So, Blogger, we meet again.
Been a while.
But I must share this with the people of the world. It's too funny not to.
The other day, while my son was asleep on me, I went down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole. Weirdly, this is not what this blog post is about. But I will briefly touch on it.
That conspiracy theory is that the world did in fact end on 2012, as per the Mayan Calendar's supposed prediction. However, the theory suggests that scientists at CERN ended the world after discovering the God Particle (the Higgs Boson) earlier that year. The supposition is that the world did end but, due to either being put in a simulation or the idea of Quantum Immortality, we ended up in a parallel universe. This is said to explain why there have been more instances of the Mandela Effect sine 2012. (Nelson Mandela died in 2013 so makes sense).
Anyway, like I say, that's not why I'm here.
During this deep dive through tin-foil-hat-town, I found what is, perhaps, the single greatest hour of television I have ever seen. A mid-Noughties marvel that I'm shocked hasn't got more attention. However, through the medium of Blogger, I present to you: End Day.
For those of you who don't know, or wish to remember, 'End Day' was a one off show on BBC 3 back in 2005 with what is, honestly, a pretty cool premise. A guy named Professor Howell, who helps run a Particle Accelerator in New York, is in London. He wakes up in a hotel room and gets a phone call that the experiment will go ahead that day. He tries to get to the Airport in order to get to New York on time. And, with the exception of one particular outcome, he doesn't reach New York. This is because, every time he does, some weird cataclysmic disaster ends up happening.
There are 5 scenarios in this show which I will go into for you. I'll also attach the full episode on YouTube so that you can see it for yourself should you decide to. Though, I will explain the stories a little bit out of order. The reason why will become clear as this post goes on.
I love End Day for a number of reasons:
- I absolutely adore disaster flicks. They're so unbearably random.
- I like thinking about the end of the world sometimes. Sue me.
- Some scenarios are likely to occur at some stage in human history. So it's fun to see what could happen.
But mostly I love End Day for the absolutely God awful special effects it's decided to use. Now, by mid-00s standards, it was probably acceptable. However, truthfully, it is absolutely atrocious. Only Classic Doctor Who can boast worse special effects in terms of BBC programming. If you decide to watch the show, you will see what I mean. And I'm saying that there are Roland Emmerich level of bizarre moments. A tsunami that goes super fast, despite that not being how it really works. Really fast lava flows, even though that's not the case. That kind of thing.
Anyway, let's go.
SCENARIO 1: LA PALMA ERUPTION/MEGA-TSUNAMI
There's an island in the Atlantic called La Palma. On it has a volcano. Now, at some stage, it's generally accepted that La Palma will erupt and cause a momentous landslide. So bad, in fact, that half of the volcano could tumble into the Ocean. If this were to happen, then it could cause a really bad tsunami that crashes into the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.
This is the general gist of scenario 1. Professor Howell wakes up, attempts to get to New York, but cannot due to the fact that it's about to be engulfed by a tsunami.
Oh, I forgot to mention, there are other little stories woven throughout this. The story from other people's perspectives. The main characters of this scenario are a family of three, a married couple and their little boy, who attempt to escape New York and avoid the tsunami.
They are unsuccessful.
The tsunami devastates New York City and goes 2 miles inland as well. The Eastern Seaboard is battered and emergency rescue efforts are difficult but initiated. People seem to survive by going to the top of skyscrapers and watch the calamity unfold before their very eyes. You even get a first person perspective view from a shop, which is kind of cool. (If you've seen The Day After Tomorrow, you'll get the kind of thing I'm getting at here). The scenario ends with a Presidential spokesman talking of the devastation. The "credits" roll and we are transported into Scenario 2. (Very Groundhog Day).
Oh, I also forgot to mention, these things are interwoven with interviews and segments taken from BBC's Horizon programs and National Geographic. All experts speaking on the scenario we are watching unfold. These are quite fun as they probably hold more educational value than whatever the awful special effects are trying to convey.
