Keeley Hawes and Synnove Karlsen tease their timely, genre-busting new sci-fi series, The Midwich Cuckoos
The Midwich Cuckoos may be based on John Wyndham's classic sci-fi novel, published way back in 1957, yet its timely themes transcend genres.
"It doesn't feel like horror, it doesn't feel like out-and-out sci-fi," Keeley Hawes, who plays Dr. Susannah Zellaby in the upcoming mystery series, tells Total Film. "It's more nuanced than that, it's very emotional and moving. Tonally, it's quite difficult to put it into a box which is really good. It's one of those shows that makes you think and debate, and creepy kids are just always good, aren't they?"
Wyndham's book, which previously served as the blueprint for Wolf Rilla's acclaimed film Village of the Damned (1960), has been updated for the new show, which follows therapist Zellaby, her daughter Cassie, and several of their Midwich neighbors. On one seemingly random evening, the residents of the titular town all pass out, and any outsiders who enter suffer the same fate, too. After a nerve-racking few hours, the blackout inexplicably lifts, however, and everyone gains consciousness again – but, in a deeply unnerving twist, all the women of childbearing age soon discover that they're pregnant.
Some expectant mothers are terrified, insisting that they've not had sex in months, while Aisling Loftus's character Zoë Moran, who has been trying to have a baby with her husband Sam (Ukweli Roach), is elated. Accelerated pregnancies lead to a bunch of simultaneous births, and it slowly becomes clear that there's more to the Midwich newborns than meets the eye.
"I guess the idea of being taken over by something quite foreign is maybe quite relatable in a post-COVID world," Synnøve Karlsen, who plays Cassie, says when asked why now was the right time to revisit a story that was
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