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 already …
BBC Wales, said: "We're hoping to attract a legion of new fans as well as give nightmares to a new generation of viewers."
Thought the Beeb did that whenever they mentioned the dreaded license fee.
All day of the triffids is...
Is "Survivors" with walking killer plants thrown in.
And they've only just remade survivors.
Congratulations to the BBC for dragging up the same ideas for TV. Cutting edge it is not.
So apparently it's not just Hollywood that doesn't have any original ideas. The BBC, too, has taken the lazy option and decided to re-make yet another 1970s series.
What next, a re-make of Monty Python with Cleese et al replaced with CGI figures?
... thanks from looking at the license fee for 2009. Can't we have something new instead of a remake. Not exactly lacking in sci fi books/ scripts out there.
...this new series of Survivors is in serious need of some triffids.
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?)
Isn't it a pity that only one science fiction book was ever written. Wouldn't it be amazing if there were thousands of SF stories that could be adapted for TV.
I guess we should be grateful that one SF story exists and we can remake it year after year after year.
... any odds against Freema Agyeman having a bit-part in it?
Do fish have salty piss?
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.
...so the only criteria for it will be to get someone "cool" to play a main part, and to get the London Eye in as much as possible.
...mine's the one without the copy of Dr Who in the pocket.
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.
It'll all be based on a new lifeform that evolved from concentrated piss in a falling fridge, and don't even think of asking what it's going to do with that toolkit...
Due to a lack of original thought, the BBC today confirmed that it will indeed be remaking classic 00's sitcom "The Office" as "we're hoping to attract a legion of new fans as well as present situational embarrasment to a new generation of viewers."
I'm prepared to cut them some slack on this and go with it, with the instruction:
"Don't fuck it up"
Do you reckon, like 28 Days Later, the main change will be that the Triffids can now run . . . and a 2-parter?? Like the remake of Survivor, and the way that Dr. Who rarely runs a plot for longer than 2 episodes, everything has to be set up and resolved so quickly these days.
...they could just CGI some daffodils into Survivors. Job done.
Hey
I know BBC, you can't think of anything new programs just remake a load of old ones. Whats next? Quatermass, Doomwatch, Blakes 7, Star Cops or Moonbase 3?
Give your writers a real chance to make something original up.
I wish it would be /The Kraken Wakes/ - I always preferred that one to the Triffids.
Why isn't there an anorak icon for this post?
Has no science fiction actually been written since 1951? Seriously BBC execs, get your arses down to Forbidden Planet ffs.
I for one welcome our new Darlingtonia californica overlords.
"I want to be a triffid."
Now there's a wish with a sting in the tail.
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.
I want a remake of the Martian Chronicles.........
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.
...we get pedantic annotators pointing out that plants can't actually pull up their roots and walk; that with modern antihistamines, the stings needn't be fatal; and a good dose of roundup would finish the lot of the buggers off. (probably right after my sarcastic effort)
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.
Yay for Blakes 7
Paris coz no one would want to do her twice
What are the odds that it'll have David Bl**dy Tennant in it?
You don't work for the BBC do you? Because that sounds frighteningly accurate.
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.
Damn straight! I was extremely pissed when the 3rd year came round and I was eagerly awaiting the 3rd & final installment only to hear that they didn't have enough budget so we were left high'n'dry.
BRING BACK THE TRIPODS!
So nothing like the book which imagined the slowest, dullest apocalypse ever to befall mankind.
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).
If the BBC are looking for something useful to do, why don't they finish off what they started with the Tripods. IIRC, they only did the first two books of the trilogy - as a kid I really enjoyed the series...when some nonk came along and canned it.
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
"Also just wondering why BBC Wales if it's going to be shot somewhere else, surely more efficent to use the local BBC there"
its an accountacy sleight of hand to make it look like the regions are contributing. like waterloo road being a Bbc scotland production.
Oi! Auntie so-called Beeb! Nooooooooo!
The British people are clearly yearning for the final Tripods book to be serialised. So sort it out.
They were much scarier for kids than some overblown tat about killer foliage.
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!
I re-read The Kraken Wakes recently. I remember it being pretty gripping many years ago, but found it hadn't aged terribly well. The suspense seemed just too predictable by today's standards and the characters rather shallow.
Hope the Triffids haven't suffered the same fate.
