttenborough nature documentaries, plus several complete DOCTOR WHO serials and the recent live remake of THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT.
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Didn't realize that was Priestley until the credits at the end. He really disappears in the role. Thank goodness for the BBC this week. Dead air on US TV. Less than 2 weeks now for the second series of post-disaster "Survivors". The first was a tiny bit hit and miss, but was really better than I expected and ended on a cliffhanger. Happy to see it got a second series. I was afraid it would not.
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It suffered a bit from having the original story ripped off by all and sundry, so the scenes of deserted London didn't have that much impact. The continual referencing of London landmarks (Westminster Bridge, Houses of Parliament etc) gave it the feel of being made with more than an eye on overseas sales (it's a UK/Canada co-production apparently). Some of the plot didn't make sense (how exactly does the solar flare blind everyone on the planet at the same time seeing as the Earth is, you know, a rotating sphere?) and tho lots of cash had been spent on a solid cast (Dougray Scott, Joely Richardson, Izzard, Brian Cox and all) there were some annoyingly penny-pinching aspects to the production, like re-use of the same prop vehicles in different locations. The triffids themselves were OK, but they've been held offscreen for the bult of the ep - presumably the second ep will give us full-on man vs plant action. Here's hoping that they don't resort to a salt water solution (!) like they did in the shonky movie version...
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it has the same look and flair as any other 80's show of the same year. i don't give a flying fig what people want to associate it with.
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... thought it was superb. Well paced, dark gritty, the Izard surviving-the-plane-crash thing aside, it was credible. Particularly liked the fact that they get the Triffids out of sight for the most of it - the old trick of not showing the monster so its scarier as its left to the imagination. I only saw the 1st episode of Torchwood; Children of Earth but it was a hell of a lot better than that. I imagine all the people who saw that & thought Paranormal Activity was scary are still lying under their sofas dribbling & shaking. They've actually discovered something scarier than a door slamming & a few downstairs banging noises.
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saw 'Triffids'
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Spoiler!
Enjoyed it, Mason was a cold fish in the novel, and Dougray seemed to nail that (by accident or design?)
One thing that really stood out was the effect of the triffid flower looking like a cloaked head (sans head!). Very creepy and effective, like the wraiths in LOTR. One thing that bothered me is the 'deserted London' shots. Surely the streets would have been packed with hungry panicking blind people hunting for help or food.
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but then got shitter as it progressed. Joely Richardson's acting had me in stitches it was so bad. And I missed the classic and iconic 'Clack' sound from the 80's version. That sound scared the shit out of me as a kid. I also found it amusing how London landmarks were destroyed because the world went blind... and also that the few sighted became puppets and were willing to let Eddie Izzard waltz off the street and start leading them... And bloke takes characters off to kill them, characters escape with keys to truck, then Bloke holds them at gun point and ASKS for the fucking keys! Why didn't he just shoot them and take the keys?? He was going to kill them anyway? Also that old blue ford escort got about.. it was abandoned in several scenes. Eddie Izzards survival of the plane crash... fucks sake. Laughable shit.
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It's very different from the book. The basic plot bit are there, but assembled differently. In the book there is no overriding force to the plot other than survival. Mason and Jo, try to survive, some stuff happens, and they try to survive some more. This has a very clear Baddie, a goal beyond survival (with Mason scurrying off to see his Daddy in the hope of finding a solution) and stuff. Some bits happened a bit fast (how is it than in less than 24 hours both Coaker and Torrance acquired loyal coeteries of supporters?), but overall, it's good enough. Compare, for example, BBC new production of the Hound of the Baskervilles a few years back, which was embarrassingly awful, then it's definitely an improvement.
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I liked the way the Triffids looked like peanuses with purple heads.
My theory is that the real reason everyone went blind is that the whole world was having a simultaneous masturbate & went blind as a consequence. In the case of the men, they were so rigorous that their cocks fell off & turned into giant monsters which killed people. Perhaps the whole thing is about rampant male sexuality?
