The End on the telly

It seems that Apocalypse telly is all the rage these days, quite literally so in the case of Charlie Brooker's Dead Set which ran for 5 days on E4 during the week running up to Halloween.

Brooker's vision of a world where a deadly virus (very reminiscent of the RAGE virus from 28 Days Later) is reanimating the dead and sending them on a cannibalistic rampage has a twist; "Just about the only people who aren't aware of it, initially at least, are a bunch of contestants in a fictional series of Big Brother". The Big Brother contestants form the core cast of the series along with some of the people from the other side of the cameras. Fantastically, these include a zombified Divina McCall who, to her credit, plays the role of a flesh hungry ghoul extremely convincingly.


Many people seem to have become convinced that Dead Set was in some sense an intellectual swipe at reality TV but Brooker himself has already denied this:

Q: In choosing the Big Brother setting, are you satirising reality TV, or is it just about the fact that it's quite a good setting for a horror series?

A: It's kind of in-between. In the original Dawn of the Dead, which was sort of a model for this, the setting has obviously got satirical undertones. I would say the same about this. But while you could spend your time watching it thinking ”Mmmmm, yes, a satirical point”, most of the time you're going to be thinking ”Help! Here come the zombies!“ It's kind of a scary romp, first and foremost. It's not a chin-stroking exercise.

The series can be watched online in full at http://www.e4.com/deadset/ and is out on DVD now.


The BBC's new post Apocalyptic series Survivors (based on the fantastic 1970s Terry Nation series of the same name) debuted tonight on BBC1 and, so far, seems pretty promising.

Set in the present day, Survivors focuses on the world in the aftermath of a devastating virus which wipes out most of the world's population. What would we do? How would any of us cope in a brave new world where all traditional 21st Century comforts - electricity, clean running water, advanced technology - have disappeared?

These are the questions faced by the bewildered but resilient group of survivors at the centre of the drama. It is an opportunity for new beginnings, but with no society, no police and no law and order, they now face terrible dangers - not just the daily struggle for food and water but also the deadly threat from other survivors.

Survivors promises a much less bloody and markedly more arts and crafts based post Apocalyptic landscape than Dead Set. However, it is perhaps worth noting that Greg Preston (played by actor Ian McCulloch) left the original series to fight zombies in Zombie Flesh Eaters, the Beeb's version of the Apocalypse evidently being a little too tame for him. This time around Greg Preston is played by Paterson Joseph, rumored to be taking over from David Tennant as Doctor Who in 2010. Will this "re-imagining" last as long as the original or will this initial 6 episode series be the be all and end all? Only time will tell.

You can watch the latest episode of Survivors and keep up to date with the series at http://www.bbc.co.uk/survivors/index.shtml

- John Reppion.