Like the proverbial buses, nothing for ages and then two at once!
Have seen the first episodes of the two War of the Worlds series.
The first was the 1st episode of the 8 part series from Canal (France) and due on the Fox network in Europe, I believe. Stars Gabriel Byrne. Nicely done, with the invasion in a contemporary setting. Typical blockbuster style, which characters from all over Europe, but mainly London & France. Think something like Contact mixed into something like Lucifer's Hammer. Lots of contemporary references - satellite dishes monitoring in the Antarctic, asylum seekers trying to cross the Channel. The biggest problem I had was that the cast are multilingual - though much of it was English, the parts in French were not subtitled. Think I got what was going on, though.
The second was the first episode of the much-delayed 3-part BBC series, starring the redheaded actress from Poldark. (Eleanor Tomlinson). This one was set in the time period of the novel, but had a contemporary soap opera plot added. The two leads are a couple living in sin, with George the journalist (played by Rafe Spall) leaving his wife to shack up with Tomlinson. The characters are there - the journalist, the astronomer (played by Robert Carlyle), an artilleryman - but it's not really the book, despite hopes by some that it would stick closer to the book than the George Pal or Tom Cruise versions.
Both are good but for different reasons, providing you can cope with the fact that they are both very loosely connected to the original source material. Both abound with cliches, dodgy dialogue and plot points created for the sake of drama. But it's clear that they've had money and time spent on them, and provide undemanding entertainment. You could watch worse. I will continue to watch both, providing I can see copies that give English translations for the French dialogue in the FOX version.
But then we have His Dark Materials, due Sunday.... really looking forward to it. May be the best of the lot!
