Survivors

[Iguana]

Oh please let Martha Jones stay dead

I've just checked IMDB and she is only listed as being in one episode, so there will be no miracle recovery.

 

[cesare]

Was quite entertaining, I wasn't watching it particularly critically. Might remember to watch it on Tuesday, perhaps.

 

[Fedayn]

Quite liked it, some rather gratuitous shots of the highrise Hilton in Manchester.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

I don't know, you lot, you always go on about how great the BBC is and then say how shit each new programme they make is...


I quite enjoyed it, despite the hackneyed premise...

 

[feerd]

aw come on -this is fucking ace for BBc1...
admittedly there were some shit bits -
1.the script- even the very first line- he went white water rafting and fell out of his canoe- thats just wrong
2.and that musical football bit on the M6


but its great- everyones dead except them and some scarey Netto customers with guns. what's not to like?

 

[Jon-of-arc]

I missed this and I LOVE apocalyptic fiction (I even liked the film of the Stand...)

Should I bother on Iplayer?

 

[Matt S]

My friend was in this. She played a doctor. Was she any good?

Matt

 

[Jon-of-arc]

My friend was in this. She played a doctor. Was she any good?

Matt

she was brilliant. is she single? Will she have a quick look at my piles?

 

[cesare]

My friend was in this. She played a doctor. Was she any good?

Matt

Button says she was a nurse not a doctor cos she's a girl.

 

[teuchter]

what's not to like?

The deaths of the victims were disappointing. At least some of them should have gone a bit mental and had to be gunned down in the street by helicopters.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Button says she was a nurse not a doctor cos she's a girl.

Is the button currently holding an ice-pack against his clipped ear, and if not, why not?

 

[cesare]

Is the button currently holding an ice-pack against his clipped ear, and if not, why not?

Oppressed white male doesn't realise oppressed white male/ginger/bald status

 

[the button]

I was simply pointing out that, in a patriarchal society, the likelihood was that a female member of the medical profession would be a nurse.

[/not ginger]

 

[cesare]

I was simply pointing out that, in a patriarchal society, the likelihood was that a female member of the medical profession would be a nurse.

[/not ginger]

You are ginger and bald haha

 

[cesare]

Gingers, balds, yorkshires - they is minority

 

[_angel_]

I know I'm probably over thinking, but not that sure that everyone would die pretty much over what looks like the same night?

Heh! That was hilarious wasn't it.. especially the people dying sitting up all over the place!

 

[_angel_]

The deaths of the victims were disappointing. At least some of them should have gone a bit mental and had to be gunned down in the street by helicopters.

Yeah! Not all die compliantly waiting in a and e or in their cars!!

 

[greenman]

Legit criticisms like those above accepted, I liked it - here is my review from my blog (where it also has links):

Wow! The BBC had promised us a "re-imagining" of Terry Nation's original story from the 1970s first series of Survivors, and the result was certainly imaginative, and by turns grim, poetic, moving and engaging.

We were introduced to the main characters who included "re-imagined" up to date versions of those in the original story, plus new characters to give a more contemporary feel. The events of the virus period were told very quickly, as in the original - giving the viewer a feeling of the terrible speed at which the illness spreads and brings civilisation crashing to its knees within a couple of weeks.

I thought the performances of Julie Graham as the central character Abby Grant and Philip Rhys as Al Sadiq were particularly good. Max Beesley was on good, menacing form again. The worries about the treatment of the story brought on by awareness of some of the recent lightweight previous projects of some of those involved were quickly dispelled - at least in the first episode we were looking at serious, quality TV.

The horror of Julie Graham's character, waking up after "missing time" in a fever and finding all those around her dead was faithfully depicted from some of the most memorable scenes of the original, whilst the new stories of "Playboy" Al Sadiq and Najid, an 11 year old Muslim Mancunian, were seemlessly sewn into the plot. In the original Tom Price was a wisecracking Welsh homeless man of dubious morality, (played by Talfryn Thomas) in the 2008 version Max Beesley's Tom was a violent prisoner who escapes from his prison full of dead by killing the only other survivor there, a Prison Officer. This adds an extra element of danger and drama to the plot - without totally demonising the Price character (his murder of the prison officer was in response to his plan to lock him up in a food store that would have resulted in Price's almost certain death.) Max Beesley must feel he is getting typecast in plague scenarios - his last major BBC role was in another excellent drama on BBC1 - The Last Enemy - also set in a nightmare future.

The important dialogue that Abby has with the outdoor pursuits worker she meets when searching for her son, (a dialogue that points out the nature of the situation they are in and implies a criticism of the distance most people in advanced economies now have from an understanding of nature or basic practical and technical skills needed to survive without ready long-term sources of oil or electricity, food or tools) was also kept in from Nation's 1970s original and seemed if anything even more relevant today given talk about Peak Oil and the increased dependency of most of us on electrical and electronic gadgetry in our everyday lives. Someone involved in the new series said that in the original there was no dependency on mobile 'phones, cars were much easier to break into and start and fuel was much more easily accessed through siphoning or manual emergency pumps - modern security and pumps would make getting fuel a much more dangerous affair, as demonstrated explosively in the first episode of the new version of Survivors.

