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

Very few audio dramas marry the unlimited budget of audio with the source material quite like Big Finish’s Survivors series. Now on its fifth season, Survivors has made every right choice along the way. This is the end of the world as the original show described it, with the original cast and a contemporaneous level of technology and culture. No smart phones, no internet. Just a disease that wipes out the vast majority of humanity. And what happens next.

There’s a lot in series 5 to be impressed by and some of it’s in how the season is structured. This is far more overtly a serial than any previous year but each play still stands alone. We track some truly awful news as it spreads across the country and the characters, in various places, all encounter it in different ways. The key here is that none of them have the key to the puzzle. There is no cure, there’s just survival, and each one of the leads struggles to do that in different ways.

Even better, this series is chock full of some of the very best supporting turns the show has ever had. Survivors has always had some of the highest quality writing and acting in Big Finish’s range but here it’s better than it’s ever been. Sean Biggerstaff’s Healy is a welcome part of The Second Coming, a man whose morals work very differently to everyone else’s but who is very far from a simple villain. His work, and Andrew Smith’s writing, sets the tone for a series that repeatedly uses new characters to explore the consequences of its events but never loses sight of its main cast.

The Second Coming sees Evelyn (the always excellent Zoe Tapper) arrive at Maythorne. It’s a community partially run by Carol Baker, a former Army medic. Carol’s confident, take charge attitude is inherently reassuring but there’s more going on than any of them know…

This entire set is chock full of excellent guest turns but Neve McIntosh’s Carol is a standout. She’s a relentlessly calm, sensible authority figure and an instant contemporary and equal to Survivors’ raft of excellent female leads. The way McIntosh, and Smith’s script, begins to peel that curtain back makes for some of the most uncomfortable, and gripping, listening this series has produced to date. There are no clear lines here, and as something truly unthinkable happens, the lead characters are forced to look death and the possibility of much more of it to come, square in the eyes.

New Blood by Christopher Hatherall shifts the focus to Greg and Jenny, en route to Springton, a nearby community. They’re on a diplomatic mission and on the way they run into Carol from the previous story. The story uses shifting perspectives to explore both Springton’s uniquely pagan way of life and some moments of unblinking, horrific human nature. It also cleverly puts the old priorities of the series up against the new and finds them very wanting. Greg butts heads with Patrick (Fintan McKeown) a new arrival who has been hunting on Greg’s land. The script does some excellent work balancing Greg’s fundamentally decent, but also fundamentally arrogant, approach with Patrick’s pragmatism and the clash between the two men would have powered an episode all by itself. Here, as the plague takes hold again, it becomes a cog in the gears that throws the entire story towards brutal violence, near tragedy and the last vestiges of human decency. It’s not got the urgency of The Second Coming but it shouldn’t. This is a story about what fear does and it’s expertly handled, both in pacing and time period. The last time 1970s paganism sounded this unsettling was The Wicker Man.

Angel of Death, written by Simon Clark, continues to explore the new dangers through new characters and features arguably the two strongest guest turns (McIntosh notwithstanding) of the series. Donna Berlin and Ekow Quartey turn in phenomenal work as supporting characters Pearl and Dylan. Both fit right in, and both feel just as real and nuanced as the leads. Pearl is a former teacher who was able to salvage a generator but has never been able to make it go. Dylan is a fast talking joker who is in the right place at the right time. Pearl’s good natured, gentle flirting with Greg as he fixes the generator is one of the show’s sweetest moments while Dylan’s relentless charm slowly winning over Jenny is another. But it’s the final time we meet them both that really marks the episode out as something special. Success, tragedy, compassion and the complexities of human nature are all wrapped around each other in a knot of plot and character that Clark unties with delicacy and grace. The entire series is a highlight for Survivors so far but Angel of Death may be the single best instalment to date.

Andrew Smith’s Come the Horseman brings everything full circle, in more ways than one. As the plague continues to spread, almost the entire main cast is caught up in events. Abby and Evelyn circle back around to Peter’s school on the off chance he went there and discover evidence of an atrocity committed after the school was abandoned. Meanwhile, Carol returns home, as do Greg and Jenny. But in doing so, they all attract the attention of the people who want justice for the Angel of Death’s actions…

The Abby and Evelyn story is the most surprising here. At first glance it feels a little odd to pivot the story back to the search for Peter but it ends up serving three purposes at once. It reminds us of Abby’s principle plot, sets up what may be a future antagonist and gives Evelyn a long dark night of the soul. It’s a beautifully pitched and played moment, as the former government officer, used to things being ordered and civilized, rages at how the world is. It fits the tone of the series like a glove but also provides an extra level of nuance. The characters are all very competent, fundamentally decent people but, like those they encounter, they’re not in lockstep. This story in particular plays as an extended discussion of the opportunities and dangers inherent in rebuilding society as well as the personal cost. It’s a tough listen and one that ends with closure but no neatness. This is a hard world and the characters that survive have been reminded of that.

Verdict: Survivors Series 5 is the strongest entry in the franchise so far. It uses a string of excellent guest stars, top class writing and direction to explore the fragile, tenacious hope that powers this world. None of these characters are heroes, none of them have all the answers and none of them are unware of that. Their struggle may not be much fun for them but its gripping listening for us. If you’ve not heard Survivors yet start at the beginning, it’s worth it. If you have, this is the best series yet. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart