WEBVTT 00:00:00.020 --> 00:00:02.320 Fusion Patrol is a listener-supported podcast. 00:00:03.220 --> 00:00:08.300 Find out how you can help support us at patreon.com slash fusion patrol. 00:00:18.640 --> 00:00:20.460 This is the Fusion Patrol podcast. 00:00:21.340 --> 00:00:25.280 Each week, we look at a different science fiction TV episode or movie 00:00:25.840 --> 00:00:29.280 and overanalyze it to within an inch of its life. 00:00:31.260 --> 00:00:32.500 welcome to the discussion 00:00:38.720 --> 00:00:42.360 hello and welcome to another episode of fusion patrol i'm eugene 00:00:43.060 --> 00:00:53.980 and i'm simon and tonight we are looking at the 1981 bbc one-off production of john windham's 00:00:54.200 --> 00:00:55.420 Day of the Triffids. 00:00:56.440 --> 00:00:57.400 Serial production. 00:00:58.020 --> 00:00:58.500 All right, serial. 00:00:59.080 --> 00:01:02.880 I think it was one-off because it's not like Doctor Who. 00:01:03.080 --> 00:01:06.460 You would call a mini-series on the side of the pond. 00:01:06.660 --> 00:01:06.860 Yes, yes. 00:01:07.700 --> 00:01:08.040 Six parts. 00:01:08.740 --> 00:01:12.460 We would call it a series because that's kind of quite long for us. 00:01:13.400 --> 00:01:17.960 Yeah, so it's based on a book. 00:01:21.640 --> 00:01:26.580 Triffids are a plant bioengineered by the Soviet Union to be an efficient fuel additive. 00:01:27.300 --> 00:01:31.480 They are unique in that they can move about and can sting animals to death, 00:01:32.080 --> 00:01:34.160 or to a lesser intensity, blind them. 00:01:34.900 --> 00:01:39.960 Bill Mason works on one of the triffid farms, and he accidentally was blinded by a triffid sting. 00:01:40.660 --> 00:01:45.280 Now he recuperates in a hospital, waiting to see if his sight has been saved. 00:01:46.460 --> 00:01:50.000 Sadly for the bandaged Bill, on the night before he gets his bandages off, 00:01:50.060 --> 00:01:54.580 he misses the greatest light show the world will ever see. 00:01:55.250 --> 00:01:58.920 An astral phenomena bays the Earth for 24 hours 00:01:59.150 --> 00:02:01.660 in an amazing light show in the night sky. 00:02:03.460 --> 00:02:05.340 But there's no such thing as a free lunch. 00:02:06.300 --> 00:02:07.840 Neither are there free light shows, 00:02:08.440 --> 00:02:11.860 because the next day, everyone who saw the show is blind. 00:02:12.980 --> 00:02:15.680 Bill, now one of the few sighted people left in the world, 00:02:15.940 --> 00:02:18.319 meets up with Joe and begins their adventures 00:02:18.400 --> 00:02:20.220 in a world turned on its head. 00:02:21.080 --> 00:02:22.740 Oh, and the Triffids have escaped, 00:02:23.100 --> 00:02:25.400 and they're hunting down blind humans like a feast. 00:02:26.540 --> 00:02:28.080 Bill and Joe first meet up with a group 00:02:28.340 --> 00:02:29.220 planning to go to the country 00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:30.980 and set up a polygamous compound. 00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:33.460 Blind women can produce sighted babies, 00:02:33.600 --> 00:02:35.960 and so they must breed up a new generation of humans 00:02:36.360 --> 00:02:37.300 to take back the world. 00:02:38.100 --> 00:02:40.160 Bill and Joe decide to join in. 00:02:40.940 --> 00:02:41.880 But then... 00:02:42.300 --> 00:02:43.840 They are captured by Coker, 00:02:44.160 --> 00:02:47.060 a sighted man who feels that everyone should stay in the city, 00:02:47.460 --> 00:02:49.860 helping the blind get food until help arrives. 00:02:51.260 --> 00:02:53.160 Since they refuse to do so on their own, 00:02:53.440 --> 00:02:56.020 they are imprisoned and chained to work gangs. 00:02:56.640 --> 00:02:57.860 Bill and Joe are separated. 00:02:58.780 --> 00:03:00.940 A disease begins to kill off everyone, 00:03:01.420 --> 00:03:05.420 and Bill manages to leave his work group after they all die. 00:03:06.220 --> 00:03:07.300 He cannot find Joe, 00:03:08.280 --> 00:03:11.620 but he finds the name of the place where the group had been intending to go, 00:03:12.420 --> 00:03:12.560 Tyson, 00:03:13.260 --> 00:03:15.260 and along with a repentant coker, 00:03:15.660 --> 00:03:18.140 who also saw all his blind people die of disease, 00:03:18.920 --> 00:03:19.940 they head out to find it. 00:03:21.540 --> 00:03:22.860 They do in fact find Tysum, 00:03:23.060 --> 00:03:25.640 but the group has already splintered into two factions. 00:03:26.520 --> 00:03:29.060 Those that remained at Tysum felt that 00:03:29.600 --> 00:03:32.320 good Christian values and morals must be maintained, 00:03:32.860 --> 00:03:34.760 and the two groups agreed to split. 00:03:35.460 --> 00:03:38.720 Coker tries to convince them that they cannot just rely on God's grace 00:03:38.860 --> 00:03:41.500 and must start doing things to save themselves. 00:03:42.800 --> 00:03:44.000 But they refuse, 00:03:44.560 --> 00:03:46.260 and the pair leave looking for the other group. 00:03:47.600 --> 00:03:48.980 Bill hopes that Joe is with them. 00:03:50.380 --> 00:03:54.960 They cannot find the group, and Coker decides to return and try to make them see sense. 00:03:55.800 --> 00:04:00.540 But Bill remembers a place on the South Downs where Joe mentioned her self-sufficiency-minded friends 00:04:00.720 --> 00:04:06.000 had a farm with a well and wind power and a generator, and that it might make a good retreat. 00:04:06.760 --> 00:04:11.220 He travels there, and along the way rescues a young girl, Susan, from the Triffids. 00:04:12.500 --> 00:04:15.020 Bill finds Joe, and they are reunited. 00:04:16.799 --> 00:04:21.260 Soon, Bill goes back to check on Coker and Tyson, but the group is dead of the disease. 00:04:21.920 --> 00:04:23.060 There is no sign of Coker. 00:04:24.300 --> 00:04:27.820 Bill and Joe spend six good years together with her two blind friends. 00:04:28.460 --> 00:04:33.940 In that time, Susan becomes as a daughter to them and grows up, and they have a child, as do her friends. 00:04:34.940 --> 00:04:39.840 Good years, that is, save for the fact that they are under constant siege by thousands of triffids. 00:04:41.080 --> 00:04:42.760 Cougar arrives via helicopter. 00:04:43.360 --> 00:04:46.260 He survived the disease at Tysum and found the other splinter group. 00:04:46.960 --> 00:04:50.060 They've settled on the Isle of Wight and freed the island of Triffids. 00:04:50.700 --> 00:04:52.560 Others are colonizing the Channel Islands. 00:04:53.460 --> 00:04:54.960 He invites them to come live with him. 00:04:55.360 --> 00:04:58.780 He especially needs Bill, a man with bioscience training on Triffids, 00:04:59.820 --> 00:05:02.520 to help make the fight to retake the Earth. 00:05:04.140 --> 00:05:08.620 They decide to go, but first they want to spend one more summer on their idyllic farm. 00:05:09.420 --> 00:05:14.420 Alas, the next day a tank pulls up with representatives of the newly established and not elected government. 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:17.060 They are setting up the New World Order. 00:05:18.700 --> 00:05:27.240 They are apportioning land to sighted people and requiring them to take ten blind people for each sighted person as effectively slave labor. 00:05:28.160 --> 00:05:31.360 The sighted will be feudal barons under the authority of the government. 00:05:32.120 --> 00:05:34.860 Just one problem. Only two sighted adults are allowed. 00:05:35.160 --> 00:05:40.620 Susan will have to come back to the HQ with the soldiers and be assigned to suitable duties. 00:05:41.740 --> 00:05:46.900 That night, they get the soldiers drunk, sabotage the tank, and escape, heading for the Isle of Wight. 00:05:49.260 --> 00:05:53.280 Okay, well, Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham, 00:05:53.780 --> 00:06:02.000 who some people consider to be a particularly notable British science fiction author, 00:06:02.640 --> 00:06:05.240 And some people consider a bit of a hack. 00:06:08.660 --> 00:06:11.800 Some people do think his books are pretty hackneyed. 00:06:12.220 --> 00:06:15.380 So it's an unusual dichotomy there. 00:06:17.380 --> 00:06:18.240 I will say this. 00:06:18.470 --> 00:06:25.760 Although I looked for it and I could not find it, I absolutely positively have Day of the Triffids on my bookshelf somewhere. 00:06:27.580 --> 00:06:28.480 And read it. 00:06:28.900 --> 00:06:31.700 And read it, yes, many years ago. 00:06:32.440 --> 00:06:39.960 and this is pretty darn faithful to it it's like there's not a lot that i remember is windham a 00:06:40.420 --> 00:06:48.180 is windham a hack or is he i'm gonna ask you that question i have never read a john windham novel 00:06:48.780 --> 00:06:57.079 so i'm not the person to ask i'm i'm pretty i'm pretty tolerant um i enjoyed the book 00:06:58.659 --> 00:07:04.420 so is he is he one of the greats i'm not sure he's got some interesting stories out there i mean 00:07:04.780 --> 00:07:10.480 day of the triffids is probably his most famous um the midwitch cuckoos is probably the second 00:07:10.720 --> 00:07:16.300 most famous book of his which uh anyone who's seen the movies will know as village of the damned 00:07:18.159 --> 00:07:24.239 um or the two movies known as village of the damned that that were based on his novel and 00:07:24.260 --> 00:07:32.420 the rest of his work is not well known here anyway as far as i know he said i mean he certainly 00:07:32.840 --> 00:07:42.680 produces works that get adapted and i mean the the phrase triffids has kind of entered 00:07:43.980 --> 00:07:53.059 into the language is a useful kind of description for any particularly menacing type of or or 00:07:53.960 --> 00:07:55.540 voracious kind of plant 00:07:56.660 --> 00:07:57.760 because there's a lot of them 00:07:57.880 --> 00:07:59.240 I've not only 00:08:00.010 --> 00:08:00.820 managed to not 00:08:01.780 --> 00:08:03.380 read The Day of the Triffids 00:08:03.520 --> 00:08:04.780 I've also not managed 00:08:05.780 --> 00:08:07.300 to watch the 1962 00:08:07.970 --> 00:08:09.100 film or the 00:08:09.460 --> 00:08:11.700 2009 TV series 00:08:12.080 --> 00:08:13.240 or various 00:08:13.390 --> 00:08:15.300 of many radio 00:08:15.540 --> 00:08:17.200 adaptations that have been made 00:08:17.280 --> 00:08:19.000 so people do seem to keep coming back to it 00:08:19.260 --> 00:08:19.540 and 00:08:21.840 --> 00:08:23.040 I've also 00:08:23.360 --> 00:08:38.719 You will know, some listeners will know, I'm quite an avid fan of the output of the audio company Big Finish, who have produced an audio play, Night of the Triffids, a sequel to Day of the Triffids. 00:08:40.820 --> 00:08:42.979 But again, which I can give that a second look. 00:08:44.579 --> 00:08:46.640 I've listened to the audio play from Big Finish. 00:08:47.160 --> 00:08:52.900 So it's it's all right. 00:08:53.360 --> 00:09:09.120 You know, I haven't read the book. I think it's based on a book somebody put out, but it doesn't, it's not really a direct sequel. I think it's just kind of a few years later on. Doesn't involve Bill Mason or anything. It's, I think, mostly in America, as I recall. 00:09:11.240 --> 00:09:13.960 But that way, because I remember it because of the American accents. 00:09:16.840 --> 00:09:19.020 In fact, I think Nicola Bryant might be starring in it. 00:09:19.020 --> 00:09:19.520 I'm not sure. 00:09:20.500 --> 00:09:23.460 If not, it's somebody doing a Nicola Bryant as Perry imitation. 00:09:24.420 --> 00:09:25.820 It's almost certainly Nicola Bryant. 00:09:29.140 --> 00:09:35.480 So anyway, so what did you think of this as being only exposed to the term Triffid, 00:09:35.500 --> 00:09:39.480 but never having seen or been exposed to the actual story? 00:09:40.100 --> 00:09:43.580 Well, I'll tell you one thing. It felt like an adaptation watching it. 00:09:46.620 --> 00:10:01.580 So I could almost feel the gaps, if you like, that someone watching this, familiar with the book and having more background knowledge to what's going on coming into it, 00:10:02.700 --> 00:10:06.200 might have a very different view on this TV series, 00:10:06.530 --> 00:10:11.720 which I'll grant you is quite atmospheric. 00:10:13.980 --> 00:10:20.500 And that's hugely important in obviously creating this post-apocalyptic environment. 00:10:21.920 --> 00:10:28.740 And, you know, part of that is the really quite striking music by Christopher Gunning. 00:10:32.060 --> 00:10:43.060 And it's the kind of, there's a good sense of menace, 00:10:44.430 --> 00:10:49.900 which I will put down more to the acting and the reacting 00:10:51.040 --> 00:10:56.000 than I will necessarily to, and, you know, 00:10:56.000 --> 00:10:58.599 I don't want to be too rude about anyone doing their best 00:10:58.620 --> 00:11:03.380 in the constraints of 19, well, basically just coming out of the 70s. 00:11:03.500 --> 00:11:11.160 So 1970s TV, but we'll put it this way. 00:11:11.360 --> 00:11:17.120 It was directed to try and avoid showing the Triffids too much. 00:11:18.200 --> 00:11:18.400 Right. 00:11:18.660 --> 00:11:23.620 Too much of the Triffids, which was, you know, a good thing, I think. 