PS - TinSpider - the reason why the character you're referring to didn't act in a logical manner is because he is a human being & as such has a tendancy to let his emotions get in the way of him acting in a rational manner - especially in intense situations. The only destroyed London landmark that I noticed was Big Ben. Although granted, we could have done with a shot of a nearby crashed helicopter, for example, to explain how it could have happened. -
I have fond memories of the 1981 BBC version, although i was a kid at the time and have no idea if or how well it has stood the test of time. It's also been decades since I read the book so i'm in no position to say how faithful it is.
But the 2009 Day of the Triffids plays like a well cast SyFy channel makeover rather than a BBC classic. The cast is excellent, the production slick and the special effects passable.
But the script and direction? I'm sorry to say it's mostly crud. I don't have a problem with the updating (triffids are now being bred by giant corporations to produce triffoil, that "saved the world from global warming; it's a solar flare that blinds everyone, not a meteor shower, etc).
I also thought the whole solar flare and ensuing blindness and mass hysteria were handled well: intercutting to build tension, etc, even if Eddie Izzard's plan to escape a plane crash owed more to Temple of Doom than realism.
after that, though, it devolves into a series of cliches and dumb decisions. for example: Dougray Scott's character goes to extraordinary lengths to save his colleague from being blinded by a triffid in the opening scenes, by giving up his own safety glasses and almost being blinded as a result. Later on, he returns to the triffid farm to find they've all escaped. Does he stock up on safety glasses? You'd have thought it would be step 1 in fighting monster plants that try to blind you, but apparently all that safety glasses thing was too much plot consistency. And so it goes.
the action and menace are done okay but the drama in-between falls flat: Dougray Scott and the hot Richardson do okay but only Eddie Izzard seems to be enjoying himself playing a slimeball. It could have been a smart remake, but instead it's like watching Holby City meets 28 Days Later: entertaining, but only if your sole alternative source of entertainment was fucking ITV.
at this point, only the prospect of Brian Cox showing in Part 2 might make me follow the thing through to its conclusion tomorrow night. it's watchable, but only if you find your entertainment in watching stupidity. -
Quick correction for the review - Torrance isn't a new character. He does appear in the book, but not as heavily as in this version. He isn't named until the final act.
Also, I disagree with the reviewer, other than changing the Cold War theme of the book to global warmning, the first part follows the key events book quite closely. Based on the trailer, it doesn't look like the second half will. I will be interested to see how they end it too - happy ending like the 60s movie or an unresolved, open ending like the book.
I enjoyed it. As pointed out by Psychonaut, some of the BBCs big Christmas adaptations have been pretty poor, although the example I'll use is the 39 Steps from last year which somehow managed to leech any tension and excitement from the story.
The Triffids looked good and while I am sure part of the reason for not seeing them directly for at least was budgetary, it worked in the way that less is more. When we do finally see them, they look solid and real enough - much better than the CGI in Who and Merlin.
I was worried about the casting of Jason Priestley (not-so-fondly recalling the casting of Fred Ward in Invasion: Earth), but he really suits the role he plays. Eddie Izzard's character is great fun and oozes creepiness.
After the nonsense that was Doctor Who, I am glad the BBC gave us something genre decent to watch. -
It was fucking terrible. day of the triffids? day of the cliche more like.
scenes directly lifted from many many other movies.
complete and utter shit. -
I cant believe this steaming pile of shit is getting a positive response. The script was shit, the triffids look shit, Eddie Izzard was really shit, he really cant act and should salvage any credibility by never acting again. dougary scott? who the fuck is that, pointless character that was really badly written and acted. ridiculous story, unintentionally funny, zombie like blind people anyone? and what the fuck was wrong with that old woman? just bollocks.
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Eddie Izzard is chewing up scenery and the plants seemed comical at first, until the warehouse scene. It got pretty Horror very quickly then. Can't wait for the second part.
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people being cuffed to the blind etc. It was nice that moral questions were raised along with the 'bigger picture' of mother nature getting revenge.
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Personally, I would have taken the Waterloo and City to Bank, then Northern Line to Moorgate.
