jan-erik-wahlberg-1 This series, being a rip-off from the 1962 movie with the same catchy title, made interesting viewing because it's very hard to determine whether it was made with a tongue-in-cheek attitude or not. The plot is obviously completely crazy - it contains the perplexing phenomena of 99% of the population going blind in the glow of a meteor shower and disregards the fact that roughly half the population has daylight. The glow also causes a vicious breed of plants called triffids to go berserk and in doing so they have the poor blind people for snacks. This of course leads to a number of chases and a survival story which rates among the most arbitrary in the history of movie or television fiction. So if you like to keep your viewing on a serious or artistic level don't watch this one. However, if you can digest a bit of kitch together with perhaps a trifle mediocre acting, you will find it entertaining.

firehouse44 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.

palexandersquires 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!

tintintin In my memory it was a good series... Twenty years later I saw the day of the triffids tv adaptation again and i must say that it was a disappointment...... it looked a filmstudent project ;-) I like the idea and story so I hope that someday a new version will be made.