The sole issue I have with this segment is that this was made in 2005. Months after the worst Tsunami the world had seen. (Boxing Day 2004). So this feels a little shallow given that the whole world saw what a major tsunami was capable of. Mind you, I don't know when this was all completed. So I suppose I should give the show the benefit of the doubt that it was completed before Boxing Day occurred. If I am right, then they obviously didn't have adequate time or funds to remedy it in time. When I was watching it, I just felt a little uncomfortable with how quickly the wave was coming into New York.
The Boxing Day Tsunami really affected me when I saw it unfold on live television, so maybe I'm a little biased here.
SCENARIO 2: METEOR!
At this point, you realise that Howell cannot catch a break. This time, a massive meteor (or 'Dead Comet' is plummeting to Earth and all countermeasures to prevent it fail. To the point where even a nuclear weapon exploding on its surface, surprise surprise, does not work. (Why is this even a concept?)
The other story follows yet another family. This time in Berlin, where the meteor is confirmed to collide with. (Why Berlin? I like Berlin). The mother of the family is at home. She sees the news and decides to try and find her husband and son. However, she doesn't phone them, she just gets supplies and jumps in her car to find them. (I remember phones being a thing back then...)
Meanwhile, said husband and son are in a train station. (I think it may be underground). However, instead of going to an underground station, they decide to take an over-ground train out of the city. (Pointless tbh).
We never see the mother again. But we do see the father and son getting separated. The son gets on a train as the father desperately tries to find him on the train that is now departing from the station. They don't see each other again, at least as far as the program is concerned. In fact, a meteorite just misses the train with the child on and he seemingly survives.
Should've gone to an underground station.
Was definitely less Armageddon and more a comedy of errors.
SCENARIO 4: YELLOWSTONE SUPERVOLCANO
I'll talk about Scenario 3 later.
Ok, admit it. You probably saw this coming.
Yellowstone National Park is built on a Supervolcano. And, again, Howell cannot catch a break. This time, a family sits at a geyser after a series of Earthquakes. (Again, a little idiotic but more than certain to occur). The family die after their 4X4 can't start and it gets pushed over the edge of a cliff. (The director must REALLY like Roland Emmerich).
Scene cuts to a café somewhere in the park where a lot of people are eating. Suddenly, BOOM. No one is safe from the ensuing explosion of the Supervolcano. Goodbye Wyoming, goodnight Vienna. They even put in a very poorly made up car/lorry collision for good measure which gives no value to the story being told.
Yellowstone is one of those things that just captures the public imagination. And I remember, around the same time, a similar program being made called 'Supervolcano' which spoke about the same thing but in far greater detail. I remember being both fascinated and terrified in equal measure from that. So to see this was a little lackluster. Again, effects were golden. And Howell's reactions are totally deadpan and non-descript.
We then see the Wyoming State Capitol engulfed in volcanic material which just makes zero sense. Especially when you see the speed of the lava. If you've seen the films 2012 or Volcano, you'll get what I mean. Apparently, Yellowstone has the fastest lava ever. Especially given that it's a viscous liquid from the Mantle of the Earth. Anyway. Credits roll and we're back to the final Scenario.
SCENARIO 5: PARTICLE ACCELERATOR
Do you remember the Noughties? The fears around CERN? Remember how it was all ok? Well, this is Professor Howell. And nothing seems to go right for him.
This particular scenario plays on the fears that we all had before the switching on of the Large Hadron Collider and how we all thought that a Black Hole was going to engulf the planet. And, spoilers, that's exactly what happens in this scenario.
What annoys me is the speed in which the Earth gets engulfed. It's PAINFULLY slow. To the point where the perspective of the other story comes not from one character, but a commercial flight who are dragged slowly towards the well of the black hole. Except, it doesn't go in, because another plane is sling-shotted into it.
Anyway, Earth goes kaput because of humans messing with things they don't understand. We all thought it would happen in reality. It didn't. Woop Woop!
