User Reviews

Survivors is perhaps the best sci-fi TV show of all time, or at least one of the best. It is realistic, idea-driven and asks some of the biggest and toughest questions that define the human condition and moral decency.

Thus far I have only seen the first season, and I've rated most episodes a 9 out of 10. This one, "Law and Order", however, is down to an 8 because I disagreed a lot with the ending. A guy is executed, and when they find out that it was another guy who really did the crime, they just let this guy off the hook! I think that's ridiculous. In effect, the guilty guy is now responsible for two deaths, and yet they just let him off with no punishment. Talk about going from one moral extreme (capital punishment) to the other (oh, just let 'im go!). That is irrational and unbelievable in the extreme. Of course, they shouldn't have executed the first guy, but I still think it is preposterous to just do nothing about the guilty guy. The whole reason for the prior execution - that the murderer would murder again - is still there. Well, I just think it's silly.

In fact, in the couple of episodes surrounding this one, the characters start acting rather stupidly in order to move the plot along. In one case they are harboring a pregnant woman, but fail to consider that their kids might talk about it in front of her pursuers, and in another case they just take a full petrol tanker out in public where scavenger types are sure to attack them. This sort of thing wouldn't have happened if this had been real. At least not if I had been there!

I'll suspend final judgment until I've seen the remainder of the series, but I hope the show is not going downhill already. That would be a shame.

The system of law in the UK had been developed over many hundreds of years. Yet, Barney was not given a fair trial by any means. Firstly, Barney was not fit to plead, having the mind of a young child. Secondly, the crime was not investigated properly. Thirdly, the reason capital punishment was abolished was that it cannot be reversed. Greg and Abby seem to be so keen to blame Barney as quickly as possible that a mistake was almost certain to be made! And it was. That makes four deaths Abby was responsible for. The three 'Angels' where she took the plague to with no thought and Barney. Although Abby liked to think of herself a leader making responsible decisions, in reality she only thought of herself. Greg was not much better, except he had a loud voice!