Childhood's End

Science Fiction. Crushing black holes; gigantic artificial asteroid-like ships that glide smoothly through outer space and bright green aliens with pointed ears or a rib cage on their foreheads. You've got to love it. Maybe it's some kind of trauma I got with Alf during my childhood, but Sci-Fi has never been my cup of tea. Stories that are more like a bad LSD trip, the design of the spaceships, the shaping of the ETs, there is just so much that you can screw up as a creator of a sci-fi series or movie. Especially if you decide to get started with a wallet that is too small. Actually, it is a genre that, with a few exceptions, is mainly violated. Crappy special effects, uninspired stories about enormous Johan Cruijff Arenas that hang menacingly above the major world cities, ready to lightsab everything to shreds at any moment and always those slightly too aggressive space invaders with an enormous hydrocephalus. Independence Day, District 9 and Falling Skies, they all tap from the same tune and we now know that tune. When I saw only people staring at the sky in the first ten seconds of the trailer for Childhood's End, I had actually already eaten and drank. This film adaptation of Arthur Clarke's novel of the same name, which of course I didn't read as a literal barbarian, was definitely going back on autopilot to break up the entire checklist from the “how-to-make-a-movie-about-aliens” handbook . It all turned out to be slightly more nuanced. Yes, the alien fleet is once again hanging from aluminum foil and an agonizing lack of creativity. Yes, the chrome gadgets sometimes seem to come from Christine Le Duc's fun-to-yourself department, and yes, going along with Clarke's epitome of the alien invader is quite demanding from the viewer. So there is little to cheer in that area, but then there is the story. What makes Childhood's End worth watching is the story. I guess because to be honest I could hardly make any sense of it. For those of you who watched The Leftovers ... Despite being a completely different kind of series, it is just as strange. Intriguingly strange. I thought then. From their spaceship, the Overlords see, as Clarke calls them, that we on Earth are making a big mess of it. Wars, oceans full of plastic, mass deaths due to lack of food, television with Patty Brard and the collected works of Jeroen van der Boom. It is all equally awful. They decide that it is enough and send Overlord Karellen to Earth to put things in order as Supervisor for Earth. Under the peaceful occupation of Karellen & co, a golden age has dawned for mankind. In Beijing they can finally take to the streets without a mask again, in Detroit you will no longer be shot over because of your new Air Jordans and Africa finally has something to eat. Beautiful of course, but if things are too good to be true, then they are probably actually too good to be true. Why did the Overlords suddenly come to our rescue? What's in it for hunnie? And does their involvement really make the world that much better? If you want an answer to that, then you have to look. You won't hear me say you have to drop everything to watch this one. SyFy barely makes things more important in that regard than, say, washing your car or repairing the gutter. If you still decide to give any of them a chance, I would do this one. As mentioned, you will probably end up with a lot of question marks on the couch, but at least you will have something to talk to your girlfriend about. Seems nice. However?

this is a really bizarre series in the end I don't know what to think about it .....