Video preview of Survivors episode three

The BBC has added a clip from episode three to the Survivors mini-site. The video can also be accessed from the Video page on this blog.

Paterson Joseph interviewed on BBC News site

A new interview interview with Paterson Joseph (Greg Preston) is available on the BBC News web site, Entertainment section.

BBC YouTube channel Survivors preview

The BBC has added a Survivors preview video to its YouTube Channel.

The clip features an exchange between government minister Samantha Willis (played by Nikki Amuka–Bird) and a colleague, discussing the spread and seriousness of the virus, and ends with an image of the contagion at work in a victim’s bloodstream.

Sunday papers first episode Survivors preview

Sunday’s last-chance preview press coverage of the new series includes: the Birmingham Sunday Mercury – ‘Survivors: Cult classic remade for a new generation’; the Sunday Herald – ‘Survival Instincts’; Sunday Times – The Survivors remake.

What’s On TV web site – Survivors photos and video interviews

The web site of the What’s On TV listing magazine, includes a Survivors section, featuring a gallery of publicity photos and short new video interviews with Julie Graham, Zoe Tapper and Philip Rhys and Chahak Patel, (follow the link under the Latest Video heading to launch the video pop-up).

The interview is also available through the What’s On TV YouTube channel:

Many thanks to Adrian Hulme for alerting me to this content, and for all his continuing help with tracking down Survivors sources in print and on the web.

BBC Newsbeat site: Survivors preview

The BBC Newsbeat web site is offering a Survivors preview page. The feature ‘Bleak’ Survivors back on BBC includes a brief on-location video report, clearly shot on the same day that the BBC North West Inside Out Survivors report was filmed.

Zoe Tapper on Newsbeat's Survivors preview

Sky TV interview with Julie Graham

A brief interview with Julie Graham has been added to the Sky TV web site.

The feature also features promotional stills and brief interview quotations from all the main cast members.

Sky TV interview with Julie Graham

New BBC trailer and teaser promos for Survivors

An alternative version of the main Survivors trailer is now being shown on BBC One, featuring a reworked selection of clips from the first episode.

The BBC is also showing different versions of a shorter ‘teaser’ trailer, which begin with the line ‘What if tonight wasn’t the end of the weekend, but the end of civilisation?’ and the image of a broken lightbulb (perhaps better suited to transmission this Sunday), or ‘What if there was no one left to entertain you?’, which features a TV screen reverting to a ‘white dot’, before resolving to the ‘Survivors – new drama’ tag line.

All of these different promotional slots are appearing regularly throughout BBC One prime time.

BBC 'teaser' trailers for Survivors - click on image for larger version

BBC Breakfast news Survivors feature

A 2min-20sec news-story on Survivors was broadcast several times during today’s morning news programme BBC Breakfast on BBC One.

The story featured interviews with cast members including Philip Rhys (Al), Julie Graham (Abby Grant) and Paterson Joseph (Greg Preston); clips from the main BBC promotional trailer; and a brief extract from the opening episode of the original series The Fourth Horseman, focusing on the original Abby Grant – Carolyn Seymour.

Julie Graham, BBC Breakfast, 19 November 2008

TV guides promote Sunday’s first episode of Survivors

All of the main (and most of the minor) highstreet TV listings magazines (which are published today) feature promotional materials on Survivors ahead of the transmission of the first two episodes of the new series next week.

The features on offer include:

• Radio Times: ‘Fight to Survive’, (pp.20-24)
• Total TV Guide: ‘Grave new world’, (pp.4-5)
• TV & Satellite Week: ‘Survival of the fittest’, (pp.12-13)
• TV Choice: ‘Survival of the Fittest’, (pp.6-7)
• TV Easy: ‘Deadly drama!’, (p.5)
• TV Quick: ‘It’s the end of the world’, (pp.16-17)
• TV Times: ‘Life after death’, (pp.16-17)
• What’s On TV: ‘Killer Virus’, (p.15)

Total TV Guide is the only magazine to feature Survivors as its main cover photo.

Total TV Guide, 22-28 November 2008

Radio Times – Survivors features, but not as the cover shot

The new Radio Times (for week beginning 22 November) includes an illustrated feature on the new Survivors – although the programme has lost out as the main cover feature to the David Tennant-starring Einstein and Eddington drama.

Radio Times, 22 November 2008

SciFiNow – original and new series features

The four-page full-colour guide to the original Survivors (authored by the editor of this blog) which first appeared in the April 2008 of SciFiNow, has been republished in Volume One of the SciFiNow – Timewarp collection, which is now available in newsagents. The 256-page ’special’ [ISBN: 978-1-906078-19-5] retails for £9.99.

The five-page feature on the the new series, which appears in the current issue of SciFiNow (Issue 21) (also written by this blog’s editor), will be available in shops until 27 November (cover price, £4.00).

SciFi Now - 21 and Timewarp Collection Vol 1

Survivors: BBC radio promos begin

Promotional trails for the new series of Survivors are now being broadcast on BBC Radio.

A 30-second promo appeared on BBC 7 following last Sunday’s Doctor Who audio adventure Grand Theft Cosmos (16 November).

On the BBC’s iPlayer service, the promo can be heard 49mins into the combined stream for Grand Theft Cosmos and the Beyond the Vortex episode Cosmic Capers until Saturday 22 November.

Survivors trailer shown on BBC1 and BBC4

A 40-second trailer for the new series of Survivors was shown on the BBC on Saturday 8 November – on BBC1, following the National Lottery show; and on BBC4 following on from the documentary Merlin – the Legend. The trailer featured several (though not all) of the main characters, and inticingly brief clips from the first two episodes.

The trailer also revealed the new series’ logo, featured in the first of the screen-captures below.

Survivors trailer on the BBC

The trailer is now available to view online (in the UK) on the BBC Survivors mini site at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/survivors.

Please note: once the series begins transmission, please be aware that this blog will not include links to any unofficial online streaming or downloading service of any episodes or extracts of episodes not endorsed by the BBC. Please do not submit any such links. Any comments containing such links will be deleted before they are approved and will not appear on this site.

Survivors premiere press screening, 21 October

The opening 90-minute episode of the new Survivors got its first press screening, on Tuesday 21 October, at the Apollo West End Cinema in London’s Piccadilly.

In attendance were many members of the Survivors cast and crew, including show-creator Adrian Hodges and actors Julie Graham (Abby Grant), Shaun Dingwall (David Grant), Nikki Amuka–Bird (Samantha Willis); Phillip Rhys (Al); Zoe Tapper (Anya) and Chahak Patel (Najid).

The showing was previewed by introductions from Ben Stephenson (Controller, BBC Drama Commissioning) and Adrian Hodges, and included the showcasing of the new series logo. The episode concluded with a ‘Coming next’ preview of the series’ second episode.

First episode of new Survivors gets internal BBC screening

The first episode of the new Survivors had its first screening (for colleagues within the BBC) on Wednesday 24 September. (The press screening will be held in due course).

Read comments and reaction to the first episode from The Culture Show’s web producer Ellen West.

She suggests that:

The first episode of the new Survivors feels more dynamic and less dark than the original – there’s a lot more action and the budget is clearly that of a big BBC One drama. There’s no attempt to shy away from the starkness of the situation, but there are already faint notes of optimism which just weren’t there in the original.

Please note: For those who know the basic information about the series from the original BBC press release and other postings on this blog, the commentary from The Culture Show blog is ’spoiler’ free.