BBC sci-fi drama: Survivors

[Guest guest]

Outbreak: could a million-killing superbug really happen?

A lethal virus infects 90 per cent of the population on new BBC One

drama Survivors. Science-fiction... or is it?

The cast of BBC's sci-fi drama Survivors by Vivienne Parry

From The Times November 29, 2008

The sudden outbreak of a lethal virus that spreads quickly, killing

millions, is a nightmare scenario that haunts many of us - especially

those who have been watching BBC One's apocalyptic new drama Survivors.

Viruses have indeed wiped out 90 per cent of a human population. We've

seen that in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976 with Ebola, an

unspeakably nasty affliction caused by a haemorrhagic fever virus that

has one of the highest case fatality rates of any human disease. It's

one of a family of viruses that you definitely don't want to have,

which also includes those responsible for Lassa fever and Marburg

fever. But this event did take place in a very isolated area in a

small population, with almost no access to medical help.

The lethality of these viruses limits their spread. People become so

ill so quickly that they cannot travel far before dying. Ah yes, you

say, (if you are the scriptwriter of Survivors), but what if someone

boarded an aircraft immediately after infection but before symptoms

appeared. Couldn't they spread it halfway across the world and kill 90

per cent of the population that way? No. Sorry to be a Survivors

killjoy, but these viruses are pretty much stopped in their tracks by

effective isolation and infection-control measures.

On the other hand, a candidate for a really good apocalypse virus is

one that can be transmitted by droplet infection in the air, is

infectious before a person has any symptoms and is not so lethal that

people who have it can't spread it about by travelling. Something like

flu, for instance. Pandemic flu is perfect.So would - could - pandemic

flu wipe out 90 per cent of the population?

Times Archive, 1918: Rise in 'influenza' epidemic death-roll

The number of deaths officially attributed to influenza in the 96

great towns of England and Wales last week was 7,421

* Deaths in London and the country

* Four 'influenza' stages

* The Influenza

[Guest guest]

TV review: Survivors Nov 24, 2008, By Clay

At 9pm last night, people all over Britain will have plonked

themselves down with a nice bottle of wine to watch BBC1's

spellbinding new thriller, Survivors.

Not long after, a sizeable chunk of them will have wished they'd

poured themselves a Lemsip instead. A pint of Lemsip, perhaps. Just as

a precaution.

Survivors is a remake of Terry Nation's post-apocalyptic 1970s series

about a pandemic flu virus which wipes out most of the population.

It's a pretty convincing remake too: an unsettling, haunting drama

with a strong cast, a powerful story and a premise that's bleaker than

a month of Mondays. In Coventry.

But it's probably not the best choice of viewing for hypochondriacs.

Nor the suggestible.

Over the course of an opening hour in which virtually everyone who

appeared on the screen died a sweaty death, I half believed I had most

of the main symptoms.

First a sniff. Then another. Then a slight clamminess. Then a sudden

wash of nausea; the kind you ordinarily get only while watching Kilroy

on I'm A Celebrity.

Turns out I was just a little eggbound, but things are a tad more

serious on the box, where Britain is littered with the dead.

Curiously, they all seem to have died at once. But that delivered

Survivors' strongest scenes, an eerie segment where each of the

characters who'd escaped the savage sniffles picked their way through

the flyblown aftermath.

So: Philip Rhys' moneyed playboy woke from a one-night stand to

discover his hot date had gone rather cold while Max Beesley's

murderous prisoner impassively watched his cellmate shudder and shiver

to death.

And at the heart of the story, Graham's pivotal Abby recovered

from a delirious bout of the bug to find her husband had croaked on

the settee, and all her neighbours were stiffs too.

For a while, they were alone. Like I Am Legend, without the zombies;

Then it turns into Day of the Triffids, without the peckish plants.

But all along, it's a rattling good yarn, which is only slightly

marred by surprisingly rubbishy special effects at the end.

Animals in the Womb (7.10pm, Saturday, Channel 4) was full of

staggering images of embryonic kittens.

Alas, I got rather stuck on the opening fact: a male cat's penis is

covered in barbs, designed to scratch and scrape during nookie.

That'll put the ow in miaow.

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