Ok, onto the best scenario in this damn show.
SCENARIO 3
This one is my favourite segment and my least favourite segment for reasons that will become clear. Overall, the meteor one is my favourite as, other than scenario 3, that's the one most likely to occur in our lifetime. But this one just takes the biscuit for a whole plethora of reasons.
I'd like to point out before I explain what happens that, in 2005, this scenario was a very a difficult thing to imagine in practicality. It hadn't happened in the 21st Century up until that point so trying to guess a whole load of variables was always going to be problematic. However, the end result is not only completely farcical, but just plain weird and wrong.
The scenario starts with Howell in the hotel room. Alarm goes off, Howell gets phone call, gets in the taxi to get to the Airport. However, we find out the true meaning behind a rather throwaway detail in Scenarios 1 and 2 that I've left out. In those scenarios, and in 4 and 5, the taxi that Howell is in is always cut up by a black Seat. It has a weird toy in the back window which we always see. However, Scenario 3 reveals that this is an actual character within the law of this multiversal pantomime. This is a lady and her daughter. And, for this scenario, this is the "other story".
A plane enters Heathrow airport. However, there's a problem. A passenger is dead. Dead from a new virus...flu like...from the "far East". Sound familiar? Oh yeah, we're Pandemicing this shit. (You may have worked out now why it's also my least favourite because, deep down, you know what's coming).
The mother in the Seat's mother was on that flight. The plane was not quarantined (for some reason because, hey, SARS clearly didn't happen in this universe) and the passengers have gone out into the community. The Seat woman tries to phone her mother but, mysteriously, she doesn't answer the phone. (This is why she's parked where she is in order to cut Howell's taxi up on the road). Worrying about her mother given the virus news, she decides to go to the mother's house. (Red flag number 1 but totally understandable).
Howell gets on a flight to New York. All's good for him so far. He just watches the in-flight entertainment. Which isn't a film or anything, it's BBC News. Because of course it is.
Five hours have passed in-world and the Seat mother has finally reached her mother's estate. However, the Army have set up a quarantine cordon. She ain't getting in. So she does what all sane people do in this situation. Go the back way in.
Despite reports of people stealing cars, Seat mother leaves her car (and daughter) alone for a few moments down the end of the road so that she can try and get to her mother's house. In order to avoid detection from the military, she writes a note and puts it through her mum's letterbox. We get a cutscene of the note falling in. Then a body. THE MOTHER WAS DEAD THE WHOLE TIME. (Le shoque, le horreur).
Seat mother goes back to her car to discover the car is not there anymore. As she tries to work out what's happening, she hears the squeal of wheels. She turns, she sees her car off in the distance. And, through ZERO REACTION, attempts to brisk walk after the car. Her daughter, by the way, still in the car enjoying life. She has no idea she's just been kidnapped. Which is a relief because her mother really didn't seem to care about that aspect.
Howell's flight from the UK has been diverted now to JFK and has been quarantined. This is due to, within 5 hours, multiple countries locking down their borders and their citizens in order to try and contain the spread of this virus. However, when Howell looks out of the window to see "JFK", what we're confronted with is an airport docking bay with the words 'Berlin - Tegel' on it. They didn't even attempt to correct this geographical error either way, they just left it which is sheer genius on the BBC's part. Total twist. Honestly didn't see that coming.
Back to London. The Seat has crashed and a soldier stumbles upon it. He, gas mask and all, looks in the driver's seat and sees the dead driver. Blood on the wheel and windscreen. He then looks in the back seat and sees the little girl, completely fine and intact. In fact, she seems completely oblivious to the fact she's just been in a car crash. (Cause unknown by the way, it just kinda happens). The soldier calls a helicopter over to get the girl out and rescue her.
