Have You Been Watching...? The Midwich Cuckoo's (2022)

I’m a great fan of John Wynham’s science fiction works including Day of the Triffids, Chocky, The Kraken Wakes and The Midwich Cuckoos. The last book has been dramatized several times, a 1960 movie renamed “The Village of the Damned” and a 1995 John Carpenter remake of the same name. So, when in early 2022, I was surprised to hear that Sky were making a new, updated series, and keeping the books name. “Bring it on!” I thought to myself with excitement.

The series debuted over the Platinum Jubilee weekend, celebrating 70 years on the UK throne of Queen Elizabeth II. I mention this, as due to the wall to wall programming around the event, I failed to notice the arrival of the series I’d been looking forward to, its debut lost in the midst of flags and pageantry.

The series is headlined by Keeley Hawes (Ashes to Ashes, Upstairs Downstairs) and Max Beesley (Survivors, Mad Dogs). Hawes played the gender-swapped lead (in the book it’s Gordon Zellaby, in this new adaptation it’s Susannah Zellaby) and DCI Paul Haynes is played by Beesley.

The plot begins in line with the novel, as every woman of child-bearing ages falls pregnant after a mysterious blackout causes the population of Midwich to fall unconscious. In our new update, Midwich is no longer a small village, but a reasonably sized town (there is even reference to the area where the blackout happens as “the Zone”, suggesting not all of Midwich experience the event). Also in line with current ideas, the government seems to know a lot more about what’s going on in Midwich than they let on.

The children do not have the platinum blonde hair as per the previous movies, opting instead for regular hair colours and styles, although the glowing eyes when their powers are used remains (there’s a wonderfully eerie scene in the hospital ward where all the babies open their eyes at the same time as the mums sleep). I think this is a good idea, as the blonde wigs in previous adaptations are a bit “on the nose”. Distractingly though, in this new version, when the powers are in use, electric lights begin to play up.

As the parents and residents begin to realise what’s going on, it’s a little too late for some. There are also newer layers added to the story that fans might recognise along the lines of the original sequel movie “Children of the Damned”. The series does, however, plod significantly. It’s sometimes painfully slow, and I cannot fathom why they settled on 7 episodes. It seems a strange number these days when most series have 6, 8 or 10 episode runs. This series didn’t need 7. It could have done with a tighten up. This leads to some strange choices on behalf of the script. The characters make strange decisions. For example, after numerous incidents of the children displaying their powers, when something otherworldly happens to one character, someone mentions it could be a reaction to abuse! Really? THAT’S your first conclusion? As the episodes continue, more and more characters start making plainly obvious bad choices, almost as an excuse to remove them from the rest of the story.

However, Keeley Hawes is great in it, and her character Susannah Zellaby is sufficiently curious and caring enough to be a real doctor. Max Beesley, on the other hand, is all over the place with Paul Haynes. Is he supposed to be a downtrodden copper, an action-man hero? It’s very hard to pinpoint, but the character does not encourage sympathy. Other characters do no more than what they’re supposed to, for reasons of plot. Dodgy government man? Check. A number of the mum characters start off with a lot of potential but when the kids turn up, become nothing more than someone to read the lines of the script, any character development dies a death very early on.

There are plot holes so big you can drive trucks through them. If, as the story suggests, Midwich is actually much larger than a village, how does the REST of the town not notice what’s going on? Where are all the other children in the town that it warrants a prep school, but we only really see one or two other kids? They talk about purposefully distancing themselves from friends and family, for YEARS without anyone doing anything at all? How does one character suddenly know how to make a fertiliser bomb? There’s been little to no mention of the characters background to make this knowledge believable. If they are “cut off” from the rest of the world as such, how does one character make contact with a dodgy dealer to obtain a gun? It’s things like this that demonstrate the show has ideas, but no idea how to make them work realistically. I know it’s a work of fiction but going to the effort to make it relevant to the 21st century and not address these issues just make it ridiculous.

It's a shame as I REALLY wanted to like this, given my love of the source material and the original movie (and the 95 one too) This series, however, must rate as the worst adaptation. It’s not a terrible programme, it just aims so high, but doesn’t quite get there. There is a resolution, and it’s NOT what happens in the previous adaptations, so there are no spoilers here. Personally, I’d LOVE some new adaptations of Wynham’s material, like Chocky and The Kraken Wakes, but not if made to this standard.

Year: 2022

Episode count: 7

Season count: 1 (hopefully)

Availability: Currently playing on NowTV (Sky).