We've only seen the first episode out of two so far — we'll review both episodes fully tomorrow or Thursday — but so far, we're liking the new Day Of The Triffids pretty well. It was probably never going to be quite as horrifying or gut-wrenching as the 1981 version or John Windham's original novel, but it's more or less holding its own. The Triffids are used sparingly, and mostly loom in the darkness like great horrible venus flytraps.

The first 90 minutes moves at a fair clip — you have the infodump that explains how we used Triffids as a clean, renewable fuel source and averted global warming, but nobody realized how dangerous they really were. And then there's the miraculous light show in the sky (now converted into a kind of solar flare instead of a meteor shower) which blinds almost everyone on Earth. Soon the blind, shambling masses are nothing but a rich food supply for the rampaging Triffids.

Some of the additions to the story serve to cover over some of the slight inconsistencies in the original — like now, there's a "Triffid rights" activist who's responsible for Bill Masen getting blinded by a Triffid sting, and also for releasing the Triffids after everyone else goes blind. It makes a tad more sense that the Triffids would have male and female plants, and there would be elaborate precautions to control their breeding — it's one of the ways in which this version feels fairly thought out.

The obligatory scenes of blind people staggering around and clutching at the few sighted people who remain are gotten through fairly quickly, and they don't pack quite as much horror as the earlier TV version, which really dwelled on the horror of being besieged by too many blind people ever to help. Here's a clip of the horrific earlier version:

The 1981 producers may not have had the money for huge setpieces or super-convincing plant monsters, but they could marshal the real horror of being at the mercy of people you can't really help. In its place, we get lots of disaster-movie and apocalyptic standbys, like a plane crash and ambitious shots of traffic disasters. And then we move on to phase two of the post-apocalyptic recipe, which is various flavors of authoritarianism and crazy communities. (I bet there'll be a lot more of that in part two.)

Like I said, this version feels reasonably thought out, and I like Dougray Scott as Bill Masen, the only scientist who can deal with the Triffids. The scene where he and Jo (Joely Richardson) put on a little BBC broadcast, and struggle to keep in place their good old BBC presentation as everything's going down the tubes, is pretty amazing.

If there's a weak link so far, it's Eddie Izzard as the (seemingly) evil Torrance. He doesn't talk for the first hour, although he does get the weird "surviving a plane crash by cocooning yourself inside flotation devices" moment. (Would that really work?) And then he skulks around looking shifty and ominous, before making a weird random power grab. I wasn't sure if Izzard's role was just severely under-written, or if he was just underplaying it. Either way, he seemed a bit bored by the whole exercise, and it was hard to feel whatever menace we were supposed to get from him. But maybe part two will be better?

What did you think?

Avatar 2:

The planet that Pandora orbits is called Polyphemus, and it's the primary for a system of moons, says James Cameron. "We have some story ideas for how to branch out into other moons of Polyphemus and the Alpha Centauri A solar system." [L.A. Times]

The Wolfman:

The movie's much-vaunted CG is used mostly in the transformation scenes, to bridge the actor's real face and the makeup of the wolf face — the film isn't supposed to be super CG-heavy, because it's a tribute to the old Lon Chaney films. [Shock Till You Drop]

The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus:

When Dr. Parnassus made his deal with the devil to hand over his daughter in exchange for immortality and perpetual youth, the daughter wasn't even born yet — now she's 16, and the devil has come to London to collect on the deal. But Tony (Heath Ledger et al.), who passes through Parnassus' mirror into a land of imagination where his soul faces moral challenges, has a sketchy past and hidden agenda of his own. [IGN]

Lost:

E! Online is continuing with their daily season six spoilers. Apparently, we'll meet a new big bad who makes Ben Linus look like an amateur, and here are some clues about him. He:

* Killed **h*.
* Killed ***o*.
* Is *** **o** *****e*.
* Wants to "g* ****."

