PICK OF THE WEEK

Snowpiercer

Netflix

How do you prefer your dystopian action thrillers? Snowpiercer now comes in the full suite – take your pick from the original 1982 French comic, the 2013 film adaptation directed by Parasite’s Bong Joon-ho, or the new TV version now coming out in weekly installments on Netflix.

Like when the Watchmen TV series came out last year, there’s a tendency to wonder: "do we really need this?" There’s already a perfectly good movie! But like Watchmen, the TV version of Snowpiercer differs enough from the film to justify its existence.

The overall premise remains the same: it’s set in an alternative nearfuture where scientists have tried to reverse global warming but ended up accidentally freezing the planet. The only survivors live on Snowpiercer, a 1001-carriage train which circles the globe on an endless loop until they can figure out a way to thaw out the Earth.

Sounds kind of romantic, the idea of a never-ending train journey, but life aboard the train is actually a total nightmare. Especially for those passengers who stormed Snowpiercer as it was departing and now live like sardines crammed into dark, damp third-class carriages at the tail-end.

Like in the movie, the tailies are planning a revolution to overthrow the elite and seize control of the train. Unlike the movie, there’s more than two hours to fill, which means a lot more time to spend jumping between each section of the train, exploring the class divisions and politics at play. And what better way to do that than introduce a murder investigation plotline?

Turns out the only former homicide detective on the train, Andre Layton (Daveed Diggs), is a hardcore taily. Now he’s got a foot in both worlds, he’s the uprising’s secret weapon. With plenty of other mysteries to resolve along the way (who is "Mr Wilford", for a start), the TV version of Snowpiercer looks like a journey and a half.