00:11:25.080 --> 00:11:31.300 Even in the kind of very stylized title sequence, it looks fine until you see a Triffid Sting. 00:11:32.180 --> 00:11:43.820 The Triffid Sting is probably the worst piece of the effect because it doesn't look like a sting. 00:11:44.070 --> 00:11:46.180 It looks like somebody beating you with a rubber hose. 00:11:48.020 --> 00:11:54.640 You know, it doesn't have that it's been shot out, point first, hit the person in the face. 00:11:55.060 --> 00:12:00.740 it has the more sort of whip effect of it being slapped against the person's face. 00:12:02.740 --> 00:12:08.440 Which, you know, since we never really see it do a sting in that way, 00:12:08.570 --> 00:12:11.360 I mean, we do see the kind of whip effect. 00:12:11.700 --> 00:12:12.679 It's not... 00:12:13.620 --> 00:12:14.140 I... 00:12:17.439 --> 00:12:18.480 I think... 00:12:19.020 --> 00:12:20.560 Boy, I'm not 100% sure. 00:12:21.820 --> 00:12:30.340 I think I saw this before I managed to get hold of a copy of the novel. 00:12:32.240 --> 00:12:33.280 But I'm not... 00:12:33.280 --> 00:12:36.320 And so this was your first Griffith experience? 00:12:38.440 --> 00:12:39.820 It's really hard for me to tell. 00:12:39.820 --> 00:12:44.940 So basically, if this came out in 1981, so I would have been... 00:12:44.940 --> 00:12:46.780 Well, that would have been just before I went to university. 00:12:48.060 --> 00:13:03.240 When I got to university, so I moved to another city, and when I got to university, that is about the time that they started showing Doctor Who on television here in the Phoenix area. 00:13:07.160 --> 00:13:12.280 that led very quickly to some bookstores getting, 00:13:13.500 --> 00:13:15.940 driving up like purchasing Starburst magazine, 00:13:16.240 --> 00:13:21.180 which was not a American magazine and bringing in all the target 00:13:21.560 --> 00:13:25.140 novelizations and getting a lot more British science fiction, 00:13:26.320 --> 00:13:26.460 uh, 00:13:27.580 --> 00:13:28.220 press and stuff. 00:13:28.400 --> 00:13:29.800 So start picking those things up, 00:13:29.800 --> 00:13:32.400 start reading about them and start learning about day of the Triffids. 00:13:33.320 --> 00:13:35.340 And this bookstore was just basically doing well. 00:13:35.420 --> 00:13:39.360 were a few but the one that i went to frequent it you know they were doing the same thing they 00:13:39.360 --> 00:13:43.220 would look through it and go oh dear the triffids quatermass oh bring you know see what we can get 00:13:43.420 --> 00:13:47.320 and either bring in new copies or or used copies of these books so that they would have them 00:13:47.960 --> 00:13:53.980 stocked in this relatively good section so i i don't remember whether somebody brought triffids 00:13:54.240 --> 00:14:04.079 over or i found the book on the shelf first i just can't remember um it might be the book 00:14:07.400 --> 00:14:10.640 it sucks not to be able to remember back that far i mean it's only 00:14:11.400 --> 00:14:20.520 what 35 40 years yes yeah so but um but i do remember that whenever i got to the point where 00:14:20.520 --> 00:14:28.080 i was able to compare the two that they were pretty darn close they were i think i don't close 00:14:28.520 --> 00:14:32.459 i can believe that what we see on the screen is taken from the book i think the thing that 00:14:32.500 --> 00:14:39.760 that is missing as as a viewer watching it and this being your your kind of first encounter with 00:14:39.760 --> 00:14:48.380 it is that the pacing doesn't feel quite right somehow and it feels like there are 00:14:49.600 --> 00:14:56.000 not that there are unanswered questions because actually the final um i wish to say this is in 00:14:56.040 --> 00:15:04.800 six half-hour parts and in the final part it's made quite explicit that there are questions 00:15:05.700 --> 00:15:13.740 that are unanswered and that's okay what bugs me a little bit is that they weren't being asked 00:15:14.640 --> 00:15:21.739 right at the beginning I was asking them but the characters on the screen didn't seem to be 00:15:22.100 --> 00:15:25.940 asking the same questions which leads you to wonder do they know the answers 00:15:26.740 --> 00:15:34.960 and i imagine some of those questions are in the book to do with um like things like 00:15:36.600 --> 00:15:47.060 um what is causing the disease for example um whether it is actually infectious or not because 00:15:47.180 --> 00:15:49.860 we quite quickly jump to assumptions. 00:15:50.200 --> 00:15:54.220 So some of the kinds of nuts and bolts questions. 00:15:57.020 --> 00:16:00.960 I don't remember anything about the disease from the book. 00:16:01.000 --> 00:16:02.060 I mean, I know it was happening. 00:16:04.060 --> 00:16:08.980 I don't remember them, you know, 00:16:08.980 --> 00:16:10.980 at the end where he asks the question about, you know, 00:16:11.040 --> 00:16:12.200 was the disease man-made? 00:16:12.280 --> 00:16:13.060 I don't remember that. 00:16:13.660 --> 00:16:15.900 I remember that he, towards the end, 00:16:16.020 --> 00:16:21.820 he postulated that the comet might have been some sort of weapon gone wrong. 00:16:21.820 --> 00:16:24.020 Yeah, just in case we didn't get what all this was about. 00:16:24.940 --> 00:16:25.200 Yeah. 00:16:28.459 --> 00:16:32.600 And, you know, I think in the book, 00:16:32.730 --> 00:16:38.560 the Triffids were made as a vegetable oil substitute, 00:16:39.920 --> 00:16:40.760 not a fuel oil, 00:16:41.960 --> 00:16:45.640 or some sort of amazing vegetable oil. 00:16:46.380 --> 00:16:48.040 I guess for frying chips and stuff 00:16:48.360 --> 00:16:48.540 but 00:16:51.060 --> 00:16:52.080 that's kind of neither 00:16:52.690 --> 00:16:53.780 here nor there in a sense 00:16:54.660 --> 00:16:55.940 yeah but another 00:16:56.080 --> 00:16:57.440 a man-made catastrophe still 00:16:58.060 --> 00:17:00.100 definitely an engineered catastrophe 00:17:00.460 --> 00:17:02.180 for our greed 00:17:02.580 --> 00:17:02.980 and our 00:17:04.880 --> 00:17:06.180 you know as opposed to 00:17:06.300 --> 00:17:08.160 if the comet is indeed a weapon 00:17:08.839 --> 00:17:10.199 then you know 00:17:10.339 --> 00:17:11.540 that's our folly as 00:17:12.600 --> 00:17:13.719 warlike apes but 00:17:15.319 --> 00:17:21.540 but it just it does it does seem a bit suddenly everyone seems to have radiation sickness in 00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:28.780 something that is clearly intended to be an allegory about nuclear fallout but there's no 00:17:29.680 --> 00:17:39.659 obvious reason why they are suffering those symptoms okay and i don't mind that there's 00:17:39.680 --> 00:17:45.780 an unanswered question i mind that there is an unasked question and it feels like you've missed 00:17:45.780 --> 00:17:51.980 a bit it feels like at some point those questions were asked and i think that's partly to do with 00:17:52.560 --> 00:18:00.480 when you make an adaptation you have to make choices about pacing and obviously 00:18:02.440 --> 00:18:07.519 that's quite difficult when you've only got six half hours to do the whole novel and also 00:18:07.540 --> 00:18:16.160 obviously the novel seems to cover several years but a lot i mean a huge amount happens 00:18:17.060 --> 00:18:28.220 in those first few hours after the comet right and to me a lot of that's the kind of interesting 00:18:28.280 --> 00:18:33.700 stuff and and i i want to know 00:18:36.620 --> 00:18:47.720 i i want to know why why it is for example that the radio isn't working i want to know 00:18:48.620 --> 00:18:58.240 why it is that everyone is so debilitated by losing their sight and that sounds a kind of 00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:08.040 silly question but there are some things that obviously 00:19:10.720 --> 00:19:16.980 you simply cannot do not being cited there are other things that simply take longer 00:19:17.670 --> 00:19:24.480 and that's the far bigger category and the the effect of the effect of that 00:19:25.880 --> 00:19:28.540 when such a large percentage of the population 00:19:29.000 --> 00:19:29.840 loses their sight 00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:32.520 are really going to be felt 00:19:33.360 --> 00:19:34.500 but they're not going to be felt straight away 00:19:35.210 --> 00:19:35.320 necessarily 00:19:37.620 --> 00:19:38.600 and in the book 00:19:38.740 --> 00:19:39.860 you've got more time to do that 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:42.080 but on the TV it's like 00:19:42.160 --> 00:19:45.020 it's the small hours of the following morning 00:19:45.160 --> 00:19:46.660 and everything has already gone to chaos 00:19:46.880 --> 00:19:47.740 it just seems strange 00:19:54.020 --> 00:19:54.460 okay 00:19:54.480 --> 00:19:58.860 Let me talk about the disease for a second before I lose that train of thought. 00:20:00.140 --> 00:20:04.400 I never saw that as an allegory for radiation sickness. 00:20:06.780 --> 00:20:08.020 I saw it. 00:20:08.060 --> 00:20:09.720 I don't think it's an allegory for radiation sickness. 00:20:09.960 --> 00:20:12.480 It's the symptoms of radiation sickness, isn't it? 00:20:13.720 --> 00:20:18.740 You know, as you say, yes, it certainly could be the symptoms of radiation sickness. 00:20:19.820 --> 00:20:24.380 It doesn't look like cholera to me, but I'm not 100% sure what cholera looks like. 00:20:25.040 --> 00:20:40.340 I certainly up until this view through, and I don't recall anything to the difference from the book, but again, I definitely haven't read the book since 1983 or four. 00:20:44.440 --> 00:20:49.540 I thought that was meant to represent generic epidemic. 00:20:50.140 --> 00:20:53.280 I mean, the people are, the water is going to stop working. 00:20:53.500 --> 00:20:59.240 They're probably pooing in their flats and living in their filth and they're all going to die. 00:20:59.800 --> 00:21:01.280 That's not going to happen the day after. 00:21:02.080 --> 00:21:04.220 No, but I thought that took a little while to start. 00:21:05.480 --> 00:21:07.220 Well, that's kind of hard to tell. 00:21:07.290 --> 00:21:07.460 Yeah. 00:21:08.280 --> 00:21:11.460 It doesn't actually seem to take a while. 00:21:11.880 --> 00:21:17.200 the illness begins almost straight away and it's three days doesn't it doesn't with one possible 00:21:17.440 --> 00:21:23.840 exception it doesn't seem to affect anyone who is sighted ah now this is where i was going 00:21:25.000 --> 00:21:30.960 this is where i was going when i got to the end of this and i remember him mentioning the the 00:21:31.120 --> 00:21:36.000 illness being possibly man-made i started thinking about it because that's what i do and then seeing 00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:41.000 the podcast here and it occurred that thought occurred to me because it was bugging me it's 00:21:40.880 --> 00:21:45.960 like how come coker didn't die how come bill didn't die how come joe didn't die they're they're all 00:21:46.100 --> 00:21:51.800 exposed to these people who are dying right and left and if it's contagious they weren't asking 00:21:52.440 --> 00:21:58.840 right they weren't asking is this only is this only people the old christian lady died of it 00:22:00.520 --> 00:22:05.179 good point yes and she was cited that was the only person i can think of who was cited who died of it 00:22:05.100 --> 00:22:12.320 though so maybe it was a different disease that got her i mean if you're hanging around a bunch 00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:17.320 of dead bodies rotting because the disease is killing everybody else you know there's 00:22:18.480 --> 00:22:23.240 there are a number of factors the ill people could have secondary infections that 00:22:24.330 --> 00:22:27.820 are causing something so i mean it's still possible you're right it does seem to be 00:22:28.330 --> 00:22:35.060 hitting the blinded people substantially more then the question is how come that didn't affect 00:22:36.020 --> 00:22:42.240 the people who didn't see it is this a radiation that can only be entered into your body through 00:22:42.240 --> 00:22:49.440 your eyes because i mean bill was there in a room and you had to be you had to be out in it 00:22:50.180 --> 00:22:53.420 yeah there had to be a sight line for you to be affected by the radiation 00:22:56.240 --> 00:23:03.000 it's it's a possibility it's a possibility it it is i don't i mean i don't know if i would 00:23:02.940 --> 00:23:08.720 be asking those questions i myself trying to put myself in this situation um and then you can talk 00:23:08.730 --> 00:23:15.860 about the blindness too and yeah sure you ask a lot of questions uh but i don't know i think i 00:23:15.890 --> 00:23:21.640 would be if you have an epidemic the first question you ask is how is this thing transmitted how the 00:23:21.640 --> 00:23:26.920 hell do i get out of this town is my first thought i just assumed it was contagious and i would be 00:23:26.940 --> 00:23:33.000 thinking about countryside but then that was already in my head i mean the