Claire Parker

Just finished watching the final part of the BBC #WarOfTheWorlds adaptation. Now most of you would probably have me down as a bit of a lefty. I’m not gonna argue on that front. I love pushing boundaries and juxtaposing social memes across history. However no one would have believed that in the closing months of the second decade of the millennium that screenplay writers were viewing classic sci-fi novels, and media types with minds immeasurably inferior to ours viewed the central tenets of the book and slowly and surely they shoehorned every modern schmaltzy social construct into it. I seriously found my myself asking. What book was this actually based on? By the end of the episode I felt so patronised and disconnected that I felt sorry for the Martians. Having worked with the BBC I can attest that they have forgotten how to be gritty and edgy. With so many corporate edicts of programming direction and a bucket list of tick boxes each production must fulfill. They have stopped taking risks and are obsessed with their own importance. In conclusion I didn’t feel like I had witnessed the downfall of alien invaders but the final demise of the BBC drama. The king is dead, long live the Netflix.