217 Survival

First  watched : Uncertain

Survival  was  ITV's  rival  to  the  BBC's  The  World  About  Us.  It  was  the  brand  name  for  individual  wildlife  films  usually  edited  to  fill  a  half  hour  slot  but  sometimes  allowed  an  hour  as  Survival  Special.  It  ran  for  40  years  from  1961  and  was  a  hugely  successful  export. The  narrative  thread  was  usually  provided  by  a  well-known   but  unseen  ( which  made  the  films  easier  to  export ) actor  such  as  Ian  Holm  or  Richard  Briers  although  scientific  personalities  like  David  Bellamy  also  got  a  look-in.

Survival  ,erm , survived  until  2001  when  Granada  got  hold  of  the  unit  and  broke  it  up  though  the  title  was  revived  for  a  series  with  Ray  Mears  in  2010  and  then  Survival-Tales  from  the  Wild  a  year  later.

My  interest  in  the  show  varied  with  the  subject  matter. I'm  mainly   interested  in cold  rather  than  warm-blooded  animals. The  one  that  particularly  rabbed  me  was  the  1978  special  Mysterious  Castles  of  Clay  which  concentrated  on  the  life  of  a  termite  colony and    culminated  in  Biblical  tragedy  when  it  was  overrun  and  destroyed  by  invading  ants. I'm  not  surprised  to  read  that  it  got  an  Oscar  nomination  for  Best  Television  Film  Documentary  that  year.