Hopefully the series might make some of us think a bit more carefully about our resilience in a potential crisis situation - lack of resilience in the UK being illustrated by the rapid effect of the year 2000 fuel blockades.

New elements in the 2008 Survivors are the inclusion of a junior Government Minister and a scene at the end which adds a novel element in keeping with the paranoia of our times!

I await further episodes with interest.

 

[elevendayempire]

Do you find that whenever you watch Apocalypse Fiction you start planning what you'd do if it happened? I was sitting there going, "Well, in the event of Global Flupocalypse, you'd want to get clothing, supplies and guns - from an army base? They're all going to be dead, after all - in the short term, maybe pop down to B&Q and pick up a few generators, you probably wouldn't want to go into major conurbations for at least a couple of years till all the bodies have rotted away..."

And before you know it, you're planning your Compound.

 

[Stoat Boy]

Big fan of all post-apocolyptic fiction myself and the original Survivors, even though I was a mere pup at the time, was a massive influence on me.

Thought it was okish last night. Perhaps a tad to BBC'ish for my immediate liking in terms of how it was constructed with regard to the casting but I accept thats more my problem than it.

Interested to see what Green man wrote as I have a feeling that the conspiracy bit we got a glimpse of at the end might be a sort of Moon Raker plot with some Swampie loons deciding to rid the planet of its human virus. But we shall see.

 

[Belushi]

It was so predictable. Well done Beeb on making the end of civilisation as dull as dishwasher.

 

[Griff]

Thought it was OK to be honest, but yeah you do start wondering what you'd do in that situation.

Fast car, army surplus food/water and plenty of guns came to mind.

 

[El Jefe]

fill a van with a load of chest freezers, set them up somewhere quick with a genny - you'll have access to almost infinite fuel from abandoned vehicles.

fill the freezers with perishables.

then get pissed.

and go round the houses of all your old dealers

 

[mentalchik]

and go round the houses of all your old dealers

 

[danny la rouge]

The original series made a big impression on me. I've got the first episode of the new one on tape, so I'm posting this with my eyes closed in case of spoilers.

 

[Kaka Tim]

The subject matter made this scary and exciting for the most part - but the dilouge, exposition and much of the acting were fucknig bobbins and really let it down.

Particualrly cringewiorthy was Abi's 'I know! Lets all stick together' speech near the end.

Also annoying was just how middle class nearly all the charcters were - bar the young lad and prison bloke. And don't rate Patterson Joespeh at all.

It seems that very few ugly, inarticualte, un-educated or working class people have survived. Or maybe they'll be the baddies?

The way the govt collpased was quite bollocks as well. They'd have been desperately mobilising the army and heading for the bunkers surely?

Will contunie watching but fear more 'mediocre actors grapple with issues' storylines - a shame cos imagining a post apocolyptic society should give writers tremendous scope for all sorts of ideas and drama.

 

[elevendayempire]

Also annoying was just how middle class nearly all the charcters were

Well, it was based on a 1970s show. Actually - although not being familiar with the original series - there were a couple of scenes which seemed to be directly lifted from the 70s one. They just seemed a bit out-of-place in a 2008 drama - that scene with the prison officer trying to keep Beesley locked up, and the scene with whatsherface talking to the camp co-ordinator: "Do you know what mushrooms are safe?" and all that sort of thing.

Am I right?

 

[greenman]

The prison storyline was completely new I think, the conversation with the outward bound bloke, though, was from the original. As far as class is concerned you want to watch the original! Almost without exception all the "goodies" in the original are middle/upper class and all the "baddies" are working class/lumpen, including an ex "trade union leader" who is portrayed as wanting to set up his own new fascist/stalinist mini-state! the politics got worse towards the end of series 3 (Terry Nation was only involved with series one) with the notion of a "New Britain" being built (complete with adapted union flag) around the cult of one of the leading characters who has died. TBH, although there was some good stuff about sustainability and resistance to authoritarianism in the original, many of the political undercurrents were more dubious and typical of the 1970s - in the same way that 70s political greenery in Britain can be traced forward to current lefty greens and anarchos on the one hand and to Prince Charles, the Goldsmiths and conservative/traditionalist/fascist environmentalism on the other.

I think some of the class bias is simply carried forward due to Hodges wanting to retain as much as possible of the original story. I share some of the nervousnous above about any heavy handed conspiracy theory additions that the last scene indicated might be added, for whatever reasons - either artistic, political or otherwise.

Nevertheless, the fact I thought it was pretty good in comparison to some of the more critical approaches above might be because I am comparing it to the original rather than more current drama, and it is obviously technically better and more expensively produced than the 70s version.

 

[ringo]

I so hope Julie Graham doesn't over-act like she did in "Bonekickers".

Cheered when she died, grizzled when she recovered.

I can't watch her without being constantly reminded that she's annoying and over acts.

Trouble with the remake is that now everything which came after makes this look dated. Still, love a good apocalypse so will stick with it if only to stop us watching The Wire every night.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Oppressed white male doesn't realise oppressed white male/ginger/bald status

Ginger and bald?

How does that wor.......

Oh.