LAST BROADCASTS

As sentient beings we worry.

We worry about the unknown and our demise.

Moments of global worry have filled the imaginations of Sci-Fi and disaster film and radio writers for decades.

Watching these films again helps me to see how we cope in fictional disasters in the face of our own very real viral calamity now.

Often these films and plays contain stark beginnings, last TV and radio broadcasts and occasionally happy ends.

I'll start with the powerful introduction to HG Well's War of the Worlds as read by Orson Welles in his infamous radio broadcast in 1938.



The 1953 movie version of War of the Worlds captures Well's final words offering humanity a beacon of light, an ending somewhat at odds with the world at the moment.

In 1961 came a movie which to me is the finest of all disaster tales, The Day the Earth Caught Fire and the anti-hero's final broadcast as he walks down an empty street is truly sobering.

The Day of the Triffids offered us some hope at the end in 1962 when simple seawater would save the world.

Deep Impact in 1998 gave Tia Leoni her best role as a TV news broadcaster who becomes the comforting voice for millions. Her final bulletin explains the rescue plans, the missile strikes and a tragic global lottery.

In 2002 28 Days later painted a startlingly stark picture of a vacant echoey London.

I wonder if we will see empty streets like this soon?

Can you think of any more memorable beginnings or final broadcasts in disaster films readers?