Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

Hot on the heels of the announcement of their revival of the original line up for The Avengers, Big Finish are resurrecting another cult hit. After gaining a licence from Terry Nation’s estate, the seminal series, Survivors, which ran for three years in the 1970s, is coming to audio.

‘Survivors made a huge impact on me when I first saw it – as it did on many people of my generation,’ producer David Richardson explained. ‘It’s long been a dream of mine to bring it back on audio, exploring the human drama and the many challenges in a world where the majority of people have died and most technology is useless.’

Executive producer Jason Haigh-Ellery added: ‘I am very proud to have another Terry Nation series associated with Big Finish. His influence on British television in the 60s and 70s was massive and I grew up knowing that any show with his name on it was going to be both exciting and thought-provoking. Survivors is one of the seminal series of the 70s, with themes that have been visited again and again over the years, most recently by series such as The Walking Dead. We all look forward to working on what we know will be a fantastic new audio series for Big Finish.’

Executive producer Nicholas Briggs: ‘Over the years, so many people have asked us about the possibility of doing Survivors on audio, and now, with the right team in place and agreements signed, we can finally deliver yet another series that our loyal listeners have been waiting for. My early teens were haunted by Terry Nation’s stark depiction of a world decimated by a virus, and I’m looking forward to being terrified all over again!’

As well as the three seasons of the TV show with which Nation had less and less involvement, there was also a pair of novels which took the story in a different direction, as well as a remake, based on the first of those books, created by Primeval’s Adrian Hodges. Big Finish’s audio series will take its cue from the original series with a number of actors from the original series lined up to recreate their roles – as normal, their identities are being kept under wraps until recording begins later this year.

Matt Fitton, Jonathan Morris, Andrew Smith and John Dorney are penning the first set of four one-hour dramas for release in June 2014; a further box set has been commissioned for 2015. Ken Bentley will be directing, with David Richardson producing.