BBC relives The Day of The Triffids The BBC is poised to start filming on a new adapation of John Wyndham's The Day of The Triffids, due to hit screens in a high-definition two-parter some time next year. Quite how ER screenwriter Patrick Harbinson will inject new life into the classic tale of horticultural apocalypse remains to be seen, since the Beeb has …
What is it with the Beeb constantly revisiting past glories?
I like Day of the Triffids as much as the next man, but this is ridiculous, it was perfectly well in the eighties.
Couldn't they do their hatchet work on some more high brow sci-fi anyway? Brave New World would make a good two parter.
I swear it's just another corporate twatdangle, so they can go on about how wonderful past triffid displays were.
(BTW, Firefox has "triffid" in its spell checker, but not "Firefox". How odd is that?)
Banks anyone? Ken Mcleod? Or especially Peter F. Hamilton?
Oops... Sorry...
They touch on some topics that may insult our Stalinist government so the supposedly independent "Auntie Beeb" should avoid them the way Lucifer avoids holy water. After all it is much easier to film again and again a silly and aged apocalyptic story which has no social message in it. And sprinkle some Daleks on top of that from time to time...
Dunno about everyone else but the speed at which this country is approaching a likelihood of what is described in Hamilton's Greg Mandel trilogy is scary.
By the way - to reg staff. We desperately need an icon of Antonio Bliar with horns (no need for the "angel" version). Can you add it please.
The BBC has only made one TV version, I think, the early 80s one with John Duttine. The BBC press release copied information word for word from the relevant Wikipedia page, so far as I can see, but whoever did this didn't quite understand what the page meant. The BBC has indeed made several radio versions; the Giles Cooper one from the 1960s is still worth listening to.
More to the point perhaps is that the current remake of "Survivors" is a second try at a show which was very largely stolen from "The Day of the Triffids". It's a bit puzzling, commissioning these in consecutive years.
The Triffids will be made by evil white male scientists. Probably to combat GW and or provide biofuel to evil British corporations. Science will go horribly wrong as usual and big veg will eat the population and an innocent dog.
The day will be saved by heroic band of ethnic minorities, a couple of disaffected yoofs, the odd lesbian, Muslim or very camp gay man (who may be white due to his minority sexuality).
They will battle through hoards of white male militia type gangs to save the world by pollinating organic carrots using wild rabbits and a small orphaned child (who must be an ethnic minority).
The action will take place in London so that the producers won't have to venture too far into barbarian lands or miss a latté from their favourite coffee shop. Some of the actors may be permitted to have an accent nor from the SE.
The plot will be quite simple not using any real science if possible so as not to upset the uneducated benefit clients who could not attend school due to no fault of their own.
A remorseless, inhuman killing machine that can only be stopped by ...
... a pair of garden shears.
Works well as a book or on radio - on screen, not so much.
I vote for "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!" by Harry Harrison or, failing that "The Technicolor Time Machine" or, failing that, pretty much anything by Harry Harrison :)
I'll give you fast moving...
Scene 1: BBC News 24 presenter doing fake item on "the most spectacular astronomical event ever due to occur in the skies over Britain tonight as solar winds cause a massive meteor shower*"
Scene 2: Bob & Mary Cockney standing in a torrential downpour outside their Eastend terrace - "Gor blimey Bob, this is boring, lets go back inside and watch Celebrity Death Rattle**"
Scene 3: The Triffids begin their assault on humanity, only to be thwarted by the visually unimpaired populace armed with weed killer and led by Bob & Mary Cockney.
THE END.
* Yes, we all know it doesn't work like that but the BBC & the Great British public are too scientifically ignorant to know or care.
** If anyone wants to make this show, I'm happy to licence the idea for an extortionate fee.
YAY someone else who remembers the Tripods, all my mates think I'm crazy until I show them the original books published by the BBC.
I feel a need to start a petition for the Tripods, don't even care if they remake it all to finish the story off.
Mine's the one with the weird Kaleidoscope alien eye in the pocket and a silver skull cap.
How could you NOT suggest a remake of Space 1999? Call it Space 2099, call in all the actors and writers from Dr Who and Torchwood, all the characters / aliens must exhibit some form of latent homosexuality so to match the PC view of the world and Mia gets to change into a different ethnic minority every episode.
The moon could be blown from it's orbit following a fire in the toxic waste / recycled paper that was dumped on the moon because Africa/ India was full, the fire being started due to friendly fire from a US anti-insurgent strike on the moon, considering they had ran out of countries on the Earth to invade and turn into hell-holes.
Hey, this is sounding good, I might write a script. But it mustn't run for more than 20 minutes, must have a Deus Ex Machina ending and recycle loads of old ideas with Daleks and John Barroman if at all possible.
And triffids.
IT angle? I@ waiting for Auntie to Announce they are relaunching the BBC Micro...
Actually the Triffids will be made by evil white male scientists, working on GM products for a faceless multinational. No doubt these scientists will also be doing pointless and cruel animal experimentation in the background to cross potatoes with cute, cuddly dogs/monkeys etc.
Other than that, i think you're outline is probably correct.
Nope - Survivors is The Day of the Triffids without the perambulating killer plants, not the other way around, John Wyndham got there in 1951, well over 20 years before Terry Nation.
