‘Your plague was caused by the world getting too closely packed.’

This line, spoken by the Countess is the star that the first story in Survivors season six orbits. ‘Beating the Bounds’ by Ian Potter sees Abby stumble upon first an unusually flighty poacher and second an unusual village. There are over 200 people there. None of them are sick. The village has been cut off from the outside world since the First Death. And now Abby is there…

Potter’s story is a textbook example of what Survivors does best: it’s a story about tiny stakes which are massively important. The combination of the Countess’ wilful arrogance and her people’s natural tendency to cluster around the most familiar makes for lots of character driven tension and a surprisingly grim story. No one is wrong. No one is right. The collision between the world as it is and the new characters’ refusal to leave the world as it was behind is by turns exasperating, poignant and horrifying. It’s a strong opening.

That small focus, high stakes approach is taken to the extreme in ‘The Trapping Pit’ by Christopher Hatherall. En route from Whitecross to the Foundation, Jenny and Ruth are held up by a group of singularly enthusiastic and very incompetent bandits. They see them off but when one is badly injured in a nearby trap, they have no choice but to help.

This is essentially a bottle show, which, for an audio series is a choice as logical as it is surprising. Locked right in on Helen Goldwyn’s Ruth and guest star George Watkins as Craig it’s a story about saving a single life and how much every person left matters. This is an action movie played out on an individual scale, as Ruth and Jenny race to put the young man back together with minimum resources.

It’s an intensely, carefully constructed episode that finishes with one of the most powerful sequences the show has done to date. The conflict between the world that was and the world that needs to come plays out with a collection of the show’s leads on one side, a terrified young girl on the other and a boy’s life at stake. It’s immensely moving, this disparate group of people coming together to save a stranger not just from their wounds but their past. It’s subtle and clever, multi-layered and compassionate and one of the best single episodes to date.

‘Revenge of Heaven’ by Simon Clark moves the focus to Norway. Greg is in the country helping rebuild the infrastructure and… it’s starting to grate. He’s cold. He’s lonely. And suddenly, he’s in the middle of a very different story. Katherine Tanner, an adventurer who has been trying to find him arrives in Greg’s life in a flurry of snow and blood. She brings news: a Russian scientist has developed a cure for the Death. And she’s just been kidnapped…

Clark’s script is as much of a two hander as the previous episode but it’s tonally completely different. This is Survivors as 24, Greg and Katherine tearing across the county in a balloon to try to rescue the scientist.

Tracy Wiles and Alex Blake do excellent work as Professor Valentina Raskova and her kidnapper Pierre. The series is always at its best when it explores different viewpoints and Pierre in particular is the hero of his own story, even if he’s the villain here. Katherine too is great fun and it’s lovely to hear Julie Graham show up. She played Abby in the short-lived, much-missed (by me anyway) reboot of Survivors from earlier this century and brings a very Alex Kingstonian swashbuckling edge to her work here.

The episode itself is, at first, a little uneven but the payoff and strength of the performances more than make up for it. Again, the ending here is small, personal and massively high stakes. Everything matters. Everyone matters. And how people deal with those concepts makes for gripping drama and an oddly poetic and lovely ending.

‘Lockup’ by Andrew Smith closes the set and sees Abby encounter an unusually well ordered community called Peacetown. But as she gets closer she discovers the former prison is still holding people captive. Including Greg Preston…

Smith’s script cleverly explores the passage of time by putting these two characters back together. Greg is still working for the project he was on in the last story and has been for some time. Abby has been wandering the country looking for her son and her all-consuming need to find him means she knows very little of what’s gone on. Abby grounds Greg, Greg gives Abby hope for events outside her quest. It works very well.

What works even better is the tinpot dictatorship of Peacetown. James Wilby’s turn as the preening, officious Glover could be parodic. Instead it feels like Sheila Reid’s turn in ‘Beating the Bounds’: understandable if not sympathetic, realistic at the same time as clearly villainous.

This all culminates in a chilling show trial which puts both Greg and Abby through the wringer. Once again, a story finishes with a fight for a better future being played out through very personal stakes. The difference between the inherent conservatism of the past and the hard working community spirit of the future is brought out through a closing speech that Carolyn Seymour delivers perfectly. Peacetown is a failing settlement and Greg and Abby can’t save it unless it wants to be saved. Again, individual experience is key and, again, the series creates a memorable set of characters and some cleverly constructed, subtle twists.

Verdict: Survivors series 6 dials back the story arcs of the last few boxed sets and replaces them with a sense of space and scope. Major characters in previous sets make brief cameos here and there’s a real sense of a group of communities working together. There’s also real, genuine hope. These characters have been through hell and bled for every victory. But those victories are starting to mount up and the brave new world is getting ever closer. Complex, character driven, hopeful and yet another fantastic entry in one of Big Finish’s strongest lines. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart