Dead Set

Admittedly running zombies is not exactly original any more. Remember the scariness of the rage infected pseudo-zombies running in 28 Days Later? It's pretty scary, because the shambling walk was always the zombies main weakness. Well, these are real, human eating zombies and they can run, fast. They are therefore scary, and only have one weakness - they aren't very clever. Whether they are more scary than a lumbering zombie is a topic for discussion across the interwebs and not here.

Being set in the Big Brother house is a new twist, but not too far removed from the usual isolated group discovering the apocalypse. Maybe if you're a Big Brother fan you'll love the cameos from old house-mates and Davina McCall, but personally I didn't know who most of them were. I have a feeling that many people will try to draw elaborate analogies between zombies and watching Big Brother and mas media etc. etc. but the show itself doesn't really do that, it sticks to the core zombie themes. And it does that pretty well. There's running and shooting and crazy cops, there's gore and intestines and mutilated bodies, there's isolation and paranoia and desperation.

But in the end it is a standard zombie story: the survivors downfall is their own petty squabbling, which opens the door to the zombie horde. There is no escape, no simple solution, which while nice for mainstream TV, actually seems to be normal in zombie films and hence comes as no surprise.

In fact the real exception that I missed earlier is:

3. It's on UK TV.

The mere fact that it's a full-on zombie story on UK TV has to be applauded, but for those with previous zombie experience it's nothing new. You can still watch Dead Set online (UK only?) if you hurry.

Dead Set was written by Charlie Brooker, who suddenly everyone is proclaiming as a genius writer, not sure why all of a sudden? There's an interview with him on the E4 site in which he is refreshingly honest,