The Day of the Triffids s01e01 Episode Script

St Merryn's Hospital, Wednesday May 12th.
Or is it still Tuesday May 11th? No It must be Wednesday because most of the time the noise of the traffic is so loud that you need earplugs to hear yourself think.
And as it doesn't stop until around midnight, that means it must be the silent early hours.
Three, four, who knows? But I'm already awake.
What's more, I'm hungry.
Isn't it ridiculous? The nurses come in at seven, on the dot.
With a lovely cup of tea.
Then the wash, then the breakfast.
And then today - great day Eureka.
These bandages come off.
Roll on Roll on seven o'clock.
So I'm taking the opportunity of this waiting time to reply to your cassette.
Dear Walter, many thanks for your cassette.
There we are.
I've been doing a lot of thinking while I've been lying here, Wal.
And I've come to a decisión.
I've had enough.
I'm chucking the job.
I'm fed up with triffids.
I wanna be loved.
I wanna breed puppies and plant potatoes.
So, as you are gonna write your book about triffs, and on condition that I never have to mention them again, I'll use this waiting time.
It's not that I'm worried about this morning.
It's just that I'm scared stiff! I'll use this time to do as you ask and give you some of my theories about the early days.
Some of it's more than theories, too.
The stories about Palanguez I got from a good source.
In 1961 he turned up at the office of European Oils.
We've had it analysed, Mr Palanguez.
Experts confirm it is a vegetable oil.
- But with extraordinary properties.
- I've never seen anything like it.
You'll see a great deal of it, Mr Grant.
It will come on the market in seven or eight years.
- Possibly.
- As an additive to petroleum? - Yes.
- With an energy saving of over 30%? Do you intend to market it yourself, Mr Palanguez? Would I be showing it to you if I did? I suppose you have a proposition.
Shall we come to it? The plant from which this oil is obtained is a completely new species.
I might be able to provide the seeds of this plant.
If you commence cultivation at once, you could begin production of the oil in five years, or it might be six for full yield.
You would still be in advance of your competitors.
Or I could always come to an arrangement with the competitors.
I think you will find they are not approachable - or suppressible.
You mean they're behind the Iron Curtain? Seeds, you said.
Have you heard of a Russian professor of biology called Lysenko? There are rumours he's made some strange experiments.
I have heard these rumours.
What figure did you have in mind for getting us the seeds? Ten million pounds.
And a percentage of the profits.
It is a very dangerous business, Mr Grant.
There are many people I must pay.
For you, the choice is between ruin or a monopoly in the Western worid.
I will not lower my price.
And he didn't lower it.
And they paid him - or part of it - because Mr Palanguez was never seen again.
Of course, in the end, the company got those seeds.
But by the time they did, they weren't the only ones.
What they By the time they did, they weren't the only ones.
What Sorry about the sound effects, Wal.
Somewhere in the night a window smashed.
We'll be deafened with police sirens any minute! Meanwhile, back to the triffids.
My first experience of them was when I still lived at home with Mum and Dad.
It was a year or so after Palanguez disappeared, not that I'd ever heard of him then.
But we know from a Russian that the seeds had been taken away.
I always thought that Russian fighters got on his tail and shot him up.
Those seeds are like vapour.
If they got out, they'd drift almost anywhere.
- Funny, isn't it, Dad? - Yes, it is a little curious.
Rather curious.
- Any idea of what it is? - No, not really.
It's blown in from somewhere.
Either that or a foreign import of some sort I know not what of.
Or else some new strain that someone's been rearing.
What are these stumps at the bottom? Search me.
Very peculiar.
Here Come on, Bill.
Have a look inside.
Come on.
- Ugh! - Come on, Bill, that's nature.
I've grown rather fond of it, myself.
I shall take care of you, old chap.
There's no need to fret.
Not long after this, I went to the cinema with a pal.
In those days, they still showed newsreels before the film.
Get a load of what's going on in Ecuadorl Vegetables on vacationl You might have seen this after a party, but in Ecuador they see it any time.
Monster plants on the march.
This gives me an idea.
If we educate our potatoes, we can fix it so they walk straight in the pot! They were the same as the plant in our garden.
I was sure they were.
And if they could walk Aghh! I was the first person in England to have been stung by a triffid.
Our plant was too young for its poison to be fully effective.
The doctors managed to save my life.
We were beginning to learn about the tri-feds, or triffids as they came to be called.
They couldn't only walk.
They could kill.
Triffids began to appear all over the worid.
Something else about them sickened everyone.
Triffids were also carnivores.
They stung their victims, then waited for the flesh to decompose.
Not until then could they use it for food.
Triffids were hacked down by the thousand.
The new plant was very nearly eliminated from earth.
Very nearly.
But not quite.
Because scientists realised the nasty triffid was the same plant from Russia that produced the wonderful oil.
Triffids were That meant that triffids were very lovely and very big business.
As I had a bond with them, I went to work on a triffid farm and so did you.
You know the rest.
Meanwhile, we'll pause for the time.
What the hell's going on? It's eight o'clock! They should have been in at seven.
They've got to take these bloody bandages off! I'm sorry about that.
You get like a kid when you're as helpless as this.
There must be some emergency on.
There's no point in me getting into a paddy.
There's nothing I could That's funny.
Where's all the traffic got to? The worst thing about living in this blackness is that there's no certainty of knowing anything at all.
