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Survivors?


Karmann Ghiaman

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Thinking about 1970s TV series's that were good for shite spotting. Does anybody remember one called Accident where there was a highly contrived car crash involving several vehicles, e.g. a Roller with a rich man & his chauffeur, a Mini full of students, an Estate with a glamorous older woman, etc. Each week you saw the story behind one of the victims and how they got there... When I was about 14, thought this was Shakespeare, but now realise it was complete tosh. Can't find anything on the net, so maybe it failed to get the 'cult' status that ensures nerdy immortality? (Maybe I was the only one watching it at the time).

 

There is, however, quite a lot about Survivors. Recently there was a rumour that this might even be revived. A big fansite has many stills from every episode. A few shitters appear, but unfortunately part of the point of Survivors was that you couldn't have cars & petrol after 90% of the population were wiped out, so you soon see more horses than cars. In 1975 this was taken to be a ghastly tragedy, but now of course the Eco brigade would say it was a wonderful miracle. The woman who played Abby, main protagonist, was a fit bird who ran around a lot, but apart from that it was all pretty turgid with long, pseudo-philosophical sub-Play for Today speeches which would never be tolerated by a modern audience. Trying to post one still to see how it comes out...

 

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Shabby Survivors Volvo soon to be replaced by a shaggy pony.

 

Survivors has survived in the collective consciousness, but I'm still hoping someone else remembers Accident! (not to be confused with the quite good '67 film of that name).

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Well it'd be great if you did, but Accident was a whole separate series, not part of Survivors, so not sure if it ever came out on DVD (or even video for that matter). It does seem that I was the only person watching it around 1974 (none of the rest of our family did!).

 

Hope to post a few more stills from Survivors, making them smaller & trusting that the pixellation will come out a bit better. Let's try this one...

 

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A nice Bedford tanker for you commercial fans.

 

It still looks a bit fuzzy in Preview, but if anyone's fascinated I can post a link to the original Survivors site. Here's a classic ice cream van:

 

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You can see a horse trotting up to replace it.

 

This was the lovely Abby, heroine of Survivors:

 

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Unfortunately she was usually wearing a lot of clothes as it must have been cold running out of fuel & everything. She always looked terribly serious, but again, there wasn't much to smile about with everyone being dead & having to ride horses, etc. I think the 'plot' was that she was looking for her son, but she kept running into people like Brian Blessed who had set up macho communities with things like crossbows and, er, horses.

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Well it'd be great if you did, but Accident was a whole separate series, not part of Survivors, so not sure if it ever came out on DVD (or even video for that matter). It does seem that I was the only person watching it around 1974 (none of the rest of our family did!).

Damm, that'll teach me to read things properly! I have heard of Accident, now you come to mention it, but there's not much info around - if I can dig anything up I'll put it on here.
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Thanks Ratdat! You have managed to locate a bit about Accident, it wasn't all a bad dream. So it was in '78, later than I thought & after Survivors.

 

At the beginning you saw this great big, obviously staged, crash in a rather unlikely country location (a Motorway in the fog might've been a bit more realistic). This would be very boring 30 years later, just a whole lot of airbags going off & nobody injured in the slightest. The so-called 'stars' are now tracked down, but it would be nice to recall the cars. I think the teachers were in a mini of some kind, the rich man was in a Roller (or Daimler?). Don't know what the manufacturers of such vehicles thought, but they can't have been too happy!

 

 

"In the old days it was only in wartime that the innocent suffered. The motorcar's changed all that hasn't it?"

 

No dear, that's the human condition, don't blame cars! Bad things have always happened to good people; so there.
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Reading that synopsis a bit more carefully it seems that the rich man was only in a Rover. And the prisoner was only in a Cortina! Presumably the 'little long-legged French car' of the students was a 2CV. Perhaps there was a bit of BBC fog around, but it was still the days when you could get to an airport (a place unknown to 'students' in that time before Ryanair) down 'country roads'. The synopsis makes it seem rather brilliant, but then it would, wouldn't it?

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