the the folks at 00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:36.980 the university already put that in everybody's head there's going to be disease we need to get 00:23:37.120 --> 00:23:43.020 out of town you know bill said that too he was talking about cholera and other diseases and who 00:23:43.100 --> 00:23:49.220 knows what and they were but this was day one that was the thing that well i would be thinking about 00:23:49.320 --> 00:23:53.740 that on day one i absolutely would be thinking about that on day one i mean i've seen enough 00:23:53.760 --> 00:23:58.480 post-apocalyptic fiction to know that you immediately get out of town because it makes 00:23:58.480 --> 00:24:03.880 you somewhat atypical and i don't even like post-apocalyptic fiction anyone who wasn't 00:24:03.990 --> 00:24:08.820 watching all the post-apocalyptic tv series probably wouldn't realize that they were in a 00:24:08.920 --> 00:24:13.680 post-apocalyptic scenario they might just think that they had a power cut well they did have a 00:24:13.780 --> 00:24:17.940 bunch of people like coker who was like no no no we've got people you know we got to stay here and 00:24:17.940 --> 00:24:23.720 help them until help arrives so clearly you know there are people on the spectrum of how deluded to 00:24:23.760 --> 00:24:31.660 bad off the earth is but that but then they're not deluded they're acting on the best information 00:24:31.840 --> 00:24:37.320 that is available to them they're ignorant but that's entirely understandable because 00:24:37.860 --> 00:24:42.880 why would you assume this thing affects the whole planet why would you assume it affects other cities 00:24:43.840 --> 00:24:49.360 well i mean bill has good reason to he heard the radio broadcast that said 00:24:50.740 --> 00:24:56.960 that absolutely everywhere in the world got to see this show over the period of 24 hours 00:24:57.820 --> 00:25:04.140 that was on the news the night before when he was in his room but that's that's drawing the 00:25:04.320 --> 00:25:09.720 connection with the the comet comet which isn't you know the the immediate thing 00:25:11.660 --> 00:25:15.500 all right let me ask this question would you go out and look at it 00:25:17.280 --> 00:25:21.620 to comment yeah if if that were if that were a thing that happened tonight 00:25:22.850 --> 00:25:27.180 yeah i know i find that to be one of the most compelling 00:25:29.180 --> 00:25:38.880 terrors of this show to me is the idea that you know darn good and well that if you weren't 00:25:39.240 --> 00:25:42.200 drugged to sleep or bandaged or something, 00:25:42.700 --> 00:25:46.720 you would absolutely make the time to go out and look at this thing. 00:25:47.420 --> 00:25:48.100 You'd have to. 00:25:48.260 --> 00:25:52.920 I mean, what kind of a slug would you have to be to be sitting there going, 00:25:53.260 --> 00:25:58.880 eh, I don't want to see a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event right outside my window. 00:25:59.400 --> 00:26:07.080 I was like, you'd have to be quite the piece of work not to do that. 00:26:07.180 --> 00:26:10.620 Now I can see people who have reasons not to, like little kids who've gone to sleep. 00:26:10.990 --> 00:26:17.360 And think of all the babies that died on probably the first couple days. 00:26:18.270 --> 00:26:21.420 Because they were in their cribs, in their rooms, never saw it, never got affected. 00:26:21.580 --> 00:26:28.060 And their parents fell up and, you know, I mean, it... 00:26:28.300 --> 00:26:31.300 Except they wouldn't die in the first couple of days. 00:26:31.480 --> 00:26:32.160 This is the thing. 00:26:34.100 --> 00:26:35.280 I don't know. 00:26:35.960 --> 00:26:44.300 You know, when somebody is, I haven't been around somebody who is blind, and I certainly hope not to be one of those people or be around somebody who goes blind. 00:26:45.140 --> 00:27:04.920 But, you know, if you take depictions of the psychological aspects of it, people who get disabilities frequently go into a bit of a funk, a helpless funk that, you know, I can't do anything and I'm helpless and I want to die. 00:27:06.890 --> 00:27:12.460 And can you imagine if everyone you knew everywhere was blind? 00:27:14.020 --> 00:27:18.280 But it wouldn't be something that would kill you within a day. 00:27:18.440 --> 00:27:19.540 That's what I'm saying. 00:27:20.240 --> 00:27:25.000 When you have a cataract operation and you're on it. 00:27:25.140 --> 00:27:29.440 I mean, Bill, at the start of this, is blind himself, 00:27:29.650 --> 00:27:31.700 and it's a temporary condition. 00:27:32.520 --> 00:27:35.000 But there are... 00:27:36.820 --> 00:27:39.080 But they're not dying of the blindness, though. 00:27:39.500 --> 00:27:42.100 They're dying from living in places with stairs, 00:27:42.280 --> 00:27:47.780 which is just a dangerous thing or it's not like and triffids like that it's not like you're living 00:27:47.880 --> 00:27:52.680 in an unfamiliar place where you don't know the stairs are you know where the stairs are you know 00:27:52.760 --> 00:27:58.620 where you know where the fridge is and where the water tap is but we saw what we saw the guy the 00:27:59.340 --> 00:28:08.059 in the in his t-shirt and his wife that bill went into their apartment and he was you know he was 00:28:08.080 --> 00:28:12.720 the first to give bill his you know rundown scenario of how bad it's going to be in a few days 00:28:17.080 --> 00:28:23.860 and he's you know he and his wife were doing okay in their house but then the food's gonna run out 00:28:24.920 --> 00:28:33.359 and sure sure i think i think i think the thing for me was that the speed with which it happened 00:28:33.380 --> 00:28:39.300 didn't allow for the exploration because in a way this is my this is my favorite kind of science 00:28:39.520 --> 00:28:48.460 fiction it's it's extrapolating through some kind of disaster or event like this from what we have 00:28:48.580 --> 00:28:53.780 now how how our institutions and our society would stand up to these big i mean it's like 00:28:54.320 --> 00:28:59.700 it's it's exactly the scenario we've got in in torchwood children of earth which i think is my 00:28:59.660 --> 00:29:09.120 favorite sci-fi tv series so i'm interested in exploring that stuff but i think part of it would 00:29:09.240 --> 00:29:19.300 be how or part of what determines how disastrous it would be would would be how successful or 00:29:19.400 --> 00:29:28.159 unsuccessful would you be in those first few days at getting organized but it is days it's not hours 00:29:28.180 --> 00:29:34.560 and that you know i think i think there is a chance there and i think you would be trying to 00:29:34.840 --> 00:29:39.020 find the useful people that wouldn't just be sighted people that would actually be the registered 00:29:39.170 --> 00:29:45.520 blind because they've got a load of people who are actually very capable at dealing with 00:29:46.440 --> 00:29:53.700 one of my nodes which they cannot see i would go find a blind school exactly exactly they could be 00:29:53.700 --> 00:30:01.080 teaching and if you've got time and you could start teaching people how to cope then 00:30:03.719 --> 00:30:10.060 when the food started running out when the water i mean it's the water that's the scary thing i had 00:30:10.540 --> 00:30:14.560 there was a burst pipe up the road the other day and i had a 00:30:16.559 --> 00:30:25.740 what you know maybe 12 18 hours without water and my word you just suddenly realize how incredibly 00:30:26.460 --> 00:30:33.420 dependent you are on it so in in some ways the speed with which these things can occur 00:30:34.360 --> 00:30:42.740 you know is much much faster than we conceive until something like that happens um i think 00:30:42.640 --> 00:30:46.400 The whole with the water thing is because I've had water. 00:30:46.660 --> 00:30:49.080 I had a burst pipe in the house and without water. 00:30:49.200 --> 00:30:52.140 And it's kind of where they were shut it down for a while. 00:30:52.460 --> 00:30:59.600 It's like, sure, I can go to the refrigerator and I can get some bottled water or I can get some I can get some Dr. Pepper or something of that nature. 00:30:59.700 --> 00:31:03.140 It's when you go to the toilet the first time and you go, oh, there's only the one. 00:31:03.800 --> 00:31:04.900 There's only this one flush. 00:31:06.020 --> 00:31:06.360 Then we're done. 00:31:07.100 --> 00:31:07.980 And then we got a problem. 00:31:09.040 --> 00:31:10.120 Then we had then we've got a problem. 00:31:10.200 --> 00:31:11.420 And you think, oh, I know. 00:31:11.680 --> 00:31:13.900 I know because I've had a problem with the cistern before. 00:31:14.120 --> 00:31:14.860 I know how to flush it. 00:31:14.920 --> 00:31:16.160 I'll just get a bucket of water and throw it. 00:31:16.180 --> 00:31:17.680 And you think, where do I get the water from? 00:31:18.940 --> 00:31:23.260 And the fact that, you know, I'm in the bathroom standing under the shower thinking, 00:31:24.500 --> 00:31:26.020 hmm, there's something wrong here. 00:31:27.520 --> 00:31:30.200 And I finally twig that there's no water in the house. 00:31:31.040 --> 00:31:34.180 And when I'm thinking through the consequences, I'm thinking, oh, I can't wash my hands. 00:31:34.340 --> 00:31:34.560 Never mind. 00:31:34.700 --> 00:31:35.880 I'll go and get some water from the kitchen. 00:31:36.180 --> 00:31:38.700 Well, a kitchen tap comes from the same place. 00:31:39.860 --> 00:31:41.080 It takes you a while before. 00:31:41.280 --> 00:31:43.380 And then you think, oh, maybe I can borrow it from a neighbor. 00:31:43.600 --> 00:31:45.240 But hang on, the whole street's out. 00:31:45.500 --> 00:31:49.420 And so then you get the shotgun and you start going after the stores, 00:31:49.720 --> 00:31:52.200 raiding, because that's how civilization breaks down. 00:31:53.760 --> 00:31:54.780 What is that for a few hours? 00:31:55.020 --> 00:32:00.100 Or possibly you go to the river that is, you know, literally two minutes walk. 00:32:01.679 --> 00:32:03.100 Well, isn't that nice? 00:32:04.360 --> 00:32:08.560 Yeah, but, you know, we're talking about something that is set in the UK. 00:32:08.700 --> 00:32:11.180 OK, I wouldn't think out of the Thames in the 80s. 00:32:11.560 --> 00:32:13.200 That's fair enough. 00:32:13.860 --> 00:32:15.020 London, probably a bad place. 00:32:17.580 --> 00:32:22.800 But what you're obviously doing is marshalling the resources that you've got 00:32:23.520 --> 00:32:26.580 and starting to prioritise things. 00:32:27.250 --> 00:32:31.500 Whereas what we seem to be jumping to on screen was that, 00:32:32.040 --> 00:32:35.820 well, actually, everything has already failed and we're into the disaster planning. 00:32:36.040 --> 00:32:42.080 And this is where we're getting the kind of right wing fantasist nut job stuff. 00:32:42.980 --> 00:32:50.200 And we're getting Croker, who you seem to dislike, but frankly, who is the hero that this show needs. 00:32:50.420 --> 00:32:58.320 Because Bill and Joe are ready to sign up and let Joe pick Bill and other couple of wives. 00:32:59.060 --> 00:33:04.860 I don't picture Croker as the villain of the piece by any stretch of the imagination. 00:33:05.540 --> 00:33:13.200 I think this is an argument between he... 00:33:14.090 --> 00:33:18.340 So, all right, maybe he doesn't realize how widespread the problem is. 00:33:20.140 --> 00:33:25.220 And this is a failure of communication because Bill should know. 00:33:25.730 --> 00:33:27.160 Bill heard it, right? 00:33:27.640 --> 00:33:28.180 Bill... 00:33:28.750 --> 00:33:32.620 And I think they all put the comment because his doctor told him it was the comment, right? 00:33:32.650 --> 00:33:34.160 I'm not sure it is pure ignorance. 00:33:34.920 --> 00:33:38.260 So Bill, okay, so in a way he's deluding himself. 00:33:38.780 --> 00:33:41.160 He's either deluding himself or he's ignorant of the problem. 00:33:41.280 --> 00:33:41.960 I don't understand it. 00:33:42.200 --> 00:33:43.160 But you do have some people that are- 00:33:43.160 --> 00:33:44.760 There may be a bit of delusion. 00:33:44.760 --> 00:33:55.560 They do have some people, Bill in this case, who has a doctor of ophthalmology who is postulating that it was the comet. 00:33:55.560 --> 00:34:00.620 We know Bill heard that the comet was seen by absolutely everyone in the world. 00:34:00.620 --> 00:34:04.040 So at the very least, when he's there going, oh, you need to worry about the Triffids. 00:34:05.800 --> 00:34:08.679 when somebody comes along and says, no, no, the emergency services company is like, 00:34:08.879 --> 00:34:13.399 this happened everywhere. You know, we think, I think this happened everywhere. 00:34:14.860 --> 00:34:21.480 So my questions are how long before, if nobody is there to work it. And I, and I really do feel 00:34:21.860 --> 00:34:27.120 that if everyone went blind, they would not be getting into their jobs in the morning. 