Channel 4 is celebrating the bank holiday weekend in bleak style, with an End of the World night on Saturday, inviting us to count down the top10 ways our fragile Earth could be wiped out. But even after a world-shattering disaster, life often finds a way to thrive, especially on screen. Perhaps the forthcoming zombie spin-off Fear the Walking Dead could pick up some potential survival techniques from the existing post-apocalyptic TV. Here are five notable examples.
Survivors (1975-1977/2008-2010)
Sci-fi writer Terry Nation invented the Daleks, so he knew a thing or two about extermination. His 1970s vision of a world where 95% of the population is wiped out by a man-made plague featured a simple but unsettling credits sequence that presaged our fears of a virus being transmitted around the world by international air travel. The main focus was a hardy, gloomy – but overwhelmingly white – band of survivors attempting to Bear Grylls it in the Welsh countryside. Basic supplies of food and water remained scarce across all three seasons but, strangely, no one ever ended up looking that grubby. The BBC’s 2008 reboot – overseen by Musketeers creator Adrian Hodges – featured a more diverse cast and some striking scenes of an eerily deserted Manchester, but came to an end after two series.
The Tribe (1999-2003)
Another virus, albeit one that only affected adults, gave rise to a shattered world inhabited exclusively by teens that, appropriately, resembled an untidy bedroom on a nationwide, debris-strewn scale. This curious New Zealand/UK co-production – a Channel 5 staple – was originally conceived as a soap, and the Antipodean accents, angsty storylines and variable acting all seemed instantly familiar. But it looked like nothing else on TV: the various teen tribes jostling for survival rocked fluorescent warpaint, army surplus clobber, novelty hair slides and decorative knick-knacks, like a Claire’s Accessories version of Mad Max. It lasted 260 episodes over five seasons, and in The Dream Must Stay Alive boasted some of the most emotive credits music since Lynne Hamilton’s closing theme for Prisoner Cell Block H.
The Last Train (1999)
As the burdened leader of The Walking Dead’s walking wounded, Andrew Lincoln has had to make some horrible decisions. But hard-boiled Egg wasn’t the first This Life cast member to wake up in a post-apocalyptic nightmare: Amita Dhiri, who played Milly, was part of the ensemble cast of Matthew Graham’s high-concept ITV series The Last Train. Being cryogenically frozen in a crammed train carriage heading to Sheffield might already sound like a nightmare scenario, but it protects the commuters from the world-ending effects of an asteroid strike. When they reawaken, it’s in the scarily rewilded English countryside of 2012, with wolves ready to tear your throat out. It may only have lasted six episodes but there were moments in The Last Train as bleak as anything in The Walking Dead. (Graham would subsequently go on to greater success as part of the team behind another time-slipped adventure: Life On Mars.)
Jericho (2006-2008)
After 23 cities are wiped out by nuclear warheads, the remote town of Jericho, Kansas cautiously begins to adjust to an isolated life as perhaps the only human settlement left in the US. While taking some cues from Lost – each episode began with a flickering title card and the sound of Morse code dot-dot-dashing out a cryptic clue – this drama had mostly practical concerns in mind: gifted a potential clean slate by nuclear armageddon, should you stick with society as it was or come up with something new? Low ratings saw Jericho cancelled after its first season but an impassioned and well-orchestrated fan campaign brought the show back for a second run … that lasted seven episodes before the plug was pulled again.
The Last Man On Earth (2015)
Life after whatever Capitalised Cataclysm occurs doesn’t have to be grim – ITV2’s Cockroaches recently milked a few laughs out of awkward, incompetent Brits attempting to rebuild after a decade-long nuclear winter. But the most audacious post-apocalyptic sitcom is current US critical hit The Last Man on Earth. Phil Miller (an audaciously bearded Will Forte) wakes up in a world where every other soul has died, or at least vanished. He returns to his hometown of Tucson, Arizona, and proceeds to play out his every Groundhog Day fantasy – bowling with full-size cars, reclining in an inflatable paddling pool filled with tequila, having his head turned by a winsome mannequin. It’s a relatable, man-child spin on I Am Legend: hopefully it will be picked up by a UK channel soon.
