Childhood's End: A Review

SPOILERS BELOW

Arthur C. Clarke's Childhood's End is a classic of Science Fiction literature that has been wildly influential. It's inspired everything from TV shows like V,  anime like Neon Genesis Evangelion, and even the cover of Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy (true story) with its images of massive spaceships floating over major cities and its ideas of benevolent alien invasion. All this despite the fact that the novel has never been adapted in the sixty years since its publication. Until now, as the Syfy Channel has chosen it as the basis for its annual year-end miniseries event. And fans of the novel can rest easy. There have been a few changes to the story to better fit a TV format, but Clarke's themes and ideas still ring out. Though maybe not in the way Clarke intended.

Last warning, I'm going to spoil the book and miniseries. Our story begins when a fleet of huge spaceships park themselves above Earth's major cities. The aliens, dubbed the Overlords, broadcast their intentions to Humanity. They aren't here to invade or conquer, they're here to help us finally overcome our problems and usher in a golden age. People are naturally skeptical of this, but as the advances and peace settle in the resistance fades. But at the same time, children born after the Overlords' appearance begin showing strange inhuman traits and evidence of psychic powers. Then it becomes clear. The Overlords didn't come to help humanity, they came to make sure the next generation could evolve into a higher form of consciousness. And as their mission comes to a close we have to wonder, was it worth it?

The Overlords approach Ricki Stormgren.

For the most part, the miniseries succeeds in translating the big ideas of Clarke's novel to the screen. The effects of the Overlords' arrival on Earth are explicitly shown and their impact on politics, religion and just human life in general form the backbone of the story. And not just in the broad view that the novel gives us. One of the smartest moves of the filmmakers was to reformat the story into Roland Emmerich-style global thriller and compress the timeline. The novel takes place over decades and the changes the Overlords bring about are much more gradual. Making the action a bit more compact in the miniseries gives us a central cast of human characters whom we see the Overlords' actions through works much better for TV, though it does make some of the wider changes to Earth feel somewhat rushed. It was also a smart move to change the character of Milo Rodricks into a narrative through line of the entire story, something the novel lacked. That was a move that helped centralize the narrative and give the audience at least one character we could follow from beginning to end.

Of the miniseries' three parts, I'd have to say Part 2 is the weakest. Part 1 had the energy of watching the Overlords end all of Earth's problems and building up the mystery of their appearance, and Part 3 had the horror of watching the Overlords' plan come to fruition as Earth's children evolved beyond humanity. But Part 2 is just a holding pattern; the golden age of Earth has been ushered in and the psychic mutations of the kids are only beginning so the only real narrative push in this part comes from the fallout of the Overlords' revealing themselves. It's a big twist in both book and show that the Overlords resemble our classical idea of devils, so the filmmakers use Part 2 to examine the religious effects. There a few good ideas here, like some few remaining Christians interpreting the Overlords' coming as the end of days, but there's just not enough worth exploring to fill out the two hours. It also introduces a subplot about Ricki Stormgren, the Overlords' chosen human mouthpiece, contracting a disease because of his interactions with the aliens. It's a choice I don't understand, since it doesn't have much larger bearing on the story, and feels like a necessity of the compressed timeline since Stormgren's novel counterpart simply dies of natural causes after his role in the story ends.

Charles Dance as Karellen, Supervisor fro Earth.

On the note of the Overlords' appearance, that's one of the stranger parts of the whole production. When Syfy first announced they were going to do Childhood's End, I assumed they would be creating the Overlords through CGI and Charles Dance would only be providing his voice for their leader Karellen. It was something of a pleasant surprise, for me at least, when during the big reveal at the end of Part 1 that the Overlords were being rendered with an artful mix of CG and traditional makeup. The design is beautiful, a more benevolent version of Tim Curry in Legend, but since we only see two or three other Overlords beside Karellen and Karellen is usually seen around humans he looks extremely jarring. Not helping is that Charles Dance is clearly uncomfortable underneath his makeup, though he doesn't let it hurt his performance in any way.

My biggest criticism is one of tone, and I think it's another victim of the compressed timeline. At the end of the story, humanity has peacefully died off and the last generation has combined into a collective psychic intelligence and joined with an even bigger collective intelligence that commands the Overlords. In the book, this ending was presented with a certain ambivalence as though Clarke didn't want to give a definitive answer on whether it was good or bad for humanity. It was sad, but not without a certain beauty and enough time had passed from when the process had begun that humanity really had no choice but to accept what was happening to its children. But in the miniseries the filmmakers present this like a tragedy, focusing much more on Humanity going extinct and leaving nothing behind. It isn't at odds with the novel or its own themes, just a different inerpreation of the same material. My problem with this decision is that it feels much more conventional, more Hollywood. Like of course the audience should be sad that Humanity is dying, we're part of that. Again, it's because of the compressed timeline where Karellen literally raptures the planet's kids up to join the Overmind, unlike in the novel where the kids just outlived everyone else, so the tragic approach makes sense from that perspective. It's a personal thing, but I preferred the ambiguity of the novel.

For fans of Clarke's novel, this Syfy miniseries is a fine adaptation of the source despite substantial changes and and tone. For those new to the story, it's an excellent introduction that should get your brain working in the same way the book did. It certainly doesn't supplant the novel in any way but it is damn good TV Sci-fi focused on ideas over visuals, something we've been sorely lacking in recent years. While the writing is spotty in places, it doesn't hurt the miniseries in a significant way and the special effects of the Overlords and their ships are great. Not masterpiece material, but above average for Syfy and well worth watching.

Final Score: 4/5