Dead Set: Worth a Re-Watch

Originally broadcast in the Autumn of 2008, Charlie Brooker's brilliant zom-com has been made available of 4oD, and it's as brilliant now as it was upon first showing. As a television drama, it works: initially broadcast over five consecutive week days it is neither too long nor too short; it is a fantastic concept and there are enough brutal set-pieces and comedic moments to ensure slick progression. From a horror perspective it also works: the Big Brother setting, perhaps not coincidentally, is the perfect for a zombie apocalypse drama: it allows for a acute critique of the Big Brother culture, and the real-world locale and astutely observed housemates puts it on the right side of believable. Credit must go to Channel 4 for commissioning a series that skewers their (at the time) biggest show.

The first episode alone contains many memorable moments. The ex-housemates' reactions of glee at seeing the oncoming rush of the undead hordes, and their subsequent cannibalisation, is a wonderful touch. Indeed the entire initial onslaught is cheekily shot to the sarcastically joyous strains of Mika's "Love Today". Special mention must also go to Davina McCall, who makes a great zombie. It may well be the television highlight of 2008, and I'm probably not alone in preferring her as a member of the living dead. Again, credit where credit's due, it takes some level of self-depreciation to cast yourself as a rabid blood-sucker.

Dead Set must surely also be the goriest television series of all time; certainly only The Walking Dead (which I'm unfortunately yet to see) and Spartacus: Blood and Sand, come close in recent years. There are a few spectacularly grisly death, with one of the last sticking in my mind: it's horrific. In fact, Dead Set deserves praise for aiming to balance gore and laughs with scares. Its closest cousin, Shaun of the Dead is gory fun, but it's not exactly nerve jangling. In contrast, Dead Set broods ominously, the washed out palate, lack of human life and the essentially futile position of the cast creates a real sense of menace. The nationwide-catastrophe and doom is heightened by the complete self-absorption of the characters.  

Other than Screenwipe and similar shows, Charlie Brooker doesn't have a huge number of writing credits for television series, but you wouldn't have known it, such is the assuredness of characterisation and plot. Satirising Big Brother is what Brooker was born to do; it fits his abrasive, simile-heavy humour perfectly. All the lead characters are great, but he clearly had most fun writing the bastards, with program-director Patrick and philosophical arse-wipe Joplin given the best lines.

To go much further would be to ruin the plot, so I'll keep it short. Dead Set is just utterly unique in its conception and execution. The setting is what makes the show; the natural defence, the freedom to write ridiculous characters, and the basis as a national touchstone and all the cultural comment that extends forthwith. It's great: watch it.