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story identification - Trying to find a TV show about an event that leaves everyone dead apart from people who died at the moment of the event?


This was a TV show aired in the UK probably sometime between 1990 and 1993, if memory serves it was only a one-off. The plot starts with the protagonist waking up in bed and being disappointed. He eventually goes outside and everyone is dead, whatever they were doing at the time they died doing it (driving, working, etc.) The protagonist is in a state of panic running around town (I seem to remember it being set in the UK) and he discovers that he's is 'alive' because he'd attempted suicide and died at the exact moment this mysterious event happened. I think he encounters others that 'died' at the time of the event and that's when he realises. I think the protagonist was a bald, white man, probably mid-thirties. Sorry for any vagaries, I was VERY young when it was on. Until recently I assumed it was The Quiet Earth but I've checked and it definitely isn't. It was in colour and was contemporary at the time so it would have been made around 1990.



Answer




Without wishing to point out the obvious, you're describing the 1985 film "The Quiet Earth".




  • Wakes up in bed disappointed - Check




  • Everyone is dead - Check




  • Runs around a lot - Check





  • Alive because he committed suicide at the time of the event - Check




  • A small number of others are alive because of the same reason - Check




  • Protagonist bald, white, middle-aged - Check








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