What to Watch Tonight: Deep Impact
Deep Impact is on E4 tonight at 6.40pm.
Elijah Wood and Morgan Freeman are among the survivors of a meteorite strike that causes the oceans to rise and tsunamis to engulf the land in this premillennial sci-fi disaster movie. Things seem pretty bleak at the start of Deep Impact. A comet the size of Mount Everest is headed for Earth. The result? An ELE, or Extinction Level Event. Reporter Jenny Lerner (Téa Leoni) makes a bit of a faux pas by calling out a politician for resigning because of an affair with a woman named Ellie, but when she learns that it was in fact due to the ELE she can at least report on that.
It turns out that there is a plan to avert this catastrophe. President Beck (Freeman) is about to announce a US-Russian collaboration to land on the comet and blow it apart with nukes, meaning any impact will be lessened... although still serious enough for some dramatic scenes of destruction. The crew of the ship being sent to the comet includes un-retired and wonderfully named Spurgeon Tanner (which would also be a good name for a fish beautician), who is ideal for the job because he once landed on the moon. Also in the mix of people we might want to survive... or perhaps not... are Leo Biederman (Wood), the young amateur astronomer who discovered the comet, and Leoni's father Jason Lerner (Maximilian Schell), who she hates for leaving her mother Robin (Vanessa Redgrave) for a younger woman. A hard rain's gonna fall, but on who will it land the hardest?