JWR’s Comments on the “After Armageddon” Docudrama

The History Channel recently aired a docudrama that was interspersed with interviews of subject matter experts, titled After Armageddon. The show was previously mentioned here in SurvivalBlog, but I just recently got the chance to watch all of it. It portrayed a fictional family making some horrible mistakes, in the midst of a major pandemic. I assume that these mistakes were written into the script to increase the quotient for drama. (At least I hope so!) They certainly illustrated the peril of attempting to hunker down in a city with insufficient supplies. They should have “bugged out” weeks sooner!

I thought that overall the experts that the producers interviewed did a good job. Four of the most knowledgeable and articulate were of course names that you will recognize from SurvivalBlog: Kathy Harrison (author of the book “Just in Case” and a great blog), Kevin Reeve (a principal of onPoint Tactical), Michael Bane (host of DownRange TV), and Dr. Joseph Tainter. The latter is the author of the book “The Collapse of Complex Societies”. Although Tainter is not a blog content contributor, I’ve mentioned his work several times before in SurvivalBlog.

Despite its numerous flaws, I found that the show was still worth watching. In fact, there is often value in learning from the mistakes made by others. I just hope that some of the newbies watching this show can distinguish between the good and bad decisions that are depicted.