BBC Studios Blu-Ray (2020), out now

John Wyndham’s classic tale of survival against the odds.

“…it’s just the dreadful sense of loneliness; being cut off from everybody else.” – Jo Payton

In March this year, my cousin and I were discussing the recently initiated lockdown, when he asked an interesting question. Would those of us who grew up on a diet of post-apocalyptic SF cope with COVID and its restrictions better than those who didn’t? Discussion soon turned to the likes of Charlton Heston’s Omega Man, Terry Nation’s BBC series Survivors and of course The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham’s 1951 novel and subject of numerous adaptations since. My cousin wasn’t alone in his thinking, and in July 2020 a study was published which seemed to indicate that, yes, fans of the genre were in fact better prepared, and were suffering less stress and depression, than others. The study is under peer-review, but it seems a reasonable conclusion that may well stand up to scrutiny. We must surely have picked up a few top tips for dealing with plague, atomic wipeout, the walking dead and man eating shrubbery along the way, and the time is surely right to revisit one of the best known examples of the genre.

For those unfamiliar with the story, the setup is that the Earth passes through what seems to be a meteor shower. Our hero, Bill Masen, is recovering in hospital after a Triffid sting, and being bandaged avoids seeing the spectacle. Said Triffids are giant, ambulatory carnivorous plants which appeared on Earth some years before (it’s unexplained how and doesn’t really matter, we’re just asked to accept it), and are harvested for their incredibly useful oil. While their lethal sting is usually docked, farmed varieties are left intact, and Bill, who worked on a Triffid farm, narrowly escaped death, having built up some immunity when stung as a child by a not yet fully grown Triffid.

Realising something is wrong, and that no one is coming to attend to him, he removes his bandages, to discover that everyone who witnessed the Northern Lights-like spectacle of the previous night has turned blind. He soon meets the also sighted Josella Payton, in the original novel a somewhat famous author of a sexy book, but here a rather posh young woman who missed the event due to sleeping off a hangover (shades of the future Donna Noble from Doctor Who who similarly missed various world-changing events; I’d be amazed if it was a coincidence, Russel T Davies would absolutely have seen this). This being as much a Boy’s Own-type adventure story as it is SF they fall in love extremely quickly, before circumstances tear them apart…

Despite the title and their occasional looming presence, the Triffids themselves don’t really factor into the story until towards the end. The primary threat for much of the tale is disease and other sighted humans with noble, or not so noble, aims, with the Triffids providing an occasional extra threat. The story is told entirely from the point of view of Bill, very much in the same vein as the main plotline of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds, a favourite of John Wyndham’s (more accurately John Harris, John Wyndham being one of a number of pseudonyms he used utilising his various middle names) and very much the inspiration for this.

The story itself probably doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny; the vast majority of the blinded seem to just disappear off the face of the Earth (oddly including most of the hospital staff on the night shift) and society seems to go to hell in a handbasket by roughly lunchtime the day following the event. It’s strong stuff though, I have vivid memories from the first broadcast of the woman desperately trying to open a packet of Vim cleaning powder, thinking it must be food, and another trying the same with a catering sized can of coffee (what did they think was in them?), plus the thuggish Arsenal fans and, in the most heartbreaking scene, a virginal young woman offering herself up to Bill in order to convince him to stay to look after her group of survivors.

The cast is excellent all round, with a number of familiar faces of the time. John Duttine, then a big deal on the back of the BBC’s adaptation of To Serve Them All My Days, has a lot to carry but is up to the task, preventing Bill’s hard-nosed pragmatism tipping over into unlikability. Emma Relph’s Jo, looking rather like a prototype Bananarama member with her feathery hairdo and yellow jumpsuit, is charming and suitably modern (and made a big impression on this 11 year old viewer at the time). Maurice Colbourne, later star of the BBC’s sex ‘n’ sailboats drama Howards’ Way and best known to SF fans as Doctor Who’s misunderstood space-mercenary Lytton, is as strong as ever, still a much missed actor who died at just 49 a few years later. There’s also memorable turns from John Hollis (The Empire Strikes Back’s Lobot), David Swift (Drop the Dead Donkey) and Colbourne’s fellow Howards’ Way cast member Stephen Yeardley. In flashback sequences I was delighted to see that Bill’s father is played by the late William Morgan Sheppard, a wonderful character actor who seemed to crop up in everything but is best known to SF fans for a number of Star Trek appearances and as the old Canton Delaware in the Doctor Who episode The Impossible Astronaut.

