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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