La guerre des mondes

One has to ask the question that although this mini-series was completed almost 2 years ago, and post-production (VFX/Editing, etc) would have taken some additional time, yet it was teased, to British audiences at least, for a possible Summer 2019 release, which of course never happened. Why the big delay, I hear you ask? Well I think some of you, if not ALL of you now know why. It's a clunker - they simply got it utterly, horribly wrong. Now normally I would reserve such vitriol in the final analysis, after the show had completed it's run. But no, it's already a mess, a big bloody mess. I fully suspect that BBC Executives, NOT Peter Harness - the credited writer, dictated most of what we actually see onscreen. Harness adapted the wonderful Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell into an equally wonderful TV adaptation, so why did he fail so miserably here? I would suggest interference, why? Because I am a Writer with experience of BBC Executives and their propensity for full-on interference. You go into a Script meeting and everybody is upbeat and the general outlook is postively very good. But then, as the meeting progresses, you slowly start to realise that they're gradually trying to change it, not just in certain sections, but in the piece as a WHOLE, until essentially it is completely, if not radically different to what you first presented. Now you might not notice this at first, because they're REALLY that good, but it is totally insiduous and basically standard practice at the BBC right now.

As other reviewers have said the first episode wasn't really terrible although the flash forward scenes were annoying and confusing. However the second episode after the "miraculous" meeting between the "heroes" is a total disaster. In this episode the whole alien invasion thing becomes irrelevant and we're stuck with a little bit of a horror movie (where the aliens play the part of the serial killer) and a little bit of post invasion red planet survival simulation. In the end i didn't even care if the heroes survived in the past or in the present. The only people who might like this mess are fans of the lead actress Eleanor Tomlinson.

I've been waiting most of my life for a faithful adaptation of the great novel. Sadly, the wait goes on. This is more like a cheap Dr Who episode crossed with Edwardian Eastenders. Absolutely crushed with disappointment. Ah well...

Total tosh.

I have some advise for the BBC, next time you want to dramatise a classic novel get some people to actually read it.

I'll start with the positives, the acting was good, and it was nice at least to see The BBC making sci fi, in a time when it has been sadly shoved to the back of the queue.

Unfortunately, it's a pretty poor attempt, earlier in the year I thought this was going to be a big Christmas drama, big budget, exciting, featuring Eleanor Tomlinson and Rafe Spall, I'm glad they didn't transmit this at Christmas, it would have been an even bigger disappointment. Spall and Tomlinson were wasted, they're great, but were up against it with the script.

What should have been dynamic and exciting was slow and dull, not helped by the clunky jumps forward in time.

Sometimes tinkering works, sometimes it doesn't, I fear here there was too much tinkering. Simply put this was poor, with the last episode proving a real challenge to get through. 4/10