The final instalment of this adaption is here and we are constantly jumping between the Edwardian times (a couple of days after the Martians invaded) and the apocalyptic future. In the Edwardian scenes, we see George (Rafe Spall), his partner Amy (Eleanor Tomlinson) and his brother Frederick (Rupert Graves) have found a safe place to hide from the enormous monsters from Mars. George is becoming weaker after drinking some 'unpleasant looking water'. As a result, pregnant Amy and Frederick are doing most of the work in the case of looking for food and water. Despite their best efforts, everyone is being picked off one by one. Each person is speared through the torso and then eaten by the Martian invaders. These moments are quite unpleasant to watch to watch but we get an understanding of the pain they are going through and these are the moments we have been waiting for - seeing the real form of the aliens from Mars.
Meanwhile, in the apocalyptic future, Amy and her scientist friend Ogilvy (Robert Carlyle) are studying the red weed that has caused the landscape to die and all the crops to fail. Amy's son, George Jr is becoming sicker and weaker due to not getting enough food and his illness becoming worse. However, thankfully we don't have to watch this young child die. Ogilvy has a theory that all the aliens died due to the diseases caught form the humans they ate therefore this may be the key to restore humanity.
The story for this final episode was very gripping as we weren’t sure what to expect and what the outcome was going to be. As we know this is based of H.G Well's story but that doesn’t make this adaptation completely accurate to the original source. Tomlinson's performance as Amy throughout this mini-series has been amazing, we feel her pain as she loses all the people she cares about and she then has to fight for her survival for herself and her son. She feels as if she isn’t a good mother yet she has done an incredibly job in rising George Jr as he could be possibly be one of the last children ever born. Tomlinson was an outstanding star in this episode, compared for Spall's portrayal of George which wasn't always enjoyable to watch. Spall has a complex character to portray but at times his performance falls flat or is irritating to watch. As a result, when George is finally killed it doesn’t have as much of an impact as it really should have.
With that being said, even though not all performances were amazing it was still emotional at times to watch and did pull on your heart strings. It feels as if there is no real moral to this story but it is still great entertainment. These three episodes haven’t been perfect but visually they have been fantastic due to these episodes looking like three mini movies on our TV screens. The effects are outstanding yet the performances at times could have been better. This classic story has been retold in a different way and even though improvements could be made, this new adaptation is still very memorable.