People are interpreting this stuff to mean that "he" is the Smoke Monster and he "wants to go home." There is some disagreement over who "he" killed, though. (Don't forget, the Smoke Monster told Ben to obey Flocke.) Meanwhile, we'll see Desmond again early in the season, and it'll be in a surprising encounter with one of the Losties. [E! Online and E! Online]

And Sun, Jack and Locke were filming a scene on the beach where the Losties' camp was. But which Locke was this? [SpoilersLost]

Doctor Who:

We will find out "slightly" more about the Doctor's role in the Time War, says David Tennant, but "it won't be more explicit." And we'll see more familiar faces from the Doctor's past, including some surprises. [New Jersey Star-Ledger and MTV]

And fans are piecing together what we know to speculate a bit about how it all turns out. We know Donna survives, because we saw her filming a scene in her wedding dress. Wilf may be an exiled Time Lord, or something similar. Also, the mysterious woman speaking to Wilf could be Romana, or it could be a much older Rose Smith, who's lived a good long life with the "hand Doctor" in the alternate universe, and will now sacrifice herself heroically. [Sunny Tyler]

And here's a new trailer for part 2, different fromthe one which aired after Part 1. [Den Of Geek]

It sounds like we might get more introspective conversations between the Doctor and the Master in part 2, judging from this interview with Russell T. Davies:

I've always thought in a very strange way these two men love each other - not in a gay way, but they are similar and share a lot. There's more dialogue between them this time, more conversation. It's hard to bring them together for long in a scene because each of them will try to stop the other and they won't stand around talking too much. But I've worked hard this time. We learn more about their history, where they want to go. Both of them are heading for death, that's the important thing. The Doctor knows he's going to die, The Master is dying. He's been brought back to life but it hasn't worked, so both of them are trying to survive while heading to the Immortality Gate. Both in the same situation but at the same time enemies and total opposites.

Also, he hints once again that we shouldn't assume the Doctor regenerates in Saturday's episode. And it sounds like the Doctor references the events of "Waters Of Mars" one more time. [Digital Spy]

So the "Weeping Angels" from "Blink" are coming back in the new season. But how will they be portrayed? There may be a few hints in this new video about them, which the BBC just posted, narrated by Captain Jack Harkness. [via BlogtorWho]

Fringe:

Here are some promo pics from the unaired season one episode "Unearthed," which airs in January. [SpoilerTV]

And here are some pics from the next episode, "Edina City Limits". [SpoilerTV]

Chuck:

We've already seen Chuck play the guitar and fight kung-fu style, but we'll see him do other stuff, like drive vehicles. Anything a human body can do, Chuck can theoretically do now. [TV Talk Podcast]

Day Of The Triffids:

The characters in this new version don't kill the Triffids by pouring salt water on them, like in some earlier versions, says actor Dougray Scott. He plays the main character, who avoids blindness because his eyes were bandaged after an operation, and he hooks up with a radio journalist played by Joely Richardson. He adds:

The writer of our version has heavily updated the Wyndham concept, which was written at a time when people feared nuclear proliferation. There was that great fear of nuclear escape and his novel had a sort of cathartic response to that. Our production is doing a similar thing, only we've updated it to the genetic modification of plants created to replace oil in a world where oil has disappeared, which could be in the very near future.

[California Chronicle]

Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff.

If you're sick of your family already, there's an interesting collection of old sci-fi shows available on YouTube to help distract you and tide you over until all your favorite shows come back to television. Amongst them, the original 1980s version of The Day Of The Triffids, the television spin-off of Highlander and our favorite, the cartoon version of The Big Guy and Rusty The Boy Robot, AKA "The last good thing Frank Miller ever did."

There's also the BBC's live remake of The Quatermass Experiment from a few years ago, original Outer Limits episodes and three episodes of Gatchaman for the anime fans amongst you.

