Survivors - 2.3 Lights of London pt 1

Some really unexpected and shocking images to start this ep - the masked doctor echoing the scientist in the opening credits, the surgery with its electric lights, the police car. The Denning Farm guy is as shocked as I am to see it.

The series 1 house was called The Grange, I don't think that name has been used before.

Ruth points out ironically that Penny has access to makeup. It has obviously grown rarer since series 1.

I was a bit disappointed by the journey to London being composed mainly of dark hints. I wanted to see an empty stretch of motorway with the odd wrecked car.

The unwholesomeness of the London settlement is really nicely built up - the initial deception practiced on Ruth, Trigger lurking outside, Manny's sinister bonhomie, the doctor's concern with breeding, Vira letting slip the secret of the Move. All the same, such comforts as it offers are clearly tempting Ruth, in her little pre-apocalypse bubble bedroom.

The Oval all dug up for crops. Very HG Wells.

Ruth tells the doctor she's had 4½ years' training, but in 1.13 she said she'd been in her third year when the plague struck.

I feel the stuff about the radio messages from Cairo shows the show is moving in a direction I won't like. I liked the 'blank slate' feeling of series 1. I'm not sure I actually want civilisation to be rebuilt in this way.

Dating: it's still winter, it can't be all that long since the previous ep. Abby left London a month ago (if anything the Londoners say can be trusted). They've been listening for radio broadcasts for a year, which suggests the London settlement formed while the plague was still raging. The doctor says the plague struck 'about a year ago', which fits with Charles' equally vague reference in the previous ep. I am moving towards placing the plague in November 1975 rather than at the end of October - although that makes episodes 1.10-1.13 even harder to fit in to the following June. For that part of the series 1 dating to work, the plague has to be as early as possible.