00:34:28.120 --> 00:34:34.080 Those who are at their jobs would not care about their jobs at that point and would be freaking out 00:34:34.120 --> 00:34:35.600 And trying to get help. 00:34:36.419 --> 00:34:42.060 I don't know how automated the services are to say that would phones keep, I mean, today phones would keep working. 00:34:43.020 --> 00:34:44.260 Electricity would work for a while. 00:34:44.500 --> 00:34:45.419 Water would work for a while. 00:34:45.480 --> 00:34:49.480 I don't know how much manual intervention is required every day. 00:34:49.500 --> 00:34:53.720 I mean, did somebody come in and flip on the switch for London to get the power going in 1981? 00:34:54.060 --> 00:34:54.760 I don't think so. 00:34:55.020 --> 00:34:56.419 But, you know. 00:34:56.600 --> 00:35:02.980 Well, no, I think the power would go out without people to. 00:35:03.480 --> 00:35:08.960 And it would be the same. I mean, I'm assuming this is set in 1981 rather than 1951. 00:35:09.290 --> 00:35:10.120 Yeah, I think. Yeah. 00:35:10.850 --> 00:35:24.420 But even so, I think the degree of intervention required, because even elements that are automated, we're really talking about semi-automation. 00:35:24.550 --> 00:35:30.520 As soon as there is any kind of fault, no one's going to be able to rectify it and things are going to go down. 00:35:30.680 --> 00:35:36.740 So to my mind, some of those things are quite fragile. 00:35:39.260 --> 00:35:48.140 But I'm not sure I entirely agree with what you're saying and what clearly if John Wyndham isn't saying, 00:35:48.160 --> 00:35:55.560 then Douglas Livingston, who adapted it, is saying about people basically who are doing their jobs, 00:35:56.100 --> 00:36:06.260 abandoning their jobs or, you know, what we see in the TV series is basically running for their lives, 00:36:06.340 --> 00:36:07.180 every man for themselves. 00:36:09.940 --> 00:36:12.820 And it's doctors, you know, this is the thing. 00:36:13.120 --> 00:36:21.960 It's people whose whole vocation is about the welfare of others 00:36:22.940 --> 00:36:25.040 who are suddenly throwing their arms up and saying, 00:36:25.180 --> 00:36:32.700 actually, what we've got to do is abandon everyone who isn't sighted. 00:36:34.059 --> 00:36:37.040 And to me, that just... 00:36:37.640 --> 00:36:39.920 Yeah, some people in the public services, maybe, 00:36:40.240 --> 00:36:46.420 but by and large, that's not the ethos of the health service, 00:36:46.840 --> 00:36:50.120 the fire service, the police service. 00:36:52.920 --> 00:36:55.560 I'd say educators, I may be biased here. 00:36:56.020 --> 00:36:58.660 There's a whole bunch of people who I think 00:36:59.160 --> 00:37:03.280 are a lot more compassionate and civic-minded 00:37:04.220 --> 00:37:06.520 than we are being led to believe 00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:10.760 in what I think is, for the most part, 00:37:10.760 --> 00:37:14.320 a pretty darn bleak portrayal of human nature. 00:37:16.260 --> 00:37:17.620 Well, I will say this. 00:37:18.940 --> 00:37:23.980 I have never particularly liked post-apocalyptic fiction. 00:37:25.370 --> 00:37:29.900 I don't like what humans are, by and large. 00:37:30.860 --> 00:37:39.740 And this sort of scenario, whether it in real life would, and I think in real life it probably would because I'm cynical. 00:37:40.880 --> 00:37:53.840 But certainly in writing, because that's what makes for drama, always turns out, I mean, it always brings out the worst in people. 00:37:54.640 --> 00:38:10.120 And when I try to look at these situations, it's the only thing I can do when I'm watching this sort of disaster is to go, what would I do? 00:38:10.960 --> 00:38:26.480 And I can't say that personally I wouldn't do exactly what I needed to do. 00:38:26.520 --> 00:38:39.060 If I genuinely believed that this was a worldwide phenomenon, I would, and let's say my whole family had gone blind. 00:38:41.460 --> 00:38:55.240 I would probably go down to the store and load up the van and I might I'd probably leave money behind 00:38:56.740 --> 00:39:04.360 so as to not be thieving just yet and the ethos and I would be thinking about 00:39:05.500 --> 00:39:07.920 where I could go to get away from the city 00:39:08.120 --> 00:39:09.540 because the city will be the part, 00:39:09.900 --> 00:39:12.960 the place where it goes down in a handbasket first 00:39:13.220 --> 00:39:14.260 if that's what's going to happen. 00:39:15.160 --> 00:39:17.740 So, you know, it's not a question of whether or not 00:39:17.740 --> 00:39:19.940 I would want to help other people, 00:39:20.840 --> 00:39:23.000 but I think I would have to set the scope at some point 00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:24.740 and say, well, how many can I help 00:39:26.800 --> 00:39:28.180 with my set of skills? 00:39:29.220 --> 00:39:32.360 And I certainly would not be chaining people up 00:39:33.280 --> 00:39:37.520 because I'm a good guy and I'm going to make sure that you help other people 00:39:37.760 --> 00:39:39.780 so I'm going to beat you over the head 00:39:40.200 --> 00:39:43.320 and I'm going to chain you to people so that you are good Samaritans 00:39:43.380 --> 00:39:45.620 because that's not actually the actions of a hero. 00:39:47.420 --> 00:39:50.000 Well, I think in the context of it, 00:39:50.280 --> 00:40:00.360 but it's a right-wing criticism of the kind of collectivist philosophy 00:40:00.380 --> 00:40:09.560 because what we have here is a conception which is based on human nature being basically 00:40:11.640 --> 00:40:16.520 bad people being selfish the only way that you're going to 00:40:18.540 --> 00:40:25.340 the only the only way that you're going to get away from that is by everyone being able to lift 00:40:25.560 --> 00:40:30.540 look after themselves, lift themselves out from the sewer, 00:40:31.280 --> 00:40:37.720 and it becomes purely competitive, 00:40:37.980 --> 00:40:42.260 which is where anyone who has an advantage, 00:40:42.580 --> 00:40:44.400 which is going to be the sighted people, 00:40:47.960 --> 00:40:49.820 leave the others behind, 00:40:50.780 --> 00:40:54.020 and they will help each other out, not out of collectivism, 00:40:54.060 --> 00:40:57.880 but out of the desire to seek mutual advantage. 00:41:00.140 --> 00:41:00.880 Well, OK. 00:41:01.320 --> 00:41:06.840 And that's what the set-up is then that Coker is... 00:41:10.940 --> 00:41:17.180 Because there's a fair amount of nationalisation that goes on here, 00:41:17.320 --> 00:41:21.580 the seizing of private assets for the public good. 00:41:23.160 --> 00:41:29.260 But Coker is the kind of extreme of that because he's forcing people. 00:41:29.640 --> 00:41:37.660 Now, I'm not sure I'm ready to accept either of the premises here. 00:41:37.780 --> 00:41:46.180 I'm not sure that I'm willing to accept that human nature is as base and selfish as the right wingers want us to believe. 00:41:46.480 --> 00:41:47.440 It doesn't have to be everybody. 00:41:48.760 --> 00:41:51.640 It only needs about 10% of the population need to be that way. 00:41:52.620 --> 00:41:58.540 screw everybody else over well no i can i can see but that but that's particularly if they have guns 00:42:00.660 --> 00:42:07.660 yes and that that that is why you need to have a state and again that's a left-wing argument 00:42:08.859 --> 00:42:17.460 you're also i'm i'm not the the left-wing philosophy is going to be people are fundamentally 00:42:17.480 --> 00:42:28.120 good and people may may behave in a selfish and immoral way a minority of people and you need to 00:42:29.700 --> 00:42:35.100 react to that situation and obviously that means you make sure they're not the ones with the guns 00:42:35.260 --> 00:42:41.580 so you have to be the ones with the guns hence having a police force and or army etc etc 00:42:42.880 --> 00:42:46.700 they in very very simplistic terms there you have the foundation of the state 00:42:47.770 --> 00:42:54.460 and so i'm not accepting that i'm also not accepting the premise that the only option 00:42:55.540 --> 00:42:59.440 available here is the the the kind of 00:43:01.660 --> 00:43:09.280 forcing people using the guns and chaining them up to do what they should be doing because it is 00:43:09.140 --> 00:43:21.700 their moral duty. Okay. So, so two things. One, do you not think that there's a possibility here 00:43:22.460 --> 00:43:33.000 that, again, if the world came to that situation and I made my internal decisions that I had better 00:43:33.040 --> 00:43:40.440 get the family out and stable and do what they can. Do you not think that that is a prudent 00:43:40.620 --> 00:43:48.920 first step to then what do we do to try to, because without the Triffids, which is the 00:43:49.040 --> 00:43:53.700 problem, without the Triffids, you're right. There are, people are going to continue on. 00:43:54.100 --> 00:44:00.040 And so you can build up a way to actually help them. But being in the, that first mode of 00:44:00.820 --> 00:44:08.580 let's make sure we don't die of cholera um you kind of and and that is ultimately what coker does 00:44:09.560 --> 00:44:14.740 is and and that's what the group that was originally going in the first place we're going to do 00:44:15.480 --> 00:44:22.620 i think it's a little hard to tell but you know once you establish a colony you can start doing 00:44:22.960 --> 00:44:27.620 good you can start expanding that you can start rebuilding it i don't know that they were 00:44:27.560 --> 00:44:32.240 necessarily, you know, going to let the world burn. 00:44:32.570 --> 00:44:38.860 I think they were marshalling their resources so that the world could continue long enough 00:44:38.910 --> 00:44:40.040 to try to save people. 00:44:40.150 --> 00:44:43.700 Because, again, they can, we can produce more babies. 00:44:43.870 --> 00:44:48.740 We just need to be able to survive through the thing. 00:44:48.810 --> 00:44:54.980 And the second part is when Bill is, when Bill is killed, not Bill killed, when Bill's 00:44:55.020 --> 00:45:04.040 guards are killed he doesn't abandon them he stays with them until it's clear they're dead 00:45:05.720 --> 00:45:11.120 and he also doesn't you know take on the services of the teenager who's throwing herself at him 00:45:11.640 --> 00:45:18.620 to get him to stay um so i mean bill behaves in a we're setting a low bar for him but yes i'll 00:45:18.760 --> 00:45:23.920 agree he clears it yeah i i yeah i'm not saying that's necessarily but i mean it's it's a very 00:45:23.880 --> 00:45:30.440 distasteful offer, frankly, from her part. And it's very cynical from the people who go, hey, 00:45:30.570 --> 00:45:37.980 maybe you should go, you know, give him some company. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more. 00:45:38.280 --> 00:45:43.700 But I mean, he does stay. He does do that, despite the fact that he could easily leave at any point 00:45:44.260 --> 00:45:53.840 and that he wants to find Joe, but he doesn't. He feels human empathy for them. He 00:45:53.840 --> 00:46:04.320 to help them so i mean again a little less awful than what coger does to them at that point in the 00:46:04.320 --> 00:46:10.200 game but then he also becomes repentant for what he is probably was a little over eager to do i'm 00:46:10.200 --> 00:46:18.660 not sure he is repentant and yes i i yeah the portrayal is he's over eager to do it but i i'm 00:46:18.680 --> 00:46:26.520 still like at least at least you're helping and i i so i guess i guess partly my my question is 00:46:26.660 --> 00:46:34.700 what do you think of the performance of john dutton in this i've never seen him in anything 00:46:34.860 --> 00:46:47.060 else to my knowledge neither have i um it's a little bit flat how about that i i yeah i mean 00:46:47.020 --> 00:46:52.440 i think so because what what we are what we're describing what we're coming to is that here's a 00:46:52.540 --> 00:47:01.040 man who is actually supposed to be quite conflicted he's he's torn because 00:47:04.500 --> 00:47:07.940 while whilst you say whilst you say all the way all the way through um 00:47:11.180 --> 00:47:16.980 that all the way through that episode where he is looking after the people that coca is assigned 00:47:17.000 --> 00:47:22.420 him and staying with them even after he has a chance to leave he's thinking about leaving 00:47:24.220 --> 00:47:29.180 and so the key thing there is the conflict that he feels between his duty to those people 00:47:30.459 --> 00:47:37.220 and the fact that he feels that it's completely hopeless and 00:47:39.520 --> 00:47:46.320 that means he's not he's not the doctor right he's not someone who is going to stay with every 00:47:46.880 --> 00:47:51.640 hopeless case but on the other hand he's not 00:47:56.160 --> 00:48:00.620 he it he's not he's not someone who is just going to be 00:48:02.920 --> 00:48:04.380 out for himself or 00:48:06.950 --> 00:48:16.300 quite as egregious as um people like uh david swift's character uh beetle or 00:48:16.320 --> 00:48:17.340 or whatever he was called. 