TUESDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2015
"Childhood's End" Arthur C. Clarke's classic
version of the apocalypse comes to the SyFy channel,
and it's compelling
The big media event this week (before Star Wars and
competing with the GOP) is the six-hour miniseries on SyFy
of Arthur C. Clarke's 1951 novel Childhood's End, which I read while I was in
the Army. The series was developed by
Matthew Graham and directed by Nick Hurran.
The time scale of the series seems more compressed than the
book. The three 2-hour episodes are
called 'The Overlords', 'The Deceivers', and 'The Children'.
style='mso-spacerun:yes'> In the book, the three parts are 'The Earth
and the Overlords', 'The Golden Age', and 'The Last Generation'.
The Overlords came in peace, but they definitely wanted
something in return. Human
civilization's years were numbered. Enjoy Utopia only as long as it can last.
The appearance of the aliens in the openings scenes is quite
well done and conveys what it might be like to live through a public alien
landing. Huge spaceships hand in the
skies over many cities, and little pods come down and abduct people that the
Overlords want to recruit.
In the first episode, the ambassador is a young married
white male farmer, Ricky Stormgren (Mike Vogel). When he's abducted, he gets put up in what
looks like a large hotel room inside the space ship,
and talks to Karellen (Charles Dance) who is kept out
of site until near the end of Episode 1.
Stormgren is articulate, and somehow manages
to pull off organizing world government, ending inequality, ending wars. Still, there is tension among the faithful,
especially Christians, who never quite get around to forming a 'Guilty
Remnant'. Karellen
appears at the end of the first episode as a big red bird-like creature, almost
like the devil.
Stormgren doesn't seem to age
during the next 19 years (the 'Golden Age' where conformity is encouraged but
creativity is not a kind of dictatorship of the proletariat)
, but is antsy as he learns he is sterile after an 'accident'. In the meantime, other characters have
super-gifted kids, and many are invited to a big party in South Africa where a
huge Ouija board for communicating with the Overlords has been set up. Finally, there is a confrontation between
Ricky and Karellen over his not being allowed to have
children. Karellen
gets shot, but after almost dying seems to heal himself. Ricky's fears that the last generation may be
coming are about to be confirmed.
The dialogue rather belittles modern ideas that having
children in a private choice that should be viewed as a cultural afterthought,
only for those prepared for the expense and risk. It could be seen as a
commentary on ideas like 'demographic winter'.
The series is engaging.
The photography is interesting, with the pod and spaceship concepts, and
the scenery around the farm, making the farmhouse look small. There is the feel of a Christopher Nolan
film. This might have been difficult to
do in a film of two-hours length.
Update: Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2017
Part 3 follows the book as I remember it. The "children" ascend (rather like
the Rapture). Karellen
(a rather lovable satanic alien by the end) says "Your children are no
longer yours." Good! The birth rate
increased during the Golden Age, and parents became suckers (the last adults
are left to do what they want until the end.) Milo (Osy
Ikhile) who overcame handicap as a boy with miracle
healing and became an astro-physicist, makes a space
journey to see the home planet of the Overlords, which is made to look like
Venus. In the book, as I recall, there
were crowded cities but no living space on the ground. I wanted to see more of this world. It could have been construed as a little like
the First Dominion in Clive Barker's "Imajica".
This sort of material needs theatrical presentation and Imax-3D.
Ricky is given a chance to change into an alien and live
with the Overlords and leave his wife, but refuses (in an overlong scene) and
sickens and dies.
There is an island resort "New Athens", rather
like a mixture of Atlantis Paradise Island and Orlando theme parks, where
"culture" is kept -- until the residents blow it up when learning the
final bad new (when Karellen interrupts a movie).
Jake (Ashkey Zukerman) is himself
charismatic as the father of one of the first "gifted" kids Tom ( Laclan Roland-Kenn) and then the
super goddess Jennifer.
At the end, all the children have assembled at Ayers Rock in
Australia and ascend again. Milo returns in time to see the Earth blow up, as
if torn open by a black hole.
The whole series had an annoying tendency to say "When
... returns" which is amateurish. Also the last
episode seemed to have an unusually large amount of commercials and previews.
Toby Johnson has an op-ed "Karellen
was a homosexual". Indeed, Karellen seems indifferent to the emotions of family life
and the investment "normal" humans have in procreation and lineage.
Ricky and his wife are denied fertility, and Ricky gets a cancer that looks a
lot like fulminant Kaposi's Sarcoma from the 1980s. Of course, a lot is written about Arthur C.
Clarke's own homosexuality, despite the fact that he lived in Sri Lanka where
it was quite illegal to practice it.
However, Karellen does say he has sired 24 (bird-like) children, but they aren't his anymore.