Lots of filming happens in the City at the weekend (particularly nobby car ads) because there are impressive buildings and pretty much no people about.
So I declare Mornington Crescent, and therefore win. -
Dec 29, 2009 6:54:28 AM CST
mikeyone lifted from which movies exactly?
by chronicallydepressedlemming
Bearing in mind how old this story is, you better think about that.
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The novel was written in 1951. It's pretty much single-handedly responsible for the deserted city trope of so much SF/horror and has been borrowed from ever since. I AM LEGEND (novel and movie versions), Romero's zombie flicks, ...28 DAYS LATER, NIGHT OF THE COMET, VANILLA SKY and so on - they all borrow from TRIFFIDS. It really is that simple. That being said, we've seen this kind of imagery done over and over in the last few years, and this new production brings little new (so far) in those terms.
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Which rules are you using?
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I prefer the Tudor rules, myself.
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Using a combination of Abramovich Imperial Rules and Down Street Supplementary Rules
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Jesus, the only thing more annoying that people quoting Monty Python sketches ad nauseam is wannabe intellectuals 'playing' Mornington Crescent. CLAP. CLAP. CLAP.
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Someone didn't get what they wanted for Christmas, I see (such as a half-way decent version of Day of the Triffids.
cough-cough-Mor-cough-nington-cough-Cr-cough-escent.
Hmm, tickly cough. -
Funniest thing I have seen all Xmas, Triffids was dire TV, creaky, clichéd and most unforgivable unexciting, plus what's up with BBC extras all acting the same, in all there shows the background people all do the same thing, how unrealistic is that? it's like watching children's film foundation shows from the 1970's, oh and Izzard stunk the place up too.
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to the iplayer!
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Remember when he was cast in 24? Then booted off for being shit!
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Dec 29, 2009 9:05:03 AM CST
" a celestial lightshow blinds most of the world (even the half
by real deal
Now wasn't it the light from the burning meteors that blinded people? At least it was in the old version.
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those headaches you're experiencing are called 'thoughts'. They'll pass, I'm sure.
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Because I will be watching this. Looks really, really enjoyable.
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He just went home
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For some reason Monday night was a cracking night of TV which I've got to plough through. And we've got the new series of Being Human coming up on the 10th Jan to look forward to. Geeky good times on Brit TV at the moment.
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Can't understand the whining from uncultured blebs. This is another great British sci-fi classic that shaped everything that followed and the BBC have done a pretty good job of delivering this adaption. It makes an excellent meaty Christmas filler sadwiched between the Doctor Who two-parter... ...and it's really a lot better than what those turkey-necked blebs have been posting on here today.
I'm really looking forward to tonight's conclusion. The BBC have done something right at last! -
Dec 29, 2009 12:03:24 PM CST
"the threat of global warming has never been more relevant"
by immortal_fish
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...in an AICN talkback? Good work gentlemen! Only seen the first 20 mins of Triffids, will catch up tonight. Looked OK to me. I love that the BBC is delivering stuff like this.
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Broadcast this baby. You know it'll do well in the ratings, and it's not another episode of Top Gear.
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I loved that Being Human managed to produce a high level of pathos from a completely ridiculous premise. The main characters were great and portrayed wonderfully but the show's pace was dreadfully slow. I realize that the creators were given only a handful of lint and pocket change to make it but MISFITS just finished its first series, and for me, it kicked Being Human's ass. Everything I loved about Human was improved in Misfits. Action-packed, fucking hilarious sense of humor, realistic character development and momentum. Misfits didn't have much money either but it moved at a good clip and never got boring. Being Human is a story about monsters and yet the supernatural angle took a frequent backseat to soap opera level melodrama. That's forgivable if it's broken up with some crackerjack action but that never happened. You never even got a proper transformation scene for George. He's a fucking werewolf and Scooby Doo is walking around with a bigger set of balls because at least a Scooby Snack could rouse that mutt to action. George is too busy crying to do anything.