00:48:20.100 --> 00:48:23.300 Biedler, he was the bald guy that was running that group at the time? 00:48:24.060 --> 00:48:24.800 Yes, yes. 00:48:25.150 --> 00:48:26.640 I always think of him as Henry Davenport 00:48:26.770 --> 00:48:30.420 because he was in Drop the Dead Donkey, 00:48:32.080 --> 00:48:40.320 which was a fantastic topical, satirical TV series set in a newsroom. 00:48:40.740 --> 00:48:41.680 That's a heck of a name. 00:48:43.300 --> 00:48:43.940 Well, yes. 00:48:46.000 --> 00:48:55.820 Anyway, the point about that group was that if you think Coker was over keen to throw his weight around, 00:48:57.120 --> 00:49:08.800 they were really, really going off on their kind of crazy, paranoid, right wing cult polygamist. 00:49:10.090 --> 00:49:13.060 You know, there was no reluctance in there. 00:49:13.360 --> 00:49:19.660 Whereas clearly that wasn't at any point Bill's first thought. 00:49:20.980 --> 00:49:26.520 No, but I mean, Bill and Joe's thought was to get out to the country and go right to where they ultimately ended up. 00:49:27.880 --> 00:49:39.300 They wanted to they wanted to look after their own interests, but they didn't necessarily want to destroy anyone else's or even. 00:49:41.500 --> 00:49:46.380 you know if they could if they could offer help without it being too much of a sacrifice for them 00:49:46.920 --> 00:49:54.380 to to refuse that help they they were you know moderately willing but but there's definitely 00:49:54.420 --> 00:50:03.140 a conflict going on there because i think there there's a real dilemma and 00:50:04.720 --> 00:50:08.360 the problem with Bill as a hero in this story, 00:50:08.610 --> 00:50:11.280 unlike someone like Coker, 00:50:11.370 --> 00:50:14.800 who is much less about the conflict 00:50:15.170 --> 00:50:17.540 and much more about just get on and do the thing 00:50:18.900 --> 00:50:20.800 that you believe to be right. 00:50:22.260 --> 00:50:24.440 The problem with it is I didn't get that 00:50:24.580 --> 00:50:25.680 from John Dutton's performance. 00:50:27.100 --> 00:50:28.940 He just seemed to amble around a lot. 00:50:29.370 --> 00:50:32.020 I think it's buried underneath that beard, maybe. 00:50:33.040 --> 00:50:33.200 Indeed. 00:50:33.800 --> 00:50:37.020 You know, if he had less beard, maybe he could emote more. 00:50:37.120 --> 00:50:37.480 I'm not sure. 00:50:39.140 --> 00:50:39.260 Yeah. 00:50:39.500 --> 00:50:43.520 I was wondering about people who were managing to be clean shaven after six years. 00:50:45.140 --> 00:50:46.640 Where are you getting the razors from, guys? 00:50:47.360 --> 00:50:47.880 Oh, Coker. 00:50:48.050 --> 00:50:54.200 I guess they could have been stone sharpening, you know, proper old fashioned cutthroat razors. 00:50:54.380 --> 00:51:00.020 But still seems like possibly not the top priority. 00:51:01.400 --> 00:51:01.880 That's true. 00:51:02.320 --> 00:51:04.560 I definitely would say that's not a problem. 00:51:05.540 --> 00:51:08.020 But not a problem for Bill because they had him bearded from the beginning. 00:51:09.120 --> 00:51:09.220 Yeah. 00:51:09.740 --> 00:51:11.880 He just got shaggier and shaggier. 00:51:11.880 --> 00:51:13.220 And Joe grew her hair. 00:51:13.400 --> 00:51:22.120 Joe got rid of her Joanna Lumley and moved on to something a little more post-apocalyptic there by the end. 00:51:25.320 --> 00:51:25.580 All right. 00:51:25.660 --> 00:51:26.400 Let's see. 00:51:27.680 --> 00:51:29.060 Yeah, he's not great. 00:51:29.820 --> 00:51:31.140 I don't want to pick on him. 00:51:34.180 --> 00:51:36.640 But he is kind of... 00:51:37.620 --> 00:51:41.340 He is the single protagonist in this. 00:51:41.940 --> 00:51:43.300 He's basically in every shot. 00:51:43.360 --> 00:51:44.340 He has to carry it. 00:51:44.980 --> 00:51:45.200 Mm-hmm. 00:51:47.360 --> 00:51:50.460 Do you think that the... 00:51:53.620 --> 00:51:56.540 The comet idea as a... 00:51:58.079 --> 00:51:59.820 Did that seem credible to you? 00:52:02.240 --> 00:52:02.880 comet as a weapon 00:52:06.920 --> 00:52:12.700 not especially but i didn't i didn't really worry about it i was kind of 00:52:16.060 --> 00:52:20.540 you know here's a phenomena that happens and like i say everyone would go look at it 00:52:20.980 --> 00:52:25.239 there's absolutely no doubt that just virtually everyone would go look at that if you possibly 00:52:25.260 --> 00:52:32.120 could. And then you go all the way to the end of the story and suddenly you pop up the idea that 00:52:32.320 --> 00:52:41.740 says, well, you know, maybe this was of our own making. Is that, I find that there is a 00:52:43.880 --> 00:52:48.500 group of people, sometimes environmentalists, 00:52:51.940 --> 00:52:53.960 that seem to adopt an attitude, 00:52:54.000 --> 00:52:55.320 and that's not all environmentalists, 00:52:55.440 --> 00:52:56.980 but there are people who adopt an attitude 00:53:00.400 --> 00:53:01.840 that humans are awful. 00:53:02.480 --> 00:53:04.340 The world would be so much better without them. 00:53:06.140 --> 00:53:07.940 You know, we destroy everything we touch. 00:53:08.220 --> 00:53:09.040 We're terrible. 00:53:09.240 --> 00:53:09.600 We're awful. 00:53:10.840 --> 00:53:11.580 Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 00:53:14.980 --> 00:53:17.339 And I was perfectly fine 00:53:17.340 --> 00:53:19.500 with that comet being a thing that happened. 00:53:19.860 --> 00:53:22.040 It's just, it just happened. 00:53:22.900 --> 00:53:24.260 Space is a dangerous place. 00:53:25.480 --> 00:53:25.920 Stuff happens. 00:53:26.990 --> 00:53:27.920 This thing did it. 00:53:28.070 --> 00:53:29.120 The world went blind. 00:53:30.320 --> 00:53:33.100 There have been mass extinctions for forever. 00:53:33.720 --> 00:53:34.200 Who knows? 00:53:35.660 --> 00:53:35.760 Right? 00:53:36.220 --> 00:53:37.020 That's fine with it. 00:53:37.430 --> 00:53:38.640 But by putting it at the end, 00:53:38.750 --> 00:53:40.620 it just sort of feels like, 00:53:42.340 --> 00:53:46.819 frankly, it feels like 80s zeitgeist 00:53:47.320 --> 00:53:49.340 to, well, no, it had to be 00:53:49.620 --> 00:53:51.020 us destroying ourselves. 00:53:51.540 --> 00:53:53.100 It couldn't be random chance. 00:53:53.300 --> 00:53:55.240 That would never happen. We definitely, we had to 00:53:55.240 --> 00:53:55.680 have done it. 00:53:57.960 --> 00:53:58.760 And I'm, 00:53:59.980 --> 00:54:00.560 I don't know. 00:54:01.020 --> 00:54:02.460 I don't think it fits. But isn't that the whole point? 00:54:03.820 --> 00:54:05.140 I mean, I don't know how the 00:54:05.440 --> 00:54:07.200 point is conveyed in the book. 00:54:07.320 --> 00:54:08.300 Obviously, I haven't read it. 00:54:08.960 --> 00:54:11.280 I believe it's conveyed exactly the same 00:54:11.440 --> 00:54:13.040 way towards the very end. He goes, 00:54:13.180 --> 00:54:15.320 you know, I'm thinking maybe that was man-made. 00:54:17.140 --> 00:54:21.700 the point the point is it's not a catholic guilt thing or something it's like this is our fault 00:54:21.720 --> 00:54:27.720 i'm sure this is our fault we we did this i i don't think we did it's it's it's nuclear weapons 00:54:33.140 --> 00:54:38.780 i yeah i don't know i really don't know i don't get that i did actually go look for the book 00:54:39.940 --> 00:54:44.460 um because i just barely managed to get through the serial by last night so that we could 00:54:44.820 --> 00:54:49.560 we could discuss this today and i just thought well what the heck i i'm sure i have a couple 00:54:49.660 --> 00:54:53.960 of hours i can just whip through the novel too before we watch it but uh fortunately i didn't 00:54:54.160 --> 00:55:00.800 find it so therefore i didn't have to i didn't do that but i don't know i don't know i mean it's 00:55:00.870 --> 00:55:10.359 written in 1951 so you've got a different you've got a different attitude towards nuclear weapons 00:55:10.380 --> 00:55:15.600 in 1951 and you definitely have a different attitude about nuclear weapons in 1951 Europe 00:55:15.990 --> 00:55:24.760 than you do in 1951 America. So, you know, I may be bringing my own preconceptions there. 00:55:25.200 --> 00:55:31.540 I just did not feel like this was a nuclear weapons story. I felt like this was a disaster 00:55:31.840 --> 00:55:37.560 story that somebody decided that they would try to blame on nuclear weapons. 00:55:39.620 --> 00:55:45.680 you know as part of the adaptation but the but the the triffids i mean the triffids are definitely 00:55:45.720 --> 00:55:57.720 our problem yeah the truth the triffids are are uh the the kind of archetypal um 00:56:01.680 --> 00:56:05.799 not it's it's not that it's not the bad side but it's it's the it's the scientists 00:56:07.760 --> 00:56:08.660 isn't it? 00:56:09.400 --> 00:56:10.540 It's the scientists producing 00:56:11.940 --> 00:56:12.160 something 00:56:13.680 --> 00:56:13.960 that 00:56:16.000 --> 00:56:16.380 they 00:56:19.319 --> 00:56:21.060 once it has been created 00:56:21.180 --> 00:56:22.600 once the genie is out of the bottle 00:56:23.740 --> 00:56:24.300 they 00:56:25.120 --> 00:56:26.980 can no longer control 00:56:26.980 --> 00:56:27.760 the consequences. 00:56:28.240 --> 00:56:31.060 We can no longer control the consequences. 00:56:31.060 --> 00:56:31.500 Now wait a minute. 00:56:32.880 --> 00:56:34.080 That's not 100% true. 00:56:35.260 --> 00:56:37.180 And I don't remember whether this is part of the book 00:56:37.140 --> 00:56:44.520 or not okay but they're very clear about this they just about wiped out the triffids they had 00:56:44.720 --> 00:56:49.320 just about cleared the planet of triffids and then somebody figured out that they were a fuel oil 00:56:52.200 --> 00:56:53.540 so greed brought them back 00:56:55.400 --> 00:56:59.960 we identified a threat we cleared it out it's almost like it's almost like polio 00:57:00.240 --> 00:57:05.379 as a fuel oil they did the soviet union engineered them as a fuel oil and then 00:57:06.260 --> 00:57:09.160 per this narrative, the guy was trying to steal it. 00:57:09.740 --> 00:57:10.820 His plane got blown up. 00:57:11.030 --> 00:57:12.620 It scattered the seeds around the world. 00:57:13.300 --> 00:57:15.540 Nobody outside the Soviet Union, presumably, 00:57:16.140 --> 00:57:21.680 knew that these plants were the fuel oil or the plants. 00:57:22.020 --> 00:57:23.660 Maybe the people in the Soviet Union were dead 00:57:23.780 --> 00:57:25.200 that knew they were the fuel oil plants. 00:57:25.630 --> 00:57:28.020 But they talk about the newsreel and Bill's narrative. 00:57:28.110 --> 00:57:30.260 He says, you know, they were showing up all over the place 00:57:30.440 --> 00:57:32.020 and we pretty much wiped them all out. 00:57:32.940 --> 00:57:39.260 And then somebody figured out that this was that amazing plant that did the fuel oil thing. 00:57:39.940 --> 00:57:41.720 And suddenly everybody was farming them. 00:57:43.140 --> 00:57:46.240 So, I mean, this is man's greed brought this one back twice. 00:57:47.020 --> 00:57:50.600 Created it, amoral scientists and greed. 00:57:50.990 --> 00:57:53.780 So it's not just scientists have the blame on this one. 00:57:54.540 --> 00:57:56.780 That was definitely corporate greed. 00:57:58.640 --> 00:58:04.760 I mean, you know, also a popular theme in 1980s TV. 00:58:07.020 --> 00:58:15.520 But that's, I mean, that's still the case in the sense of the invention of the atom bomb. 00:58:18.260 --> 00:58:20.080 Without it, you wouldn't have it. 00:58:20.470 --> 00:58:21.500 You wouldn't have the atom bomb. 00:58:21.820 --> 00:58:28.080 but equally without the kind of paranoia fueled arms race, 00:58:30.180 --> 00:58:33.440 it wouldn't be a problem because no one would build them, 00:58:33.490 --> 00:58:35.880 even if you knew how to do it. 00:58:37.220 --> 00:58:37.400 Right. 00:58:37.600 --> 00:58:41.560 You'd have to be crazy, crazy to do that. 00:58:42.980 --> 00:58:44.000 I'll go along with that anyway. 00:58:44.140 --> 00:58:45.920 You'd have to be crazy to do that. 00:58:46.500 --> 00:58:46.700 Yes. 00:58:48.000 --> 00:58:49.200 But, yeah. 00:58:50.100 --> 00:58:51.360 C.F. Dr. Strangelove. 00:58:53.540 --> 00:58:58.500 oh yes you've seen that recently haven't you indeed you did a review yes that's a that's 00:58:58.500 --> 00:59:07.980 definitely um uh the single most um salient film about the conservation of bodily fluids i've ever 00:59:08.320 --> 00:59:14.360 i've ever watched anyhow uh you know one of the funny things i find about this book 00:59:14.760 --> 00:59:19.260 and well this serial and the book for that matter is the sort of 00:59:21.460 --> 00:59:23.620 non-event that the Triffids are. 00:59:25.000 --> 00:59:25.840 They're not in it much. 00:59:27.660 --> 00:59:29.920 They show up as a sort of, 00:59:32.300 --> 00:59:34.700 well, the world is a little more dangerous 00:59:34.940 --> 00:59:37.300 than just people falling downstairs in their flats. 00:59:40.200 --> 00:59:41.760 And, but, you know, 00:59:42.420 --> 00:59:43.560 they're not much of a threat. 00:59:44.580 --> 00:59:46.100 It's the disease that does for people. 