apocalyptic dramas

[anevilgiraffe]

was browsing Virgin on demand yesterday and in the What We're Watching selection there is a category of apocalyptic dramas which includes the following:

The Mad Death - 80's drama about a rabies outbreak in Scotland, oddly I remembered watching this back in the day as the distorted swirly fox in the titles was the one thing I remembered along with the fox attack on the car, didn't remember anything else at the time... of course it's hardly Outbreak or Contagion, but it was scary stuff back in the day, and episode 3 is loaded with British Army - I have such a fondness for 80's army kit, probably from watching stuff like this.

The War Game - damn this was stark for 1965 drama, it was based on what would happen if it all kicked off at that time (China got involved with Vietnam, the Yanks got annoyed, Russia got annoyed, we retaliated), which was pretty interesting and surprisingly raw... it is still a little Chumley-Warner in it's presentation, and the science is talking down to the viewer - "the shockwave from a nuclear blast has been likened to an enormous door slamming in the depths of hell"... seriously, but well worth a watch.

Threads - of course, no collection of world gone to sh!t would be complete without Threads, I still remember the uproar on this one as well, didn't watch it yesterday, but a friend had a DVD of it a couple of years ago and it was still powerful stuff, if you've never seen it, do... now, in fact.

there were some other more recent stuff as well - those silly drama-doc's that seem to be all over the place nowadays, but those 3 above are the real pick of the bunch for me...

[Lowtardog]

The last train was quite good from a few years back

[anevilgiraffe]

the last train was quite good, ITV though - the collection on Virgin seems to be of BBC productions.

[v_lazy_dragon]

So is the Last train - albeit with each episdoe broken up into 6 parts. Most of survivors is serialised that way too...

[zizi666]

I have just slogged through 2.7 seasons of survivors until I just could not take another second of some drippy post apoc hippys.

? strange. I've seen both seasons. Nothing past that as it was cancelled.
You are talking about this one, right ?

[warlord frod]

The new TV show the 100 is not bad. Acid fog, Bomb shelters, mutated animals, Barbaric earth survivors there to harass the youth dumped on the planet by a space based group of survivors who are in a failing space station who "Float" criminals out the air lock. 

[zizi666]

who "Float" criminals out the air lock. 

Sounds a bit like the script writers read Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".

[warlord frod]

Sounds a bit like the script writers read Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".

Yes and combined it with William Goldings "Lord of the Flies" Teens governing themselves 

[Halforc]

I'm a big fan of the original survivors series, the fact there was no background music added to the desolation, especially creepy as Abbie walks the corridor of her sons boarding school, her footsteps echoing throughout, eerie!

The last train was good, although I would have slapped those brats silly!

[Achilles]

Was the Last Train the one where they get flash-frozen... thaw and then are crucified at the end?

[CptJake]

was browsing Virgins on demand yesterday

Tells us more.

 

[Too Bo Coo]

well after watching survivors it seem that the UK is not where to be in a PA setting...  its like there are 5 guns in the whole country.  So... no shotguns on farms?  No raiding a police station for weapons?  ??

All i could think about through the whole thing was, who put the Minister in charge?  Seriously, if the plague happened on their watch, they can consider themselves fired.  In fact, why was she not strung up?

They seems to take very stupid chances by leavingf all of these people alive after trouble.  At least we have enough good sense to include a good deal of hardware in our games!

i really dont care for stories that rely on situational stupidity to push the plot...

[Too Bo Coo]

A zip gun is not brain surgery, you can make an improvised shotgun even easier. 

That said, I'm talking legit firearms.  From a dramatic pov, it's also just weak storytelling that the characters alternate between SUPER PEOPLE and the most inept asses you could come across.

The basic story is good, elites trying to wipe out 99% of use so that they can live in the same manner without all of the ecological damage, is interesting.  Since the series didnt finish I'm curious if this was where it was all going to head.

The last bit I found irritating was how when they had the lab manager and are asking about the kid, they act like they came to a bargaining table.  Abbie had a pistol, one shot to the kneecap and he would have fessed up in moments.  The second season felt much poorer in terms of quality than the first. 

That said, I did like the hour and a half episodes.  And the black actor who played in Peep Show is one of my new favorites.  He was funny as hell in Peep Show as 'Johnson' and was great in this role as well.

[warlord frod]

Just watched the latest episode of the 100  This show is getting better and better. Grounders were a large part of tonight's episode and right now you can watch it all on the CW web site  http://www.cwtv.com/cw-video/ check it out.

[warlord frod]

Latest episode of the 100. Space ark now knows earth is survivable only one problem - Over 2000 aboard and only enough drop pods for 700  meanwhile earth survivors are tough as nails and may have mutant powers of some kind tune in next week. One note there were a ton of commercials  still its worth it I think. Anyone else out there taking the time to watch?