For all I know, three nurses and a doctor are playing blind man's buff with me.
Or they might have moved me somewhere while I was asleep.
I've never seen this room.
Anyway there's obviously some explanation.
Apart from the fact I've gone bananas.
It reminds me of that conversation we were having the other week.
Do you remember when we were talking about triffids? That evening we were working late.
They can tap number three field tomorrow.
Yep.
For now, that's it.
I've had enough.
I'm going home.
- Time for walkies.
- Don't you start.
- What? - Kiddy talk about triffs.
Who have you been falling out with? Jack Richards has planted a triffid in his garden so his daughter can have it for a pet.
He wouldn't be the first.
Perfectly safe if he keeps it on some sort of chain and cuts the sting out every two years.
- Quite fun for a kid in lots of ways.
- Fun?! - Have a nightcap? - Yeah.
Ta.
We know very little about them, you know.
For example, what do you think that is, when they rattle their sticks against their stem? I thought we decided it was a sort of primitive mating call.
- Cheers.
- Cheers.
I think they're talking.
Talking?! I've been thinking that for some time.
Now I'm prepared to say so.
Well, to you, anyway.
Walter, a talking plant is ridiculous! So is a walking plant, but a triffid walks.
- Well, it moves about.
- That's quibbling.
It walks.
And if I'm right and it talks, or communicates, that means somewhere inside it is intelligence.
We've dissected them.
There's no brain.
Something might do a brain's job.
Look at what they attack.
They almost always go for the head.
A great number of people who have been stung but not killed have been blinded.
- That's significant.
- Of what? They know the shortest way of putting a man out of action.
If it were a choice of survival between a blind man and a triffid, - I know which I'd put my money on.
- You're assuming equal intelligence.
I'm not.
They don't need their intelligence to equal ours.
What do you mean? Look how complicated it is for us to feed ourselves.
Even to just grow things and eat them raw.
They live off the soil or from insects or bits of rotten meat.
Look at the complex process we have to go through to get oil from them.
Put that in reverse.
How would they make use of us? Give us a sting, wait a few days and they've got everything they need to live.
That doesn't take very much intelligence.
- You don't like them very much, do you? - They fascinate me.
I shall write a book about them one day.
If they do have this intelligence, are you afraid of it? Why should I be? They're under control.
There's only one thing, though.
I'd like to know what they're nattering about.
Come in.
What's going on?! Hey! Do you think I could possibly have some breakfast? Room 22! I think I'm going mad.
I must be.
Or something's happened, and God only knows what it is.
Oh, Christ! The sweat's running down my neck.
It's Wednesday May 12th.
Yesterday was May 11th.
Only one night's passed and everything was normal then.
The sky is just full of shooting stars! Is it to do with last night? You saw it, I suppose.
I must have been the only person that didn't.
We've drawn back the curtains in the wards so the patients can look out.
What did the radio say it was? Comet what? Debris.
It's amazing, Mr Mason! Before we get this down my front, we'd better call it a day.
- Oh, I'm sorry.
- It's all right.
I'm only joking.
It's just jealousy, missing all the fun.
- Are you sure you've had enough? - Yes, thank you.
- Evening, Nurse.
- Good evening, Doctor.
Evening, Mr Mason.
I'm Doctor Soames.
Your specialist asked me to see you.
Oh.
Good evening, Dr Soames.
Will you be needing me, Doctor? - No, thank you, Nurse.
- Good night, Mr Mason.
Good night, Barbara.
- Enjoy the free show.
- Thank you.
I will.
- It's quite something you're missing.
- So I'm told.
I'm sorry.
Must be very boring for you.
Mr Carter will see you after breakfast, but don't be tempted to peep before then.
These things have to be handled carefully.
Exactly the right amount of light and that sort of thing, otherwise some very expert work and ten days' patience could be ruined in a couple of seconds.
- You understand that? - Yes, of course.
Good.
Triffid sting, wasn't it? Yes, that's right.
I work on a triffid farm.
I thought they all had their stings docked.
Not the ones we tap for oil.
The oil's better quality if we don't dock them.
I see.
You wear some sort of protective clothing, don't you? Oh, yes.
But some of those stings are ten feet long.
They can catch you at any angle.
This one swiped me on the side of the mask and the poison got inside.
- You're lucky to be alive, aren't you? - Yes.
I wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for my friend.
He took me inside and gave me the antidote.
Added to which I must have built up some resistance.
- That's the second time they got me.
- Haven't you had enough of them? I've decided - I have! Well, good luck for tomorrow.
I'm going to join the gawpers on the roof.
Good night, Mr Mason.
Good night, Doctor.
They have no record of such a brilliant display of astronomical pyrotechnics ever taking place before.
Every country in the worid has been able to have a look at this unique phenomenon.
As night has moved across the earth, the wonderful display has moved with it.
Although the spectacle is losing its strength, the streets and parks and rooftops of London are jammed with people watching one of the greatest entertainments the worid has ever - Hello? - Who's there? My name's Mason.
Bill Mason.
- I'm in Room 22.
- Mason! I'm Dr Soames.
Of course.
I should have recognised your voice.
What's the matter? You can see? Nobody came to unbandage my eyes, so I did it myself.
No harm's been done.
- I can see as well as ever.
- I must telephone at once.
Where are we now? - What do you mean? - Where are we now?! You've got eyes, dammit! Use them! Can't you see I'm blind?