00:59:46.960 --> 00:59:48.820 And you'd think the Triffids were, 00:59:48.940 --> 00:59:52.480 maybe I'm attributing mental processes to the Triffids, 00:59:52.640 --> 00:59:53.900 which I think we're supposed to. 00:59:55.040 --> 00:59:57.360 You'd think with all the dead bodies all over the place, 00:59:58.180 --> 01:00:01.000 if a Triffid's job is to stand in front of a dead body 01:00:01.160 --> 01:00:04.420 and let it decompose, you'd think they'd be busy. 01:00:07.140 --> 01:00:07.900 Yeah, yeah. 01:00:08.240 --> 01:00:10.440 I mean, another, a whole other set of questions. 01:00:10.580 --> 01:00:14.720 I appreciate they're asking questions about whether it can hear, 01:00:15.020 --> 01:00:20.040 whether it can think in any sense of that. 01:00:21.280 --> 01:00:25.460 But I would also have liked... 01:00:27.040 --> 01:00:32.680 We kept coming back to the fact that Bill was a former Triffid researcher. 01:00:34.960 --> 01:00:38.700 What happens when their food supply runs out? 01:00:38.760 --> 01:00:46.620 The triffids seem to be multiplying, which was unsurprising given the number of bodies that had been around. 01:00:46.770 --> 01:00:51.620 But presumably at this point, six years later, and they've got this compound keeping the triffids out, 01:00:52.010 --> 01:01:01.740 the triffids aren't getting any nutrition, but that doesn't seem to be affecting them in any way. 01:01:02.160 --> 01:01:06.260 the effects involved in a wilting 01:01:06.460 --> 01:01:07.880 would have been too much 01:01:08.380 --> 01:01:10.580 would have taxed the effects department too much 01:01:10.880 --> 01:01:10.980 but 01:01:13.080 --> 01:01:14.620 that would be 01:01:14.720 --> 01:01:15.860 one way to wipe them out 01:01:15.900 --> 01:01:16.920 you starve them out 01:01:17.580 --> 01:01:19.319 do they really need decomposing 01:01:20.340 --> 01:01:21.080 humans in fact 01:01:21.520 --> 01:01:22.620 cows, sheep 01:01:23.660 --> 01:01:24.640 well exactly 01:01:24.940 --> 01:01:25.860 and so yeah 01:01:26.660 --> 01:01:27.020 why 01:01:29.040 --> 01:01:30.899 why are they going after humans 01:01:31.040 --> 01:01:39.060 because they're evil which are difficult prey they're evil when there are far far easier prey 01:01:39.360 --> 01:01:48.100 for them to be feeding on closer at hand maybe it's biomass i mean yes cows are still better 01:01:48.110 --> 01:01:53.280 what about a cow what about a deer those are those are big not as popular in cities 01:01:54.210 --> 01:01:57.759 where the triffids were at the zoo so i mean humans are kind of the logical 01:01:59.180 --> 01:02:00.220 start there. 01:02:00.920 --> 01:02:02.600 Well, maybe, 01:02:03.330 --> 01:02:04.140 except what about 01:02:04.570 --> 01:02:05.440 the other zoo animals, 01:02:06.280 --> 01:02:07.240 or the cats, 01:02:08.340 --> 01:02:10.900 and dogs, and foxes, 01:02:10.900 --> 01:02:12.560 Is one human enough for one 01:02:12.720 --> 01:02:14.700 Triffid? Because the other thing 01:02:14.820 --> 01:02:16.640 is that they seem to be striking people 01:02:17.480 --> 01:02:18.500 not for themselves. 01:02:20.980 --> 01:02:22.800 You know, so they go out and they kill 01:02:23.800 --> 01:02:24.800 Joe's father and they kill 01:02:24.800 --> 01:02:26.280 the maid, well, 01:02:26.980 --> 01:02:30.540 Why aren't there two triffids sitting there over the maid? 01:02:30.580 --> 01:02:35.140 God, there's such a lot of fascinating questions about the... 01:02:36.040 --> 01:02:37.780 Would you waste your time killing another one? 01:02:37.780 --> 01:02:41.820 Biology, because you've now got a plant that can move. 01:02:42.270 --> 01:02:43.480 But when would it move? 01:02:43.870 --> 01:02:49.080 Because obviously moving is going to have an energy cost for the plant. 01:02:49.530 --> 01:02:54.879 And if it's just killed a human, and it therefore... 01:02:54.900 --> 01:03:07.560 I'll use the word no, but whatever it is, it's evolved in such a way as to be able to kill a human because it needs the nutrients from the human. 01:03:07.700 --> 01:03:13.860 Once it's killed the human, the human needs to decompose for it to be able to make use of the nutrients. 01:03:14.120 --> 01:03:14.680 That takes a while. 01:03:14.680 --> 01:03:18.100 So wouldn't it stay with the human? 01:03:18.860 --> 01:03:20.660 Yes, but it seems to go off and keep killing. 01:03:21.460 --> 01:03:31.100 And if you kill somebody over, if you kill one here in front of you and then you kill another one, you can't make use of the other one because it's going to decompose while the first one is going. 01:03:31.780 --> 01:03:34.080 So, yeah, I mean, that's just bad. 01:03:34.100 --> 01:03:38.920 What about competitive behaviour in Triffid communities? 01:03:39.180 --> 01:03:45.740 Because if you're a Triffid and you want a decomposing human, 01:03:47.140 --> 01:03:52.780 one option for you is to go and sting a human and then wait for it to decompose, 01:03:53.280 --> 01:03:54.940 which is going to take a while. 01:03:55.320 --> 01:04:00.840 Another good option is going to find a Triffid that's already stung a human a couple of days ago 01:04:02.340 --> 01:04:02.700 and 01:04:04.300 --> 01:04:05.560 feeding off its human 01:04:06.160 --> 01:04:08.900 and therefore you start to get questions like 01:04:08.940 --> 01:04:10.940 can triffids sting other triffids? 01:04:11.600 --> 01:04:13.260 Is there some way that triffids 01:04:13.940 --> 01:04:16.080 can compete amongst themselves? 01:04:18.980 --> 01:04:20.280 Yeah, I'm sure that there are lots of 01:04:21.200 --> 01:04:21.800 really... 01:04:22.870 --> 01:04:25.000 I would think that you could 01:04:25.640 --> 01:04:26.940 really sit down 01:04:27.300 --> 01:04:29.060 and think about the triffids for a while 01:04:29.660 --> 01:04:35.620 and come up with a fascinating fake biology. 01:04:35.850 --> 01:04:41.500 Well, yeah, because there are all sorts of potentially evolutionary strategies now for Triffids. 01:04:43.750 --> 01:04:48.280 So, but yeah, swarming around, you know, swarming around the compound in their thousands 01:04:48.940 --> 01:04:53.240 seems more like that they are truly intent on wiping out humans. 01:04:54.920 --> 01:04:59.860 that seems to be a you know humans are maybe humans are considered a threat to them 01:05:00.820 --> 01:05:03.540 maybe humans are the only thing that they consider them to be a threat 01:05:04.960 --> 01:05:10.360 but that was that see yes that that is a question are they are they going to behave 01:05:11.940 --> 01:05:19.240 defensively and you know you i want to know the mechanism by which that works because 01:05:21.280 --> 01:05:32.020 a nettle sting is a pretty it's a pretty kind of simple mechanism really isn't it for how you're 01:05:32.160 --> 01:05:39.460 going to how you're going to protect yourself because ultimately i'm getting all excited about 01:05:39.560 --> 01:05:45.280 this so i'm thinking let's get dawkins on the case it's all about it's all about the gene isn't it 01:05:45.200 --> 01:05:46.320 It's the selfish gene. 01:05:47.460 --> 01:05:52.420 The Triffid's intent is actually pretty unimportant in terms of the way the Triffid must have evolved. 01:05:53.260 --> 01:05:54.920 It's being able to pass on its gene. 01:05:55.120 --> 01:05:56.160 But it didn't evolve. 01:05:58.560 --> 01:05:59.160 It was engineered. 01:06:01.820 --> 01:06:04.280 Yes, but you can't just engineer something from nothing. 01:06:04.660 --> 01:06:05.520 Right, right, right, right. 01:06:05.680 --> 01:06:06.480 How do they get the pieces? 01:06:06.540 --> 01:06:11.960 It has a kind of family tree for want of a... 01:06:12.100 --> 01:06:14.540 We do know they blow seeds. 01:06:15.640 --> 01:06:22.580 yes and and the nettle thing is not totally i mean the reaction um where 01:06:24.080 --> 01:06:29.480 bill goes for the triffid with the fork in that second episode is and he's just smashing it and 01:06:29.660 --> 01:06:33.980 smashing it and smashing it long after it's dead i mean if you've ever seen me with a nettle that's 01:06:34.040 --> 01:06:41.220 just stung me then you'll realize that's pretty realistic i've never actually seen a nettle so 01:06:41.960 --> 01:06:42.500 in real life. 01:06:42.500 --> 01:06:44.300 You don't get nettles in Arizona? 01:06:44.840 --> 01:06:44.940 No. 01:06:46.400 --> 01:06:46.560 Wow. 01:06:47.430 --> 01:06:48.100 We have poison ivy, 01:06:48.650 --> 01:06:49.400 but we don't have nettles. 01:06:52.880 --> 01:06:54.020 I've heard of people 01:06:54.260 --> 01:06:55.080 complaining about nettles 01:06:55.840 --> 01:06:56.760 who've come from other places, 01:06:57.000 --> 01:06:58.440 but no, I think it's too hot here. 01:06:59.000 --> 01:06:59.860 I've been making, 01:07:00.640 --> 01:07:01.520 I should say, 01:07:01.600 --> 01:07:02.640 for the benefit of listeners 01:07:03.100 --> 01:07:03.740 who live in places 01:07:03.960 --> 01:07:04.680 where there aren't nettles, 01:07:05.400 --> 01:07:07.420 they're sort of stingy plants. 01:07:08.140 --> 01:07:09.020 If you touch them, 01:07:09.800 --> 01:07:12.160 They irritate your skin. 01:07:12.400 --> 01:07:14.500 It's quite painful, brings up little bumps, 01:07:15.220 --> 01:07:21.340 and they grow all over the place in the UK climate. 01:07:21.700 --> 01:07:23.480 But you have to touch them to be affected. 01:07:23.500 --> 01:07:26.800 You have to actually touch them at particular times of year 01:07:27.120 --> 01:07:33.320 because the nettle sting fades once they've gone to seed 01:07:33.400 --> 01:07:39.260 because, as we're saying, they've fulfilled their role 01:07:39.720 --> 01:07:43.780 in passing their genes on to the next generation of nettles. 01:07:45.340 --> 01:07:45.780 Hmm. 01:07:46.980 --> 01:07:47.140 Hmm. 01:07:47.400 --> 01:07:47.480 Hmm. 01:07:49.280 --> 01:07:51.360 Yeah, well, yeah, we don't have those, 01:07:51.560 --> 01:07:53.520 but definitely have heard of them. 01:07:53.580 --> 01:07:56.080 We usually hear them called stinging nettles. 01:07:57.840 --> 01:08:00.360 Well, that's because not all nettles sting. 01:08:00.390 --> 01:08:01.560 It is a particular type of nettle. 01:08:01.630 --> 01:08:01.980 Oh, okay. 01:08:02.480 --> 01:08:03.420 Did not know that. 01:08:05.800 --> 01:08:09.520 Anyhow, yeah, the Triffids are fascinating. 01:08:10.359 --> 01:08:18.400 And they serve just enough of a low-level threat that if we did not have the Triffids in this story, 01:08:18.890 --> 01:08:22.660 I kind of feel like civilization would be back up and running within two years. 01:08:25.759 --> 01:08:25.960 Really? 01:08:26.319 --> 01:08:27.299 That's kind of my feel. 01:08:28.259 --> 01:08:30.839 Even though everyone's getting wiped out by this disease? 01:08:31.600 --> 01:08:33.520 well i think once they're dead by the disease we're okay 01:08:35.400 --> 01:08:38.880 well at some point you know you burn a couple years well you've got all the 01:08:39.080 --> 01:08:43.720 sighted people who didn't get the disease except for that one woman 01:08:44.380 --> 01:08:49.640 um i know so all of those compounds just kind of need to withstand the burnout 01:08:51.100 --> 01:08:56.860 of all the decomposing bodies and and but but they've they've still all the 01:08:56.880 --> 01:09:02.580 infrastructure has has gone you've got you haven't got the oh i don't think we'd be back to normal 01:09:02.779 --> 01:09:09.400 but i think we would be back to having to what the to what the militia guys were saying you know 01:09:09.580 --> 01:09:14.440 the six or seven years of hard work because because basically all of your advance all of 01:09:14.440 --> 01:09:19.600 your kind of advantages are gone you're not going to be able to plow your fields with a tractor 01:09:20.480 --> 01:09:28.100 or or what have you you're not going to be able to to um use electronic milking machines you're 01:09:28.100 --> 01:09:35.880 not going to be able to heat barns for your livestock or any any of that stuff or or for 01:09:36.580 --> 01:09:47.040 germinating seeds you're right back to basically working solidly hard every single daylight hour 01:09:47.060 --> 01:09:54.040 there is and if the crops fail you're going to die but we still have books and if you still had 01:09:54.800 --> 01:10:01.220 and if people bound together in groups instead of isolating them and you know smaller groups but 01:10:01.440 --> 01:10:08.700 communities then you're going to be able to do those things more efficiently i mean that's what 01:10:08.760 --> 01:10:17.060 civilization has progressively shown what humans do and how we succeed and so yeah yeah i think 01:10:17.130 --> 01:10:21.580 and and i suppose one other one other thing and again i felt this was kind of not 01:10:23.060 --> 01:10:27.720 it wasn't necessarily obvious that they had asked themselves the questions about it but the actual 01:10:29.880 --> 01:10:37.861 resource left over so if this is civilization at an end and a new civilization must be born 01:10:38.060 --> 01:10:42.400 yada yada yada well the resource left over from the previous civilization is actually going to 01:10:42.400 --> 01:10:51.600 be quite considerable so when you are thinking about things like fuel and um machinery and so 01:10:51.720 --> 01:11:00.120 forth that you know just the oil that is left lying around in unused vehicles and such like 01:11:00.620 --> 01:11:07.260 that might be used to power a generator if you could keep it going would actually 01:11:09.219 --> 01:11:13.760 potentially keep you going for decades just because of the sheer numbers of 01:11:16.159 --> 01:11:21.920 abandoned vehicles and and so forth i don't know how fast it evaporates but 01:11:22.600 --> 01:11:28.639 you know at some point yeah well or or that's you know or that's stored in heating oil tank you 01:11:28.600 --> 01:11:33.440 Tanks of kerosene or what have you on farms that have been abandoned. 