It's an odd list of hidden gems, but that doesn't stop us from making plans to overload on them before 2010. Go see the full list for yourself here

Doctor Who:

Someone posting over at the IMDB forums claims to have seen "The End Of Time Part 1," and says Bernard Cribbins and the Doctor travel to "the vast wastelands of London" as well as visiting the Time War. Wilf wants to save his granddaughter, Donna, who's once again struggling with her own mind. The villains are Joshua Naismith and his wife, who resurrect the Master as part of a plan to bring back the Time Lords, but this is just part of a larger scheme. At the end of the first part, the Time Lords materialize through the Immortality Gate and arrest the Master. And meanwhile, Donna's eyes are on fire. Take of all this with an immense grain of salt. [Gallifrey Base]

Meanwhile, Russell T. Davies explains more about what's going on in this episode:

The Doctor went through hell, on Mars. I think its important to note the angry, vengeful Doctor glimpsed in that climax is gone-that was the point of Adelaide's death; she saved the future, and saved the Doctor from himself. He was brought back to his senses. And as you've seen from the Children in Need clip, a lot of the old, chipper Doctor has been restored. Which is only right and proper, because that's the Doctor we want to see in his final story - the classic hero, the good man, the lovely funny, skinny fellow in the suit and trainers... and as ever, there's a melancholy beneath the smile - he's still aware that he's facing the end of his song, and the ominous four knocks. He can't know whether this means regeneration or actual death - and neither can you, cos we might have some tricks up our sleeves!

And he adds, in reference to the Master:

In 'The Sound of Drums" and 'Last of the Time Lords', he mirrored the Doctor by being powerful, suave and megalomaniac. Now, it's a new opposite - lost and raw and savage. Something's gone very wrong with his return - you'll have to watch to find out what! - but that x-ray effect see in the trailer, where he's all skull and bones, is the just the start of the trouble....imagine all the pent up forces of a Time Lord body - artron energy, regeneration energy, all the stuff - ripping open and broken loose. A dying timelord is a terrifying thing! So with the Master dying, the Doctor's end approaching, and both determined to survive, they're hurtling along an almighty collision course. And that's just part one!

Also, Minnie Hooper is helping Wilf track the Doctor down because people have had bad dreams, and Wilf is hiding out at a church. And there's a mystery involving a silver cloak, which Wilf knows about. And the Doctor gets strapped down to a table at one point. [Doctor Who Magazine via Fanatical Whovian]

Meanwhile, RTD tells Time Out Magazine that this episode includes the homeless in London getting burgers from a charity van, and Donna's middle-class family sitting down for turkey dinner, and then the obscenely rich Naismith family, with a mansion and servants. And then of course there are monsters and a chase, and all of these elements are leading in one direction. [Life The Universe And Combom]

Lost:

Rumor has it that some of the leaks and set reports from this show's final season have caused some scenes to be reshot and changed. According to unnamed sources, nothing major has been reworked, but some minor details were changed to differ from what's leaked out so far. Bear in mind, this is only a rumor, and there aren't actually any details about what's allegedly been revamped. [SpoilersLost]

There's a pretty huge spoiler hidden as an Easter egg on the new season five BluRay set: This scene breakdown of the end of the last episode, in which apparently we were originally supposed to see Jack's group absorbed by a white light, and then Richard Alpert sees a mushroom cloud off in the distance. [SpoilersLost]

An unnamed source claims that Richard Alpert meets both the Man In Black and Jacob in his flashback, and Richard Alpert fights Jacob in the 1800s, and a "special" knife is involved. [SpoilersLost]

And here are some new promo pics of our castmembers, which aren't spoilery unless you consider who's included among the cast. [Doc
Arzt]

Day Of The Triffids:

Here are a ton of new promo pics from this British remake, which airs in the U.K. on Dec. 28 and 29. Cannot wait! [Den Of Geek]

Jonah Hex:

There are some reshoots going on, and apparently they include some scenes with Jonah's wife, who hasn't previously been included in the film. At least, that's what people are speculating based on a new casting call:

[CASSIE] - wife of 'Jonah Hex' (Josh Brolin). Native American. Pretty, young, sexy.

[TRAVIS] - age 9 (to play younger)... Must be a match to Josh Brolin and Native American 'Cassie'.

