Survivors - 4 Corn Dolly

Some quite moving moments in this episode, starting with Abby seeing the snowdrops and the songbirds and thinking of what, if anything, spring means in her new world.

Then there's her maternal instinct to take care of young Mick, contrasting with the conversation she and Jen have about giving birth post-apocalypse.

And then - Charles having exposited that so far none of the survivors knew each other before the plague, or even knew of each other - they gather round the kitchen table for dinner and companionship. That brought tears to my eyes actually. All the more so because there was obviously something not quite right about Charles and his settlement, and I knew that we were about to find out what it was.

My copy of Day of the Triffids is in my parents' loft, so I couldn't check, but ISTR one of the settlements in that also is run by a man whose main motive is to impregnate all his female followers. One of several similarities between the two stories so far. Though to be fair to Charles, the implication is that the loss of his three children to the plague has unbalanced him and made him focus his otherwise sound plans for rebuilding civilisation onto the 'I get to f**k everyone' issue.

Jenny and her friends have lost track of the date. I wouldn't have lost track of the date, because I've read Robinson Crusoe. I'm not sure they've read or watched any 'last man'/post-apocalyptic fiction/drama at all, because they're astonishingly careless, they never set a watch at night or have qualms about setting off alone across country in the casual expectation of meeting back up with the other two somehow. I suppose that might be what the bit about ignoring the Give Way signs at the junction was about.

Anyway, the point is, it's now February 24th. And in the opening scene Greg talks about 'weeks' having passed.

In episode 1 the weather was warm enough for Abby to be playing tennis, albeit in long trousers, and for there to be thunder while she was having the plague. So it must have been October at the very latest then. OTOH she and her daily woman both put winter coats on to go to the station. It might have been November.

Either way, if it's February now we must give her and her friends credit for surviving the first winter.