The Day of the Triffids (1981): Part 6

 "We were walking on a tightrope for a Hell of a long time..."

The sixth and final episode and, appropriately, six years have passed. The extended family, including Susan and Bill and Jo's son, exist in a state of continuous siege which functions as a metaphor for the precarious state of civilisation. It seems the Triffids are fated to win. London is slowly rewilding. Fuel is becoming scarce.

There's a moving and very human conversation between Jo and Bill. Despite the peril, Jo is happy with their little family. And Bill echoes our current concerns with civilsation being precarious- the climate crisis, nuclear war, the Singularity- by pointing out that we begat the Triffids- and even the humanity-blinding comet may not have been a natural phenomenon. "Sooner or later a foot had to slip." Indeed. Are we so different?

We get a welcome visit from Coker, who has established a community on the Isle of Wight; small islands seem ideal for keeping Triffid free. The Channel Islands too. But Jo wants to spend one last summer at the farm... until peace is interrupted by militaristic morons, played for laughs, who want to set up some kind of feudal society.

The last scenes are funny as the family escapes to the Hampshire coast and beyond, and we end with a nice little monologue. This was an excellent and thought-provoking adaptation of a novel that I simply must revisit.

The Day of the Triffids (1981): Part Five

 "Hey! Can't you kiss her indoors?"

This, like its predecessors, is a gripping and thought-provoking episode. Plot-wise, it's simple. Bill finds a disillusioned Coker, they bond, they philosophise, they find a rather naive community of unworldly Christians, they philosophise some more. Coker then returns to bash the community into shape while bill goes on a quest for Jo, picking up a little girl called Susan along the way.

Yet the plot is not the point. The core is Coker's monologue- one day the loot and the petrol will run out. By then, they will need to have learned how to farm, to plough, to make things. And for that they will need a large community so there's enough surplus labour to read up on these things. He's right.

For we see, everywhere, Triffids triumphant over the stung or diseased corpses of human beings. Humanity is not winning. I expect the ending to be downbeat and open, but I also expect it to be bloody good.

The Day of the Triffids (1981): Part Four

 "I'm like a drug they give to patients to keep them going a bit longer."

The fourth episode further develops the existing themes and takes a darker turn; Bill, separated from Jo, is kidnapped by Coker's people and forced to help blind friends to find food. He's kind, helpful even when no longer forced, and a gentleman in that he refuses to sleep with a girl whose motive is to persuade him to stay. Yet it's all futile. The blind are doomed. As Bill knows and no one else will get past their cognitive dissonance, no cavalry is coming.

Yet things are worse. A plague is developing, and only plot armour really prevents Bill from catching it. There are nasty people with guns. Worst of all, there are Triffids. Their menace is finally coming to the foreground, as presaged by much of Bill's dialogue in earlier episodes.

The desperation has increased. I quite like the fact that I've long since forgotten how the novel ended so I don't know what to expect. This is a superb adaptation.

The Day of the Triffids (1981): Part Three

 "Full bodied. Mature. Just a little pretentious, I would say."

This is more first tier television, right from the cliffhangerrresolution as Bill and Jo find their Ford Cortina attacked by a load of terrifying blind people, one of whom is Morris Barry.

They soon escape from that, and begin to bond as a very real and very well-written couple who both need each other. It's 1981 so, of course, it's Jo who does the cooking and there's a bit of social class awkwardness which is nicely brushed away.

But there's realism. They must leave London. Now civilisation has ended the risk of typhoid and tetanus is too great: they need somewhere less populous, and dream of a place in the country with a well and a generator while philosophising aboit what will happen to human civilisation and the hard choices that lie ahead. They can't save everyone. For humanity to survive, most of the blind must be abandoned. It's horrible, but unavoidable.

Such dilemmas are writ even larger when they meet Michael Beadley and his scarily efficient and certain gang, naive about Triffids, mostly sensible and harsh, but disturbingly insistent on polyamory with a little light misogyny. Surely polygamy, with a small population, just means inbreeding?

This is fascinating, philosophical disaster telly. And the cliffhanger is both exciting and an indicator that our favourite couple may well not be partaking in this dubious utopia.

The Day of the Triffids (1981): Part Two

 "There's nothing we can do!"

This second episode is even more brilliantly horrific than the first. We begin in the hospital, with Bill realising firstly that a patient is blind and then realising the blind doctor, such a comforting authority figure the night before, has jumped to his death.

Outside, things are no better. Looting, pretty much explicitly implied rape, the slow collapse of society. It's all made plain as Bill finds a blind couple with a sighted daughter.And the father is no fool, realising, like Hobbes, that civilisation has gone, and that life is set to become nasty, brutish and short. And his suggesxtion- that Bill stays to protect the block- has merit, I think. Bill can't save everyone. Why not save whom he can?

But Bill travels on, and finally meets posh drunkard Jo, who was saved from blindness by a hangover. There's a rule here, kids: teetotalism is bad, m'kay?

Unfortunately, we then find with full force, so are Triffids, and they've got into the house and killed Jo's father. In the kingdom of the blind, the Triffid is king. It's all out war for survival.

Except humanity, unlike Triffids, is hardly united. And is just as scary, as the cliffhanger shows...

The Day of the Triffids (1981): Part One

 "If it were a choice of survival between a blind man and a Triffid, I knoew which I'd put my money on."

Obviously, being the sort of chap, I've read the John Wyndham novel several times, although probably not since John Major was prime minister, so it's been a while. Suffice to say I loved it, but was a wee slip of a lad at the time. And still am, of course, at a mere forty-five years.

This is the first adaptation I've seen, and I'm impressed. It's incredibly cheap so far, of course, very close to being a one-hander with John Duttine as Bill, other characters appearing only in flashback, and relativrly few sets in this all but studio bound production. Only on brief occasions do we have the building entirely surrounded by film.

The tape recorder is a bit obvious as an excuse for exposition, but I'll admit the premise is well-introduced and the storytelling is clear, as we feel throughout the tension building for both the world, as we slowly realise what has gone wrong, and Bill, whose worries for his eyesight are shared by us.

And those Triffids avtually look bloody terrifying.

I'm very impressed indeed so far.