Survivors Series 2 (spoilers)

[FreezeC77]

So I watched series/season 2 premiere and all I can say is uhh "Lost much?"

I always liked the idea of a remake of the original Survivors, I hoped it would deal with just these random people thrown together trying to survive after a worldwide apocalypse by a virus decimating the population and we see them try to rebuild.

Maybe you have some people set themselves up as despots and create their own little 'kingdoms' or what not.

I gotta say I absolutely loathe this whole "Dharma corporation" knock-off that's being developed in the show. So we find out the scientists are in part of a larger organization which has apparently set itself up on some faraway island. Oh there's some fancy random numbers associated with it.

Oh and it is probably the island that Greg's ex-wife went to on a 'holiday' with her new guy who probably works for this organization thus giving us a completely 1 in a billion random occurrence that Lost loves to use.

I thought the scenes not involving the scientists were the best in the episode. Seeing the survivors try to cope with how do you respond to a collapsed building in a world without any kind of emergency services. Sara whoring herself out for a hydraulic jack (to get some kind of approval or acceptance from Tom) in order to clear rubble to try and save Anya and Al.

Those were the scenes I loved. The rest of the stuff with the scientists and their plot and their secret Dhamra organization? Pass.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I started a thread earlier here but no one posted in it yet, so I guess it doesn't really matter.

I'm not really seeing the Lost connection, apart from there was some flashbacks. I'm willing to see where this is going rather than jump to the conclusion it's some Lost rip off.

 

[FreezeC77]

Well there were a couple Lost connections

Flashbacks - The whole way that the episode spent going back and forth to showing Greg's life pre-Virus was an element that Lost used very extensively. Granted lots of other shows and movies use Flashbacks.

The evil/scheming group/corporation behind everything. The Scientists in the show feel kinda of Dharma groupish to me, even more-so now that we find out they're reporting to a larger organization.

The Island - So we find out there's a secret island base or something out there where the people the scientists report to are. We see a bunch of random numbers associated with the Island (like the numbers with Lost).

Greg's Family - Hasn't been confirmed, but based on what we saw that he had a post-card apparently from his wife of the island that the head scientist also had I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it'll be revealed his wife and kids are alive and with a guy belonging to that organization and are on that secret island base.

The fact that Greg is one of what 1%? .1%? of the population who survived the virus with immunity and somehow his wife also managed to survive by getting involved with a guy who belonged to this organization is pretty far-fetched and reminiscent of the far-fetched Lost 'coincidences'. Again an element many other shows and movies use.

It just bums me out that cool stories that can be told in today's genre world somehow need to have more 'elaborate' elements to them.

I was looking forward to Defying Gravity before I knew it had any involvement with aliens. I thought it was just going to be exploration of our solar system... Apparently that wasn't considered engaging enough so they added an alien element to it.

With Survivors I thought it would be great just seeing these people coping with rebuilding society, but now they've added this conspiracy/scheming organization element to the show that I don't feel was needed.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I enjoyed Defying Gravity once it got going... and Beta wasn't actually confirmed as alien.

As for the island I guess I missed that, other than the connection that the scientist and Greg had the same post card, totally missed the numbers, and just assumed the other people were basically bases that had been set up in other countries rather than on an island.

 

[Starkers]

Have to say I got a definite Lost vibe from it, mainly down to the flashbacks and the conspiracy/postcard.

Actually I feel better about it now the point's been made that it might be Greg's wife and kids who are part of the conspiracy rather than Greg.

It doesn't annoy me greatly, the conspiracy seemed fairly obvious in Series 1. Its clear these guys engineered the virus, although one imagines they were caught on the hop by its release.

Anyway I liked the first episode, seems grittier than last year and the effects were fantastic regards the hospital.

I still have trouble buying Max Beesley's character but on the whole it was very good.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Have to say I got a definite Lost vibe from it, mainly down to the flashbacks and the conspiracy/postcard.

Actually I feel better about it now the point's been made that it might be Greg's wife and kids who are part of the conspiracy rather than Greg.

It doesn't annoy me greatly, the conspiracy seemed fairly obvious in Series 1. Its clear these guys engineered the virus, although one imagines they were caught on the hop by its release.

Anyway I liked the first episode, seems grittier than last year and the effects were fantastic regards the hospital.

I still have trouble buying Max Beesley's character but on the whole it was very good.

Well that's kinda why I don't see the Lost connection. The Conspiracy has been there from the very first episode. There doesn't appear to be any weirdness involved. Just a flashback and a post card... doesn't exactly scream Lost to me.

I know what you mean about Max Beesley's character, he just doesn't seem to be a "Hard Man"... but maybe he really isn't and is just trying to act it, but doesn't really seem to work. Everything else worked well enough for me.

 

[Starkers]

I think its less about there being a conspiracy than it now seeming to involve a mysterious company (Dharma) and the coincidence of Greg being linked to it.

If itsz intentional or not is another matter but I don't mind either way really.