Now, this is my favourite part of the ENTIRE show. Because it makes ZERO sense contextually. The soldier finds the girl and it's made clear he's going to rescue her. All's good. I totally understand that the chances are she will be rescued, taken to a safe location, checked for the virus and treated accordingly. She may even be reunited with her mother in this universe. However, what we see is the soldier looking at the girl, the girl finally looking somewhat perturbed and the most dramatic musical stinger I have ever heard in my life. WHAT? WHY? ARE THEY GOING TO KILL HER? It makes zero sense when you watch it. I guess they're trying to convey the girl finds the gas mask soldier menacing but, even so, the way it's presented is absolutely bat-shit crazy.
So why do I love and hate this scenario?
I love it because it is totally crazy. Within five hours of the dead Heathrow passenger, deaths in London alone amount to 300,000 people. With cases detected in France and Canada among other places. But the sheer "storyline" within it is just bonkers. It's nuts and I love it. Especially the mother's non-reaction to her daughter's abduction.
I hate it because we've spent 2 years in a Pandemic it wasn't nearly this exciting. Yeah, ok, Lockdown 1 was a unique thing because we hadn't experienced that before and it changed EVERYTHING. Covid will affect EVERYTHING for years to come directly or indirectly. Because it's just one of those events that affects every facet of existence. But the closest thing we got to a military quarantine zone was Arrow Park Hospital, people weren't just randomly dying in the streets and we certainly didn't achieve that fictional death toll in five hours. The UK death toll has only just gone over half that figure in 2 years.
I think because we've lived through (and are still living through) a global pandemic, it's easy to laugh at it and go "ha, wrong!" (Full Moss from IT Crows stylee). But the last global pandemic was Spanish Flu in 1919. Covid was the first 21st Century pandemic. And no-one could've really comprehended what a 21st Century Pandemic would look like. And things like this or Outbreak or Contagion do a good job at the basics, but the pace is all wrong and is done for dramatic effect. Living through one was far more intriguing because it makes all of these films completely obsolete. For a start, the lockdowns happened far quicker in End Day, meaning there was good governance which, as we know from reality, is not always a guarantee.
So that's that. That's End Day. It's a bonkers ride and is a great way to kill 50 or so minutes. I thoroughly recommend watching it for the sheer hilarity that ensues. If you like really OTT disaster movies, this really is one for you. It's so exaggerated it's laughable.
The only thing that truly annoys me about it is that all of the things put forward (maybe not the particle accelerator one to be fair) are real threats humans could face at any moment. And they're being reduced to jokes. In the space of two days, I went from thinking 'Don't Look Up' was a masterpiece to realizing that it's actually terrible. And he reason I reached the latter conclusion is because it eventually made a joke out of something fundamentally terrifying. I'm not saying we should see films that are 100% accurate and depressing, but we should be portraying these events more as a threat than they are in the realms of disaster movies.
A mega-tsunami that hit the US would likely cause a major economic collapse because the financial centre of the globe would be submerged. The knock on effect from that event could be catastrophic. Speaking of America, if the San Andreas Fault decided to go for the big one, or the Cascadia Subduction Zone for that matter, it would be an economic and humanitarian disaster.
A meteor, asteroid or a comet hitting Earth anywhere would cause untold levels of devastation and, like a Supervolcanic eruption, could lead to a nuclear winter and cause widespread crop failure. One super volcanic eruption caused the human race to lower to just 5000 people worldwide, why are we laughing at this? Such events could, and I say could with emphasis, lead to millions of people losing their life. So we are we making a joke out of these kinds of things?
Gamma Ray Bursts, Climate Change, Solar Flares, all of these sorts of things get reduced to jokes when they really shouldn't be. Maybe it's the dark humour side of the human race dealing with or else it lives in perpetual fear of its own demise. (Look up Terror Management Theory, it's kind of like that).
Anyway, I ramble. Watch it, enjoy it, see what you make of it. If it gives you a giggle, fair enough. It certainly did me. Especially the Pandemic one. Seasoned veterans of a Pandemic now, ladies and gents. We are allowed to laugh in the face of a virus from the East.
See you next time.
