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There’s a big time jump for the start of the new season of Survivors from Big Finish, out today.

Survivors: New Dawn 1 picks up a couple of decades after the previous Big Finish series with original TV series regulars Carolyn Seymour (as Abby Grant) and Lucy Fleming (as Jenny Richards) in a renewed fight for survival. This new box sets also features Louise Jameson (as Jackie Burchall), Belinda Lang (as Celia Tate) and Clive Hayward (as John Bedwell).

The world has ended. The Death crossed continents, sparing only a fraction of the global population. The survivors are now trying to pick up the pieces and rebuild society to create a new future.  
 
It’s been twenty years since the Death and fifteen years since Abby Grant and Jenny Richards went their separate ways. Britain has a fledgling government based in Cambridge, and some transport and communications infrastructure has been re-established. International links are being forged, and people are looking to the future with hope. But this new order is more fragile than it appears. The worst of human nature has survived along with the best. 

Tethered by Andrew Smith 

Abby Grant is heading home on a tragic mission when she meets an apparent Good Samaritan, who may be nothing of the sort. And in Cambridge, the seat of the New Federal Government, the Prime Minister tasks Law Minister Jenny Richards with a secret assignment. Both women soon find themselves in deadly peril.

My Generation by Katharine Armitage 

Abby is on the run, and Jenny risks her future to protect her. An old friend, Jackie Burchall, is also eager to help. But when Abby falls in with an activist group called The Veil, it jeopardises everyone.

Behind You by Roland Moore 

Abby remembers Leonard Cross as the awful children’s entertainer who came to one of her son’s birthday parties before the Death. She doesn’t expect to find herself relying on him as she recovers from injury and tragedy. And he may be even more awful than she knows…

Carolyn Seymour noted: “The challenges facing the survivors in the original TV series were almost insuperable but somehow, every time, there was a little glimmer of hope that came through that good will out and bad will be defeated.

“Trying to wrench myself back into that part of my life was tough. I’m much less hot-headed than I was in those days. It was hard getting back there but these scripts have been very sensitively written. It’s been a great time.”

Lucy Fleming added: “I think Abby and Jenny are quite different characters. Abby is quite driven but Jenny has a softer side. But they’ve evolved and come together more. They’ve been getting their heads down and working hard and getting these communities together.

“Maybe when we were younger, when we were doing the television series, we were not so sensitive as we are now. Also, the world has changed.”

Survivors: New Dawn 1 is now available to own as a collector’s edition CD box set or as a download from the Big Finish website.

Accompanying the box set is a brand new audiobook, Survivors: Ghosts and Demons, written by Ethan Milsea and read by Carolyn Seymour, which is available as a download only.

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