More Science Fiction Brittania

Last night I watched an episode of the classic Day Of The Triffids adaptation, the second episode of the excellent documentary The Martians And Us and the modern remake of the Quatermass Experiment.

I remember being terrified by Day Of The Triffids when I was young, and upon watching it again, I'm not surprised. It's genuinely creepy. The music score is sort of avant garde orchestral jazz, sweeping out of nowhere. It should be cheesey but somehow it works. The production is sparse, adding to the deserted feel, lots of silence between the music and speaking and a desolate looking London. Great stuff.

The Martians And Us was about utopias this week, with talking head pieces from Kim Newman, Brain Stableford, Ken MacLeod, Iain Banks and Margaret Attwood. Yes! Attwood on a documentary about SF. Shock! (Though she was quick to point out that The Hand Maid's Tale had nothing in it that humans hadn't done.) The majority of the episode focused on Orwell and Huxley and was fascinating.

The Quatermass Experiment was less successful, I found it a bit slow and full of exposition, a bit like the A For Andromeda remake.

Loads more still to come.