Alas, poor Yorick.

We meet The Last Man, Yorick, three weeks after some as-yet unknown apocalyptic event has wreaked havoc in a US city.

The onset of the disruption of society can be imagined more readily by our pandemic-ravaged world so while the depicted events here are catastrophically rapid, there’s still a creepy feeling that will settle into the pit of your stomach right from the start of the episode as the danger, panic and shock set in. It all looks to be horribly accurate.

Androcide (which I now know means ‘the systematic killing of men, boys or males in general’) is a word I didn’t want to know, not even on a day when the misogyny that pervades the world is right up in my cisgender female face. It’s not just humans, but all male creatures, and I have two immediate Ys that I’m going to need answers to. Why have only those with a Y chromosome been affected by whatever has caused these instant and horrific deaths? Why have Yorick and his male capuchin monkey survived?

The other question is a what… What will the women of the world do to move forward past this, to survive, to rebuild? Fortunately, we meet several competent and complex women with a range of strengths and issues that we uncover in the lead-up to the events of day zero. I’m excited to see how this plays out. How on earth do you cope with such overwhelming and global grief and terror?

Verdict: Terrifyingly realistic for a ‘comic book’ world, episode 1 starts strong.  8/10

Claire Smith