Life After People - Channel 4, UK

[ITL]

Did anyone else see this one-off programme?

It posed a question - if, theoretically, all humans disappeared from the Earth overnight, what would happen to our cities, towns, etc. How would things decay over time? How would nature reclaim what we've built? How would animals adapt to the change?

Here's the mini-site for the show on the Channel 4 website. There's some cool "what if?" pictures there that were part of the show.

 

[biotech]

I saw it, I was dissapointed, they kept recycling the same few clips over and over.

 

[ITL]

True, but I still found the show fascinating.

 

[DanCPA]

If it's the same one they showed in the US a while ago, I saw it and loved it!

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Is that the one where they said cats would grow wings and live in skyscrapers?

I liked it a lot. The sequence on Chernobyl was extremely spooky. And the idea that Las Vegas would be the last to go seems appropriate.

 

[ITL]

Yeah, the "kitties go down the flying squirrel route" was a bit daft, I suppose.

Still - overall, an excellent programme, I thought. It was very strange to think of our cities going the way of - for example - a Mayan complex in Central America, getting reclaimed by nature.

 

[DanCPA]

The sequence on Chernobyl was extremely spooky. And the idea that Las Vegas would be the last to go seems appropriate.

Chernobyl sequence was great! As for Vegas being the last to go... Seems very ironic given that the city destroys itself every 20ish years

 

[kalysto]

Yep, this aired last week here in Australia. Was great! The clip recycling was a little overdone (as mentioned above), but it didn't take much away. I was hoping they may talk more about how plants/animals may adapt to the new world, but they really only went into dogs and cats. It was wild to imagine cats ruling the skies!

 

[Ghost Rider]

Bugger!! I missed it.Was watching Blade Runner then chuck

 

[biotech]

I thought the flying cats was pretty stupid, I mean how long would it take for something like that to evolve when they already said the skyscrapers would fall in a few hundred years anyway?

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Missed it, but it's up on 4oD, so I'll watch it later.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

^^^^I missed it as well.......were would we be without VOD.....LOL

 

[Bob The Skutter]

^^^^I missed it as well.......were would we be without VOD.....LOL

In the dark, dark days of a year or two ago.

 

[Jax]

I saw the ending a while back on the History channel I think it was, so it was nice to see the rest of the show this time around. Very interesting show I thought overall, I don't watch much UK TV anymore but nice to know still some gems out there.

 

[biotech]

I think it could easily have been an hour long though, instead of padding it out to 90 minutes with the same clips shown over and over.

And were they being sponsored by the hoover dam or something?

They couldnt sing its praises enough it seemed.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

^^^^I missed it as well.......were would we be without VOD.....LOL

In the dark, dark days of a year or two ago.

Ohh woe how did we cope in those dark cold days......imagine having to put a video into a video tape and record it.....although i still have my video tape and I'm not about to get rid of it anytime soon, i don't record anything off the TV but i just have too many perfectly working videos to simply just ditch it.

I will think about binning my video collection when HD format movies can be bought for 3 for £20..

 

[ChristopherPike]

A refreshing change, I actually looked forward to watching something on Channel 4! Are they sure they could spare a hour and a half for this... amid the reality TV crap.

I enjoyed it. Although it was a stretch announcing all human life had suddenly vanished off the entire planet. I suppose that was to not upset the pet lovers in the audience, who wouldn't take well to graphic scenes of being eaten by Rover or Tiddles...

The most striking thing I came away from the documentary was how we don't build anything to last these days, despite all the hype about us scarring the planet. Ancient ruins as evidence of human kind won the day. There's a good sci fi inspiration for future writers here. Archeologists arrive on Earth find it devoid of intelligent life but discover the faces carved into Mount Rushmore and the Pyramids. They conclude that we were a primitive war-like race, that thankfully never became advanced enough for space travel.

 

[Christopher]

There's a good sci fi inspiration for future writers out there. Archeologists arrive on Earth find it devoid of intelligent life but discover the faces carved into Mount Rushmore and the Pyramids. They conclude that we were a primitive war-like race, that thankfully never became advanced enough for space travel.

The problem there is that our Lunar landers will outlast every human artifact on Earth, since the only source of erosion there is the occasional micrometeorite impact. The landers, the buggies, the flags, maybe even the footprints will still be there after Mt. Rushmore has eroded into just another rock.

 

[ChristopherPike]

^ Maybe something catastrophic happens to the Moon before they get here. Oh wait... That still leaves our space probes drifting around interstellar space. Nevermind, the aliens in my novel will just be really myopic!

Christopher, do you offer reasonable rates for plot hole detection. I think I'm going to need you...

 

[biotech]

Well unless every single satalite drops out of orbit, including the ones in geostationary orbit, there will still be quite a lot of machines orbiting the earth.