British television and especially British Sci-Fi is great. They like to tell the story first and aren’t all that concerned with that high gloss finish we see over here in North America in our Sci-Fi fare. The lack of gloss could be attributed to a lack of budget as well but with less money comes a greater emphasis on story.
In BBC One’s post apocalyptic show Survivors, a group of folks have survived a nasty flu-like epidemic and are left to roam free across Britain, fully engaged in the nitty gritty details of apocalyptic survival. The creator of Survivors, Adrian Hodges (Primeval) spoke to Scifiwire about scripting a drama about life where the little things like getting groceries becomes a life threatening experience.
“I think [the difference] is character,” Hodges said last week in Pasadena, Calif., as part of the Television Critics Association winter press tour. “You’re right, there is a lot of stuff out there and a lot of different angles on it. The fact of survival is a given. What it’s about is how your character responds. So the interesting thing for me as a dramatist, and for the actors, is it gives you a brilliant chance to explore characters outside of society. If you look at most drama, it’s all about people interacting within society. It’s about the rules. Everything is about our reaction for or against society. If there is no society, then you’re down to the basic stuff. You’re down to how human beings really behave, how they might behave, how they would behave.”
“I think the natural assumption is that because there’s only a few people left, therefore there’s a lot of stuff,” Hodges said. “But, of course, a lot of stuff doesn’t stay there for long. People will take it. A lot of it will perish. A lot of it will be inaccessible. So it becomes a really interesting dilemma about how you live.”
Survivors has already seen its first season play out over there across the pond and the show has been picked up for a second season. Here in the frozen wastes of North America, BBC America will start the first season ball rolling on Feb 13th. Here’s a clip. Looks like good stuff.
Just a guy in passionate pursuit of all things FI. Got news? endy (at) scificool.com 
Given how poor the original 1970s’ version of the show was, I feared the worst when they decided to remake this but the first season was genuinely watchable and ended on a high. I hope it uses the solid start it got from the first season to go from strength to strength.
The one in the 70’s was poor quality, sure. However, it was still a good drama and at least the first series played well. This new series is much better quality, as is much of what the BBC does these days, and it followed much of the original, except for the whole Pharmaceutical Company out to kill the world bit. The new one is intense, and the characters, although many recycled from the original, are well defined and well played. I hope at least it will carry on to some sort of conclusion to the story. Kudos to the ones who re-imagined Terry Nation’s vision.