Day Of The Triffids, BBC1, 2009

The Day Of The Triffids has been adapted quite a few times from the novel. My first experience was of the original BBC TV series, which scared me as a kid, but since I have also read the novel which I liked. So why another adaptation?

For a start it allows the visuals and style to come bang up to date. Which has it's pluses and minuses.  On the plus side the show looks slick, the Triffids are scary and the apocalypse looks real. On the minus side the spacious, low(ish) budget, original TV version seemed to match my mental image of the book more. That low key disaster, with space and subdued fear. Of course, I saw the original TV show first, so it's all a bit subjective.

The new version has a few plot additions and changes. The Triffids are set-up as the saviour of the world, replacing petroleum as oil and providing a rather unnecessary reference about global warming. Consequently, due to nasty multi-national corporate control, the general population doesn't know how dangerous the Triffids are, until it's too late. None of these changes really add or detract from the story and are superfluous back-story.

The general gist of the novel's plot is kept the same. Good guys, bad guys, Triffids, survival. A solution for the neutering of Triffids via genetic manipulation is new, but really just a plot device to get some characters together and provide a couple of action sequences.

The Triffids themselves are much scarier than any other version, their roots are dangerous, creeping, grasping, tendrils - they go after you! The poison of a Triffid sting alone can kill you, although they do still tend to go for the eyes. Their design in this new version was good, tall and brooding, shambling but menacing. The only question left was whether they could climb stairs (because that's what I would have tried to escape them), and why so few people used fire as a weapon.

The cast was good, Eddie Izzard standing out as the creepy bad guy. It's strange seeing Izzard acting, because there is a tendency to expect him to be funny, which sometimes works against him, but sometimes adds an extra tension.

There are a lot of action sequences, fighting Triffids and people, which I can understand, but it would have been nice for some more of the psychological aspects to be explored, some of the recovery from the apocalypse. For example in the book there's a section about trying to create a sustainable life in a farmhouse, which fails to make this version.

All in all a competent and enjoyable adaptation, but do read the book as well.