[JEB TURNBULL] - son of 'Quentin Turnbull' (John Malkovich). 30 - 35. Skinny, southern accent. Needs one or two days for prosthetics.

[PRESIDENT ANDREW JOHNSON] - 50-60. Look alike, if possible.

[ADVISOR] - to President Johnson. Younger, 1870's version of a "West Wing" character.

[DEAD GUY] - late 20s/30s. Scary looking.. May need a day for prosthetics/possible make-up.

[SpoilerTV-Movies]

The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus:

Terry Gilliam talks about his inspiration in a couple of new interviews, one of which is partly in Russian except the parts where he talks:

The Hobbit:

Peter Jackson hopes that both Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett will return for this duology, even though Blanchett's character, Galadriel, doesn't appear in the book. [MTV]

Nightmare On Elm Street:

It seems like they're filming a new scene in a diner where Nancy (the main character?) works, judging from a new casting call, seeking the diner's owner and waitress. Plus some teenagers hanging out there. It sounds as though this additional scene is meant to clear up something that confused test-screening audiences. [SpoilerTV-Movies and BloodyDisgusting via IGN]

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows:

The cast still hasn't shot the infamous epilogue scene yet, and they're waiting to hear if they'll do it themselves or have other actors replace them as adults. [MTV]

And even as this two-part movie is filming, there are tons of on-the-fly rewrites and new scripts and last-minute changes because "We're terrified we're not going to get it right," says Daniel Radcliffe. Also, after Rupert Grint's bout with swine flu, his new name is Pigboy Heart Attack. [MTV]

Fringe:

A casting call went out for a guest star whom we'll meet in episode 2x16:

[HEATH] 30-35... Interesting look, lean and wiry. Open ethnicity.

[SpoilerTV]

Asked whether Peter's mom is from our universe or Over There, Jeff Pinkner replies cryptically: "In a show exploring two alternate universes, there is more than one of everything… and everyone." [EW]

Chuck:

This season, there's more international travel, taking Chuck out of the U.S. and dropping him into hotspots. And don't worry, Chuck's still a bumbling hero even though he knows kung-fu. His emotions interfere with his new abilities, and the new intersect is sometimes "fritzing out." The first episode is a "heist episode," In which Chuck and Sarah have to rappel Mission Impossible-style into a vault. One thing that Chuck is getting better at, though? Lying. Which is both good and bad. [TV Guide]

Sarah will go from being Chuck's caretaker to something more like his boss this season. Chuck's training as a real spy will bring up more backstory about Sarah's own entry into the spy biz, including her real name. [TV Guide again]

Flashforward:

There are a ton of casting calls for episodes 15 and 16. In episode 15, we'll meet Spiller, a white guy whose affable veneer can't hide the fact that he's a dick. And Lilliana, an older Latina woman who distrusts the FBI. There are also a couple of hospital nurses who encounter a frantic man searching for his loved one who's a patient, a tattooed Latino tough guy mechanic, a motherly Japanese waitress who takes an interest in a female customer, a mysterious dreadlocked man named Geoff, a driver on a sensitive assignment, and a teenager who offers to help an obvious drunk guy. (Mark? Does Mark get drunk and then wind up in the hospital?)

And then in episode 16, we meet Secret Service agent Freddie Ochoa, who gossips about a former colleague, and Marlene, the world-weary director of a group foster home. Plus Daniel, a Korean family man, Wanda, an African American mother, Raymond, an African American father, a federal prosecutor, a judge, a stenographer, a local TV host, a local TV weather girl, an older drunk who startles the wrong person, and a cute young guy and the girl he gets to know better in a humorous scene. Then there's Kat, a 27-year-old girl next door who's hiding a dark secret. [SpoilerTV and SpoilerTV]

Heroes:

Nathan's death is really "the big one that sticks" this time around, says Adrian Pasdar. And then he adds, "You never really know with this show." [MultipleVerses]

Just because Gretchen let Claire go off and become a carny, doesn't mean we've seen the last of her, says actor Madeline Zima. Right now, Gretchen is doing the whole "if you love someone set them free" thing, but it's not going to work out that great, reading between the lines. [TV Guide]

Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff.

