+1

I've only read the first one, are the later ones any good?

Not read any of the sequels, so I can’t comment.

I would suggest that photographing girlies on icy roads isn't a good move... get them into a nice warm studio. It's a lot more comfortable

Mmmm... chips







Sorry JV

Well I had a hard time trying to guess how much time was passing through the show, and was even more confused by plot/time reversal compared to the book, and then to top it all off a scene switch from Winter to Autumn. Bad continuity or 9 months passing.

I did like the Triffids though.

I didn’t like it. It was a genuinely poor, shoddy effort. Turns out that it’s a transatlantic effort, and that the writer is responsible for lightweight ITV puffery and some USA wheeze. I guess we know who it’s aimed at, and it ain’t us.

The whole thing may have looked big and glorious, but the book (and the previous BBC adaptation) was far more close up and personal. There are some seriously fundamental changes to how the Triffids got to population centres, which make no sense whatsoever in this adaptation. You will remember from your reading of the original text that just about every garden had a triffid growing in it. The plant was a novelty item, and as long as you had the stick docked every so often, you were safe. Bill Masen was stung by one as a child, and as the sting was undeveloped, he was safe. He was stung again in the triffid farm, but the sting was depleted, so again he survived (and missed the meteor storm as a result). The placement of the triffids in the book is key to the story, and the theme. As soon as the population was blinded by the meteors, the plants were left to their own devices. They were already in population centres, and so could feed easily. This is missed by the new adaptation - and meant that the plants had to become much more mobile, and much faster. The result was that it was horribly unbelievable.

We have to also remember that the Eddie Izzard character was not in the book. Cocker was more of a slime ball running slave gangs than he was in this new version, and Bill and Jo didn’t meet so quickly. Oh - Bill’s father wasn’t alive in the book either. We also missed the whole forced breeding programme and other illustrations of how society could fall.

Add to the lack of claustrophobia that the book and the 1981 series conveyed so well, you get something that misses the target with such precision that you have to think that it was planned to be so poor. I’ll assert that the definitive TV adaptation is still the 1981 series, where John Duttine manages to play the reluctant hero Masen very well. There is genuine peril, you get a genuine sense that society is collapsing without massive CGI plates and it feels much more realistic as a result.

I feel that this was an opportunity that has been sorely squandered. I wanted this to be good, but the lack of publicity by the BBC bothered me. Now I know why. It just wasn’t that good, and Auntie knew.

I’m off to find my copy of the book.

Pretty fair appraisal Mr. Zolo.

+1

+1

All I know of the Triffids is the 60's film, which I remember enjoying (although it was a long time ago when I saw it). The new adaptation thus doesn't offend me much, I am enjoying it.

Having said that though on Paul's advice I have now ordered a copy of the book.