"The Day of the Triffids" (1981) TV mini-series

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

10 September 1981 (Australia)

Genre:

Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

Flesh-eating plants go on the rampage.

Plot:

A terrible catastrophe has struck the population of Earth. Almost everyone on the planet has been rendered...

Plot Keywords:

Plant | Alien | TV Mini-Series | Post Apocalyptic | Based On Novel

Cast

John Duttine	...	Bill Masen (6 episodes, 1981)
Emma Relph	...	Jo Payton (5 episodes, 1981)
Maurice Colbourne	...	Jack Coker (4 episodes, 1981)
Jonathan Newth	...	Dr Soames (2 episodes, 1981)
Gary Olsen	...	Red-Haired Man / ... (2 episodes, 1981)
Perlita Neilson	...	Miss Durrant (2 episodes, 1981)
Jenny Lipman	...	Mary Brent (2 episodes, 1981)
Desmond Adams	...	Dennis Brent (2 episodes, 1981)
Claire Ballard	...	Alice (2 episodes, 1981)
Elizabeth Chambers	...	Car Attacker (2 episodes, 1981)
Bernie Searle	...	Car Attacker (2 episodes, 1981)

Runtime:

Australia:50 min (3 episodes) | 26 min (6 episodes)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Certification:

Australia:M | UK:PG

Company:

Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)

Trivia:

The title sequence, by graphics designer Douglas Burd, was shot on 35mm film and used quantized color levels in stark relief against a black background. Burd was killed during production when his self-made plane crashed during a flight.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: When Jack Coker flies off in the helicopter he is supposedly alone, but you can see a pilot flying the helicopter.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The 100 Greatest Scary Moments (2003) (TV)

Still spooky, twenty years on!

When I was seven years old, Day of the Triffids scared me so much that my parents sent me to bed early, and banned me from watching later episodes. With a lifetime of memories of a few images, I was stunned to find the show rerun on British satellite telly, and nervous about watching it again.

As so many have commented here, the joy of DOTD is its concentration on the breakdown of society. With humanity rendered blind, there are some nasty images here: a starving woman struggling to open a box, unable to see that it's washing powder; another woman struggling to get into a tin of coffee; a crowd of blind people surrounding a car, desperate to grab hold of the sighted people inside it. Nasty, unsettling, realistic stuff.

The Triffids are kept to a minimum, and wisely so, as their appearance is a bit early-80s-BBC. They look a bit plastic. Careful camerawork highlighting their roots, shadows, lethal stinging "tongues"; and the eerie Triffid soundeffect, are supremely effective in keeping the horror of death by walking vegetable on the edge of screen throughout. With horrendous disease sweeping the land, a dictatorial self-imposed government planning to seize control, the breakdown of modern society is uncomfortably close. The first meeting of the group Bill meets up with, explaining that "women will be expected to have babies, men will be expected to work", could be real.

A few scary Triffid moments, and a lot of very believable "what if" issues ensure that DOTD is as special now as it was when I was sent to bed early, and woke with nightmares, all those years ago.