Damned If You Don’t
The Midwich Cuckoos
UK June 2022
Seven episodes
The Midwich Cuckoos is the third adaptation of English science fiction John Wyndham’s famous novel (perhaps his most famous after The Day Of The Triffids), following the excellent 1960s production of Village Of The Damned and the, partially successful, 1990s John Carpenter remake (which relocated the fictional town of Midwich to the US) not to mention the 1960s sequel to the original movie, Children Of The Damned). And, I like the quite faithful to source first movie and the novel so much that, on hearing that the evil, alien induced kids in this version did not have the pale skin, blonde hair and blue eyes synonymous with these characters, I vowed not to watch it. I’ve had enough in recent years of the bizarre, unnecessary cultural appropriation where white characters are replaced by different races (and vice versa, for that matter). And, of course, if the metaphor of blue eyed, blonde kids in a novel written nearer to World War 2 and a movie produced when people had certainly not forgotten the blight of Nazi Germany rings no bells for you, then perhaps you were kinda missing some of the subtext of that original?
But then I thought about it for a bit and realised, whereas you could get away with a movie set in 1960s England and a novel set in the 1950s where the vast majority of the village, if not the entirety of the population, are all white... it’s a little harder to do that now because everywhere is a lot richer and diverse than it was then. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s still an evil thing to do and the makers of this new version could easily have figured it out... however, I suspect they realised that it would also jeopardise the slow burn nature/realisation that all the kids born after the unexplained event at the start of the novel/show were a lot more different than they at first appear. And that would hurt the drama. After all, you can’t have multi-cultural parents of varying origins all credibly producing blond haired, blue eyed kids. So I’m willing to accept this one, of many changes, to the original story in the interest of a certain verisimilitude throughout.
It’s not that realisation that finally got me into the programme though... it was ten minutes of downtime on YouTube one lunch hour where I watched Mark Kermode’s review of this new series and, yeah, his words convinced me that this version was worth seeing. And, it turns out... he’s right (I’m not one of the many surprising naysayers in terms of the overall reception of this TV show).
Okay, so the main character of Zellaby has had a sex change now and, instead of being a teacher played by either George Sanders or Christopher Reeve, he’s been transformed into Keely Hawes... but that’s okay, Hawes is a fantastic actress and plays the part well, aided by many fantastic actors in this show such as Synnove Karlsen, Max Beesley, Ukweli Roach, Aisling Loftus and Cherrelle Skeete. They all do a fantastic job in a story which has been significantly altered in terms of how the events are viewed (it’s much more about the characters of the parents and how they slowly react to what’s happening in the village) but which, pretty much keeps to the story, with minor twists to the structure and, of course, the inevitable update to accommodate modern technology. So, yeah, what I’m saying is there are not too many surprises for those who’ve read the novel or seen the films... the start and end of all the troubles in the village is, more or less, the same as the previous iterations in a moving image setting.
The basic plot set up is of all the inhabitants of Midwich falling asleep one day for a twelve hour or more period. Nobody can get in or out of the village without also falling asleep. Then, when everyone wakes up the next day, all the child bearing age women of the village are pregnant. They all give birth to kids who grow at a faster rate, are much more intelligent and have glowy eyes and psychokinetic powers in order to survive as an ‘obviously alien in origin’ hive mind on Earth... killing and controlling those who get in their way. And that’s about as much as I’m saying about the plot set up. If you’ve seen previous iterations you’ll know how things go and, if you don’t then great, you can watch it and let the story surprise you.
My one slight criticism of the series is that it’s very slow burn compared to the original book. Taking a couple of hours of episodes to do what the film does in ten minutes and what the book does in a few pages (if memory serves). But that’s okay... I love slow burn horror and it does give the writers a chance to expand the scenario and, as I said, make it more character driven. It also plays around with the idea that the initial kids can raise an army with their minds and, also looks at what happened in one of the other villages in the past where this alien intelligence has tried to do the same thing, throwing up one decent reveal at the end of one episode in terms of one of the authority figures in this version.
And, yeah... I don’t have too much else to say about this one. This new version of The Midwich Cuckoos managed to hold my interest all the way through and, given I already knew the story quite well, it kept me gripped from start to end (although I could have done without the opening flash forward on the first episode, which it finally catches up to again halfway through the final episode). The kids are quite good too and, despite their lack of similar looks, they still manage to act and feel quite creepy, which I guess is half the battle here. So, yeah, contrary to my initial misgivings and outrage, I’d have to say it’s a big thumbs up from me on this one. Nice to see an old science fiction/horror classic given its due.