This is a solid production, Douglas Livingstone’s script for once sticking to the source text closely, with only fairly minor changes for the sake of simplicity and modernity. It’s not always the right approach to adaptation, but in this case the fairly simple and straight-lined plot lends itself well to a production which is well paced and never outstays its welcome – at just over two and a half hours it can easily be watched in one go, and at least resembles the novel, unlike the BBC’s 2009 attempt which ripped it to shreds.

The Triffids themselves are generally effective, a memorable design given extra threat by the ominous clacking sound of their approach. The music, mainly atonal percussive instruments overlaid with chant-like choral backing, is unnerving and threatening, especially combined with the series’ famous opening title sequence of frightened faces staring into the abyss before being struck by a Triffid’s lethal proboscis. Extensive location filming lends this a little grit which may have been lost in the studio… and on that note…

The restoration for this release, outsourced to private company The Ark, is frankly shameful. The film sequences (most of which survive) have been suitably cleaned up and look very crisp, although there seems to have been a bit too much noise reduction applied, removing grain and texture, and the contrast and colour correction seem a bit too high (something of a matter of taste I know). The real crime is what has been done to the studio footage. In what seems to be an attempt to make the VT sequences “match” with the film, they seem to have frame removed the footage, taking it from 50fps interlaced (PAL broadcast standard) to 25fps progressive, before upscaling to 1080i. This “filmised” effect is common practice in modern UK drama (apart from soaps usually) being much cheaper than shooting on film, but having it applied to standard definition material recorded on analogue tape renders it a smeary, jerky, jagged mess, deinterlacing effectively removing half the information from the picture. It is possible to deinterlace well, but it requires expertise and specific software can restore fluidity; this looks like it was run through free software in a single pass using default settings. The upscale itself is nothing special, and of course just highlights the picture problem. It’s also worth noting that we are in the midst of a revolution in upscaling, with easily available if expensive AI software beginning to give a new lease of life to older material. It’s arguably not quite good enough for professional use yet, but we’re probably months away from that. I dabble in this stuff and I’m fairly sure I could get better results for the studio material by running a rip of the 2005 DVD release through a couple of pieces of software right here at my desk, despite being a complete amateur. I sincerely hope this was just a dreadful mistake, and that a corrected reissue is forthcoming (I believe a similar fate befell the Red Dwarf Blu-rays which were later fixed).

As for added value material, the only extra is a piece on the “restoration”. I would urge you not to watch this if you haven’t seen the series – early on it includes the very final scene as an example, a bizarre decision. It also includes a slightly updated reprint of Andrew Pixley’s thoroughly researched booklet first included with the DVD release. Obviously current circumstances may have prevented it, but some sort of commentary or interviews with Duttine and Relph (no longer acting, she’s now a spiritual counsellor) would have been very welcome, as would any existing trailers or behind the scenes material, and even one or more of the BBC’s radio adaptations and readings. A minor point but minus marks for the menu, a stretched out version of the cover image, which makes poor Jo look like… well, someone who wouldn’t have made an impression on an eleven year old me. Sloppy stuff all round I’m sorry to say.

Verdict: If you are considering this, either as an upgrade for the DVD or to own for the first time, I would suggest you hold fire until we know if it’ll be fixed. Like Bill and Jo, you wouldn’t want to be stung.

8/10 for the series itself

3/10 for this fudged release

Andy Smith

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