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(and I don't mean sexual)I would've turned this turd off after about 20 minutes! The acting was shit & the dialogue terrible...there was just so many things wrong...the copper that gets trigger happy just because he's blind...the way Jo & Bill go on the radio and immediately start talking about how the triffids are a threat without actually telling people how they came to be a threat in the first place, it's just "yeah, like triffids are gonna eat you!" If you heard that on the radio you'd think it was some shitty radio 4 play for the day thing, not a warning that bio-engineered killer plants were coming to fucking eat you! How the fuck did the 8ft tall triffids get in that warehouse? Why leave a lone blind guy on 'watch'? I could go on but I'd be here for days. Still, I'm going to suffer through it tonight just so that I can find out what Izzard's story is. If they pull some "he's just a cunt for the hell of it" shit I shan't be chuffed!
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At january 4. starts season 6 of the best con series ever
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More genre TV on one channel in the UK in one week than most US networks screen over a season!
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I enjoyed last nights episode, warts and all. Acting was OK, dialogue was passable. Shockingly the highlight for me was Jason Priestley as Coker.Not much triffid action to speak of though, at least not that I can remember. Aside from the opening, the warehouse and the clifhanger, the Triffids weren't doing very much, beyond looming around motorways and railway stations.
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Sheesh this is why I will never submit a review to this site cause of the pedantic misanthropes who seem to frequent it. Get a grip people, why don't you send in your own reviews or are you too scared it will be picked to shreds? I didn't enjoy the show personally and will only be watching tonight for Cox and Redgrave in the hope they will save it.
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If you know London's financial district you'd know why they use Moorgate to film at, it's the same reason why they filmed part of Hitch-Hiker's movie there because it's off the main road and can be closed down without major disruption.
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This is directed as though it's made by a bunch of film school students, every second shot is some weird angle or strange pan. Add to that the writing is dreadful. The actors aren't actually bad, but they struggle to deliver the dialogue once again written by infants. It's the same as Doctor Who, but then a bunch of you cretins seem to like that.
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Watching the second part tonight. It has the same problems that Who has, such as badly-used music cues, overly-melodramatic acting, dodgy CGI and poor pacing, but it's easy to watch and contains interesting ideas. Dougray Scott is so wooden, though, and it's hard to tell if Izzard is acting badly or being genuinely sinister. He's almost too ambiguous a prescence. Still, one has to commend BBC in making the effort. What Triffids really needs is a movie, with a big budget. In this show, they talk about it as a global attack, but we only see bits of London.
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It wasn't very good really
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Having finished watching the second part, I have to say I loved it.
Great actors, great effects and far better than the shitpile that was the Dr.Who "End Of Time" Xmas episode. -
Let's see if Davies can redeem himself with ep 2 of WHO. IN the meantime, proper old-style spookiness in THE TURN OF THE SCREW tomorrow, kids!
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glad I'm not the only one who didn't enjoy the End of Time. I felt so left out as the folks over at the DW forums are creaming their pants over it LOL
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to people who had watched the rest of the episode.Didn't to mwYeah, got the salt water thing, but... Suppressed memories of inoculation via tribal masks?
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Yup - all the latest on the new series plus all the other adaptations over at the official site http://www.dayofthetriffids.co.uk/
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utter fucking gash.
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Plants just looked silly.
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The timeline confused me, it didn't seem to give a clear indication as to the passage of time, and how long since the Triffids escaped/the light show.BTW maybe I missed it, I know there were many Triffid factories all around the world, but how did they ALL escape? Spud set the Kingston lot free, how did the others get free? Loss of power? Hmmm.
And how long was it before they spored? Days? Weeks? I got the impression it was over a few days, two weeks tops. Was this ever explained? Because it would take a pretty long time for a religious community to turn to human sacrifice, and for orphans to refer to their apparently adopted parents as mum and dad.That ending was just plain bizarre. Put the poison in your eyes and then you can walk right past them. On what level does that make any sense? I can suspend disbelief when it comes to global blinding and killer plants but that's just too far! -
Like how come it was snowing at the abbey but in London it was all open windows and curtains blowing merrily in the breeze?
