Not too long ago, we covered the first season of the recent remake Survivors, which was running on BBC America.  Now, thanks to the folks at Warner Brothers who sent a copy for review, we get to take a look at its predecessor, Survivors: The Complete Series.

It comes from the depths of 1975, and ran until 1977.  It features a group of folks who’ve survived a nightmarish plague, and are thus left to rebuild society following the death of something like ninety-odd percent of humanity.  There are of course plenty of adventures involved with such a pursuit, and our survivors will embark on plenty of them–whether they want to or not.  And mostly, they don’t want to.

Now, the original is somewhat different from the remake, as is generally the case with this sort of thing.  You’ll see plenty of the original in this, shot through like veins of gold in a wall of quartz, but there’s also a lot of difference here.  Where the remake had focused a little more on action and the how of survival, the original seems to favor a bit more cerebral approach, focusing in equally large part on the why.  It’s a big surprise, in the midst of a post-Apocalyptic environment, to see someone’s stolen large sheafs of banded-together currency in an environment where currency is of no use to anyone any more.

Of course, the problem with such an approach is that much of the suspense, tension and action that the remake offered have been largely sucked out of the proceedings and replaced with a gigantic cloud of boring, nigh-impenetrable dialogue.

The original Survivors is almost stodgy in comparison to the lively, tense proceedings of the remake, and so we’re left with something of a less pleasant version.  But still, there is plenty here to engage as long as you’re prepared in advance for the long stretches of dull you’ll be tackling here on a regular basis.

The Screenhead Ten Scale hands Survivors: The Complete Original Series a six out of ten for being less than its remake, but at the same time, still pretty solid in its own right.