Riveting TV, Earthy Realistic Post-Apocalyptic Simply The Best Of Its Genre
Well, what can I say? It’s certainly the best TV series of its kind and for those of you that have never seen it, if you enjoyed The Road, Children of Men, I am Legend, do yourselves a favour and grab a copy, and, while you’re at it, forget the remake. This is the stuff. Filmed in the mid 70s Survivors captures the ethos of an era. Communial living, alternative lifestyle and challenging conventions.
Britain is down to a handful of people, a virus having wiped out all but a random few. Over night the survivors of the plague have been plunged back into an essentially iron-age world where technology can no longer be sustained, old skills must be re-learned, existing knowledge preserved. Set in rural England through a bleak winter, the survivors form into factions, take over farm houses, manor houses, scavenge what little they can, guns, clothes and food and fuel. Towns are off limits, disease and dogs pick off the weak. This is no glossy American film, it’s a gritty, muddy, wet, cold world filmed in the muted tones of yesteryear.
Survivors is a masterpiece of television, a very real look at what may happen in world where society breaks down; where everything we take for granted is gone, water, power, medicine and law. Structured around a central cast of remarkably well realised characters, the three series that comprise Survivors, deal as much with different ideologies as with the fight for survival itself. The eleven disc DVD set isn’t populated with glossy extras, or outtakes, voice over’s or a set of character postcards, its a no nonsense compact set featuring all thirty eight original BBC episodes; each one a gem to be watched by the glow of firelight and the flicker of a candle. Lock the door, keep the gun close to hand, and enjoy. This is reality TV.Read full review
