Shown on BBC One in prime-time it is clearly a key part of the Beeb's early 2010 programming. This is the second season and tonight saw the broadcast of it's second episode but it's unlikely I'll be tuning in for the third episode.
I must start by saying that I missed the first season, not by choice I just didn't realise it was on until the season had finished. That being said I started watching the second season having done my homework. I'd watched the recap clips and read the episode guides and so had an overview of what to expect. Unfortunately none of this preparation lead me to expect such poor quality from a flagship show. The dialogue is nearly unbearable at times, tonight's episode in particular had the token child (Naj - because Najid is too long to say repeatedly it seems) spouting awful lines and behaving in a manner that apocalypse-or-not would have earned him a slap if I'd been around.
I'm used to forgiving Sci-Fi and Fantasy fiction for it's many flaws in exchange for a look at the worlds they provide but I can't seem to bring myself to grant 'Survivors' this concession. Not knowing the details of the first series I can't really comment on why the minuscule number of survivors are starving to death in a major metropolitan city. I can comment on the fact that the show seems to be geared around constantly placing the 'Survivors' into perilous predicaments (they clearly haven't been through enough in surviving the downfall of civilisation).
The previous series concluded with one character laying shot in the raid by sinister men in black which saw another character kidnapped. The new series picked up immediately from this point with the group racing to save the life of their fallen comrade by visiting the nearest hospital. This was the setup for an episode in which a hospital collapses upon half the gang, Max Beesley gets to slow motion run through a lot of dust holding a shotgun, the shot character has a fever flashback and another female character has to submit to being raped in order to obtain a rather pitiful piece of rescue equipment:
There is clearly an attempt to focus on the relationships and the emotions of this handful of individuals forced together by the apocalypse. This is muddied by the stories insistence that they spend their time shouting at each other, running for their lives or laying very still (either under rubble, on a table bleeding to death or in a sinister lab surrounded by figures in Haz-Mat suits). The two aims don't work on screen at all, in the hands of better writers or with better actors perhaps this wouldn't be the case, other works have managed it (none perhaps more skilfully than Stephen King's 'The Stand').
It is disappointing that a big BBC One show, in a genre for which I am a fan of and aimed squarely at the demographic I inhabit, can fail to arouse more than minimal interest from me. This wasn't helped by the decision to have a two week gap between the first and second episodes due to the football - this isn't America, scheduling should be continuous.
Next week I think I shall be re-watching Skeet Ulrich in 'Jericho' instead.
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