01:11:36.140 --> 01:11:42.100 The question is all going to come down to the numbers and there are all going to be logistical questions about it. 01:11:42.560 --> 01:11:56.720 But there are ways in which the benefits of the previous civilization are possibly going to be able to give a kickstart to the new one. 01:11:57.100 --> 01:12:00.340 that's going to see them through actually quite a few years 01:12:02.240 --> 01:12:05.040 before they're completely on their own or having to do their own thing. 01:12:05.080 --> 01:12:07.060 Have to figure out how to refine oil on their own, yeah. 01:12:08.660 --> 01:12:08.740 Yeah. 01:12:09.760 --> 01:12:11.480 Yeah, well, you know, yeah, absolutely. 01:12:11.620 --> 01:12:13.420 And I think the people who are going to be successful 01:12:13.840 --> 01:12:20.340 are those that have somebody in the group that thinks that way. 01:12:21.160 --> 01:12:21.400 Yes. 01:12:21.600 --> 01:12:25.140 Who thinks in terms of, you know. 01:12:25.300 --> 01:12:29.060 Which to me, which to me, bigger groups than 10 people. 01:12:29.180 --> 01:12:38.280 But then on the other hand, and I'm going to say I slightly resent this because I'm born and brought up in Brighton. 01:12:39.840 --> 01:12:49.340 The crazy nut jobs in Brighton who fired at Croker and who are insisting on everyone being in units of 10, et cetera, et cetera. 01:12:50.820 --> 01:12:52.300 I think they probably got that wrong. 01:12:54.440 --> 01:12:57.080 You don't think Brighton would be the first to return to that? 01:13:00.160 --> 01:13:00.840 Yeah, I mean, I... 01:13:00.840 --> 01:13:02.820 Brighton, everyone would be too stoned to get that organized. 01:13:03.140 --> 01:13:03.380 But anyway. 01:13:04.140 --> 01:13:08.200 I might, you know, I think the first thing that crossed... 01:13:08.200 --> 01:13:10.360 And again, it's really hard not to... 01:13:11.400 --> 01:13:14.020 It's really hard to put in the mindset. 01:13:14.340 --> 01:13:21.220 But my first thought, and I live in a desert, so keep that in mind. 01:13:21.580 --> 01:13:25.100 My worst thought is, if this is the problem, find an island. 01:13:27.300 --> 01:13:31.400 Yes, I like the fact they went to the Isle of Wight because I was thinking that. 01:13:32.240 --> 01:13:41.940 And I was thinking that, and I was thinking that because these triffids, I was thinking, why not build a saltwater moat? 01:13:42.540 --> 01:13:44.940 I was thinking, hang on, no, you don't need to do that, you just have an island. 01:13:45.620 --> 01:13:49.480 Because I hadn't thought about the seeds drifting across, and I was glad they addressed that. 01:13:50.400 --> 01:13:52.420 But it sounds like triffids take a while to grow. 01:13:53.980 --> 01:13:54.140 Sure. 01:13:55.380 --> 01:13:58.700 And I forgot what he said it was, but he said as long as you dock them, 01:13:58.860 --> 01:14:01.420 so like the ones in the zoo, as long as you dock them every two or three years, 01:14:04.260 --> 01:14:05.060 they're harmless. 01:14:08.720 --> 01:14:10.220 And again, it's all about time. 01:14:10.480 --> 01:14:11.200 It's all about time. 01:14:12.400 --> 01:14:14.140 But it is absolutely true. 01:14:14.340 --> 01:14:20.660 I mean, the reason that Skoma Island has such a thriving colony of puffins 01:14:20.660 --> 01:14:23.820 is an island in southwest Wales. 01:14:25.420 --> 01:14:31.700 And it's because they're burrow-dwelling birds. 01:14:33.520 --> 01:14:35.220 And it's because there are no rats on the island. 01:14:36.460 --> 01:14:39.200 If anyone were to introduce a rat to the island, 01:14:39.260 --> 01:14:41.040 it would wind up the puffit population. 01:14:42.180 --> 01:14:48.200 So, yeah, you would expect humans would be off to the islands, 01:14:48.270 --> 01:14:52.620 and we've got a few good-sized islands around the British Isles 01:14:52.960 --> 01:14:58.460 where they would be able to keep down the population of Triffids 01:14:58.580 --> 01:15:00.740 and basically live... 01:15:03.020 --> 01:15:06.240 Because the Isle of Wight is a big island. 01:15:06.970 --> 01:15:08.800 You know, there are several towns on it. 01:15:10.740 --> 01:15:13.200 Admit, I have no idea how big the Isle of Wight is. 01:15:15.940 --> 01:15:18.380 Visually in mind, I'd have to look up on a map to see it. 01:15:18.660 --> 01:15:24.780 I couldn't tell you exactly, but I'm thinking it's maybe 15 or 20 miles across. 01:15:25.660 --> 01:15:26.940 Okay, yeah, that's a good-sized island. 01:15:27.180 --> 01:15:29.160 You could support quite a lot of people there. 01:15:29.920 --> 01:15:31.720 I assume you can probably grow crops there. 01:15:33.640 --> 01:15:35.980 But it's not a windswept rock. 01:15:37.020 --> 01:15:38.960 Well, we're talking about the southeast of England. 01:15:40.220 --> 01:15:45.280 But even, you know, take the Isle of Man, say, where it's definitely a little bit more rugged. 01:15:46.180 --> 01:15:48.760 But it's, again, quite big. 01:15:49.220 --> 01:15:49.660 Fishing. 01:15:50.040 --> 01:15:52.540 Probably, coincidentally, the size of Brighton and Hove. 01:15:53.660 --> 01:15:56.320 You've got, yeah, you've got fish, you've got sheep. 01:15:58.140 --> 01:16:00.060 And you can certainly grow crops. 01:16:00.460 --> 01:16:02.580 And if you had triffids, you'd have cooking oil. 01:16:02.960 --> 01:16:04.120 Oh, wait, no, that's wrong. 01:16:04.340 --> 01:16:04.700 That's the book. 01:16:06.260 --> 01:16:07.320 You could deep fry sheep strips. 01:16:09.520 --> 01:16:10.100 And vegetables. 01:16:11.400 --> 01:16:16.200 Well, you could certainly produce oil from other crops. 01:16:16.400 --> 01:16:19.080 I would suggest maybe Triffid would be the best choice. 01:16:21.920 --> 01:16:22.540 Yeah, maybe not. 01:16:23.340 --> 01:16:23.760 Maybe not. 01:16:24.780 --> 01:16:25.280 Anyway. 01:16:27.080 --> 01:16:29.180 Yeah, so it's fascinating. 01:16:29.780 --> 01:16:34.360 I don't know where this falls on the timeline of post-apocalyptic stories. 01:16:36.200 --> 01:16:41.220 You know, at some point, if you go back in time, there's going to be the first one. 01:16:43.460 --> 01:16:43.540 Right? 01:16:43.830 --> 01:16:49.580 I mean, in any genre, there's always the first one that somebody comes up with. 01:16:49.740 --> 01:16:50.920 I don't think this is it. 01:16:51.460 --> 01:16:54.520 I don't know if I would consider War of the Worlds to be that. 01:16:55.380 --> 01:16:55.700 But maybe. 01:16:59.680 --> 01:17:09.400 But it certainly is much older than a lot of the crop that has just seemed to burgeon over the years. 01:17:10.120 --> 01:17:19.080 There is something wrong in the human mind that makes them crave these stories. 01:17:19.340 --> 01:17:21.120 I really don't know what it is. 01:17:21.620 --> 01:17:24.320 I really don't understand it. 01:17:25.840 --> 01:17:28.600 Is it that they want to see the ugliness of humans? 01:17:29.620 --> 01:17:37.700 come out? Do they feel like we deserve some sort of punishment and this is a way of 01:17:38.800 --> 01:17:45.980 vicariously watching it? I don't know. I'm not a fan. I enjoy this story. I love the premise of 01:17:45.980 --> 01:17:52.060 the Triffids and I wish, as we've discussed, they were better fleshed out, so to speak, on 01:17:53.470 --> 01:17:56.520 their biology and how it worked and maybe a little more logical. 01:17:59.500 --> 01:18:01.600 and I appreciate that it's kind of 01:18:01.720 --> 01:18:02.680 at least a hopeful ending 01:18:03.800 --> 01:18:05.000 that it looks like 01:18:05.540 --> 01:18:07.800 it is a matter of waiting out the Triffids 01:18:08.800 --> 01:18:09.760 it's a matter of 01:18:10.120 --> 01:18:11.340 growing up a new batch of kids 01:18:12.420 --> 01:18:13.220 and starting to 01:18:14.680 --> 01:18:15.700 get the knowledge 01:18:15.980 --> 01:18:17.900 back and go this is not a 01:18:20.420 --> 01:18:21.700 living dead film 01:18:22.000 --> 01:18:23.460 where it's done 01:18:24.080 --> 01:18:25.821 you know anyone who ever dies 01:18:25.840 --> 01:18:32.320 becomes a zombie therefore there's an infinite supply of of of enemies coming at you you know 01:18:32.370 --> 01:18:37.920 i i could envision the earth being triffid free in 50 to 75 years or at least whole 01:18:39.580 --> 01:18:48.140 whole livable areas just completely devoid of triffids and and rebuilding so but that's a 01:18:48.220 --> 01:18:56.240 dramatic problem for the story i think because where do you end it is kind of a peter out end 01:18:56.340 --> 01:19:01.320 there isn't it a lot of people complain especially as especially as they're not going to answer the 01:19:01.460 --> 01:19:10.760 questions about the either the meteor shower or the disease or anything about all these kind of 01:19:11.180 --> 01:19:17.239 biological questions we've had about the behavior of triffids or the capabilities like can they 01:19:17.400 --> 01:19:21.380 all those questions like i say i don't mind unanswered questions but from a dramatic point 01:19:21.390 --> 01:19:32.080 of view it could have ended in a number of different places and i i'm not even sure if 01:19:32.080 --> 01:19:38.380 it wouldn't be a better story if it had done a hundred years from now 01:19:40.640 --> 01:19:45.381 500 years from now we think i mean it certainly i mean it certainly could have carried on 01:19:47.020 --> 01:19:48.660 let's pretend like 01:19:49.900 --> 01:19:50.860 by the time people are 01:19:51.000 --> 01:19:52.860 asking the questions properly 01:19:53.960 --> 01:19:54.400 that 01:19:56.080 --> 01:19:57.160 we will never 01:19:57.500 --> 01:19:58.940 find out if that comet was 01:20:02.920 --> 01:20:04.020 an atomic weapon 01:20:04.920 --> 01:20:07.220 that the MOD or whichever 01:20:08.100 --> 01:20:09.380 organization put that 01:20:09.380 --> 01:20:11.300 thing up there, collapses, burns 01:20:11.520 --> 01:20:12.700 down, the records are lost 01:20:13.400 --> 01:20:14.260 they're retrievable 01:20:14.920 --> 01:20:21.000 that no one ever finds out what caused that comet. 01:20:22.040 --> 01:20:23.240 A hundred years from now, 01:20:23.890 --> 01:20:26.920 how many religions and how many schools of thought 01:20:27.500 --> 01:20:32.100 will have evolved up over that divine judgment 01:20:33.760 --> 01:20:36.820 handed down on humans? 01:20:37.940 --> 01:20:40.180 I think that's really interesting. 01:20:42.020 --> 01:20:48.960 I think the dramatic structure of the story is challenging 01:20:49.480 --> 01:20:58.260 because, as you say, it's not the kind of all-out wipeout. 01:20:58.400 --> 01:21:04.240 There is a scenario envisaged, and then that has consequences, 01:21:04.350 --> 01:21:08.760 and the novel, or the series, presumably the novel, 01:21:10.100 --> 01:21:19.300 takes some time to explore a period afterwards but it's almost arbitrary 01:21:21.060 --> 01:21:32.660 where it stops and i think you know if if i were if i were asked to do an adaptation of this story 01:21:34.360 --> 01:21:43.200 i think i would be very tempted to plunder the structure from there was a tv series 01:21:44.230 --> 01:21:51.200 over here about 10 years ago which was it was the title of it was literally five days 01:21:52.040 --> 01:22:02.101 and it's nothing to science fiction okay it was a drama about the abduction of some 01:22:02.120 --> 01:22:13.020 children and the the police investigation into the abduction and the five days were because each 01:22:13.580 --> 01:22:20.440 of the five episodes of the series dealt with a day in that missing persons case but they weren't 01:22:20.640 --> 01:22:29.020 consecutive days it was like the first the first day you actually see the circumstances around the 01:22:28.920 --> 01:22:35.900 abduction and you see the the police attending and interviewing everyone and so on but the rest 01:22:35.900 --> 01:22:43.900 of it is is kind of insights into what's going on at various points they like day three day 28 day 01:22:44.260 --> 01:22:53.140 33 day 79 and obviously part of the the the job for the narrative is to fill in the gaps a little 01:22:53.240 --> 01:22:59.840 bit for the viewer but you're you're you're kind of picking on days in the story when there is 01:23:00.060 --> 01:23:05.420 actually something to talk about and and and it helps it gives you a picture of everything that's 01:23:05.540 --> 01:23:13.540 come in between and i would nick that i think in the sense of i'd want to do the day of the meteor 01:23:13.920 --> 01:23:22.501 shower right and maybe day three you know after the meteor shower but then maybe jump forward to 01:23:22.920 --> 01:23:28.100 a year after afterwards and five years after and like you say it would be quite interesting to go 01:23:28.470 --> 01:23:34.300 i don't know about 100 years but an entire generation afterwards to look at and to look 01:23:34.360 --> 01:23:41.240 at and explore what has happened what people had found out what myths they had built up what 01:23:41.510 --> 01:23:46.621 what reactions and and how how people have progressed because i think 01:23:48.520 --> 01:23:54.840 unless you do that it just it it becomes a kind of endless narrative that really 01:23:57.040 --> 01:24:06.700 has has no structure to it this is the beginning of a whole new story of mankind in a way so yes 01:24:07.000 --> 01:24:13.641 it's the beginning not the end yes maybe that's the difference this is a beginning not an end so 01:24:13.660 --> 01:24:22.560 yes and and all the questions we're asking you kind of want you want to see how they play out 01:24:22.980 --> 01:24:30.800 so you need glimpses at least of what the consequences are in 10 years time 20 years 01:24:30.940 --> 01:24:39.561 time and the rest of it yeah um i have a couple of things um one and i went back to check this 01:24:39.580 --> 01:24:43.340 because it's, I remember this from the book. 01:24:44.760 --> 01:24:49.020 And so it wasn't obvious to me in the TV show, 01:24:49.460 --> 01:24:51.660 but it does appear to be true. 01:24:52.120 --> 01:24:55.080 And since it wasn't obvious to me and I knew about it, 01:24:55.620 --> 01:24:57.840 I will pass this on. 01:24:58.220 --> 01:25:00.500 The military guy at the end, 01:25:00.680 --> 01:25:03.140 I think it's Torrance is his name, right? 