In Review: The War of the Worlds – Episode 3

Synopsis: Amy plumbs the depths of her memory to find the key to resisting the Martian terror.

Review: This final episode of this mini-series strayed so far away from the story in the book and or any other adaptation that it may as well be called ‘War of the something else.’

The Story

As with last week. The story is broken into two segments. The present where we have George, Amy, and Frederick, the little girl and the old woman trapped in a house while surrounded by hungry Martians. Whereas the other segment is in the future where Amy has reconnected with Ogilvy and is balancing finding a cure for the Alien plague with looking after George Jr.

If it was not apparent that this entire story was being told from Amy’s perspective, it is made so with this final episode. As the story departs even further from the books by killing off what should have been the main character, whose point of view the entirety of the story should be coming from.

The Acting

Rupert Graves is the standout this week as he and Rafe Spall engage in a dialogue, which while rather on the nose, might well have been in keeping with perhaps H.G. Well’s left wind leaning. George who has become infected by typhoid breaks out into a monologue in which he states that the Alien invasion is a punishment to Great Britain for all of the empire-building. In the scene, Frederick who is portrayed by Graves slaps George’s argument down. It is probably the standout scene of the episode.

Overall

In the last few weeks have given the story rather generous marks out of ten, which have hyped up the aggregate score. The truth is I really wanted to like this show. I had been looking forward to it all year after seeing it advertised in the back of last year’s Christmas Radio Times, but I’m afraid to say that I feel cheated and ripped off. It’s great to include strong female characters in shows, but when it becomes at the expense of what is a classic story and cancels out the main character. Then that to me is a TV writer that is taking way to many liberties with the origin story that he is supposed to be adapting. I could go so far with the changes we saw in episodes one and two from the book, but this third episode took things to far. So the story only warrants a two this week and that is only due to the strength of the aliens looking fairly cool and the one scene between Frederick and George, which at least tried to illustrate two world views.

Please for god’s sake BBC. Don’t make a sequel.