Granted, not all of these foods will actually devour you; some will simply kill you or turn you into their zombie slave. But all are best approached with caution, and should only be handled by chefs with combat training.

Killer Tomatoes (Attack of the Killer Tomatoes): After years of being made into ketchup and mistaken for vegetables, the tomatoes get their revenge, and a killer theme song.

The Stuff (The Stuff): It's not clear what would possess a man to taste a slimy substance he found out in the woods, but it turns out the Stuff is delicious, addictive, and contains no calories. It also turns out that the Stuff is alive, and it chews on your brain until you've transformed into a nice, pliable zombie.

Bubble Shock! (The Sarah Jane Adventures "Invasion of the Bane"): Another zombifying substance is Bubble Shock!, a fizzy organic beverage. But it's actually an alien life form, one that turns drinkers into slaves of Mother Bane. While it doesn't have quite the brain-mushing powers of the Stuff, Bubble Shock! has a viral quality, with Bane zombies offering the beverage to anyone who hasn't tried it.

Popplers (Futurama "The Problem with Popplers"): Another mysterious foodstuff found lying on the ground, popplers are incredibly delicious nuggets of meaty goodness. There are just two problems: first, popplers are intelligent; second, they're the juvenile form of the ornery Omicronians, and Lrrr, the Omicronian ruler, thinks it's only fair that he should get to eat a human to set things right.

The Blue Plate Special (Spaceballs): Poor John Hurt. When he tried to enjoy a meal in Alien, he had a chestburster pop right out of him. Then he sits down for the blue plate special at a diner in Spaceballs and meets with the same fate.

Curry Monster (Red Dwarf "DNA"): In a typically boneheaded move, the crew of the Red Dwarf test a DNA modifier on a container of vindaloo, creating a monster that's half man, half Indian takeaway.

Killer Pizzas (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "Case of the Killer Pizzas"): The pizza-loving foursome find that sometimes their favorite food can get a case of the munchies. An alien species from Dimension X lays eggs that happen to look like meatballs, and they manage to land on a handful of pizzas. Pop your pizza in the microwave, and those little critters hatch mean and hungry.

TMNT - Case of the killer pizzas

Wolfbullet | MySpace Video

Pizza the Hut (Spaceballs): He's delicious enough that he ate himself to death, but woe unto those who cross this cheesy gangster. They'll learn what it's like to have Pizza send out for you.

Bezoar Eggs (Buffy the Vampire Slayer "Bad Eggs"): When Buffy and the crew are given eggs to babysit as a class assignment, it seems like a minor nuisance. But it turns out those aren't chicken eggs they're faux parenting; they actually hatch bezoars, little parasites that attach to your brain stem (and, like all good parasites, render you their zombie slave). And Xander gets a nasty surprise when he hardboils his egg son and decides to enjoy a mid-afternoon snack.

Evil Gingerbread Men (The Tick, The Gingerdead Man): Be they the product of an eager baker or possessed by the spirit of a serial killer, these confections can be downright deadly. You'd imagine, though, that milk would be a major weakness.

Werewolf (Angel "Unleashed"): Werewolf is considered a delicacy among certain sadistic members of the Los Angeles elite. Unfortunately, werewolves tend to revert to their human form once they're killed, so they have to be served alive while the meat is carved off. But if the werewolf isn't properly restrained, you could end up on the menu.

Wub ("Beyond Lies the Wub" by Philip K. Dick): Again, it's rarely a smart idea to eat a species you happen to find just hanging out on another planet, especially if it's capable of literary discussions. The pig-like wub will let you eat it, but there's a hefty price; the wub will completely take over your body, essentially booting out your soul through your stomach.

Martian Water (Doctor Who "The Waters of Mars"): Actually, you don't even need to drink water containing the Flood to contract its zombifying contagion — just touching it will do the trick. Still, drinking the water is ill-advised.

