The Last Train

There was too much hype over this series at the start, but as the series continued there was no advertising at all. However I really quite enjoyed this series. For once it is the common British public trapped in an apocalyptic tale. From start to finish you hang on to every emotion and problem that the survivors suffer. Incredibly moving in parts and quite chilling, this story was certainly worth the £4 Million to make it, Carlton T.V.'s highest ever payment to produce a show. Great story with a number of interesting twists at the end. Definitely worth watching.

A good premise is let down by some occasional dodgy writing, but maybe that's to be expected with 6 50 minute episodes to fill. The "diary" of the little girl sounds very cheesy to my ears and some of the characters behaviour (the guy going back to his office, the black guy going to a lock up to get a £400 suit) is downright stupid. Take your bloody ties off for god's sake. Some of the acting is a bit dodgy too, now and again. But it has to be applauded for attempting something this ambitious and is certainly watchable. It just could have been so much better with a little more time and money - but couldn't everything? I've given it 6 out of ten.

At a time when ITV was struggling to make drama that did not revolve around a rose tinted view of the fifties or was based in a medical practise in the Derbyshire hills this post apocalyptic (forgive the corny cliche) drama came as a welcome surprise. With a cast of familiar faces but no real stars this was 6 episodes of excellent well written and characterised drama. The similarity with Survivors is evident. The main character in Survivors searched for her son, in The Last Train the main character searched for her former lover. Still they both got into scrapes to entertain us.

Commendable performances from James Hazeldine and Treva Etienne and a truly moving death scene form Amita Dhiri (remember that punch in This Life) but more than this was a taut plot that had twists and turns but was still focussed.

I would hope The Last Train would be released on DVD sometime soon, It was great.

This six-part mini-series does a good job of describing the journey of a group of individuals that survive an apocalyptic event in modern-day Britain. The tone is dark and depressing, and the writer develops the hopelessness of the story quite well, particularly as the main characters come to realize the brutal reality of the situation that they find themselves in. The acting is reasonable, but is generally overshadowed by the story itself.

Certainly not an uplifting story, but recommended for fans of this sort of thing.

If you liked any Quartermass, Threads, Village of the Dammed or books like "After the Rain", "Chalk Giants" or anything by John Wyndham then this is one for you.

Unrelenting post-apocalypse depression that I believe only works if you grew in the U.K. in the seventies. I liked it a lot.