A strange event knocks out a whole village in this early scene from the new sci-fi series.

Keeley Hawes takes a step into the world of the paranormal in new Sky/NOW drama The Midwich Cuckoos, which sees a small town rocked by a supernatural event and the arrival of strange, unsettling children who may have dark plans for their new parents.

And now, RadioTimes.com can exclusively unveil a first-look clip from the first episode of The Midwich Cuckoos, which follows the extraordinary events preceding the arrival of the ominous children at the heart of the story.

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In the clip, we see Hawes’ character Dr Susannah Zelleby returning to her home town of Midwich, only to find it blocked off by police thanks to some kind of strange blackout.

Sneaking in anyway to track down her daughter, Susannah finds strange masked scientists conducting tests while her neighbours lie unconscious (or dead) nearby – and when she tries to escape herself, she’s similarly knocked out by a powerful kind of light energy that takes her off her feet.

“Something very odd happens to the women in particular,” Hawes explained of the series in a recent The Midwich Cuckoos featurette. “They have all fallen pregnant... mysteriously.

“The experience that these characters have... some of them think, ‘Actually all my dreams have come true, and this is what I’ve wanted all my life.'

“And it becomes apparent quite quickly that you should be careful what you wish for.”

Ominous and unsettling, it’s an arresting start to a series that looks set to take John Wyndham’s original classic novel into the modern age, not least by casting Hawes as the originally male Dr Zelleby and delving much deeper into the lives of the women affected by the Midwich event more generally.

And less worthily, it also looks extremely creepy. Prepare to be scared…

The Midwich Cuckoos comes to Sky Max and NOW on Thursday 2nd June. For more, check out our dedicated Sci-Fi page or our full TV Guide.

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