End Day

Scenarios

Below are the various catastrophes depicted in the order they occur in the film:

Mega-Tsunami

In this scenario, a volcanic eruption on the island of La Palma triggers a massive landslide wherein a sizable portion of the island collapses into the sea, causing a massive mega-tsunami to race across the Atlantic ocean and strike the east coast of the United States, inundating most of New York City, but leaving many buildings intact.

Killer Asteroid

This scenario begins with a mysterious 'missile attack' in a remote area somewhere in the Middle East. The 'missiles' are soon revealed to be small asteroid fragments, the advance guard of a much larger asteroid on a collision course with Earth, threatening Berlin, Germany. The asteroid is located and an attempt is made to alter its course using nuclear ICBMs. The attempt fails, resulting in the asteroid being broken into hundreds of smaller pieces with the biggest piece then impacting and obliterating Berlin.

Global Pandemic

In this scenario, a mysterious virus similar to SARS or influenza is unleashed, wreaking havoc as it spreads at a phenomenal rate throughout Europe, the United Kingdom, and North America, prompting many countries to enact martial law and close their borders in a frantic attempt to quarantine the spread of the disease; however, they are unsuccessful, and most of humanity is decimated by the pandemic.

Supervolcano

This scenario is based on the supervolcano beneath Yellowstone National Park erupting, incinerating everything within 100 km and releasing ash into the atmosphere which cools the Earth with the final scene showing a destroyed Denver. This segment has only aired in the UK. This scenario was explored in depth in another BBC docudrama, Supervolcano.

Strange Matter

This is the only scenario in which Dr. Howell reaches his laboratory unhindered, with people protesting outside and shouting, "Stop the experiment!" On numerous television screens, several scientists talk about a new type of matter, the strangelet, and just how unlikely it is for one to be formed. Upon arrival, Howell and his colleagues initiate a highly controversial experiment using the world's largest particle accelerator. The experiment quickly goes out of control, resulting in the creation of a single strangelet. The strangelet first causes the collider and most of the surrounding area to explode. The Strangelet then rises out of the ground and begins to convert the whole planet into strange matter, starting with New York City. The strangelet wreaks havoc on the Earth's climate, damaging a Boeing 747 before it collides with a Boeing 777 attempting to flee the storm, killing all on board both aircraft. Off-screen, the strangelet finishes consuming the planet.

Alternate versions

All original official sources cite five different scenarios including a giant volcanic explosion, but the volcanic explosion segment has never been aired in the United States. It has been edited out by the National Geographic Channel for time problems and all references to it on the National Geographic website have been removed. Only the other four scenarios have been aired. However, the BBC website had the super volcano episode until it was removed sometime after 28 May. 2006. UKTV History aired the version including the supervolcano segment on 23 January 2007. However, in the original BBC airing each of the scenarios showed the attempts of a family or person to escape the depicted disaster as well as following Dr. Howell, these segments were mostly cut from the UKTV History version aired in 2007. The volcano sequence can however be found on the popular video website YouTube.

A French-dubbed version of End Day was also aired in France (on the channel W9) and in Belgium (on RTBF), under the title Fin du monde : les quatre scénarios (End day: the four scenarios). The "super volcano" scenario was not included.