Television
It's not the end of the world
Published 27 November 2008
We love a good disaster fantasy, but this one is too slick to become a classic
Survivors
BBC1
Anya (Zoë Tapper), Patricia (Bryony Afferson) and Jenny (Freema Agyeman) battle for survival
The problem with post-apocalyptic drama series is that they're on a downward trajectory, dramatically speaking. The first part, in which civilisation is destroyed - in the case of Survivors (Tuesdays, 9pm) by a flu-like virus - is terrifying if well done, though it helps if you're also a neurotic, narcissistic, hypochondriac, global warming obsessive. You sit there, eyes wide, and you think: my God, this could happen. In my case, I worry first about big things like water and cholera, and then about the smaller technical details that will apply to me personally - such as what I'd do if the plague struck while I was far from home and wearing my contact lenses. I would need to make it back to my Coke-bottle spectacles within a 48-hour time frame, max, otherwise I would be blind. I would not be able to forage for tinned spaghetti in stinking branches of Netto because I would not be able to see.
Once the population has been more or less wiped out, however, so begins the tedious business of gathering the future of the human race (the survivors) in one place and teaching them how to keep chickens. If the writer goes for realism, and does this slowly, it is very tedious. But if he goes for pace, as Survivors' Adrian Hodges has done, the spell is broken. You stop trying to remember how much you took in last time you watched Ray Mears and you start thinking: "Hang on, surely the 0.1 per cent of the population that survived the virus couldn't collide this fast, not even with the help of purloined four-wheel drives?"
Thereafter, the questions form thick and fast. For instance: why is Abby (the ubiquitous Julie Graham) wearing frosted pink lipstick? If I'd woken up to find that 99.9 per cent of the population was dead, including my husband and son, lipstick would not be top of my priorities - and I write as one who has been known to apply mascara during camping trips.
Survivors is a "reimagining" of Terry "I Created the Daleks" Nation's 1970s series (and novel) of the same name. I'm not old enough to remember that series, but I do recall the later adaptation of The Day of the Triffids, and I am a big fan of dystopian novels in general and John Wyndham in particular. There is something so peculiarly British about the genre, the stiff upper lip, I suppose, being required to come into its own at such moments. But Survivors 2008 is not destined to be a classic. It is too slick, the survivors too creepily young and good-looking. I know this will be helpful when they start repopulating the planet, but I would have liked a wise old man or two - or at least someone who already has a vague idea how to keep chickens.
It is irritating, too, that such a tiny group of characters - six grown-ups and one child thus far - so dutifully reflects 21st-century, multicultural Britain. Two of its members are Muslim; one, Aalim (Phillip Rhys), is non-practising and the other - a boy called Najid - is devout. I smell "issues" here, something that seems a touch unnecessary given the circumstances. So, violent gangs are roaming the streets, fighting one another for Evian and bars of Cadbury Fruit & Nut. But hey, this isn't to say that we can't have a few cultural misunderstandings along the way, is it?
And then there is Tom Price, a murderer who has escaped from prison. The problem with Price is simple: he is played by Max Beesley. The presence of Beesley, like that of Graham, is a tragic reminder of the way that casting directors increasingly put some weird idea about audience recognition over suitability, or even ability. Beesley, who looks like a potato, does not act; he winces. He is in Survivors because he was in Hotel Babylon. Sometimes, it's as if a mysterious virus has carried off 99.9 per cent of the actors in Britain. How will this end? Well, one day, Beesley's actorly immune system will finally pack up, and he will be replaced by someone else, possibly from Holby City. Oh, I see. You mean, how will Survivors end? There were 38 episodes of the 1970s series. Demographics - and chickens - being what they are, it could be a while before we find out.
Pick of the week
After Rome: Holy War and Conquest
Starts 29 November, 8.05pm, BBC2
Boris Johnson probes relations between Christianity and Islam.
Wallander
Starts 30 November, 9pm, BBC1
Kenneth Branagh as the maverick Swedish detective.
Louis Theroux: Law and Disorder in Philadelphia
30 November, 9pm, BBC2
The insincere one in his flak jacket.
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