I mean by that point there would be a horrible smell of sewage/dead people anyway, I wouldn't be leaving windows open even if I didn't have sensitive info lying about in drawers.
Anyway I enjoyed it even if it was silly and the cops had guns and there was no swearing cos we're trying to sell it overseas, and even if I did expect Eddie Izzard to start talking about jam or cats and doing a bad James Mason accent -
The only changes are minor with the exception of Izzards character (who's a great addition) and the rest of it so far is pretty damn faithful to the amazing book. Was not expecting much from this, but am overjoyed at how surprised I am. This is the definative Triffid's adaption. Roll on the DVD release. And the new triffids design is brilliant.
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You can't have a month or even a week long timeline.
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What hole did that guy crawl out of?
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*crickets* -
Triffids with tentacles? Are you fucking kidding me?
Also why make Torrence such a major character? -
That was their mistake then, they should have just sat down, had a nice cup of tea, and waited for the whole thing to blow over.
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there's no way you can make a serious film/series about walking killer plants. Still, it's well made and ten times better than the home grown movies you see on SyFy and the like.
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the script was all over the place, the acting was very poor, except for eddie playing the creepy guy, but even his story is ridiculous. he went from plane crash to prime minister in a day. if you watch the 80's series, it seems much more frightening. it moves from a holocaust, survivor loneliness, to a semi-zombie type movie, to an invasion movie, to the survivors. this new one the triffids almost seem like referee's here to take out assholes, while the humans fight it out over control. in the 80's version, the hospital scene at the beginning had HUGE weight to it, now it's blown over in five minutes. the triffids feel more like a frankenplant gone wrong, then an alien entity. who knew they were wacky tree ninja hoodie bitches? apparently going blind wiped out 5 million people because it seemed like there's only a few dozen people left, and that's not even into day 1. the people who make TV programs need to STOP watching the dark knight, and tryin to make every damn show a mega movie (you will see a lot of scenes screaming for christian bale to plop down and kick a ficus). TV allows you to flesh out a character and have long plot elements realized. do that. the elements of the 80's version worked up until the slow thudded ending. remake the good part the same way, and add your own big crazy ending, don't ditch the things that worked right. chaining a sighted person to ONE blind guy makes NO sense. that blind guy will only slow down the work (which they didn't even do know, it's like a mist ripoff at the supermarket) they needed to be cuffed to at least five people. ugh.
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... was perhaps not quite as exciting as the 2nd half but still really enjoyed it. Liked the way the ending payed tribute to the end of The Birds in a very effective manner. I perhaps would have liked a bigger showdown against The Triffids. Performances still all very good. Thought the CGI was a much higher standard than that in Doctor Who.
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I'm sorry to say Day of the Triffids while better looking and better acted than the old 70s series I watched as a kid, still came off pretty hammy to me. I'm a massive fan of the BBC. I think we make some of the best comedy (and rather embarrassingly soap operas), but when it comes to clever sci-fi or anything remotedly off-worldly we fail, dismally. Although it's clearly bigger budgetted and scripted than say Dr Who, it still can't compare to your average episode from a lot of US programmes with a similar topic. Speaking of Dr Who... I always thought it needed the slick style, smart script and inventiveness of the X-Files. Instead we get a silly soap opera for kids (and that's being kind). For me Day of the Triffids needs to treated to the smart kind writing and characterisation of a series like Dexter, or just give up and make a movie out of it. There's plenty of British directors and a few English actors who along with a token American could make a profitable movie from this concept. Unfortunately what we got was typical made for TV, dry, uncharismatic, dull, amateur, forgettable rubbish. Still, it beats watching a few hours of Eastenders, Emmerdale, Coronation Street, X-factor, I'm a Celebrity... seriously TV's hit an all time low hasn't it?
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Not a bad effort at all and I have to say it was far better Than that Doctor who episode that was shown on Christmas day.
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I agree mate!
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Just so you know, the 2000 drama "28 Days" starring Sandra Bullock has absolutely nothing to do with the horror film "28 Days Later" directed by Danny Boyle. The titles are merely coincidental.
