Come on, be honest. You must agree that the BBC’s latest adaptation of Survivors is a complete waste of time and money.

It’s not strictly this series alone that strives only to fail. I’m getting pretty sick of all these TV shows that start with a pretty decent premise, throws in some interesting characters and then nothing, Kaput, de nada. I’m going to call it the ‘One In Three’ rule. You hook ‘em in with a semi decent storyline and then drag it out so that there’s only one decent hour in three. There might be a rising trend in consuming programmes like these as part of an entire DVD package over a single weekend – but you do have to draw the line at drivel.

The thing that is particularly bad with Survivors is that tries to be a cosy catastrophe like The Day of The Triffids and other post-apocalyptic visions, but it ends up being nothing at all.

And, speaking of Triffids, did you see the way the Beeb botched that one up at Christmas as well?

Rant, rant, rant. One of the many ways of demonstrating why this series sucks is the casting of Paterson Joseph in the lame character of Greg Preston. Now Joseph is, in my opinion, one of the best Shakespearean actors out there. If you ever see him on stage you’ll see how talented this guy is. But translated onto screen his talents are wasted. It’s like inviting Chekov in for a nice cup of tea at the Queen Vic.

The BBC describe Paterson’s character thus:

‘Greg Preston (Paterson Joseph) A former systems analyst for a big multi-national, Greg felt trapped and dreamed of a new life. But his wife, who had grown used to a wealthy and comfortable lifestyle, was appalled by his utopian vision of a new, hard scrabble future. Nursing bitter personal wounds, Greg is now a man who believes he can live without love, friendship or family. ‘

Hardly Troilus and Cressida is it? And it plays out like this:

In fact, this clip alone was perhaps the most exciting part of that particular episode. Painful to watch.

I’m not having a dig at the actors, it’s the script I’m on about. And the audacity of slopping this up for a full hour each week. 

But, being a sucker, I’ll probably watch it to the end.

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