TV MEMORIES - THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS (1981)

Thursday nights in 1981 meant one thing to seven year old me - the chance to be babysat by my dad.

Back then my parents where both still in thier early thirties and where at that age where they'd both settled happily to have a family and yet still had semi-active social lives.

Typically my dad would go out on Friday nights with his friends, whilst my mum would go out on Thursdays, which in turn meant dad was in charge of me for the evening.

This was good because not only did it mean I got to spend a bit more quality time with him, it also meant he was in charge of the TV...and he had much better taste in TV shows than my mum. MUCH BETTER !!!!

My dad was (and still is) a sci-fi fan, it was him that got me into Doctor Who (a lifelong addiction I've still not managed to shake), it was also with my dad on Thursday nights that I got into watching the TV version of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Basically in the early 80's there was a lot of quality sci-fi on British television. One such series was the BBC adaptation of John Wyndham's classic novel The Day Of The Triffids.

I first heard of the show by seeing it advertised on the front cover of that week's Radio Times.

A photo of a young couple being menaced by what looked to be a giant orange stick of celery fired my imagination, when I asked my dad what it was about he said "man eating plants", that was enough to get me sold on the concept right there.

And so it came to pass that me and my dad sat down that Thursday night to watch the first episode. We had to suffer through an episode of game show Blankety Blank first (probably the only game show in the history of mankind to have a chequebook and pen as one of the weekly prizes - who said the BBC where stingy ?), but after that thirty minutes of hell had passed we where presented with the first thrilling episode, but first I had to get past the title sequence...

A green and blue tinged nightmare of scared looking people's faces accompanied by an ominous sounding soundtrack comprised of heavy drum beats and a mournfully sinister sounding male voice choir. It was deeply unsettling but also very very cool.

After that our story opens pretty much with the end of civilization as we know it.

It transpires that a meteor shower has passed over Earth and created a massive light show that has subsequently blinded everyone who was unlucky enough to witness it. This basically means that about 95 percent of the human race is now totally devoid of sight (it wouldn't happen nowadays - everyone would be glued to their mobiles, too occupied with social media to probably even notice the meteor shower was even happening ).

Into this apocalypse is thrust our hero Bill Mason (superbly played by John Duttine) who was in hospital recovering from a Triffid sting in his eyes and as a result had his eyes bandaged up at the time of the fateful meteor shower. "A Triffid's sting ? What's that ?",you may ask...

The Triffids it turns out are a genetically engineered species of plant that produce an oil that is believed to be the key to sorting out the world's hunger problems (don't ask how vegetable oil can do this as it's never explained). 

The plants are farmed as a valued resource, Bill happens to work in one such farm. During the course of an ordinary working day Bill is stung by a Triffid - normally this would be fatal but Bill has thankfully built up a natural immunity to Triffid venom due to the fact he was bitten by an infant Triffid when he was a child. Rather than killing him the Triffid venom merely renders him temporarily blind as opposed to dead, hence why Bill has missed the fateful meteor storm.

So, we've got a plant with a nasty sting, easy enough to avoid right ? just stay away from the Triffid farms. The problem is the Triffid's also seem possessed of a rudimentary intelligence, a hunter's instinct and they've developed a taste for human flesh. Oh, and they can crawl about on thier roots, and now they've broken out of thier pens. So now not only do the newly blinded population of Earth have to worry about surviving in a wrecked world with no eyesight they also have to worry about being chomped by man eating sentient vegetables. All of a sudden that "miracle vegetable oil" doesn't really seem quite so worth it, does it...

A word about the Triffid design is needed here. To say they're done on an early 80's BBC budget they look absolutely fantastic. A cross between a malevolent rhubarb and a Venus fly trap. They crawl around on thier roots and "communicate" to each other by making an ominous clicking noise (you'll hear that noise a lot over the six episodes of this series and it always without fail gets you on the edge of your seat). The Triffids also look convincingly organic. Over the course of the series we say many a Triffid shot, decapitated and blown up and they always seem to end up as a mushy pulp of highly realistic looking vegetable matter. Basically they're iconic, an absolute triumph from the BBC'S visual effects department.

