Tony Fyler survives
again – not everyone’s so lucky.
Survivors is an audio
series that’s evolving. Series 1 was one of the two best Big Finish releases of
its year (Domain of the Voord, since you ask), because it showed scenarios that
the original TV Survivors couldn’t afford to show – how victims of the pandemic
plague now being simply called the Death suffered in urban environments like airports
and suburban environments like a college. The TV Survivors from the 1970s
became largely rural pretty quickly, mostly because it was cheaper and more
realistic to shoot scenes in a rural environment but also because, to be fair,
most people with any sense would flee urban environments in a plague
scenario – when basic amenities break down in cities, they become a magnifying
glass not only for additional piggy-back diseases, but also for the competition
for scarce resources and the worst in human nature. That being said, the first
audio series of Survivors didn’t take it
as read that this was necessarily a bad environment to set its drama in, and it
was genuinely shocking even to a 21st century listener.
Series 2 saw our band of
survivors shift to the countryside and experimented with storytelling,
confident enough in itself and its cast to not have to have all of them in
every story – it pretty much broke its cast up into a male group and a female
group, and allowed an episode to really focus on each, giving an almost
sing-song rhythm, despite tackling some hardcore subjects, including a
psychotic rural reversion to cannibalism and tribal ‘us and them’ mentalities.
Series 3 evolves that
confidence even further, leaving some of the characters behind entirely,
focusing on stories involving Abby and her continuing search for her son Peter,
Molly, the young woman who had suffered at the hands of a rape gang in Series 2
(did I mention the storylines were hardcore?), Daniel the reporter who
found himself changed and guilt-ridden at the end of Series 2 by his actions,
and – as a joyful surprise – Maddie Price, kickass American attorney and
would-be Bridezilla, last seen as pretty much one of the last people alive in
Heathrow, back in Series 1. Maddie’s played by switched-on queen of the geeks
Chase Masterson, and added exactly the right kind of international accent to
turn Survivors Series 1 into a depiction of a worldwide epidemic. She does much
the same here in Series 3, and episodes 2, 3 and 4 involve her right in the
thick of the action. But before any of that, we go a little back in time with
Molly, to set up the Big Bad of Series 3, John ‘Vinnie’ Vincent.
If there’s a worse place
to be when a global epidemic breaks out than a city, it’s a ship. Episode 1 of
Series 3, Cabin Fever by Jonathan Morris, shows exactly why. In between fever
dreams, Molly relates the story of how she survived when the Death hit the
cross-Channel ferry, she and her friend Janet (played by long-time Big Finisher
and new Sixth Doctor companion Miranda Raison) having nipped across for a
cheeky weekend in France.
What becomes clear quickly
as port after port refuse to allow the ship to dock is that the rules of
society break down in a closed environment, and they who have the muscle make
the law. A group of football louts, led by Vinnie, become the new ‘police’ of
the ship, enforcing a kind of brutish martial law, rationing food and resources, and ultimately throwing
people overboard if they believe they have the Death – or even if they’re just
inconvenient. In a story that allows Paul Thornley as Vinnie to bring the very
worst of the seventies growling to the fore, including sexism, racism, and
casual threat (basically everything kept alive in the 21st century
by Britain First and Donald Trump), the atmosphere is claustrophobic and returns
us to that Series 1 sense of shock that things like our civilised society can
fall apart so quickly. Listen out for Lisa Bowerman too, in a role unlike those
you’ll expect from her, as the storyline delivers one of the greatest, most
ghastly moments in the history of MASH, repurposed here to show the utter depth
of Vinnie’s depravity.
Why this focus on Vinnie?
Because in the remaining three stories, he has established himself as the
leader of ‘The British Government’ – essentially a growing gang of his ferry
thugs, armed to the teeth and promoting ‘British purity,’ meaning not only an
isolationist standpoint as regards contact with the outside world, but also a
twisted attempt to justify their own racist and homophobic viewpoints.
In episode 2, Contact by
Simon Clark, we’re reintroduced to Maddie Price, now a kind of almost solitary
queen on top of the Post Office Tower (in the 1970s, one of, if not the highest
point in London). Above all the carnage, Maddie and her geeky, slightly creepy
friend Jonathan (a new acquisition for this series, played by the
fabulously-named James Joyce with a good degree of balance between the positive
and negative elements of his character) operate a radio, as ‘London Calling’ –
a beacon to try and communicate with anyone abroad, to help discover whether
there still is anyone abroad. With both Abby and her friends – Daniel,
Molly, Jimmy Garland (making his first appearance in the audios proper) and
Dalton Roberts – and Vinnie and his gang en route to find her, it’s a powerful
episode that tears down the niceties of what ‘can’t be done’ in civilised
society.
It’s also a setting that’s
continued in episode 3, Rescue by Andrew Smith – famous for many things, but
not least for penning some of the most philosophically interesting Suvivors
episodes to date. He doesn’t disappoint here either – while the plot is
essentially a kind of British, 70s, Die Hard at the Post Office Tower, Smith
gives us plenty of gruesome confrontation between attitudes, as Vinnie and
Dalton (who is black) stand off, and Daniel (who is gay) has a particularly
spectacular episode. It’s by no means all jolly hockey sticks, triumph of the
just stuff though – there are plenty of bodies by the end of this episode,
underlining the stupidity of the human race, which will kill its own kind for
arbitrary differences even when there is no scarcity of resource pressing on
it.
Episode 4, Leaving by Matt
Fitton, brings this long storyline to a conclusion, with plans for a ship to
sail across the Atlantic, and some of the Survivors desperate to get on board
and make a new life away from the likes of Vinnie and his thugs. Vinnie’s not
having any of that though, and Thornley, whose portrayal bristles throughout
this series with enough intelligence to make Vinnie’s thuggery more shocking
than it would be were it just reactive, continues his superb work, playing Mr
Nice Guy to buy himself time to scupper the plan. It’s particularly creepy when
Vinnie, whose attitudes are so utterly repugnant, is pleasant and plausible –
it reminds us that human vileness often comes with a smile and a suit, and it
makes us trust our leaders slightly less.
All in all, the truth is
that any series of Survivors from Big Finish is money beautifully well spent.
But in returning to the urban environment and dealing with the dangers and the
personalities that would arise there, Series 3 feels like a return to the
unique selling point of Series 1 on audio – it can take us into places that the
TV version never could, and here it succeeds utterly in delivering four
shocking episodes. Best episode this time out is tricky to choose, but if
pushed, I’d say Cabin Fever is something truly special, showing how ordinary,
day-to-day run-of-the-mill loutishness can turn into something far more brutal
and terrifying if simply given the scenario that allows it to do so.
Series 4 has just been
announced for June 2016, and is said to focus on the characters left behind
this time – Greg, Jenny, Jackie and others, returning to the more rural
setting. Survivors continues to set its bar ridiculously high: here’s hoping
Series 4 can match the intensity and humanity of this series. It will be no
easy task.
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