The Last Train

- Season 1

(1999)

Government employee Harriet Ambrose is one of the passengers on a train from London to Sheffield but,unlike her fellow travellers,she is aware that a disaster is about to happen. It is a huge meteor that falls on Birmingham,destroying life for many miles around but,as the train crashes,Harriet discharges a gas canister. A long while later the passengers awake from a state of suspended animation to find the surrounding countryside wholly wasted. Harriet is anxious to locate a colleague,Jonathan Geddes,whom she believes can help and she persuades the others to help her ...

The group reaches the ruins of Sheffield but the bunker where Harriet is expecting to meet Jonathan is totally destroyed and there is only a decaying corpse and a cryptic message. The bunker is equipped with the same canisters as Harriet used on the train. A pregnant and seemingly feral girl,Hild,appears and latches onto Anita,one of the party,though it seems she is being pursued. Businessman Colin notices a grave dated 2012,proving that the passengers were in suspended animation for a decade.

Harriet tells the group that their best chance of survival is to reach the ARK,a government safe area in Scotland and they head north but their van becomes trapped in a ruined refinery which has sunk onto the edge of a cliff. Hunting party leader Mick pursues a wild pig into the refinery which,despite the presence of a jaguar,the company kills and eats. Romance blossoms between Jandra and Iain but when they are surprised in an intimate moment by Jandra's son Leo she falls over the cliff in surprise.

The group rescue the seriously injured Jandra,despite a fall of acid rain. They arrive at the river Tees,which has flooded and burst its banks with no crossing points. Hild - who is not mute after all - tells the party where they may find help from her tribe. However,when some of the group arrive at a deserted holiday camp where Hild's people live they are met with violence and hostility and Harriet has to kill a man before stealing a boat. On arrival back at the van they find that Jandra has died. Hild's people pursue them on horseback but the party escapes,largely ...

Still hunted by Hild's tribe the party reaches a village,which has supplies and amenities. However there are only two occupants, Mark and Gillian, a father and daughter, as the village women were made barren by the meteor's fall-out and the other locals went out into the world to try their luck away from the village. Mick and the pregnant girl Roe get very close,which frustrates Colin,who tries to rape her. Seeing the party's arrival as a means of repopulating the village Mark torches their van to prevent them leaving but Hild's people arrive and everybody takes ...

Eventually the survivors reach the ARK, seemingly an abandoned power station. Harriet is anxious to find Geddes,her boyfriend, but he has changed alarmingly and she ends up killing him. As Hild's tribe arrive violence erupts. They capture Austin and,due to Colin locking him out of the building, Mick,hanging them on crosses though they are rescued by Roe. Ultimately the hunters and the hunted gather inside the ARK as Hild gives birth to her daughter,the ARK's missing survivors turning out to be the ancestors of Hild's tribe.