Imagine there’s no war, no famine, no crime, no income equality … but at what price?
Review/preview: Childhood's End
Channel: Syfy—Starts December 14 at 8/7c
Author: Arthur C. Clarke, adapted by Matthew Graham
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Matthew Graham may not be an instantly recognizable name here in the U.S., but plenty of us have enjoyed his work. Graham is the screenwriter behind the critically acclaimed series Life on Mars, and has also written episodes of Doctor Who and other Syfy hits. This Monday Syfy will air the first installment in what some critics have called his biggest challenge yet, one that came about when a producer casually tossed a battered paperback copy of a 60-year-old science fiction novel at him and asked if he had ever thought of taking it on. That book was written by none other than grandmaster Arthur C. Clarke, and its name is Childhood’s End.
Childhood’s End opens in a familiar way: Advanced alien spaceships appear, suddenly and ominously, over major American cities. But Clarke didn’t get the opening idea from blockbusters like Independence Day—quite the opposite. For the last half century, books and movies got it from Clarke’s seminal book. For more on how the series stacks up against the novel, follow below (and watch the trailer) if you dare, Earthlings!
Without giving too much away, both the book and the TV version open fast and are off to the races. Ships appears in the skies above major cities all over the world. A self-titled “Supervisor of Earth” makes his presence known using a deep male voice emanating form one of the presumed starships stating that this is not an invasion, and that Earth’s governments and businesses will remain intact—at least for now. Their presence marks the end of what we call endless war, and eventually income inequality. In that respect the Syfy adaptation is true to the book.
Where it differs is in how it handles the book’s characters. In Clarke’s original story written just after World War II, the alien supervisor who calls himself Karellan (played brilliantly by Charles Dance), picked a senior United Nations official to be his ambassador of sorts. In the TV version, he picks a Mid-Western farm boy with a track record of resolving regional economic disputes. A drama between that designee and his current fiance soon unfolds over that role and the way Karellan handles it.
But the primary mystery on the first night is what the aliens look like, and the tension between a strong objector to their presence named Wainright and those hoping for the best from the alien Overlords. By complete coincidence, Wainright may slightly resemble a certain leading GOP candidate in both superficial appearance and bull-headed certainty in his stupidity. Karellan at first refuses to show himself, saying only that his physical form is so profoundly alien it wouldn’t be acceptable to humans. But he relents. In the book it takes 50 years, while in the film it was shortened to 14 years—and it turns out he has a good reason for worrying about this!
Beyond that you’ll have to watch the series and judge for yourself. I can only say the way Graham handled adapting this to the 21st was borderline brilliant. The series is faithful to the book in virtually every way. I had a few nitpicks here and there, but overall I was impressed with how powerful the episodes were and how well Clarke’s original story comes through loud and clear, if brought to life by a slightly different cast of characters than he originally wrote.
That's what made watching the press sneak preview a real pleasure. I read this book at age 12 and have revisited it many times since. The series is true to the book and true to the disturbing end. Like the book, the series is subtle (you may have to go online if you're not 100 percent sure what something meant and ask around). Like the book, the series will get you thinking about what it means to be human, about what is important to us, and what our ultimate destiny in the cosmos should be. The book (and thus the TV series) is well-named. And tomorrow night beginning at 8 PM Eastern, viewers will get a big tease on how that ending may play out in the first few minutes of the Syfy miniseries Childhood’s End.