The War of the Worlds

The BBC took a classic masterpiece and turned it into a steaming pile of ####!

I've been waiting most of my life for a faithful adaptation of the great novel. Sadly, the wait goes on. This is more like a cheap Dr Who episode crossed with Edwardian Eastenders. Absolutely crushed with disappointment. Ah well...

I'll start with the positives, the acting was good, and it was nice at least to see The BBC making sci fi, in a time when it has been sadly shoved to the back of the queue.

Unfortunately, it's a pretty poor attempt, earlier in the year I thought this was going to be a big Christmas drama, big budget, exciting, featuring Eleanor Tomlinson and Rafe Spall, I'm glad they didn't transmit this at Christmas, it would have been an even bigger disappointment. Spall and Tomlinson were wasted, they're great, but were up against it with the script.

What should have been dynamic and exciting was slow and dull, not helped by the clunky jumps forward in time.

Sometimes tinkering works, sometimes it doesn't, I fear here there was too much tinkering. Simply put this was poor, with the last episode proving a real challenge to get through. 4/10

What a shame! After looking forward to this adaption I was left feeling empty and unsatisfied. Such was the lack of tension - half the family were sat eyes closed and snoring midway through this borefest. I couldn't feel any empathy towards any of the characters, and the story thread was weak. The special effects were equally weak. It's a shame that the scriptwriter felt the need to turn a classic sc-fi story into a dreadful three-part politically-correct soap opera.

Total tosh.

I have some advise for the BBC, next time you want to dramatise a classic novel get some people to actually read it.