Kandy Man (Doctor Who "The Happiness Patrol"): The good news is that this licorice-based robot won't actually devour you. The bad news is that, if you aren't visibly happy at all times, it will kill you — likely by drowning you in super sugary fondant.

Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (Ghostbusters): Sure, Stay Puft nearly demolished the entire island of Manhattan in the service of Gozer. But that toasted marshmallow glop that dropped on the Ghostbusters at the end of the move looked mighty tasty.

Ebola Cola (Transmetropolitan): As the slogan goes, "You Drink It, It Eats You."

Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Aqua Teen Hunger Force): A mutated meatball, milkshake, and carton of french fries, the Aqua Teens get into all sorts of mayhem, which often gets various creatures (and occasionally Maser Shake) killed. I probably wouldn't put eating the remains past them either, given the right situation.

Triffids (Day of the Triffids): Triffids have a lot going for them. They're a great source of vegetable oil (making them valuable crops), and they can fight off any potential predators with their venomous whips. Plus, they love to feed on rotting meat, which is easy to obtain once most of humanity has been struck blind.

Tom Turkey (The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror XIX"): Since it's Thanksgiving week, this musket-wielding bird will cap off our list. After rescuing the children of Springfield from the murderous Grand Pumpkin, Tom Turkey gets invited to Thanksgiving dinner. But once he learns what people eat on Thanksgiving, he starts gobble-gobbling up the children himself.

We've collected various book covers from a number of classic science fiction novels to see how different artists have interpreted the same book. The covers are sometimes surprisingly pulpy, others are elegantly minimalist, and still others are variations on the same theme. Some of these are actual covers from various editions of the books, and some are concept designs created by individuals — on spec, for a class project, or just for fun. Bear in mind that a few of the actual book covers may not be work-safe.

1984 by George Orwell:

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury:

Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham:

The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick:

A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick:

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein:

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood:

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov:

John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

Neuromancer by William Gibson:

We by Yevgeny Zamyain:

The Space Merchants by by Frederik Pohl and Cyril M. Kornbluth:

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess:

War of the Worlds by HG Wells:

Bradley writes:

Just as much of the power of 28 Days Later comes from its often eerily beautiful images of an abandoned London, many of The Day of the Triffids' most enduring images are of the empty cities and towns of southern England, and, as time passes, of their gradual reclamation by the wild.

What's interesting, to my mind, is the manner in which these images are identifiably part of an English – or perhaps British – tradition. Since Wells at least, British speculative fiction has tended to imagine our end in similarly muted terms . . . This vision stands in stark contrast to American visions of world's end, and their apocalyptic fervour . . . Perhaps not surprisingly for a country in which religion looms so large, America is haunted by the apocalyptic imagination of fundamental Christianity, a cultural belief that has not been supplanted by science, but simply mutated into the sort of apocalyptic fantasies which are given shape in The Road or even Battlestar Galactica (if you're interested in this question I've posted an article I wrote for The Age back in 2007 here).

By contrast, novels such as [John] Wyndham's can be seen as part of a larger anxiety about the waning of British power from the beginning of the 20th century on. The end of the world, for Wyndham and his countrymen is more about a larger historical process than the more fervid, religious fantasies of the Americans. Like Ozymandias' statue in Shelley's antique land, the silent streets and cities of England speak to the folly of human ambition, and to the British sense of Imperial decline.

This is just one part of a really interesting essay about a book that deserves to be remembered as one of the great, disturbing science fiction works of the twentieth century. (And it's prescient too: If you'll recall, the human-eating triffids are being bred as biofuel.)

I also think that Bradley has hit on something here with his notion of how British SF handles apocalypse. It's something I've heard Charles Stross say too: That their history of imperialism gives the Brits a longer view, both of the future and of the decline of the human species.

via City of Tongues

These new posters come from the MiPTV gathering in Cannes, where the producers are trying to sell both shows to international audiences. The Prisoner is done filming, and airs later this year on AMC. As we've mentioned, it stars James Caviezel and Ian McKellen.