I sincerely hope that The Day of the Triffids is better than the 1962 film where the vicous vegetables just need a dose of salt water (the book ended with the main protagonists oin the Isle of White with the final result to the war between man and fiendish flora yet to be resolved).
If the BBC want to film a Wyndham novel then they ought to try The Kraken Wakes (which would make a good no-expense-spared-turn-your-brain-off Hollywood block-buster).
At least you don't have to put up with remakes of Knight Rider and The Bionic Woman; not to mention Keanu Reeves in The Day the Earth Stood Still (although that will probably make it across the pond one day.)
My suggestion - use recycled cancelled TV license fee checks (or cheques) from the 70's to pay for recycled cancelled TV shows from the 70's.
It might be fun to see a remake of "The Prisoner" though. Perhaps they could come up with a more believable "Rover" than a giant inflated condom now.
if that simple phrase doesn't fill you with dread I don't know what will
So after condensing it down to a 2 parter it's mainly going to be filled with different angle shots of people running around cut in a manner designed to confuse and bore the hell out of people
As for new fans...ummmm it's a 2 parter not a series so that doesn't make sense unless really it's a pilot for a new series based on the day of the triffids.
Also just wondering why BBC Wales if it's going to be shot somewhere else, surely more efficent to use the local BBC there
No one seems to remember that the reason that everyone went blind and then died of the plague was due to orbiting nuclear and bacteriological weapons that were triggered by a meteor shower. Phew!
The triffids are really incidental to the story, it's about the breakdown of civilization.
Please keep up!
For the Neocons it's always 1940 and the enemy is Hitler.
For the Beeb, it's always 1951 and the enemy is veggies.
Take some Charles Stross instead. Mixing BOFHs, Dilbertisms, Her Majesty's Secret Service, Resurrected Nazis, Lovecraftian Horrors, Hot Chicks and English Weather implies Win.
Actually the Beeb can do some really good new stuff. Not long ago they did a pilot drama called Being Human, about a werewolf and a vampire who move into a haunted house. It was actually really really good, which probably explains why they never turned it into a series.
Re: Tripods, yes, they should remake all 3 books, I remember that series as well and it was some of the best childrens drama ever to be shown on TV. I'd also like to se the BBC do a *proper* war of the worlds. So far there's only been 1 film that's set at the time of the book but I've not watched it as the special effects for it look like they'd been done on an old Amiga 500, the CGI was some of the most appalling I've ever seen, although the designs for the martians did look really cool.
Martian Chronicles, another classic. Although to be fair the story didn't look into the emotional effects of watching everyone else you know at home going up in nuclear apococalypse anywhere near enough.
And a remake of Blakes 7 would be great, although not sure it would ever get made, a lot of the original storyline now looks far to close to El Gordo's Britain today, the Beeb might be mistaken for political commentary :p
And if the Beeb needs to keep the gay quotient up they could also do J G Ballard's stuff, plenty of manlove in his books.
The original Tripod books weren't published by the BBC. They were written in the late 60s, the Beeb didn't get round to them until 20 years later. They were aimed at teenagers, I remember my Grandad bought me "The White Mountains", it's probably what hooked me on SF. By the time the Beeb got round to making the series I assumed I'd become too old for them...
Still, while we're on the subject of kid's SF, anyone else remember the Tomorrow People?
CGI filled action/horror schlock, with plant monsters 'updated' to the 21st century. Two parter banged out once to terrestrial and then slapped out worldwide on the shelves as a DVD to cash in on the Triffid franchise and boost the BBC salaries.
However, i must admit I've always fancied the idea of a pepped up triffid though so bring it on!
why oh why oh why ? If they have to remake something , how about the Caves Of Steel - they did that in the fifties didn't they?
Just goes to show the paucity of imagination amongst some programme makers. I'd rather they did something from scratch - like The Demolished Man , or something more modern like Stross's Laundry series to name just two. There is so much decent science fiction old and modern that would make cracking TV and that doesn't need expensive fx. But Day of the Sodding Triffids - no no no!
Let's have the BBC make "Jizzle" by John Wyndham. Though it might be difficult for it to get past the Beeb censor board for some reason...
But my real favourite would have to be something which is relevant to recent research development actually going on - "Trouble with Lichen" by John Wyndham. Now wouldn't that make a truly modern horror story? People living for longer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trouble_with_Lichen
@ JonB - Brave New World - Damn good idea Sir! It would make an exceptional mini series I believe, enough Sci to qualify and a lot of social commentary about government control....woops, did I say control? I meant betterment for mankind, of course.
@ How about finally doing some new british sci-fi - Yep, there is enough of it out there, and a serialisation of Mr Hamilton's Nights Dawn Trilogy would be awesome.
Mine's the one with the Soma in the back pocket, and the Antimatter fueled Combat Wasps in the front.
Misspent Youth Peter F. Hammilton
Reality Dysfunction Trilogy Peter F.Hammilton done properly that should give any one nightmares for years.
any or all the books by Alistair Reynolds.
or how about that hoary old tale in eleven parts The Wheel of Time.That should be enough to keep Auntie Busy for Years.ET for obvious reasons
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