Left hand/right hand

MediaGuardian today reports that the BBC is considering plundering ideas from times past yet again to revive another show from days of old. This time, the programme in question is Survivors, or rather Terry Nation’s Survivors as the Nation Estate would probably prefer it to be known this time around.

One of the stars of the original version of Survivors, Ian McCulloch, has often attempted to revive the series but never quite managed to do so, so he might be feeling a little peeved that a new series could be about to go ahead after he had his ideas turned down.

This sounds like fantastic news for fans of telefantasy, but according to the report they are only talking about a six-part series, consisting of 60-minutes episodes – surely too brief to create memorable characters and tell a decent continuing story? The idea of the post-apocalyptic story is hardly original and the last attempt at this kind of theme was ITV’s The Last Train which was only six parts and felt slightly aimless. It is tricky to remember any of the character names from that show, but the longer run that the original Survivors had resulted in even some of the minor cast sticking in the memory.

In the wake of Doctor Who‘s success and the forthcoming Robin Hood, the BBC are clearly attempting to change direction slightly in terms of drama despite their earlier statement that they were planning to make lengthier runs of existing programmes. Could it be that there are two competing drama camps operating at the BBC with two different agendas? Does the left hand of the BBC know what the right hand is doing?