Survivors

Survivors is a show about the aftermath of a deadly plague. The title of the show indicates the plague originated in a lab in the Far East, and was accidentally released after a beaker was dropped. Air travel helped the flu-like disease spread around the world quickly and wipe out most of the population.

In England scattered survivors of every age, race and creed band together in small communities, learning to become self sufficient. The survivors often discuss the future, struggling to preserve a sense of normality and trying to plan ahead for building a new world.

This series was created by Terry Nation, better known as the creator of Doctor Who's most deadly enemies the Daleks. I suspect Terry Nation got a lot of his inspiration from such books as Earth Abides and The Day of the Triffids. Particularly the parts about new societies. I've only seen the first series of this show. It was made the year before I was born. Apparently after the first series it started to go downhill, as writers were running out of ideas. Terry Nation was unhappy with the path the show was taking and disowned the later episodes. I think he wanted an ending more like Earth Abides, where post-plague society slips into primitive illiteracy.

Survivors is popular enough to have its own website, created by fans of the show. It has some interesting discussions and speculation about what it would be like to live in the post-apocalypse world, and recommends books with the same theme.

This series was first shown on peak-time on Sundays on B.B.C. 1 (the prime channel) and regularly attracted audiences in millions including a precocious ten year old (me!) and his siblings. The reason was simple: it was the best adult oriented S.F. drama series the B.B.C. had ever made. They have never made anything better since. And it was very powerful, very realistic, completely believable, terrifyingly accurate and very scary on a psychological "what if?" level. Characters behaved in the way that people behave in real crises (such as civil wars) when the veneer of civilisation falls away: some try to grab power, some become natural leaders, some want to be led, others give up in despair and kill themselves. The series didn't flinch from showing all that or sugar coat the pill - and was much the better for it. The B.B.C. had the pick of the best T.V. and stage character actors around to cast it, plots never plumbed the depths of cliche, stories and themes were rarely if ever neatly resolved. It made a huge impact on the British national consciousness: episodes were being talked about in offices, factories and school playgrounds for days afterwards. If you consider that it was broadcast before anyone had ever heard of A.I.D.S., H.I.V., B.S.E., C.J.D. or G.M.O.s then I think it fair to say it was way ahead of it's time. And, sadly, like a lot of the finest T.V. produce of the B.B.C. and independent T.V. in Britain of the 1970s and 1980s - nowhere is it available on video.

A plague wipes out 99-point-something percent of the human race and the survivors have to start again from scratch. The quality of the episodes varies but for me it was never less than good and I'd really put the best ones up there with 'I, Claudius' and the original 'Upstairs Downstairs' at the very peak of classic British TV drama - most notably an episode from the first series revolving around capital punishment and one from the third that's like a cross between a western, a horror movie, The 39 Steps and a Breughel winterscape, with philosophical interludes.

It does have flaws. Some interesting characters are written out too soon, and series stars left without their characters being written out, leading to that unsatisfactory situation I remember from other 70s shows where there are rumours of sightings of them and hints that they may return eventually.

Personally I liked that there was a mix of different types of stories, from adventure to character clash to ideas-based to ones based around technical ingenuity and the resolution of simple problems of coping without infrastructure, even that in the second series there were episodes or portions thereof that were almost idyllic where the major conflict was competing visions of the future. Most of the core characters were middle-class, old-school British, optimists, can-do types, planners, builders, and their belief that they could pull things together again, determination to make the best of things, even excitement at the chance for a fresh start helped make things bearable. But there's plenty of tension, menace, challenge, it's downright harrowing at times, and the deprivations the survivors undergo are a salutary lesson in not taking for granted all the things you tend to. I remember the relish with which I ate an egg after watching an episode where they're an incredible luxury.

If you like (surely the wrong word) John Wyndham's apocalypses or are fascinated by Robinson Crusoe daydreams of 'What would I do if...?' this is especially for you. Avoid the remake like the plague.

When an enigmatic unnamed scientist accidentally infects himself with a lethal engineered virus he unwittingly spreads it world wide via air travel. Focusing on London, England we see the effects of the virus as millions succumb and civilization collapses accordingly. The story hones in on a handful of emotionally scarred survivors who come together and attempt the difficult and painful reconstruction of a new society no longer able to depend on supplied science and technology. In one episode entitled "Law and order" the survivor's group are faced with a rape and murder of one of their number following a raucous celebration. An intellectually disabled member is falsely accused and sentenced to death with the killer himself voting for the man's execution. After one of the group leaders carries out the killing, he learns the identity of the real killer and is forced to allow him to stay in the group and withhold the information as the news of the tragic error would permanently splinter and destroy what they fought, against enormous odds, to create. Survivors is gripping stuff; well acted, cleverly written and creatively directed - if you like character driven Sci - Fi drama then this is for you.

While apocalyptic tv shows like The Walking Dead and Z Nation are the vogue today, this show (remade in the 2000's) is absolutely terrifying because this could really happen. When a virus is accidentally released, it spreads world wide quickly and 90 percent of humanity is killed off. The survivors take one a few different ideas; banding together and attempting to recreate a civilization, becoming raiders on others, or simply dying off. A really brilliant and terrifying show.