In an alternate version of contemporary Britain, triffids are large carnivorous plants capable of vicious and intelligent behaviour, equipped with venomous stingers that they use to stun their prey before feeding on them.

Bill is injured by an undeveloped plant in the attempt, having given his safety goggles to another worker, Lucy (Nora-Jane Noone), a security officer and friend.

Bill saves Radio Britain personality Jo Playton (Joely Richardson) from a throng of desperate blind citizens who have realised that she can see and are trying to use her as a guide.

The pair team up to find out what has happened, but Bill's only concern is the triffids, knowing that the catastrophe must have caused the electricity at the compounds, the only thing keeping the populace safe, to fail.

Upon arrival, they find that a group of surviving members of the civil service and armed forces has been assembled to continue the human race as best it can.

He attempts to escape but is captured by Coker (Jason Priestley), who uses him to round up survivors and supplies for the cause, oblivious to the disaster that is about to unfold.

He decides to leave for Shirning, hoping to find his estranged father Dennis (Brian Cox) and a solution to stop the triffids.

During his journey to Shirning, Bill meets two orphaned but sighted girls, Imogen (Julia Joyce) and Susan (Jenn Murray), who almost kill him with potshots in the process.

Upon returning to Shirning House, protected from triffid attacks by a powerful electric fence, Bill is reunited with Jo, who narrowly escaped Torrence's men the night before.

The inactive fence is destroyed by the triffid swarm, trapping everybody in the house and grounds but one of the girls picks up an old folk mask from Bill's old things, causing him to remember something from 30 years previous.

With the group protected from the triffids by the Solent, Bill still wonders about eventually returning to the mainland and questions the moral of how the world was blind even when our eyes were open.

In November 2008, it was announced that the BBC had commissioned Power and Prodigy Pictures to produce a new version of the story; the drama was screened on 28 and 29 December 2009, starring Dougray Scott as Bill Masen, Joely Richardson as Jo Playton, Brian Cox as Dennis Masen, Vanessa Redgrave as Durrant, Eddie Izzard as Torrence, Jason Priestley as Coker, Jenn Murray as Susan, Ewen Bremner as Walter Strange, Shane Taylor as Osman, Troy Glasgow as Troy, Adam Sinclair as Ashdown, Lizzie Hopley as Hilda and Julia Joyce as Imogen.