The Day of the Triffids. 1981 BBC tv mini-series



Posted: Saturday, January 09, 2010

by Tony Dunn
http://tonyricharddunn.blogspot.com

The Day of the Triffids is a BBC tv drama concerning a special plant which was created to produce a valuable oil. The plant was cultivated in special triffid farms but some had escaped in the early days, attacking and killing humans for food. For the time being anyway they were kept under control.

In a seemingly separate event, a spectacular comet shower lit up the night sky with nearly the whole population watching. That was apart from Bill (JOHN DUNTINE) who had his eyes bandaged up in hospital after a triffid sting which nearly blinded him. (The poison had leaked into his protective helmet} after working as a biologist on a triffid farm. He had to make do with a commentator describing the comet event on the radio which happened right across the world. The next day, Bill was perturbed by the lack of traffic noise which without fail would start early each day as the hospital was in central London. The bandages were due to come off that day but there seemed to be no doctors or nurses around. so after carefully removing them he was relieved to discover that his sight was normal. After casually exploring the hospital he realised something was terribly wrong. While walking down the stairs he came across a doctor who was screaming for help. Discovering that the doctor had gone blind, they tried the telephone but it was dead. Looking to the bottom of the stairs, Bill witnessed hospital staff aimlessly milling around as if blind. Once outside the building he saw that an ambulance had been left unattended. people had been killed by triffid stings.

Meanwhile Jo (EMMA RELPH) had gone to try to get help as her father had gone blind but her car ran out of petrol. After getting out out the car, she was confronted by several people including a vicious old man who informed her that they"d all gone blind. After tricking her into helping them, he captured and tied her up. In the meantime Bill found just one person who could see, a little girl whose parents were both blinded. Her dad said that all their neighbors in their apartment block had also gone blind. It soon dawned on them that the comet shower the night before had blinded everyone who saw it. He begged Bill to help them get food etc until help arrived. but they had the little girl who could see, most other people had no-one. After setting off again, Bill heard screaming from an alleyway. It was Jo struggling with the old man who had tied her up to the stair rail. After rescuing her they found a pub and took stock of the situation. It transpired that she"d missed the comet shower after taking sleeping pills following a hangover after a party. They decided to stick together but when she arrived back at her father"s house he had been killed by a triffid which had some how got into the house. It gradually occurred to Bill and Jo that help was not on the horizon and that the world had changed forever.

Update: A re-make of The Day of the Triffids was recently shown on BBC1 in 2 parts. The basic story is the same with a few differences from the original 1981 series.

To read parts 2 & 3 of this article please visit:

tonysfilmtvreviews.blogspot.com

This Article has been viewed 290 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by Jack H. Schick
 2 years 138 days ago.
99 fans.
I saw the original 1950's movie as a pre-teen. It scared me alot.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.