Survivors - 2.10 Parasites

Rather an odd entry this. Mina's down on the canal bank collecting leaves, and who should come along in a boat full of merchandise than Patrick Troughton. She arranges a meeting next day between him and the survivors for trade, and between him and her for a meal a deux.

But it's not he who arrives, but evil criminal Jeff Kane, played by notable Hancock impersonator Kevin McNally. If this had been made 5 years later I think Daniel Peacock would have been cast. He has a great speech where he expresses his contempt for norms before the plague, 'and now they're all here pretending it's some jolly Outward Bound camp.' Not every show has the courage to include meta-criticism of itself. Mina soon discovers that he's murdered Trout and left him floating in the canal with a knife in his back.

Despite the extreme naivete of the survivors, Kane doesn't actually succeed in stealing anything from them other than the very-much-foregrounded methyl alcohol with which he and his companion end up poisoning themselves with. He does however shockingly murder Lewis. I was half expecting Lewis to be removed from the story at some point but that still took me aback. Anyway, Kane and his sidekick accidentally blow themselves up, the end.

Not much world-building here other than to establish that as well as fascists of at least three different shades, designing women, rapacious traders, petrol bandits and rapists - as well as all these, good honest criminals are still active after the apocalypse.

Mina goes leaf-collecting in rather delicate knitted tights. It's her choice. But if I had nice tights after the apocalypse I think I'd save them for a special occasion.

When Trout mentions the A40 she says '..the A40...' in rather the same nostalgic way that Jack reminisces about his Sunday morning chores in ep 2.8.

Trout says he was an aircraft marshaller 'two years ago'. Just possibly suggesting that it might be closer to 2 years than 18 months since the plague. If Lewis is planting cabbage seed in the field scene, then it can't be, it must be still April/May. Also Mina has a vase of daffodils on her table.

Odd outburst of hooting or creaking at the end of Trout and Mina's opening scene. It bleeds over into the next scene with Lewis in the cabbage field.

Greg refers to the apocalypse as the 'holocaust', we haven't had that before.

The salt expeditions continue as a convenient device to ensure that they only have to pay half the cast half the time. But salt would be an important commodity to people in their situation. The source is 120 miles north of the settlement - an 8 day round trip by horse, assuming they make an easy walk of the journey as we saw Charles and Pet doing in the previous ep.

Another voiceover in the final scene. I don't like this tendency to more sophisticated forms, I want to stick with the strictly literal style that perfectly suited the first series. This is a very serious story about people in a very serious situation, I want it told in a very serious way.