Survivors (2008 TV Series) - Production

Production

Sue Hogg, an executive producer at the BBC, had the idea of remaking Survivors following the recent increase in concerns about future pandemics and diseases such as SARS. It was decided that the show would be a re-imagining of the 1970s material made by BBC Productions rather than an external production company. The BBC pursued the rights for Survivors from Terry Nation's estate so that the series could be revived. The agreement, which was signed in 2007, took months of negotiations. For legal reasons, the new series is billed as being based on Nation's novelisation of material from his episodes of the 1970s series.

In remaking the series, Adrian Hodges worked to avoid criticisms of the 1970s series and he felt it was "important that a new version had a cultural and class mix that really represented the country as it is now"; to meet this needs, they created two new characters, Al and Najid. The writers claimed that the new series retained the "spirit" of the 1970s show, but Hodges concentrated on the hope and the humanity which was said to be an attempt to make it "less depressing" to watch.

The city scenes in the first series were filmed in Manchester, while city scenes in the second series were filmed in Birmingham.

To help create a world with no people, some scenes were shot very early on a Sunday morning, including a sequence where Al Sadiq drove his car at speed around the city centre. Producer Hugh Warren said that this reduced the amount of computer-generated imagery required and allowed the budget to be spent on effects such as when the city starts to flood and fires burn. Other locations included a house near Helmshore in Lancashire which doubled as the survivors' main base, the disused Earth Centre in the village of Denaby Main near Doncaster and on the Jaguar Cars test track in Nuneaton which stood in for deserted motorways.

The series is shot using 35 mm film. Warren said that this was chosen over high-definition cameras due to the low light levels that would be experienced when filming in a world without electricity and during an autumn filming period, and over Super 16 due to high-definition transmission requirements.

The first series received a mixed critical reception, with some reviewers concerned that the series is too derivative and predictable while others were more positive. The producers were happy to have started well, survived the ratings lull in the middle and ended with an upward curve in the last two weeks. Audience breakdowns indicate that a higher proportion of younger viewers were tuning in than many other shows.