More daft birth: how Survivors screwed up

BBC1’s Survivors: whoever put this together has been watching Lost and Heroes, and it’s all the better for it; its characters, being Brits, aren’t as consistently gorgeous, but they’re morally ambiguous while remaining sympathetic, which is the winning hand played by big American dramas at their best. But the recent birth scene was, in one crucial respect, a letdown.

OK, we’d been primed for it to be a quick labour; it was her third, and she was sure it would be as easy as shelling peas, or picking daisies, or something. But the creepy music had warned us that the delivery might turn out not to be as straightforward as the fate-tempting mother anticipated... And lo, it’s breech. Here’s the fatal flaw; it was completely preposterous to suppose that the sexy sister from Nathan Barley would have been happy to push one out with Mumsy Abby and the slick boss from Peep Show looking benignly on.

I know this character was exceptionally Zen – so much so that she responded to the unmedicated schizoid antics of her group leader with warm affection, and instead of deciding it might be a smart move to keep her newborn out of his orbit, volunteered the hope that the baby would help him to recover. But all the same... She might have put up with Abby, just, but Mr Peep Show Boss, delightful though he is, would have almost certainly received some very sweary marching orders. Am totally digging him in his Survivors incarnation, though. I hope it’s true that he’s going to be the new Doctor Who.