Survivors - 3.6 Reunion

Interesting bit at the beginning of this ep where, just for a moment, it looks like Charles doesn't want them to bother rescuing Hubert's friend. Which is possibly why Hubert is later talking about how people are still 'behaving as if they had money.' He does get further elevated out of the comic relief category in this ep, which is good, it was a bit uncomfortable having him grousing but being useful in the background all the time.

Good to see Jack and Pet again, I was beginning to wonder if we ever would. The plan for them to drive out and meet the others had me clutching my head though, don't these people ever learn?

To make up for the continued Greg teasing, we're given the reunion between John and his mother. I did like the scene where they arrive back at his old home, and all our friends who've been looking after him for the last couple of years are watching anxiously to see how he reacts. 'Where's my pony?'

Janet has beautifully manicured nails for a post-apocalyptic vet.

Jenny finally mentions her baby Paul again. And indeed is reunited with him.

Dating: there are daffodils on the table at Challenor, so the suggestion is that it's still March or April. But really more time must have passed than that, to accommodate the action since ep 3.3. Btw I'm not and haven't been drawing any clues from the weather and foliage seen on location, because obviously they can't choose those, whereas of course the table flowers are a different matter.

John was due home from his granny's the day after the foot and mouth disease broke out at home, and the foot and mouth was a month before the plague. He was at prep school so that day must have been during the holidays, and at least a few days before term started, perhaps longer. Private schools have slightly later term starts than normal ones, but the autumn term would probably still have started in the first half of September, so the plague would have been in the first half of October. Unless he was away for half term, which would put it at the end of November. But I think that's less likely. You wouldn't send a kid miles away to his grandmother's, and also plan time at home for him afterwards, with just a week to play with. So on that basis the date when ep 1.1 starts might be Mon Oct 6 or 13. That's 2-3 weeks earlier than the earliest possibility suggested by almost the other clues so far.

Furthermore. Janet talks about her horse show activities in 1973. So obviously the plague must have been no earlier than 1973. I get the idea that the production team thought the plague was in 1974, but I'm sticking to 1975 because the autumn outbreak of the plague would then have been in the future when series 1 was broadcast in April.