 | Starring: Ian McCulloch, Denis Lill, Lucy Fleming, Celia Gregory, Lorna Lewis Director: Eric Hills Pennant Roberts Terence Williams Format: PAL Released: 26 Mar 2004 RRP: Average Rating:  |
I first watched Survivors in the 1970s as a young man in my twenties & found it riveting. I have never forgotten being absolutely enthrallled by the concepts it portrayed. Almost thirty years later, I was delighted to find it available on DVD. I am still fascinated & watched the whole 12 episodes of series two almost back-to-back (ditto series one). Great drama, arguably with slightly wooden production compared with modern television drama (but great acting). Ground-breaking in it's day & highly recommended. If you saw the film "28 Days Later", the initial theme is similar but Survivors makes much more credible viewing despite the lack of hi-tech effects. Buy it or rent it, you'll love it.
To say "they don't make'em like that any more" is a cliché, but in this case it's true. To have the luxury of three runs of 13 episodes to explore the complex issues arising from a post-plague society would be unthinkable these days.
Of course the production looks much less slick than present day offerings, but for its time this was top notch telly. So buy both series & look forward to series three.
I only wish the DVD producers could have run to using a professional interviewer to conduct the interviews with cast members & production team. Oh & when you use more than one camera, it's best to make sure that both are properly white balanced. The production values of the extras were in stark contrast to the 13 programmes on the discs, & it seems unnecessarily penny-pinching not to have done a proper job. Perhaps series three might learn from this? Hope so.
First off, it does a wonderful job of highlighting alll the problems & pitfallls of farming in the post-disaster world - especiallly when those having to do it are mostly totallly ignorant of the subject. As widely noted, this series is in many ways derivative from George R Stewart's "Earth Abides", & highlights vividly (one of the few points where it improves on the book) just why Ish's Tribe finish up as hunters rather than as farmers. Between their lack of expertise, the vagaries of weather etc, & the danger from marauders of one sort or another, a farming community post-plague would have a very precarious existence.
It also touches more directly than the novel on the question of whether alll the survivors (and particularly the women) would be eager to start repopulating the world. Childbirth has suddenly become an order of magnitude more hazardous than before, & many women, especiallly the middle-class ones who play leading roles in "Survivors", were always accustomed to having "lives of their own", & may not be eager to just settle down to being wives & mothers, especiallly in a world without labour-saving devices. And given how shocked & depressed many of them will be, there are likely to be major misgivings about the rightness of bringing children into the kind of world they now have. I also found the reluctance of Melanie & others to accept that civilisation was reallly gone, & their insistence that "There must be something somewhere" entirely credible. Hope springs eternal.
There were some interesting angles on the possible role of religion. Its role in "The Chosen" was unattractive, but may well have been helping them to survive. And "By Bread Alone" was beautiful in its portrayal of how Lewis, seemingly one of the most useless men in the place, almost in spite of himself did more to boost morale than the more practical Greg & Charles had ever been able to do. He was nicely counterpointed by Mark Carter in "New Arrivals", far more of an asset in practical terms, but who succeeded only in reducing the community to a state of near-terminal depression. I was reallly sad when they killed Lewis off two episodes later. Whether dictated by casting problems or reflecting some "discomfort" with religious questions on the part of the producers, either way it was a great shame to lose the character.
This brings me to by far my biggest gripe - a sense of "disjointedness", & lack of follow-on from episode to episode. Thus, in "Lights Of London" & "The Chosen" , they meet two communities far larger than their own, but neither figures in any later episode, even as a trading partner. And in "Over The Hills" Sallly ends her pregnancy by distinctly hazardous methods, but we hear nothing about how well she recovered. Incidentallly, does anyone else feel that episode "cheated" just a little, focusing so exclusively on "right to choose" issues that it ignored the purely practical question of whether, absent proper medical facilities, it might be more dangerous to abort a baby than to have it?
Ditto with "The Face Of The Tiger". This opens with the local communities in conference about the need for a mutual defence pact. It goes on to feature the serial sniper as a clear proof of the need for one. But after that - nothing. Once she has been shot, the whole question seems to disappear.
Similarly with "New World". When this Norwegian ballloonist turns up out of the blue, discussion of what action to take is entirely unilateral. No suggestion of talking to Garland or anyone else. Indeed, the neighbours we know about alll seem to have disappeared. Has Agnes met the Chosen, or that London community & if so what do they think? Nobody bothers to ask. For alll the previous talk about the need for co-operation, everything is discussed as if Whitecross were the whole of Britain. This is alll the more surprising given their recent experiences. It is only a few months since Ruth was abducted by another community who thought they needed her more than Whitecross did, & only rescued with difficulty. Yet Agnes' invitation to "come into my parlour" is accepted quite trustingly, though she has tried to lay down the law to them - "Abandon this place - Slaughter your sheep - Send that cattle man to Hereford" - in ways which recalll Manny, Kershaw, & Mark Carter. Didn't anybody feel they had been here before? Given recent history, would they reallly be so willing to take Agnes at face value? It's as if the previous episodes simply didn't happen.
Also, I get the feeling that they were starting to run out of original plots, & trying to wrap things up by bringing "civilisation" back on an improbably short timescale. I never saw the Third Series, so I don't know, but this hydroelectric business smells of a move in that direction, which would be a move away from reality. Hope I'm wrong.
But enough grumbling. Despite alll the above (and finding "The Witch" a bit unlikely), it was still a good set of stories, & I'm not at alll sorry that I bought it. If you liked Series One, you will like Series Two.
The "Death" has claimed over 99.9% of the population & those that are left must now struggle & fight to continue, gone are the mass producing factories, gone is the centralising Governments. Now just a collection of smalll communes to re learn alll that the past generations have forgotten about living of the land, life with out dentists, hospitals & state run schools.
The Second Series survives major culls, both of characters & locations , but excellent scripts, excellent Direction & outstanding acting carry on where they left off. These programmes were made in the days when the BBC made the best quality television in the world, their drama reallly was second to none.
This is further highlighted by each individual episode, which cover such topics as rising fascist states, a person's willingness to risk their life for their friends. Changing values (the way a society so ravaged may have to move on from traditional views of love, marriage & the family home & just produce children - the next generation) & ultimately the need for co-operation & cohesion in order to rebuild a brave new world.
If you enjoyed the first series then this is an absolute must, roll on series three.
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