The War of the Worlds Episode Two Review

The second episode of the BBC’s adaptation The War of the Worlds sees an increase in the action and the scale of the destruction.

Amy (Eleanor Tomlinson) and George (Rafe Spall) have been separated after the Tripods attacked Woking. Amy has gone to London to meet George’s brother, Frederick (Rupert Graves), whilst George joins a group of soldiers who have been sent to fight the Tripods. Both Amy and George come to the conclusion that they need to get to the sea to find safety.

The second episode of War of The Worlds was a huge improvement over the last episode but that isn’t saying much considering how boring the previous episode was. The second episode actually saw something happen due to the increase in the action. The highlight was the scene on the beach where refugees go on rowboats in a desperate attempt to cross the Channel. The director was clearly influenced by Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk due to refugees rushing into the water to escape a tripod. This scene has the Royal Navy battling the Tripod and showing a fightback is possible.

This scene was based on the last chapter of the first part of the novel but there was a big change: George and Amy reunite on the beach. In the novel, the narrator’s wife and brother flee to mainland Europe and they don’t appear in the story after that point.

This episode brought in some horror elements to the series. Early on in the episode, George heard a baby crying but was unable to save it and this weighs on his mind afterward. It was like a scene out of The Walking Dead.

The second episode appealed to my love of post-apocalyptic fiction. Half of the episode takes place in the aftermath of the alien invasion. Amy and her son George Jr. (Woody Norman) live in a refugee camp that’s filled with soldiers who believed that they won the war. Amy was the subject of sexual harassment from some of the soldiers and this reminded me of the alternative ending of 2013’s World War Z where the main character’s wife had to offer sexual favours to ensure her safety.

There were some nice little touches in this episode I liked Amy reading George Jr. a book about the army victory against the aliens. The book was written as a children’s book with period-style illustrations.

This episode saw the return of Robert Carlyle’s Ogilvy. He describes what has happened to the world since the aliens were defeat – that crops are failing, water had become undrinkable, and no children have been born for years. Basically, Earth was being terraformed. This is the kind of material I can sink my teeth into, but the way it was done in a forced way because Ogilvy tells Amy what’s happening. This ignores one of the basic rules of film making: show, don’t tell.

The second episode is the best episode of the miniseries because of its action and post-apocalyptic world-building. But this episode was a half-decent sandwich filling between two cheat pieces of bread.