This early 1980s adaptation of John Wyndham's 'Day of the Triffids' offers us global apocalypse on a shoestring budget: cue some decidedly unspectacular special effects and thin crowd scenes. The acting is also limited: the characters respond remarkably calmly to the near-end of everything. Yet the triffids themselves are surprisingly well done, with their venomous strings and menacing roots. And (especially knowing what was to come) I found the tension implicit in the opening episode, in which a temporarily blinded man comes to suspect that something in the world he can't see isn't what it's supposed to be, utterly unbearable. At the end of the day, a good story trumps special effects, and there's something in the believable human tragedy of this one that makes it more horrifying than any horror story. Indeed, some of the scenes had stayed with me since first watching it over thirty years before. It's proof you don't need exploding galaxies or evil geniuses to unsettle a complacent audience.

Bill Masen (John Duttine), having been temporarily blinded by a Triffid plant, wakes in the hospital one morning to find the world has mostly gone blind due to an unusual meteor shower the night before. He quickly teams up with Josella "Jo" Payton (Emma Relph) and the duo try to navigate though London while avoiding the walking Triffids as well as new groups determined to advance their ideologies on this new world. This 157 minute miniseries won accolades from John Wyndham fans as being the most accurate adaptation of his 1951 sci-fi novel (I haven't read it but the Wikipedia synopsis is dead on). It is definitely fun stuff and decidedly different from the 1960s TRIFFIDS film. Like most great sci- fi, it is really talking about modern times and dynamics between the various groups trying to impose their plans is interesting. While the idea of walking plants seems goofy, the production pulls it off with some nice practical FX. The key element that really helps pull it off is the creepy sound the plants make as they communicate by tapping on their bases. Very simply yet very effective. The show does suffer in that it does the age old Brit trick of location shooting on film and studio filming on videotape. Other than that, this is top notch stuff.

Being a keen fan of John Wyndham's books, and the earlier 1962 screen adaptation of "Day Of The Triffids", I purchased this DVD based purely on the strength of the votes on the IMDb site. ( This six part mini series was released on DVD in Australia / Region 4 about a year ago ) This 1981 BBC mini-series is far more faithful to the original book than was the 1962 film starring Howard Keel, both in story and characters. The three lead actors : John Duttine, Emma Relph and Maurice Colbourne are all very capable in their roles, and come across convincingly as average people thrown into a maelstrom of lawless society and predatory flesh eating plants. The series has an unsettling and eerie atmosphere and has been well directed by Ken Hannam to hold viewer interest throughout the 160 minute running time.My only real gripe about the series is the obvious low budget that was afforded to it's production by the BBC. Many of the shots are clearly on studio sets, and for the subsequent days after the entire populace of London is blinded by the meteorite shower, their is minimal footage of any type of mob chaos, crashed vehicles, rioting, fires etc. Strangely, out of a population of over six million Londoners, most of them not only go blind, but they seem to have subsequently disappeared, as the city streets are strangely deserted ? ( I can only guess it was cheaper to film deserted streets, as opposed to filming hundreds of extras stumbling around feigning vision loss ! ) Never to mind, for these few faults, this is still an entertaining and captivating piece of sci-fi that demonstrates a good, strong story is central to making solid entertainment.

This is the best ever version of this famous science fiction novel. Even the choice of John Duttine as Bill Masen is very close to how I imagined him to look like. An average 36 year old man, who is lying in hospital, with his eyes bandaged up. This was the result of a Triffid sting. In the 1962 film, we do not find out why Bill Masen has this treatment! The triffids themselves are spot on! in detail and you see the sting lash out about 10 feet long.That is how John Wyndham describes them. So the BBC and Douglas Livingstone ,got this spot on! and we see Bill Masen as a child experiencing his first Triffid in his back garden. This DVD that I now have, has been eagerly awaited by myself. The opening music, is composed and conducted by Christopher Gunning. and is very stirring. every part of the dialogue was also as spoken in the book, (Yes I have read the book) and I know just how the story should unfold on the screen. It is a pity that widescreen TV's did not exist in 1981! as this would of been a great widescreen production. This series was in 6 parts by the way. You get a collector's booklet and all 6 parts on the DVD! Number BBC DVD 1152!