WRITER: Adrian Hodges[SPOILERS] Adrian Hodges returned to bookend Survivors' second series with an episode that worked as a decent finale with engaging action sequences and a fun coda, but it was a little disappointing to have so much of the mystery explained as, well, what most people's first thought had been. I guess that's one of the key problems with Survivors as a sci-fi drama: it flirts with potential, sometimes developing a sense of intrigue, but it's ultimately content to tell formulaic end-of-the-world storylines with ruthless scientists creating a vaccine (including the usual "end justifies the means" mentality), a secret Noah's Ark-like project to protect the "great thinkers" of the world, and a mutated virus killing survivors that's spread by birds, etc.
DIRECTOR: Farren Blackburn
GUEST CAST: Nicholas Gleaves, Geraldine Somerville, Patrick Malahide, Jack Richardson & Robyn Addison
Mild-mannered doc Whitaker (Nicholas Gleaves) has Abby's son Peter (Jack Richardson) in his custody, hoping to be extracted by his superior Landry (Patrick Malahide) now his lab's become infected and his staff are dead, so they can use the boy to create a vaccine. Abby (Julie Graham) and the gang are searching for Peter and come across a naturally-immune scientist called Fiona (Geraldine Somerville) in the abandoned lab, who believes she's close to creating a vaccine but needs to test it on a human subject. Al (Phillip Rhys) volunteers to be her guinea pig. Later, Whittaker is captured as he returns to the facility to make arrangements for his own rescue and tortured by Tom (Max Beesley) over the whereabouts of Peter, who has been stowed in a static caravan at a nearby holiday camp and is under orders to shoot any strangers.
Taken as its own entity, the finale was relatively entertaining, but as the accumulation of so many plot-strands started in series 1 it felt rather flat and unsurprising. It also containing quite a few laughable moments. Chief amongst them was how Peter became, unintentionally, the biggest nuisance imaginable: somehow managing to shoot Fiona clean through the heart from a distance, after mistaking her as trouble; and later being manipulated into shooting Tom in the shoulder. Considering all the strife the gang have been through to find Peter, it was rather hilarious to see him cause them nothing but problems. A few more minutes on-screen and I'm sure he'd have accidentally shot his mum dead, too.
Overall, series 2 wasn't as taught as the first year, but I had more fun with it -- even if that's because it often approaches "so bad it's good" territory. Abby was more agreeable because they subdued her histrionics over her missing son, and the mystery with the scientists and those coded postcards was appealing if eventually exposed as banal. If Survivors has a major fault it's the feeling the writers don't have a firm grasp of the characters and the actors are left to just emote as best they can: Abby barely did anything once she'd escaped from the lab early on; Tom just glowered and told us why he was jailed; sweet Anya's tense relationship with bad-boy Tom doesn't work; Al and Sarah (Robyn Addison) benefited from their union, but romance was short-lived and neither character did much beyond it; Najid (Chahak Patel) did literally nothing of any consequence; and Greg's (Paterson Joseph) past may have been revealed to us, but the fact his family have likely been evacuated to safety is essentially something that won't be explored until series 3.
Not for the first time with a homegrown serialized drama, I got the distinct impression that a lot of Survivors' problems is down to the fact British writers don't work collectively to hammer out each character's arc and the broader storyline. It means there's a certain amount of slack and filler in-between premiere and finale, with writers having to follow a general direction Adrian Hodges decides on -- which has amounted to a mishmash of every "doomsday" trope going. The problem to overcome with series 3 is that it feels like the characters and plot don't have much mileage left to them, although I'm curious to see what Landry's safe haven looks like, who was taken there, and where it's located. But is that really enough to sustain another six episodes?
Asides
-- Did anyone else find it irritating that they never explained how Peter came to be in Whitaker's care? The last time we saw the boy he was about to release evil trucker Billy from the tree trunk he'd been tied to in episode 4. So what happened? It feels like we skipped an episode.
-- Greg guessed Whitaker's password at the first attempt?!
-- Do you really risk shooting a bad guy in the torso with a submachine gun when he's rolling around on the ground on top of your friend?
23 FEBRUARY 2010: BBC1, 9PM
