I’ve just finished watching the 1975-77 series Survivors, which was conceived by Dr Who writer Terry Nation. I’m not a big fan if science fiction but I found the first series of this engrossing and still quite disturbing, even after 40 years. Some of the acting is a bit wooden in that Onedin Line/The Broers/Colditz 1970s way, but the storyline was interesting.
I only meant to watch a snippet for old times sake but got so invested in the plot and characters that ended up watching the whole lot. It’s a bit slow paced compared to modern TV’s quick-change editing and sometimes nothing happens at all. There’s a certain innocence about it all – and I found it endearing and quaint when characters simply gave up and said they just didn’t know what to do – quite a contrast to the modern day win at all costs mentality.
The actual storyline is quite believable in the age of Ebola, bird flu and Zika virus. And the producers didn’t mess around with the subject of death – it is remarkably bleak without being gory or sensationalist. I vaguely remember watching it the first time around – I certainly remember the main characters Greg (Ian McCulloch) and his partner Jenny (Lucy Fleming – who at the time reminded me of my English teacher, who I had a crush on).
The first series is definitely worth a look – it raises interesting questions about people would survive in the event of a major disaster. There’s the practical side of how to exist when the supermarkets and garages have all been looted and you can’t get hold of candles, salt or petrol any longer. There’s also the political side of how people group together and work out who’s in charge when there’s no longer any authority or rules. And if you’re a seventies kid like me there’s also the odd feeling of being back in a world of parkas, Jensen Interceptors and British Rail. (Did posh people really have bacon and eggs for dinner in the Home Counties in 1975?)
The second and third series are not so good. Terry Nation had left, as had the best character Abby (Carolyn Seymour). It’s more like Emmerdale Farm at War with 12-bore shotguns. I watched a few just to see the gorgeous Celia Gregory and to enjoy the nice views of the Welsh borders.
Apparently there was a remake in 2008 which was pretty awful. Don’t bother with it – the original series is still the best – and the intro/theme tune still makes me shudder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak1SrFGXgA4
Timbar says
The title sequence is still very powerful & just as appropriate today. (sorry, can’t link to YouTube at the moment)
Kaisfatdad says
There you go!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePfyYIkntNE
Timbar says
Thank you KFD. It’s a very simple sequence, all the horror is done through implication, rather than showing global deaths, but that just makes it more effective.
Neil Jung says
I saw this at the time when it was the best thing on. I enjoyed the 2008 remake too; it certainly wasn’t “pretty awful” and I was disappointed it was cancelled.
Vulpes Vulpes says
I think the remake, shall we say, could have been a lot better than it was. It suffered horribly from the modern malaise of accelerating the story arc and plot development to a ridiculous extent – all sense of an enveloping mystery and a creeping horror is lost when you have to unfold a story as if you are writing in fear of your audience’s lack of attention span.
It also had the misfortune to arrive at a time when the commissioning know-nothings thought that all people wanted was zombies, and were piss-themselves scared to try anything else, the spineless idiots. The Walking Dead has grasped the zombie nettle particularly well and left anyone else doing the post-apocalyptic stagger in something of a pickle – there’s no point at all in trying to out-zombie the Walking Dead – five seasons gone and still unmissable.
It’s a shame, as the original series’ premise of global pandemic continues to enjoy – if that’s the right word – a very close alignment with the most likely outcome for the human race in the globalised bug-fest petri dish of a military industrial complex in which we live. I’d have liked to have seen it properly explored, not wasted in a shoddy half-hearted attempt.
Vulpes Vulpes says
I loved the bit where the kids had rigged up a bicycle to a dynamo and were taking it in turns to peddle furiously so they could play their 45s.
mikethep says
When the posh tennis-playing bird said, ‘I could do with a cold drink, Mrs Transom,’ and ‘Mrs T, would you be a love and turn off the tennis trainer,’ I was irresistibly reminded of Acorn Antiques.
But I’m going to go on watching it, if only for the stripy knitted tank tops and crocheted blankets.
mikethep says
‘Did posh people really have bacon and eggs for dinner in the Home Counties in 1975?’ From the look on Peter Bowles’s face I’d say not.