I especially loved the Triffids as a kid, and so for the next six weeks Thursday nights became Triffid night. Rewatching the series on DVD recently it occurred to me just what a quality production this was. It's very of its time - the exterior scenes are shot on film and the interior scenes are shot in studio sets on videotape. Lots of British TV was filmed in this way back then and it seems alien to modern eyes, but this really only adds to the charm - back then we didn't need TV to look as slick as the latest Hollywood blockbuster - suspension of disbelief, the audience's imagination and decent performances where all that was needed.

Thankfully we get some bloody good performances in this series. John Duttine is great as Bill - a sensitive "everyman" type of character - he has knowledge of the Triffids that helps him to survive but he's by no means infallible. Over the course of the story he has to abandon his initial squeamishness with the situation and quickly become more pragmatic in order to survive. However, he never really loses sight of his own moral compass which makes him a protagonist to root for.

Over the course of Bill's odyssey through the apocalypse he meets several characters who become major players in the story. 

Firstly he meets Josella (Emma Relph) who he rescues from a blind man who is trying to imprison her to use as his "eyes". The two become firm friends - and eventually lovers. In fact thier relationship (they end up having children together) is one of the only pieces of hope in the entire bleak saga.

Then there's Jack Coker (Maurice Colbourne), an ex-college lecturer turned leader. Being another sighted character he takes it upon himself to lead a community of the blind. Initially Coker and Bill clash over Coker's methods (he captures Bill and Josella, separates them and puts them in charge as the seeing eyes of blind scavenger gangs).

Eventually though Coker starts to come round more to Bill's way of thinking especially when a plague caused by the increasing piles of rotting corpses in the streets starts infecting and killing off the survivors (Jesus - mass blindness, intelligent man eating plants roaming about and now the PLAGUE!!!! These characters are NOT having a good time). Bill and Coker end up travelling together for a while and eventually become good friends, in fact it's Coker who actually offers the final bit of hope to Bill, Josella and thier family in the final episode when he leads them to a new community that's been set up on the Isle of Wight thus giving them a chance to finally find a home in a Triffid free environment. Coker is a great multi-layered character (they all are) and it's nice to see him basically get a "redemption arc" as the story continues.

On the other side of the fence we get Torrence (Gary Olsen). When we first meet him he's a brutal street punk in charge of a gang of thugs who go around the ruined streets of London robbing, beating and killing the blinded citizens. 

Six years pass between the fifth and sixth (and final episode) - We see Torrence again. This time he's part of a paramilitary group that are trying to set up a new societal order built along feudal lines. Gone is his street thug demeanour, he now looks and acts like a smooth military officer, but this is all an act - underneath he's still the brutal nasty thug he always was. The implication is clear - whoever is behind this new regime has obviously been recruiting thier "officers" from the more extreme and violent strata of society's remains. If Torrence is a typical example of thier "brave new world" then I pity the survivors who are stuck with them as thier leaders. Even six years into Armageddon the spectre of fascism still lurks.

In fact one of the abiding impressions this show leaves is that as dangerous as the Triffids are they're still in nursery school compared to the cynical horrors that basic human greed is capable of unleashing upon its fellow man.

These deeper messages where of course completely lost on my seven year old self, I just thought the Triffids where bloody cool, but they're not the only memorable (or horrific) things in this series. I can remember that as a kid I found the roaming gangs of blind people pretty unnerving and they still pack a punch today, This is especially evident in the scene where Bill and Josella are trapped in a deserted pub, the distressed howls of the blinded echoing outside as we see silhouettes pounding on the misty pub windows. It's honestly reminiscent of Night Of The Living Dead in its way.

The 1981 version of Day Of The Triffids is to my mind the best version of John Wyndham's classic sci-fi novel that's ever been made (it's certainly the most faithful adaptation by far). The other two versions I've seen where the 1962 film version and the second BBC produced version that was shown over Christmas 2009. The former was a fairly standard American old school style sci-fi B-movie, the latter was a CGI fest with a stupid ending. Neither version captured the themes, story or bleak mood of the original novel in the way this did.

This is THE definitive filmed version of the story and don't let anyone else tell you any different.