01:25:03.140 --> 01:25:05.580 With the mustache and who's giving his little speech. 01:25:06.720 --> 01:25:09.380 Did you recognize him from elsewhere in the story? 01:25:13.240 --> 01:25:21.660 no he was the guy who opened on shot on bill and his chain gang and walked up and shot the guy in 01:25:21.660 --> 01:25:28.840 the head yeah it's the same actor but because they had his hair dyed red or whatever it was 01:25:29.300 --> 01:25:37.381 it wasn't obvious that that's the same sadistic guy but because of it in the book bill has even 01:25:37.400 --> 01:25:46.420 more reasons to distrust this guy yeah see i he recognizes him as as that as that guy 01:25:47.560 --> 01:25:51.560 which i don't know if that would realistically happen i don't recognize people i met yesterday 01:25:51.940 --> 01:25:55.780 oh i suppose if i saw him gun somebody down in cold blood maybe i'd have a little better 01:25:57.100 --> 01:26:05.521 uh mind of them in the uh and the other thing that i remember from the book that didn't 01:26:07.220 --> 01:26:10.480 if it did happen it's because i don't understand geography of britain 01:26:11.640 --> 01:26:19.640 uh well enough but in the book the religious lady when bill and coker left she says well 01:26:20.000 --> 01:26:27.760 the other group went this away pointing to the right when in fact she knew they went that away 01:26:28.540 --> 01:26:32.041 pointing to the left she intentionally sent them on a wild goose chase 01:26:34.840 --> 01:26:40.260 okay and i don't think that i don't think that is in any way conveyed 01:26:41.350 --> 01:26:45.320 in this story but she intentionally did that to try to 01:26:46.390 --> 01:26:49.440 you know maybe make them change their mind and come back to god 01:26:51.800 --> 01:26:57.941 um in in i'm not sure what that has to do with the geography well i mean i suppose that if uh 01:26:57.960 --> 01:27:00.040 if she said, well, they went to Wiggum 01:27:02.620 --> 01:27:08.440 and then we later find out that they went to Salisbury. 01:27:09.380 --> 01:27:11.200 I don't know if those are in different directions or not. 01:27:11.520 --> 01:27:18.780 I don't know if you, as somebody who knew the geography, 01:27:19.160 --> 01:27:21.900 okay, let's say she said, yeah, I think they headed over to Wales. 01:27:23.040 --> 01:27:26.980 And then we later find out, no, we told her we were heading to Scotland. 01:27:27.060 --> 01:27:29.460 I could kind of go, uh-huh, uh-huh. 01:27:29.700 --> 01:27:30.220 Okay, she lied. 01:27:31.500 --> 01:27:33.320 But I don't think she... 01:27:33.320 --> 01:27:34.360 I see what you mean. Right, yes. 01:27:34.610 --> 01:27:39.700 Right, but in the book, I think it's more clear that she deliberately misled them. 01:27:40.120 --> 01:27:41.300 And that... 01:27:42.380 --> 01:27:44.020 Because, you know, they needed... 01:27:44.420 --> 01:27:45.600 Because that's how God works. 01:27:45.630 --> 01:27:49.220 You lie to people about stuff for their own good. 01:27:51.340 --> 01:27:52.220 Yeah. Okay. 01:27:55.780 --> 01:27:59.820 i think she i think she told them they'd gone to dorset and actually they'd gone to the isle of 01:27:59.960 --> 01:28:05.780 white yeah i don't know and maybe they went to dorset first and did you know i i honestly don't 01:28:07.040 --> 01:28:12.940 it's just it's a non-thing in this in this episode it makes her a little it makes her a little nastier 01:28:14.580 --> 01:28:21.521 um in in a way well my opinion nastier but i suppose you know trying to save their souls there 01:28:23.139 --> 01:28:26.940 anyway I don't know that I have anything else 01:28:27.080 --> 01:28:31.140 this is a long one but that's okay because it was a long serial 01:28:32.180 --> 01:28:33.180 or series 01:28:35.540 --> 01:28:38.060 anything else Simon? 01:28:39.260 --> 01:28:42.580 no I have nothing else but I'm going to mention 01:28:42.880 --> 01:28:47.000 since we were talking about post-apocalyptic science fiction 01:28:48.619 --> 01:28:50.601 that the earliest 01:28:51.400 --> 01:28:53.080 in the genre may be 01:28:53.480 --> 01:28:55.040 The Last Man, which I haven't read, 01:28:55.280 --> 01:28:57.120 by Mary Shelley, published 01:28:57.320 --> 01:28:58.280 in 1826. 01:28:58.840 --> 01:29:00.060 But she did another book? 01:29:02.600 --> 01:29:03.240 Didn't she do 01:29:03.480 --> 01:29:05.140 enough damage with Frankenstein? 01:29:05.920 --> 01:29:07.100 Oh, no. 01:29:07.440 --> 01:29:08.320 Please tell me no. 01:29:08.820 --> 01:29:10.920 No, no. If that's... If she did 01:29:11.100 --> 01:29:12.060 this genre too, 01:29:12.960 --> 01:29:14.960 first off, their scientists are evil and they 01:29:15.500 --> 01:29:16.940 tamper with things they're not supposed to 01:29:16.960 --> 01:29:18.901 and everything they touch will 01:29:18.920 --> 01:29:25.300 destroy the world that's frankenstein and and i'm sure you've heard me rank on about that one 01:29:25.430 --> 01:29:32.320 because that is so pervasive in the in the in the zeitgeist of the world that's her fault 100 01:29:33.120 --> 01:29:39.300 thousand percent if she came up with the last what's it called the last man the last man the 01:29:39.440 --> 01:29:46.700 last man if she came up with a genre of post-apocalyptic nonsense i am she is way down my 01:29:46.720 --> 01:29:51.220 list on popular people that's all i gotta say i'm gonna look that up i'm gonna i'm gonna see 01:29:51.280 --> 01:29:57.160 if i can i want to read it now i have to say i kind of do too i and i have but she found the 01:29:57.280 --> 01:30:04.340 time to write both of these and travel with the doctor so pretty impressive so are you gonna you 01:30:04.440 --> 01:30:11.721 gonna get the big finished night of the triffids now no i've i've i feel i've had enough i'm not 01:30:11.760 --> 01:30:13.100 I'm not going to track down 01:30:14.040 --> 01:30:15.400 the film 01:30:16.040 --> 01:30:16.600 I 01:30:17.820 --> 01:30:19.540 I might watch the more recent 01:30:19.760 --> 01:30:21.820 adaptation if it popped up on my screen I guess 01:30:22.739 --> 01:30:23.300 but 01:30:23.640 --> 01:30:25.440 I'm not in a hurry for any more triffids 01:30:26.239 --> 01:30:26.800 the 01:30:27.100 --> 01:30:29.720 the 1950s 01:30:29.940 --> 01:30:30.660 one the movie 01:30:31.540 --> 01:30:32.420 the 62 film 01:30:34.000 --> 01:30:35.840 what I remember about that 01:30:37.199 --> 01:30:37.760 is 01:30:37.920 --> 01:30:39.840 that the guy who stars in it 01:30:43.700 --> 01:30:46.260 what i remember is that i kept thinking he was sean connery 01:30:50.520 --> 01:30:55.900 now admittedly when i was younger i had trouble differentiating sean connery from a lot of people 01:30:57.920 --> 01:31:01.060 so he was always the sort of generic bond guy 01:31:03.120 --> 01:31:09.001 but that's a that's another story who aren't sean connery yeah there are quite a few people 01:31:09.020 --> 01:31:09.940 who are not John Connery, 01:31:10.230 --> 01:31:10.700 but there's some, 01:31:10.730 --> 01:31:11.440 I think it's his voice. 01:31:12.260 --> 01:31:12.800 I think it's this. 01:31:12.930 --> 01:31:13.180 Colin Keele. 01:31:13.700 --> 01:31:15.940 I think his voice may have been 01:31:16.320 --> 01:31:17.260 very reminiscent of it. 01:31:17.380 --> 01:31:17.620 I'm not, 01:31:18.080 --> 01:31:18.900 I'm not sure why 01:31:18.930 --> 01:31:19.860 because I haven't seen that film. 01:31:21.760 --> 01:31:22.040 In, 01:31:22.460 --> 01:31:23.000 you know something? 01:31:23.840 --> 01:31:24.900 That's no doubt 01:31:25.030 --> 01:31:26.820 the first place I've ever seen Triffids. 01:31:29.600 --> 01:31:30.480 The 62 film? 01:31:30.680 --> 01:31:32.280 There's no doubt I saw that first. 01:31:32.620 --> 01:31:33.260 Yeah, absolutely. 01:31:33.550 --> 01:31:34.900 I was going to ask you 01:31:35.000 --> 01:31:35.320 when you were, 01:31:35.460 --> 01:31:36.860 when you were talking about bookshops, 01:31:37.120 --> 01:31:38.980 I had it in my mind to ask you 01:31:39.000 --> 01:31:40.080 And then the thought slipped away. 01:31:40.320 --> 01:31:41.840 So you say, right, your first. 01:31:42.300 --> 01:31:43.160 I'm sure I must have. 01:31:43.660 --> 01:31:45.100 Triffid experience was that. 01:31:45.350 --> 01:31:48.000 So I've just discovered, courtesy of Wikipedia, 01:31:48.540 --> 01:31:51.540 another nice little trivial Doctor Who connection, 01:31:52.880 --> 01:32:00.640 which is that also appearing in the 1962 film was Carol Ann Ford. 01:32:02.720 --> 01:32:04.060 She could have been playing Susan. 01:32:06.080 --> 01:32:06.680 She could have been. 01:32:06.800 --> 01:32:09.740 She was playing a character called Bettina, who I don't remember in this one. 01:32:10.760 --> 01:32:12.740 No, I don't remember one in this either. 01:32:13.070 --> 01:32:17.440 But we're talking about, a year before, Doctor Who. 01:32:18.820 --> 01:32:20.220 Could be where she got the job from. 01:32:21.820 --> 01:32:23.440 Well, I'm sure they would have been aware of it. 01:32:28.060 --> 01:32:32.780 There is a Doctor Who connection with this serial, in fact, as well. 01:32:32.890 --> 01:32:34.900 Because if you notice the name of the producer. 01:32:37.140 --> 01:32:38.260 David Maloney 01:32:38.560 --> 01:32:39.060 Maloney yeah 01:32:39.690 --> 01:32:40.160 Blake 7 01:32:41.460 --> 01:32:43.220 oh I didn't know he'd done Blake 7 01:32:43.270 --> 01:32:45.640 but he did direct a fair 01:32:45.880 --> 01:32:47.540 old number of Doctor Who 01:32:47.720 --> 01:32:48.480 serials from 01:32:50.140 --> 01:32:51.460 I think it was 01:32:51.520 --> 01:32:53.560 Mind Robber was his first 01:32:53.740 --> 01:32:53.840 one 01:32:55.380 --> 01:32:57.420 War Games, Talents of Weng Chang 01:32:57.600 --> 01:32:58.280 so quite a few 01:33:00.099 --> 01:33:01.740 pretty top notch 01:33:02.360 --> 01:33:02.700 serials 01:33:03.860 --> 01:33:04.940 Genesis of the Dalek 01:33:06.000 --> 01:33:13.660 yeah yeah yeah he i i see his name quite a lot um on on things i don't know that i could have 01:33:14.000 --> 01:33:19.680 pinned them down to specific stories but you obviously look them up so that's cheating 01:33:20.780 --> 01:33:26.160 research is cheating i've looked him up because i recognized his name but i will admit 01:33:26.810 --> 01:33:31.219 i didn't in my head have the names of all the serials that he had directed 01:33:32.760 --> 01:33:33.720 yeah I'm not 01:33:34.100 --> 01:33:35.100 Toby Haydoki you know 01:33:35.660 --> 01:33:35.780 yes 01:33:37.280 --> 01:33:39.160 alright well Simon thank you for joining me 01:33:39.900 --> 01:33:41.160 my pleasure as always 01:33:41.530 --> 01:33:43.820 and listeners I hope you have enjoyed this 01:33:44.360 --> 01:33:45.640 traipse through the garden of 01:33:45.740 --> 01:33:47.720 triffins and I hope 01:33:47.820 --> 01:33:49.720 you'll join us all again next 01:33:49.880 --> 01:33:51.700 time on Fusion Patrol 01:33:54.120 --> 01:33:55.740 you've been listening to Fusion Patrol 01:33:56.030 --> 01:33:57.260 a listener supported podcast 01:33:58.040 --> 01:33:59.760 find out how you can be a sponsor and get 01:33:59.640 --> 01:34:04.860 early access to all episodes and more at patreon.com slash fusion patrol. 01:34:08.460 --> 01:34:10.840 Come join the conversation on Facebook or Twitter. 01:34:13.200 --> 01:34:15.940 All episodes are available at fusion patrol.com. 01:34:19.080 --> 01:34:21.520 Our music is fight the future by Amber Wolf. 01:34:24.560 --> 01:34:27.080 This has been a lone locust production.