The Day of the Triffids

Over the Christmas, the BBC showed a new two-part adaptation of John Wyndham’s classic, The Day of the Triffids. With a star-studded cast that included Dougray Scott, Joely Richardson, Eddie Izzard, Brian Cox, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Priestley, Shane Taylor and Ewen Bremner, coupled with some great CGI effects, it looked like it would more than compensate for the disappointment of Doctor Who. It almost did.

The well-known story of the carnivorous walking plants was given a 21st century makeover, with the plants now offering a solution to the world’s oil crisis after being discovered in the jungle and raised under very strict, industrial conditions, where the dangers of the plant’s sting is well known. When activists free the Triffids, which happens to coincide with a solar flare, the more familiar storyline of a handful of sighted people trying to survive kicks off. In this new version Josella is a broadcast journalist rather than a writer, and it’s not too clear how she was the only survivor of an accident on the Tube, or why weren’t there more Underground commuters spared blindness? This is one of the downsides of the show; unexplained coincidences used for convenient plotting of the story. Despite the top cast, they are rather let down by the script. Eddie Izzard is great as the self-centered, self-declared leader who actually gets some of the best lines, but apart from that it is much of a muchness. It certainly confirms my view that anyone who wants to be a leader is not the right person for the job.

Overall it is a bit of a by-the-numbers PA sci-fi movie, let down by a contrived ending involving black magic that has nothing to do with the original story.

On one hand it is great that the BBC has tried to create a quality movie from a great British sci-fi classic, on the other hand, it would be great if they would invest in new writers with fresh ideas. There are plenty of authors in Britain writing amazing stories (just look at the Clark Awards) that are ripe for TV adaptation because they are unlikely to made into cinema releases. After the success of AVATAR, it is clear that audiences have an appetite for new, original sci-fi stories (without getting into a debate about the originality of AVATAR’s story).

THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS is out now on DVD from Showbox Home Entertainment, and will be released on Blu-ray on 22 February. It is available from Play and all good retailers.

We have three DVD copies of THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS to give away, courtesy of Showbox. Click on the link below to enter the competition, which closes on 28 February 2010.