Sundays, 10pm,
BBC3
This is something we’ve been looking forward to for a while, a high concept narrative-led horror reality show.
The story suggests that 5G is causing a virus outbreak turning people into zombies. Ten people (real contestants) must survive in an abandoned shopping centre for seven days waiting for an evacuation helicopter. However one touch from the massing zombie horde means instant elimination in a particularly gruesome manner. It’s Dawn Of The Dead The Game Show, basically.
They won’t just be able to sit around doing nothing, the shopping centre was once an army base, and the army will communicate with the contestants to set survival tasks, inevitably putting themselves at risk.
And Greg James is involved somewhere as well. I hope winners get an “I Survived A Zombie Apocalypse” T-Shirt.
There’s all sorts of information (and a comic detailing the backstory) on the official site.
And here is the show’s opening:
I don’t like the 5G backstory. Half way through and not much has actually happened.
I can’t help but think this’d be better if it came out about a year or two early. It feels a lot like ZombiiU: The Gameshow. Without much game at the moment.
Half way through. This could have been really good but they’ve blown it nothing’s actually happened.
This wouldn’t be too bad if something actually happened.
Doesn’t have the fear factor like Release the Hounds has.
Well i really enjoyed it had a feeling i may have been in a minority of 1. I really liked it all from the set and staging to the presenting choice and graphics they did a great job on the makeup too. If i was to make a reality show this would be it.
I’m certainly piqued enough to continue watching but there are certainly things I’d do differently.
Waiting forty minutes in for any sort of jeopardy at all was a big mistake – for this sort of thing you need to set your stall out early, even if you need to engineer things a little bit – I’d have liked it if the zombies broke through the barricade once the contestants had got *most of* the supplies from the crate to force an issue a bit. The mission was acceptably fun and creepy (albeit not as funny as in Release the Hounds), although I hope they don’t all boil down to “find X at Y then run to home base.”
Surprised they got through the first episode without the money shot – I know they suggested it happens in the “next week” bit, but although not being so obvious with the eliminations is to be applauded, you probably did want one in the first ep to show you mean business. Needless to say I look forward to getting lots of hits next week from people searching for “do they really get eaten on I Survived a Zombie Apocalypse?”
I like that Greg James is so hard he lives outside of society.
I really liked most of the production values – the titles in particular, as David B noted on Twitter the protect and survive stuff has basically been nicked tonally whole from Portal 2, but if you’re going to rip something off at least it’s a decent rip off. I did think most of the graphics are a bit too much – grids! Cameras with unecessary circles because IT’S THE NEAR FUTURE! Both! It’s like Bugs with Craig Mclachlan never happened.
So after episode one a bit of a mixed bag, it’s got something but I wish it got to that thing rather quicker.
Rather liked it; I’m not into guts and gore but this had a certain sort of grisly charm to it. The pace was a little slow, perhaps, but it worked for an episode one; if episode two and onwards are as slow then, yeah, there’ll be a problem. Loved the presentation, though I haven’t watched nearly as much Bugs and the like as most. The method of presenting the in-character / out-of-character conceit is excellent, letting the players remain in character while telling the story clearly – much more evocative than the jumps that Jailbreak made as a counterpart. The casting is promising; the players seem pleasant enough, though it’ll be interesting to see whether it can lead to thoughtful discussions and development rather than relying on being stunt-y.
I think it is important that in any reality show that the contestents are given an introduction especially one that requires different skills for each task. I hear the concerns about the amount of time it took to get anywhere and while not the most interesting think it was needed. If they do that again in episide 2 i will not be so forgiving.
That’s fine, except asking them to get on with it is basically the universal criticism, and if nobody watches next week it’s its own fault. It has pitched itself as an exciting zombie based take on a genre, it has to actually be exciting.
Just under 600,000 across the two showings last night, which is described as good:
http://screenwatch.tumblr.com/post/111166211177/sunday-15th-february-2015
The first showing was 12.8% up on the slot average, FYI.
Thanks, my knowledge of multichannel ratings isn’t that great.
316,000 last night. 160,000 in the 16-34 demographic. Then 81,000 for the repeat, 50,000 of those aged 16-34.
It certainly picked up towards the end. However i have a feeling that episode 2 will have a bit of Big Brother style coverage of people talking and doing nothing to pad things out. The ratings are not as good as i was expecting as it was being plugged a lot on bbc1
My fear is that they’ll focus a little too much on the ‘reality’ part and not enough on the missions. There is a brilliant scope for some good tasks though, as long as they make the zombie threat more than just a glorified ‘time limit’ where after a certain time they breach the room the task is in.
Like others have said, took a long time to get going but a necessary evil with this kind of format is that you need to introduce everybody, get the core of the game/location explained to the viewer, etc. although it could perhaps have done with a bit more jeopardy nearer the beginning before all the exposition was got out of the way.
The problem is that in the same amount of time it took ZomApoc to get going, Survivor’s established the players (twice as many), the location and done a reward and immunity challenge. Plus adverts. There’s no excuse for not engaging early really.
Wanted this to be much better than it was – just didn’t really work IMO. Kind of feels like it’s arrived a few years too late – didn’t Derren Brown do something similar for C4?
it would be a good idea for america to make possible.. the crew from amc’s walking dead can certainly work to make it as gritty as the walking dead.
the main prize for it would be for the winner to be able to watch an episode of the walking dead being created, getting to meet the cast of the show, and spending an episode getting dressed up as a walker.
First thirty minutes really poor, completely pointless task with that missing persons wall, no cause or effect, not exciting.
It did pick up a bit, although if the supermarket bit was meant to be tense then it didn’t really feel it.
The last task involving air vents and fuses felt like a proper gameshow style task and has been the most successful bit so far, although goodness knows why there are zombies in the air ducts in the first place.
At least we’ve seen some gory deaths now.
So for anyone still trying to watch this (hello to you both), in ep 4 they introduced three new contestants. So… if they win, do they claim “I Survived Half of a Zombie Apocalypse”?
If anyone makes it to the end of the programme, you should go on a series called “I Survived “I Survived A Zombie Apocalypse””.
They do seem to be starting to push the ‘game’ elements to the fore, at least to some extent. Although I am now wondering if they’re expecting us to believe that the zombie constructed those tin can alarms himself.
The dilemma that was presented was kind of bizarre. Choosing between luxuries or curing a survivor, fine. Doing so by hunting for change for a *vending machine*, and having the vending machine for cures being next to the vending machine for wine? That’s just odd. And sort of irritating, because it feels that there could be an entertainingly cynical storyline explanation for it that was never untapped.
I did wonder if at some point there would be some meaning for the slightly-out-of-place “Trust no one” graffiti around the site, but it does seem that they’re setting something up in that regard now. Which I think might account for the addition of multiple new survivors; people might be more suspicious of one who arrived on their own than several who arrived if not as a group then at least on the same day.
I’m still watching it. I’m still enjoying it, despite the frustrations. I want it to be better, but I don’t dislike what it is.
Just catching up with this week’s episode, they seem to have ruined the mystery over the final new survivor seeming like she could be infected with that final Greg James section basically saying, yes she’s infected. Would have been a lot more interesting to keep us in suspense for a little while longer.
Can’t add much to what’s already been said about some of the game elements being frustrating to the viewer but one thing that gets on my nerves a little with some of the setups with this series, hide your bloody GoPros! You’ve spent a fair sum on your art budget making the place look like it does, at least put some dressing around the GoPros so they aren’t instantly noticeable!