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...always go for the eyes? When they are clearly the safest part of the body to get stung? Of course, if you get stung NEAR the eyes, like Bill at the beginning, you may go blind... or get killed... maybe. Triffids '09 was a bit silly.
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is the news that New zealand has bestowed its highest honor on peter jackson. he is now Sir peter jackson.
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The little girl from Little Miss Sunshine didn't grow up to try to save the Earth from the sun exploding in Sunshine?
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I can think of better John Wyndham stories to (re)do but this will do, I guess - can't suck worse than the previous version, can it?
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As Triffids only go for eyes and face, why don't the sighted survivors just go around with motorcycle crash helmets on? And in case those roots try and grab them... carry portable blow torches! I love the way everyone seems intent on shooting them regardless of it's complete lack of effect... maybe the plants are actually more intelligent than the survivors. Or maybe a plant is more intelligent than the writers.
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Episode 1 was so slow that skipping bits on the BBC's streming service was the only way to get through it. Played the second part on my PC while doing other stuff. The episode was paced better but both the set pieces and ending were laughable.
The plucky band of sighted humans was also too like the BBC's own Survivors mini series from last year. Overall - 5/10. -
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The reason the solar flare blinded everyone was due to the amount of Triffid oil that had been pumped into the atmosphere. Notice how at the end of the flare, the sky basically burns. This is due to the switch from fossil fuel to triffoil. That had to have been pretty obvious to those that had a brain. Also the mask bit - - if you were pay close attention you would see that where the Triffids originally came from they were basically worshiped by tribes people. Of course these people would have some way of subjugation of the Triffids. Putting the toxin in your eyes would probably make the other triffids think that you have either - A. Already been stung and are property of another Triffid. or B. Given off the pheromones that you were not a threat. Either way I found it to be an alright showing, Wish they hadn't gotten rid of Jason Priestly at the start of the second episode though.
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Luckily, it didn't stray too far from the book, as so many adaptions do.
When the source material is so good, as Wyndam's is, you'd be crazy to veer away on some watered down barely recognizable trash - War of the Worlds. Shame on you Mr Spielberg, H.G was no doubt spinning in his grave over that rushed out piece of trivial cinema.
This was at least mostly faithful, with some sound topical updates, global warming, bio engineered plants etc.
The CG was great for the triffids, less so for the environments.
I thought it wasn't as apocalyptic as the book felt. The BBC's series Survivors handled that fight for survival in a collapsed civilization rather better than this did.
Triffids is a good effort, better than previous adaptions, though it would have been better as a mini series with more time to explore the story.
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....peppered with some of the usual badly thought-out moments that don't make much senseOverall, it made for an entertaining enough watch, if only for Izzard's hammy 'Torrence' performance....The effects for the actual Triffids were pretty good, but I can't say the same for the way Izzard's trousers were cartoonishly shredded into shorts almost, while his legs were relatively unscathed. This really blew his 'lucky' plane crash survival into nuke the fridge territory for me....Still, a watchable 2-parter for sure.
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Just like the revived 70's show "survivors" , it was utter shite....
I remember someone once referring to the book as a "Cosy Catastrophe" , and I agree.
I was scared shitless by the early 80's Triffid show , but I was seven years old at the time .
Everything the BBC does is shit . This isn't the 1980's.... This is no "Edge of Darkness"....This waiste of OUR money is not "Threads".....
I can hear the production team now , huddled in BBC center , mutually masturbating each other ...
Producer:"Yeah guy's we got Eddie Izzard"...
Director:"Fucking A man *cokesnort*...Lets throw in a couple of Redgraves ,and that twat from train spotting ...coool maaaaan"....
The acting was abysmal , as usual the triffids were hilarious , and the only black people were henchmen .
When the BBC is ran by people with passion ,who give a shit about what they do (as apposed to a bunch of Oxford/Cambridge toffee nosed twats) , we might actually get something worthwhile ....
When you agree with the opinions of Brian Sewell , in relation to the corporation , you know the BBC is fucked....
Come rape the BBC Rupert Murdoch , she has her legs spread for you.....
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