Survivors Series 4 (Spoilers ok)

Finished off the set last night. Was intrigued by some of the directions taken.

The fate (or not?) of Theo was beautifully chilling. Darkly amusing that he continued to say he wasn't a leader, that he didn't have a messiah complex, but very clearly did. It was an odd but effective way to write Molly out of the series--or else give her an interesting story next time we see her, if Theo does somehow manage to survive and turns up. I thought that was very cleverly both definitive and giving a built-in option for the future.

Speaking of Molly: wow, what a way to tie things back to her introduction. Michael being one of her gang of tormentors was a great evolution of the story. His 'trial' may have come off a little bit forced (in terms of OOU storytelling, not necessarily in-universe), but I think that's more than forgiven because it allowed a platform through which the characters could express themselves on it. Molly as judge & jury, Jackie her stalwart supporter, Jenny being not quite as good a leader as she thinks she can be. And Michael, gah. You almost want to feel bad for him, with his guilt running so deep that he ultimately opts out, but then to be a part of that?

It was nice to finally get some resolution on the "Hannah" thing too. The past two episodes, I was totally confused whenever he said it, feeling like I'd missed the introduction of somebody. Glad to know that wasn't the case Now I almost feel like going back to the second series to see how well it gels with this set.

Evelyn and the pencil pushers...would be a great name for a polka band. What an entirely useless group of people. Not only are they useless, and refuse to adapt, but even narratively they're useless. You'd think at least one of them would be angry with Evelyn for being the single direct cause for their bunker descending into anarchy. But no, they can't even manage that. Total narrative albatross, this character and group. I feel like the only value they had for the story was a bit of a chuckle that they're as useful after the apocalypse as they were before. I notice for many BF box sets that Matt Fitton is the writer for the concluding episodes, making him something of a 'fixer', or at least a 'closer.' But even with that well-deserved, well-earned reputation, it seems like he didn't know what to do with these people either. To me, this really further cements the pointlessness of the first episode of this box set.


Overall? I feel like this set had one big issue (part 1 in its entirety), and a number of smaller ones that added up to drag the whole set down. However I was pretty blown away by how decent the whole thing was, after how abysmal I found the first episode to be. I think it's a real credit to everyone involved that after fumbling the ball so hard right out of the gate, they managed to do such a good job with so much else in the set that my opinion came out so high in the end. Were I to rank the box sets, this one would be at the bottom. But only insofar as, if the previous box sets were 9/10s and 10/10s, this one is a 7/10. Still good, but not as good.

Bring on Series 5!

Okay, I finished this a couple of days ago myself. Episode One, while it didn't bother me that much, I did say to myself "what are these people thinking?" more than during the 2nd half of the episode. Then we go back to our known characters in Episode 2 which was a relief of sorts. Louise's episode, I thought it was fine as I heard it and I'm glad I didn't know she wrote it until it was over, I'd rather have no distractions like "looking for flaws" that some people seem to do with Louise's work.

Theo was an interesting character to me... he's the nicest sounding nasty we've met so far. He's got a gilded tongue but still poisons people against each other and advancing his pleasant sounding, yet narrow views. The more I heard him, the more I came to dislike him. I enjoyed the fact that at the end, no one but a bunch of raucous crows heard him pounding on the vault doors.  (edit: another off-topic thought that came to mind a couple of times while listening to Ramon Tikaram's performance as Theo... was that he reminded me somewhat of Efrem Zimbalist Jr's performance of William Edgars in Season 4 of Babylon 5)

The person I wondered the most about as to where his story might go next, was the firebug, Roy.

Jenny and Greg: their relationship has already been defined. Yes it does get a bit old with Greg being a bit overbearing and overprotective of her. What I'd like to see is some growth in that area... both of them moving towards a middle ground maybe?

Just wondering what people thought about Michael. Did you sympathize with Jenny or Molly's POV in episode 4?


While I would be against a lynching I did sympathize with Molly in this case. Okay so Michael didn't go as far as the others, he was remorseful, didn't want to do what he did. And Jenny made the point that Michael had skills they needed. But none of that takes away from what he did to Molly. I feel the story wanted me to sympathize with Michael but I just couldn't. I thought of all those news stories where the news tries to make us feel bad for the raper. In the end it shouldn't be about Michael it should always be about Molly.

I think the only place I question myself is Michael had valuable skills but then I understand Molly's POV how could she live with this person after what he did to her. How could anyone ask that. I guess I never bought into the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

I also didn't like the comparison to Jackie's situation. She really did kill her children because she thought there were no other options. It might have been the wrong decision but it was for the right reasons. I can't see what Michael did is comparable. And feeling guilty and trying to "protect" Molly doesn't erase what he allowed to happen.


Maybe one day Molly could have forgiven Michael but this was not the time. If anything this was all Theo's fault who brought upon an impossible situation where there was really no good choice. And I think using Molly like that to expose Michael to the community was one of the worst things he did. And yes does show him as a true villain.

Ive finished the fourth series and unfortunately didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as previous series. Far far too much preaching and lecturing the listener.

Jackie as a character has always annoyed me but I did enjoy several characters telling her to back off!

Theo just didn't come across to me as realistic. More of a caricature of what they think an intelligent leader might be. I think the villains of previous series deserved more of a chance of a comeback. 

Some me of the background sound effects were appalling with some very cheesy and unrealistic
"whispers" and at the end when the members of the foundation were repeating back they sounded like mindless drones. I know it was called a cult a few times but if people talked like that the whole time then Greg, Jenny and the rest of them would have been on to them like a shot.

The first episode was pretty dire. Lewis, who up to that point was reasonably intelligent, just decided to blindly walk into a disused part of the bunker with a woman who had made no secret of hating him?? Not believeable. 

I'm really disappointed as I look forward to the Survivors series a lot. I'll still invest in series 5 and see if this was just a hiccup. 

I'd say my order of favourite series would now stand at 3,1,2,4.