I have been watching Survivors on the BBC. For those not in the UK, and those who are but haven’t seen this, it is a drama following people after a massive virus outbreak has killed off most of the worlds population.

A central character of the story is a woman called Abby who is searching for her son who was in hospital on the other side of the country on the day when most people died.

After chatting to my good friend Sheena who noticed something I had missed in the first episode I wonder if there are some Christian tones or playful licence in this program. For example – in the first episode it did seem that Abby died of the virus. Three days later Abby woke up, came back to life, recovered. It’s interesting that it should be three days.

Abby, that could be a play on Abba (father), is looking for her son. The name Abby derives from Abigail which is also interesting. The strict translation is ‘my father is joy’ but after being used a lot by the puritans and being the central character in a play in the 1600’s the name became a slang term for a servant.

It’s easy to read things into this – but Abby, searching parent, servant is drawing a community together. In episode 2 which I watched last night Abby is calling for the moral ground, refusing to use violence to get food, and seems to be reminding her community (for they look to her as the leader) of what it means to be human.

It’s an interesting drama and I’m interested to see how the character of Abby in particular develops. I think its a another case from the many of little traits of God appearing in parts of his (media) creation.