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The Survivors is a modern remake of the 1975 cult classic by Terry Nation. The tale is about a series of fortunates (unfortunates?) who survive a lethal flu epidemic. They run away from main population centres and start their plans on how to survive in this post apocolyptic world.

Wiki - Original Series
Wiki - New Series

Lizzie and I were wondering how they managed to do the four lane motorway scene. . . . very freaky. Good so far with from me.

Oh, and it was filmed in Manchester - loved building spotting. It was good to see some of the squares in a new light - such as the Bar 38 / Deansgate corner.

Any lab sequences you see were filmed in my old MMU labs on weekends (to avoid us) or at night (to avoid traffic on Mancunian way).

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I have the original series here on VHS cassettes, so I'm familiar with it. It sort of follows the plot of the original, close enough for anyone who wanted it to.

Where i didn't like it was in its clumsy attempt to add sequences that attempted to make it relevant to modern Britain, including its fairly unsophisticated stance of equal representation of all people. That was just too clinical in the way it was done. Some scenes were peurile, such as the character watching the lights go out over the city - it just looked pathetically like the studio technician hitting far too few switches for the result to look authentic.

The lighting was abysmal and the film quality was very poor as well. We watched an episode of Doctor Who after this and the difference in quality was amazing. Perhaps Survivors was relatively low budget. It certainly looked it.

Sue says she has reserved judgement. I was thoroughly bored by the whole thing and fed up with hammy acting and poor direction.

So a harsh review from me then.

1s

Perhaps Survivors was relatively low budget. It certainly looked it.

they used MMU as locations!! Nuff said!

Quite glad I didn't bother with it after these reviews, I ended up watching Spooks instead (on Sky+), now there's a quality programme.

The one star is rather harsh but so it goes. I tended to think that it is not about how strong the cgi is but how the story works. It was very familar in terms of the storyline, however, it has got time before the end of the series to progress beyond the scope of the original. The actors were above average and seemed to work well together. Overall it would have to say it was on a parr with my memory of the original. The only way to be totally sure would be to get the VHS's out and watch the original followed by the remake. Did you like the original?

Dave at work suggested that they could have filmed the motorway scene on a stretch of uncompleted motorway - ie a new one like a toll road. Nice idea - I wonder where I can find out about it.

Did you like the original?

I liked the first series which was different and not badly shot, although very much in the 1970s style of poor studio (video) and excellent location (film) work. The acting was passable with some good players.

The second and third series' were watchable but downright strange as they started getting involved in expousing various sociological theories in the scripts. The reall oddity was the last episode, which was totally divorced from the "reality" of what went before. Suddenly all the characters atarted acting differently and it developed into a bizarre new world of pseudo-military style. We thought "where did that come from?" and it really was a pretty dreadful end.

Ratings?

Series 1
Series 2
Series 3

Actually managed to watch some of this last night. It seemed... okay. It's interesting in the "what would you do in that situation?" sense, but I don't know if I could bear to watch it long-term. Purely in case they don't do sensible stuff.

Didn't manage to spot any of the abysmal lighting, but wasn't paying too close attention to it. Seemed very similar to a lot of the BBC's stuff lighting-wise based off a casual glance though.