SCHEDULED FOR PUBLICATION in 2025, to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the broadcast of the first series of Survivors on BBC1, a new book by the author of this site will provide a deep-dive into the show’s first thirteen episodes.
Survivors: the classic post-apocalyptic BBC series / Series one / 1975 will blend updated content by the author from the 2005 book The End of the World? The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Survivors with new and original material – based on an additional two decades of research and writing.
First broadcast in April 1975 on BBC1, Survivors presented viewers with the starkest premise imaginable: that only a tiny number of people had emerged unscathed from a deadly global pandemic, into a devastated, dangerous and unrecognisable world. Created by Terry Nation, the first thirteen episodes of Survivors explored how these few individuals band together to confront the daunting challenges of survival.
Featuring new interviews, original source material and previously unpublished photographs, this is a comprehensive, meticulous study of the first series of the exemplary post-apocalyptic BBC TV series from what’s now celebrated as a golden era of British genre television.
Rich Cross has published widely on the themes of science fiction, dystopian and genre television, and has written about Survivors for Action TV, Cultbox, Obverse Books, SciFiNow, Starburst and Telos.
Any and all profits from sales of the book will be donated to the international, independent medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (aka Doctors Without Borders) whose clinicians deliver vital, life-saving humanitarian aid in crisis situations and war zones across the globe.
More information about the book – including details about how to purchase a copy – will be shared on this site as the publication date approaches.
“It’s amazing to think that next year it will be fifty years since the first series of Survivors was broadcast,” says Cross. “It seems like the ideal moment to revisit the contemporary themes and issues that inspired creator Terry Nation; and the ground-breaking way that the first series of Survivors was made.”
“It’s also chance to to reflect afresh on the extraordinary characters that populate those first thirteen episodes, and the stories and situations that made that first series so compelling – alarming ‘what-if’ scenarios which still resonate with audiences some five decades later.”
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Rich Cross’ most recent book on the series – Survivors: Mad Dog, published in 2022 – is available to buy (in both print and electronic formats) from the Obverse Books site.
His most recent magazine feature on Survivors, a four-page retrospective celebrating the series’ status as a ‘certified classic’, appeared in the May 2024 edition of Starburst.