 

[Starkers]

Well having failed to realise it wasn't on last week (and getting annoyed with iPlayer for no logical reason because it wasn't there!) it was nice to see this weeks.

What did everyone think? I liked it, and I thought they kept the different plot strands going well.

I loved Anya's logic for them taking Tom back into the fold, think what he'll do if we leave him on his own! And I liked Tom's I can do rules (there's an ex con for you)

The twist at the R&D site I saw coming a mile away (and it's never been done as well as in Silence of the Lambs) but it was interesting anyay, and I'm glad the company didn't hide its super secret base then leave the address lying around in a call centre.

I liked the Al/Sarah bits and the Greg/Najid bits. Ok Abby finding them just before they were probably going to leave is a bit of a coincidence, but it was a great ending anyway so I don't care.

Next week's looks interesting, looks like we might finally find out what Tom was inside for. It's good that they haven't forgotten that colony of survivors either, makes a nice change from the usual in that people meet characters who are never seen again. Our little group do have a habit of making enemies though!

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I've not seen it yet. I was annoyed that football delayed it last week and then forgot it was on this week. I'll give it a watch later.

 

[Starkers]

Ok, be interested to see what you think.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I agree with you that R&D fake out was easy to spot, what happened to the underground car park we saw in series 1? It was nice to see a little more of what's going on in the secret base.

There seems to be some nods to storylines from the original series, without actually rehashing them. Different groups coming together, declaring themselves to be the government and in charge etc.

I get the feeling Al might be for the chop soon, he's becoming a good person, and others are getting attached to him... just makes me feel like he'll be dead before long.

 

[Starkers]

You could say the same about Sarah. They both have expendable written on their foreheads.

Of course the real shocker would be to kill Najid off!

 

[Starkers]

Well it might only be me and Bob still watching this but...

Continues to be an excellent show. Inspite of what I said earlier I was still surprised that they

Spoiler: spoiler

killed Sarah off!

I don't think any of the Lost comparisons hold water now, yeah there's a conspiracy but we knew that, and frankly there were conspiracies before Lost anyway.

Next weeks looks good, although I can see the series 2 cliffhanger coming a mile away.

Spoiler: prediction

Peter taken away on the plane so series 3 will see the survivors having to go after him and the conspiritors.

 

[FreezeC77]

Well it might only be me and Bob still watching this but...

Continues to be an excellent show. Inspite of what I said earlier I was still surprised that they

Spoiler: spoiler

killed Sarah off!

I don't think any of the Lost comparisons hold water now, yeah there's a conspiracy but we knew that, and frankly there were conspiracies before Lost anyway.

Next weeks looks good, although I can see the series 2 cliffhanger coming a mile away.

Spoiler: prediction

Peter taken away on the plane so series 3 will see the survivors having to go after him and the conspiritors.

I still feel like the extreme coincidences in the storyline and the secret island still smack of "Lost" to me But I'm glad the numbers had some actual meaning and weren't some silly thing like in Lost

Spoiler: about the latest ep

I wonder about the whole virus returning thing, shouldn't they have quarantined Abby? She may be able to fight off a mutated virus(maybe not), but she could still have spread it to everyone when she came out of the house. She should have been isolated away from everyone for a couple days to make sure she hadn't contracted it.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Well it might only be me and Bob still watching this but...

Continues to be an excellent show. Inspite of what I said earlier I was still surprised that they

Spoiler: spoiler

killed Sarah off!

I don't think any of the Lost comparisons hold water now, yeah there's a conspiracy but we knew that, and frankly there were conspiracies before Lost anyway.

Next weeks looks good, although I can see the series 2 cliffhanger coming a mile away.

Spoiler: prediction

Peter taken away on the plane so series 3 will see the survivors having to go after him and the conspiritors.

I've not seen it yet, so I'm ignoring your spoilers. I'm enjoying the series so far, but not really loving it. I hope there's a third series on the way though.

 

[Starkers]

Well it might only be me and Bob still watching this but...

Continues to be an excellent show. Inspite of what I said earlier I was still surprised that they

Spoiler: spoiler

killed Sarah off!

I don't think any of the Lost comparisons hold water now, yeah there's a conspiracy but we knew that, and frankly there were conspiracies before Lost anyway.

Next weeks looks good, although I can see the series 2 cliffhanger coming a mile away.

Spoiler: prediction

Peter taken away on the plane so series 3 will see the survivors having to go after him and the conspiritors.

I still feel like the extreme coincidences in the storyline and the secret island still smack of "Lost" to me But I'm glad the numbers had some actual meaning and weren't some silly thing like in Lost

Spoiler: about the latest ep

I wonder about the whole virus returning thing, shouldn't they have quarantined Abby? She may be able to fight off a mutated virus(maybe not), but she could still have spread it to everyone when she came out of the house. She should have been isolated away from everyone for a couple days to make sure she hadn't contracted it.

Thats a good point, but like Tom says its possible the birds would be spreading it anyway. I'm slightly annoyed she didn't think of going back before

Spoiler: spoiler

Sarah died!