A Television Epidemic

Survivors is a relatively recent British television series, set against the backdrop of a fictional flu epidemic, which sweeps the globe, leaving behind only a few survivors.

There are echos of LOST, much like other television of late, in fact there is even a line in the pilot episode, in which the lead character (assuming control of the small group the series follows) utters "we either live together or ...die..." (implied: alone.)

What makes this piece unique is its perspective. Taking a global post-apocalyptic natural disaster and placing the central action in rural Britain.

This isn't a flu epidemic in New York or London, it's in the rolling hills of the British countryside. We follow real, working class people, so the series takes on a stark reality. There's no Hollywood, just raw Britain with raw British characters.

In the pilot you see the inner workings of the British government from the Prime Minister on down - you see how the British government react and handle the epidemic and then you see the government as they try to restructure after the event itself.

You empathize with the core characters of the piece, and each episode deals with a new isolated dilemma for the characters to dispel.

Not content with telling a simple story of survival, the writers have already laid the blueprints for some 'foul play' characters that take on a certain 'Dharma' quality - scientists in lab coats testing vaccines and wearing biohazard suits, suggesting there's some dark pharmaceutical underbelly of flu-carrying terrorists that might have caused the epidemic... but that's to be expected. Luckily this is taking a "back seat" so there's very little bio-tech science fiction going on.

All in all it's well worth checking out. And it's available on Netflix DVD or to stream.