Check out the pretty amazing cast list for Triffids, which is still filming. (Actor Joely Richardson seems to have taken a few days off filming because of the death of her sister, Natasha Richardson. No clue if their mother, Vanessa Redgrave, had already completed her filming.)

[Broadcast Now]

It's not just Izzard and Priestly who'll be heading up the human resistance to our new plant overlords - The cast list, announced today, also includes Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Cox, Dougray Scott, and Nip/Tuck's Joely Richardson. With such a strange collection of familiar faces, and a script from Law & Order writer Patrick Harbinson, I've become convinced that this new 2-part mini-series is destined to be 2009's The Andromeda Strain. And I mean that in as much of a good way as possible.

Eddie Izzard and Vanessa Redgrave line up for BBC Day of the Triffids remake [Guardian.co.uk]

Being blind, of course, leaves everybody vulnerable to large, flesh eating plants. While the 1950s novel hints that the plants may be some kind of Soviet experiment, the subsequent BBC series makes it clear they're GMO plants that produce oil. (The early-60s movie suggests the plants are from spores that originated in space.)

The new series, however is about peak oil in the year 2011. This very-near future world gets its oil from the Triffids, and it almost sounds like you'll be rooting for the human-eating plants by the end. After all, they're reacting to years of being enslaved by humans just to get oil. Of course they're going to stick it to the homo sapiens.

Triffids Remake [via Survivors blog]

Boil them, fry them. Those are the suggestions that one of the good scientists makes when fighting the giant carrot in The Thing from Another World, the movie that John Carpenter's The Thing is loosely based on. In this early-1950s flick, based on a short story, a bunch of scientists accidentally thaw out an ancient blood-sucking alien which is mostly made of vegetable matter. (Carpenter dispensed with the veggie parts of his alien in The Thing.) Knowing it's a vegetable, the scientists first try to kill it by cooking — they literally light it on fire with kerosine. It gets away, but they finally fry it with electricity.

Keep them at bay with electrical fences. In Day of the Triffids, a British series (based on a book), a meteor blinds every human on the planet and releases shambling, human-eating plant people to munch on the defenseless primates. The blinded humans finally defeat the invaders by building a giant electrical fence which doesn't kill the buggers but at least keeps them far away.

Call Godzilla to help out. My personal favorite plant monster is Biollante, a giant mutant rose from the mid-1990s with teeth and special anti-nuclear powers whose terrifying tusky mouth is partly the result of an infusion of Godzilla DNA. When Biollante starts rampaging and squirting people with deadly sap, or grabbing them with vines (some of which have mouths on them!), Godzilla steps in to help. Or maybe he just steps in to step in. There's a giant fight, and finally Godzilla destroys Biollante with a thermonuclear blast from his breath weapon, which dissolves her into spores that go up into space.

Don't beat 'em — join 'em. You can't really beat the plant in Little Shop of Horrors, a string of movies (and a musical) about an evil, blood-drinking flower that wants to take over the world. In the 1960 Roger Corman flick, the plant eats Seymour, the main character, but somehow Seymour manages to defeat it once he's been consumed. In the early 1980s musical, however, the plant eats everybody in the cast and eventually does take over the world. And in the awesome 1980s version of the movie directed by Frank Oz, Seymour electrocutes the plant and gets away — but it's too late. He moves to the suburbs but as the film ends we see a little blood-drinking plant growing in his front yard. Frank Oz later made a shortlived animated spinoff of the movie, about a teenager and his human-eating plant.

Actually, this latex monstrosity is genuinely scary, thanks to the total darkness and the use of little touches like the drop of oily/watery fluid dripping from its stinger. Triffids was produced by David Maloney, who directed most of the best Doctor Who episodes in the 1970s, and then went on to produce the first three seasons of Blake's 7. Many fans wish Maloney had taken over as Who producer instead of the self-indulgent John Nathan-Turner. If he had, it probably would have looked a lot like his Triffids.