The Midwich Cuckoos

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.

Doctor Who: Time Heist

Heist Society

Doctor Who: Time Heist
UK Airdate: 20th September 2014
BBC 2

Now with post review addendum. See end of review.

Well after last week’s very strong episode (reviewed here) I wasn’t expecting too much from this week’s episode and it pretty much does what it says on the tin in terms of what the trailer made it out to be. That being said, I have to say that Time Heist was a bit of a “miss” over all and not one of my favourites of this season.

There were some positives, of course. The various actors who made up the team of bank robbers, including Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman themselves, of course, all worked very well together chemistry wise and this installment was certainly more than up to scratch in the dialogue department, if nothing else. That being said, I do think this version of The Doctor is a lot dryer than anyone has been used to for quite some time and I can see this being a possible way of losing a fair amount of the younger audience it has to be said. Also, I fear that the segment of the audience who jumped on purely from when the series was rebooted with Eccleston’s incarnation of The Doctor may find this one a little less flashy than they’re used to and I can see this series beginning to really lose some traction ratings wise if they’re not too careful. Added to the fact that the new series is now going to be broadcast much later than usual from next week onwards could be a very strong negative when it comes to the future of the show, I suspect... although the recent cinematic simultaneous broadcasts of certain episodes have done wonders at the box office so maybe that will help counteract things in some way... who knows?

Another of the positives is the chocolate box full of references to series' gone by in numerous sequences which included some quotes from the more recent series, the fleeting appearance of the comic book character Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer (from the days when I was young enough to be reading Doctor Who Weekly, back in the very late 1970s) and a more serious cameo from the memory worms which were used to much more comic effect in the Christmas Special The Snowmen (reviewed here). This was all very postmodern and nice for the fans of the show, of course.

On the other hand you had a plot which was far too clever for its own good. The four people sent to infiltrate the bank which is being robbed... a robbery which turns out to be something both less and more of what we were expecting... are there of their own free will and, once we’re introduced to the other main player in this, Keeley Hawes* as the owner of the bank, we’re left to really only two people who the architect of the whole operation, known as The Architect to protect his/her identity, could be. And if you haven’t figured it out by the end of the show then perhaps you weren’t paying attention. I’m not going to put any spoilers in here people but, seriously, you will have figured it out long before anyone else in the episode does. The only real surprise, and you might have already had your suspicions as to which character this would involve, is what is in the bank vault to bring these people together. I’m willing to bet that most people would have seen that once coming too though, I’m afraid.

And that’s the trouble when you’ve got a short amount of time for a story like this. If this had been a two or three parter, you may well have been able to conjure up enough different distractive sub plots to keep the audience away from the main nub of the story on which the plot hangs.... and this one doesn’t quite fool anyone enough, for long.

On the other hand... it’s fairly well put together, it’s nicely paced, it doesn’t really lose traction too many times (okay, it does drag in a couple of places but it certainly doesn’t dwell or wallow in the dull bits too much) and it makes use of a limited amount of sets shot from different angles and with different coloured lighting, from the looks of it. It was probably one of the cheaper episodes I would guess.

So, you know, it kept itself ticking along fairly nicely and there’s not a hell of a lot to grumble about other than, you know, being really obvious in places... they just happen to be the places that matter in terms of the actual story telling on this one. Not an episode I’d recommend as something to start on but that’s the way it always goes with a weekly television show I’m afraid... you get your hits and your misses.

Now then, next week’s episode promises to be a bit of a humdinger (and I really hope I’m right on that one). However, now it’s being put in a much later time slot I’m afraid I’m not going to be staying up half the night reviewing it after each episode for a post the same day. I don't mind doing the late nights but half my brilliant audience of readers have gone to bed by the time I'd get my post up. So from now on until further notice, my reviews of the new Doctor Who episodes will probably start showing up on Sunday mornings instead. So hope that’s okay with any readers who have supported me in my past reviews of the shows and who are here specifically for my Who reviews. Don’t worry... I’m not giving up on the series yet, I think it still has a whole heap of potential, I just need a time machine to get my reviews out on time. So keep an eye out for the next Doctor Who review next Sunday morning. Hope you keep reading too... I’m always grateful for having readers of this blog. Makes it all worthwhile. See you soon.

*If we ever get a female Doctor Who any point in the next 10 - 20 years, my money's on her.

Addendum with spoiler: See, this is another reason why it might be better for me to publish these Doctor Who reviews on a Sunday morning from now on. Had a bit of an epiphany about last nights episode when I woke up this morning. Two things... the goodbyes to the Doctor's new friends, with special powers, was an extended sequence where they'd been travelling in the TARDIS for a while and took far too long than was absolutely necessary or normal for an episode. Maybe they wanted to stamp those characters, and their particular talents, into our minds for much later in this series so The Doctor can use them in whatever the end game is this time?

Similarly, this episode set up the concept that people could appear to die (and I'm sure most viewers knew they weren't really dying right from the first time it happened... it was just too obvious, again) when they were actually being teleported. The devices to do this could be used in similar ways of course... maybe to pre-arrange the teleportation of a person at the moment of their death? Hmmm... haven't we seen this before somewhere? Think maybe Missy or, perhaps, even The Doctor himself playing the Missy game? We shall see but it seems an awful lot of "deus ex machina" style plot devices were being sown in last night's episode. Something to think about, perhaps.