Survivors series 1 closing remarks

Of course it wasn't a coincidence that I chose to watch Survivors now. I wanted a way to face my fears about civilisation collapsing and I found one by identifying with Abby and Jenny as their civilisation did just that, leaving them to survive alone in an almost empty world.

Just put yourself in their place. Everyone you know is dead, the entire way of life you're used to is gone forever. You're walking across country in a furry coat or living in your car. It's so appalling that there's something liberating about it. When Abby burns her house down at the end of ep 1 I can entirely understand why she does it. Equally I know what they're feeling in ep 4, when they're carelessly ignoring the Give Way signs and casually saying things like 'Drop me at the next car.'

But that atmosphere doesn't last. Even in that scene Abby says 'That would be a silly way to die' - something I've often thought these last couple of weeks when walking into the road to maintain social distancing on the pavement - and soon they're having to deal on one hand with the local tyrants, madmen and corrupt heirs of authority we expect to find in all post-apocalypse stories, and on the other with trying to attain self-sufficiency. I admire the realism but I'm not as interested in it as I was in the breakdown itself and the immediate aftermath.

But watching Survivors has been a transformative experience for me.