War of the Worlds - episode 1

[shallowness]

War of the Worlds ep 1

Finally – I expected this at the start of the year, and then read somewhere that it was delayed to get the SFX right. (They looked all right to me now!

I wasn’t much invested in the personal stuff (i.e. George/Amy living together and being pariahs because his wife AND COUSIN who he had been forced to marry wouldn’t give him a divorce because she wanted to be vindictive; I just observed what the writer was doing and didn’t feel much) than the coping with what had happened bit. I was also struggling with Rafe Spall’s George and Rupert Graves’s Man at the Admiralty being brothers (one just after the marriage and one just before the mother went into menopause?) but the story about big bruv taking him to school is what I couldn’t suspend my disbelief for.

Martians launching spheres that can make people combust on the other hand, I am totally buying and here for.

I was more invested in Amy being Kilgrave’s assistant (WHAT HAPPENED TO KILGRAVE? Who cares about the dog, except as a character note about Amy and George not realising everything has changed?) And also her using her intelligence, and, presumably natural sciences bachelor’s degree.

I snickered at English imperialistic self-importance meeting alien invasion, but not knowing it yet, both from the Minister and the Astronomer Roya, and I like that they’ve set it in the Edwardian era for the look and technological challenge.

There were a few portentous pauses for ad breaks in other territories that lent a weird rhythm to the episode. And the shots of wildlife were a bit pretentious and puzzling.

The reveal that we’d been future earth being Marsformed (well, what is the Martian equivalent to terraformed?), not Mars itself slightly disappointed me. We now know that Amy and George will be separated for most of the run (however long it is) and she’s safe until the main narrative reaches that dystopian future, although I knew that when she’d vanished for a bit and George was worried.

So, I have caveats, it didn’t grab me entirely, but there were good things about it. I haven’t read the Wells original, but I did see the Spielberg adap.

Comments

[smallhobbit]

I'm delighted to see you are watching War of the Worlds, so I can read your comments!

I was of the same opinion regarding the couple, which I felt was unnecessary - Martian invaders were far more interesting. But I was sad we only saw the one site when they had landed in more (unless I missed something, I was finishing off some cross stitch for part of it, mostly the relationship bit).

The photo of the two brothers which Rupert Graves looked at implied the age gap was only at most about six years, which I agree seemed unlikely.

Like you, I shall be watching again next week, and will see how it progresses.

[shallowness]

I'm pretty sure we only saw the one landing site directly, but heard about others. Cheaper, of course, and if they'd spread out the focus to various parts of society, it would turn into disaster movie territory.

I missed the photograph, but bless, Rupert 'silver fox' Graves playing 420s would only work on stage these days.

Anyway, I'm glad too to find a fellow watcher to discuss it with.

[smallhobbit]

I'd have liked to see a bit more of the other sites, since it seemed to escalate quickly from one event to mass disaster. I'm sure the budget played it's part, to me it would have been more interesting than the Future Earth scenario.

[shallowness]

That's a fair point about the escalation. Apart from cost, I think that the length of the series (as far as I can tell, there'll be three episodes) is the reason for that.