Brave New World (1998)

BRAVE NEW WORLD is one of many classic novels I have never got round to reading . Why don`t you read classic novels Theo ? Because I usually stay up half the night watching shows like OZ on late night television

And speaking of OZ the directors of this TVM Leslie Libman & Larry Williams directed one of the outstanding episodes of the series `Straight Life` which fans will remember was themed around drug taking . Well I guess the directors deserve some faint praise for making everything watchable . If I remember correctly the 1980 mini series version of the book suffered badly from having all the characters dressed up in silver foil costumes like in an extremely bad B movie but here thankfully everyone dresses in an entirely sensible and recognisable manner . I guess too that there wasn`t much money awarded to the production hence Libman and Williams decided to make everything look like the present day , but wether it`s down to artistic grounds or funding at least we don`t see riduclous overdeveloped visions of what future cities may look like and if the future resembles a sexy soft core anthology series like HOTLINE then I`m all for it . Oh and do I get the feeling the U2 concerts of the 1990s had some influence here ?

Unfortunately it`s the script by Dan Mazur that seems to be at fault . As I said I`ve never read the book but everything seems skimmed over in such a haphazard and underdeveloped manner it`s almost impossible to understand the point the original novel might be trying to make . What were the wars about ? Why haven`t the Alpha society captured savages before etc ? There`s little in the way of backstory but enough backstory to make you realise it`s not been explained enough . But worst of all do I think Huxley`s ideas and subtext on eugenics has been sucessfully translated on screen ? No I don`t think it has , it doesn`t seem that the happiness found in utopian future is down to genetic engineering - it`s down to a drug called Soma . So Huxley advocated drug taking to be the answer to mankind reaching a higher state of being ? This also no doubt explains why the directors were hired due to their drugs orientated episode of OZ

In many ways this version of BRAVE NEW WORLD plays out like an episode of the classic BBC series BLAKE`S 7 , a series where the main recreational drug is also called Soma ( Bet you never knew that ) and just like all but the very worst episodes of BLAKE`S 7 this TVM is rather watchable but no doubt Huxley fans will detest it