Review: Survivors 1.1

To make up for my lack of Lost reviews, I'm going to be taking on a much smaller project, reviewing Series One of the remake of Survivors. You see, to those who weren't born, Survivors was a 1970s drama series based on an idea which at the time seemed practically impossible; a supervirus wiping out most of Earth's population. It was very depressing, but ran for four series. When there were fears over the various forms of Influenza around the globe, some bright spark at the BBC decided that it would be fun to bring the series back for a remake in 2008.
          And so here's the first, feature length, episode. We focus on all of the main characters, which cover most of the basic ethnic groups to fill in the modern consus form, as they go about their daily lives. As it happens, a terrible virus is spreading across the world, named "European Flu." Our main character, Abby Grant, is worried about her holidaying son, who's quite recently recovered from a terminal illness. She ends up trying to drive to get her son from the holiday camp, while the world falls apart around her, and she gets the virus. As our lucky protagonist, she manages to fight it off. All of the characters fall asleep somehow, and when morning breaks 99% of the world's population is dead.
          Our main characters, all immune to the virus, which include a muslim boy (Najid, perhaps the most annoying thing the BBC have ever produced), a sorta-muslim bachelor (Al), Abby, a survivalist black man (Greg), an ex-army prisoner (Tom) and a lesbian doctor (Anya), meet up on the Manchester Ringroad and decide to stave out this new world together.
          I may have simplified the plot a bit, but that's what it is. There's some marvelous tension and some well-used gore that accurately and skillfully covers the virus' spread. It doesn't fall back on the "touchy subject, good programme" excuse and is actually quite a skillful piece of television. My only gripe at this stage is that none of the characters are very developed; they're just a bunch of grouped stereotypes. The only character with any backstory is Abby, and her whining for son Peter is quite irritating at times. Still, it's a good one-and-a-half-hour of sci-fi, and gets off to a good start. We have the hope of exploring a secret scientist lab, as shown in the end of the episode, and this should help keep away the tedium of the open country setting.

Thanks.

PS. A quick note in this episode is that publicity focussed heavily on the roles of lesbian teacher Freema Agyeman (Who played Martha Jones in Doctor Who Series 3-4) and Abby's husband David, played by Shaun Dingwall (Who played Rose's father in Doctor Who Series 1-2). Nonetheless, both die in the virus attacks, making it a little pointless.