A plague wipes out 99-point-something percent of the human race and the survivors have to start again from scratch. The quality of the episodes varies but for me it was never less than good and I'd really put the best ones up there with 'I, Claudius' and the original 'Upstairs Downstairs' at the very peak of classic British TV drama - most notably an episode from the first series revolving around capital punishment and one from the third that's like a cross between a western, a horror movie and a Breughel winterscape, with philosophical interludes. It does have flaws. Some interesting characters are written out too soon, and series stars left without their characters being written out, leading to that unsatisfactory situation I remember from other 70s shows where there are rumours of sightings of them and hints that they may return eventually. Personally I liked that there was a mix of different types of stories, from adventure to character clash to ideas-based to ones based around technical ingenuity and the resolution of simple problems of coping without infrastructure, even that in the second series there were episodes or portions thereof that were almost idyllic where the major conflict was competing visions of the future. Most of the core characters were middle-class, old-school British, optimists, can-do types, planners, builders, and their belief that they could pull things together again, determination to make the best of things, even excitement at the chance for a fresh start helped make things bearable. But there's plenty of tension, menace, challenge, it's downright harrowing at times, and the deprivations the survivors undergo are a salutary lesson in not taking for granted all the things you tend to. I remember the relish with which I ate an egg after watching an episode where they're an incredible luxury. If you like (surely the wrong word) John Wyndham's apocalypses or are fascinated by Robinson Crusoe daydreams of 'What would I do if...?' this is especially for you. Avoid the remake like the plague.

The saddest part of this "business" is that Carolyn Seymour got fired after season one because she was accused of being an alcoholic by the ass-hole producer/boss. She was the star! The writing was great but degraded over time and do not watch the final season as they let it all go to hell (I know as I own the DVDs and having watched it as a teen in the 1970s when it meant something to me). And it still does.The story is that a disease has killed most of us. Season one is as about as good as it gets for anyone interested in what happens when most of us die and we must now try to survive when the food and the gas gets low. It is science fiction but I think the acting/characters are great and how they relate and strangely it has its moments. Classic post-apolcoliptic fiction but told with wonderful humanity at times. I feel it after many watchings still.HHR

Survivors is the first post doomsday drama on British television, echoing the pessimistic world view of 70s science fiction feature films such as The Andromeda Strain, The Omega Man or Planet of the Apes. Of course Survivors obviously also owes a lot to the grandmaster of British Science Fiction, John Wyndham with some dialogues almost verbatim taken from the day of the Triffids. But that does not have an impact on the quality of the programme. Like in Romero's Crazies the bureaucracy just fails terribly and the world becomes overrun by a deadly virus. Helpless attempts at stopping it are made but it all ends with a whimper. So a group of survivors from all different walks of life meet and group together. The disaster brings out the best and the worst in people: the hamprered housewife turns into a leader, the leader into a fascist and a rich woman into the bitch from hell. So a lot of the drama comes from the dynamics between the people and all the dilemmas you face in this situation. For viewers of todaya it takes a while getting used to the much slower pace of narration of the 70s. Long scenes, no hand camera and sparingly used music. That makes it look dated but once you accept it, it really makes very good viewing because the pace matches the helplesness of the people. Theonly drawback for me is that as with a lot of 70s and especially 80s British TV the outdoor scenes and the studio scenes were shot on different material so that as a viewer you experience really harsh differences in term of the picture.

What an incredible impact this series had on me as a nine year old in 1975. To me it was absolutely terrifying the way it depicted the total collapse of civilisation. The airliners taking off from Heathrow during the credits really illustrated perfectly how a killer virus would be spread right round the planet. The Oriental scientist at the start carried the plague overseas - was this a deliberate ploy by his government because they knew their own country was doomed? Or was the plague slow acting at the start and he didn't know he was infected? Jenny's doctor friend said that the disease was a mutant virus. That suggests to me it changed very quickly and started killing much quicker as it spread worldwide. You seen people dead behind the wheel of their vehicles meaning it killed very quickly at times. I would expect the towns and cities to look just like early morning - cars lined neatly outsides houses and in driveways and shops and factories locked up, because people would simply be dead in their homes. Wouldn't cities be gloomy and terrifying without street lighting and illumination from homes and shops? Obviously the rats and other vermin would be widespread. Pets would become feral again no doubt. Do you think towns and cities would ever be accessible again? How long would it take for nature to reclaim the built up areas? Just think, all round the world would be virtually silent with vast cities with only a handful of stunned, terrified people in them.Another thing, in Survivors you seen Greg, Abby and Jenny using petrol pumps to fill up cars they acquired. Think about it, nowadays that would be impossible because you need to get activation from an attendant's computerised screen/till and obviously the power would be gone. How could you get fuel? Computers and advancing technology if anything has made us MORE vulnerable. If society collapsed we'd be completely at a loss in many ways, much more so than when Survivors was on.With all the corpses lying dead, wouldn't other diseases be on the rise? That would be disastrous for new born babies because they wouldn't be innoculated in a post plague world.So, so many questions. Survivors is probably the best post plague apocalyptic series I've ever seen.