Projects like this always raise a few questions for me.

1. What's the motive to attempt a re-make of a classic like this?

2. Who are they making it for? (existing fans? new audience?)

3. Have the people involved actually seen the entire original series, got excited about it and understood it's spirit, ideas & aesthetics?

4. Is there a commitment to complete the story and not just leave it hanging after the networks go cold about it?

 

Having recently sat through all three series of the original 'Survivors' (and loved it, dreary & laboured as it is) then compared it with the as yet un-finished modern re-make, I find myself wondering how it is the makers of the newer version managed to fall so far short of touching on the level of depth found in the earlier one.

In that original series there are stories & dialogues that are so interesting & involved with the imagined dilemmas of life during & after a world-wide pandemic, and on so many levels - practical, social, economic, political etc. with a great deal of thought & attention to detail & thinking of the time. So far the newer version, while dramatically more engaging, has fallen far short (to me) of engaging with those ideas.

So often the core components from original versions just get re-hashed without understanding the nature of the stories being told (well, that's how it seems to me), or the association between versions is so vague as to leave you to wondering why they even adopted the title.

In my mind if you're going to copy & enhance something that's already culturally rich, do it faithfully and make the new version 10x richer without diluting it's existing depth & spirit. If you're intention is adaptation that effectively presents a different set of ideas & narrative directions, go all the way and make it your own, and call it something different!.

Blakes Seven was a lot more 'entertaining' than Survivors to my memory, but similarly had depth of charcters & themes that I'd hope would be carefully thought through in a re-make. It was great Sci-Fi of it's time.

Feels to me that too often old ideas are re-hashed just to make money, without the appropriate investment to making fully-rounded projects. I'd prefer it if they saved the money for fewer really good projects and left us with the originals.

(probably more ranty than I intended)

 

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