Welcome to my review of the TV show Dead Set! A show I’m arbitrarily reviewing because it has zombies in it and because I’d never seen it before (a lot of the things I review will be written about for similarly pointless reasons). If you’ve somehow found this review before any of the others, here’s a little link to the first review so you can get all caught up!
Anyway, so first impressions! It turns out that episodes after the first one (which was forty five minutes long) are now only twenty minutes. It felt a little jarring finishing as quickly as it did, but if it prevents the show from having any filler then it’s a-okay by me. It also makes my life a lot easier reviewing each episode individually. I was able to watch several episodes at once, so thank god I was keeping notes on each one individually otherwise my reviews would all be coloured retroactively by my knowledge of what happens next.
There was a lot more comedy in this one, which I appreciated. The episode starts with Riz Ahmed at a train station, as his train apparently never arrived. Bit of context,
Ahmed’s character is the boyfriend of Kelly (Jaime Winstone), and both of them are runners at the studio. Ahmed was sent off on an errand but his car was stolen by a peculiarly desperate family attempting to flee something. Wonder what that could have been foreshadowing? Anyway, so Ahmed has been sleeping at a train station and now he’s wondering what the hell’s going on. He’s walking along when he comes across a truck on the road with the doors open. When he approaches it, wouldn’t you know it, there’s a zombie inside! So he runs away and manages to get into an abandoned petrol station.
The comedy comes with what happens next. The zombie that chased him is constantly banging on the door, and Ahmed is sat there reading a magazine. I approve of this nonchalant attitude to a crazed individual trying to kill you. The same thing also happens with Patrick (Andy Nyman) and one of the Big Brother contestants being locked in a room with zombie Davina McCall banging on the door outside. Having no recourse to
escape, they just sit around reading and eating the canapés. There was also something funny about the zombie chasing Ahmed the way it did. The way the zombies chase people relentlessly in Dead Set is terrifying, but it’s also quite funny. Seeing the zombie literally a metre away from Ahmed at all times while they’re running is good mix of terrifying and absurd. If Ahmed slowed down would the zombie slow down as well?
I was less keen on the satirical elements. One of the contestants asking if the zombie apocalypse meant they wouldn’t be on TV anymore is obviously a joke on the dumbness and self-centredness of the contestants, but it still felt mean-spirited to me. I’m also not keen on the characterisation of the contestant Patrick is sat around with. She just spends all her time complaining about everything, with Patrick just telling her to shut up constantly. I’m a bit concerned that, in a twenty minute episode, there actually managed to be filler with Patrick and the contestant Pippa (Kathleen McDermott) literally doing nothing but sit around trapped by Davina McCall.
While focussing on the negatives, I’m really not keen on them implying that the zombie apocalypse may have been caused by Wifi or GM crops. It seemed harmless to propagate these conspiracy theories back in 2008, but now in the internet world where people are increasingly idiotic about everything, these theories actually are harmful. I think it was just a way for Brooker to ground the story in reality by referencing tabloid junk. These are working class protagonists after all, so their understanding of why a zombie apocalypse would be happening could be informed by reading tabloids like the Daily Express or The Sun. That’s the thing though, I’d rather not be reminded of the The Sun’s existence while watching a zombie show. Unless it was zombies eating Sun journalists. Then I’d watch it. Again and again.
Okay, so Riq (Riz Ahmed), is rescued from the petrol station by a badass survivalist lady, Alex (Liz May Brice who played Herrena the Henna-Haired Harridan in The Colour Of Magic adaptation (Yes I remember that that was a thing). She bought her gun on eBay and apparently had to take bits of her dead friend’s head out of her hair. This unnecessarily gory detail made me laugh. Why she owns a gun off eBay is unexplained, though I assume she’s some kind of survivalist with a plan for these sorts of things. People do legitimately plan for zombie apocalypses, which is itself funny to me. Guys, zombies were invented by a guy who thought, “why don’t we de-romanticise vampires?” I don’t see people preparing for vampire apocalypses anytime soon. Then again…there are a lot of crucifixes around…
If Christianity was set up as one big vampire-hunting club I wouldn’t be surprised.
The show somewhat reverses roles with Riq and Alex, as Alex is the badass with the gun while Riq can’t even fix their broken down car even after an entire day of trying. The zombies come at night so they have to leg it, eventually finding an old mansion house. Is there anyone inside? Riq’s knocking over picture frames and making as much noise as possible when they entered would imply not. So yeah,
The contestant who got bitten, Angel (Chizzy Akudolu), needs medical aid, so the gay drag queen contestant, Grayson (Raj Ghatak), who is apparently also a doctor(?) says they need pharmaceutical supplies. Kelly,
being a badass taking charge, first tells them to tie the infected contestant up, because she’s the only logical person in the room apparently, and says she’ll go out to get the supplies from a nearby supermarket. Two other contestants, Space (Adam Deacon) and Marky (Warren Brown (Luther guy) agree to go with her. They figure out that the other contestants can draw the zombies away by making noises on the roof while they run the other direction to an open van, which Kelly, again being awesome, managed to swipe the keys for in the previous episode. I’m enjoying seeing someone like Kelly, who started out as a bored intern making out with one of the other interns in the studio backroom, taking charge and getting shit done. Not to go too much into my feelings on The Walking Dead, but those books (I haven’t seen the show yet) drove me nuts because idiots would spend all their time falling into melodramas with each other instead of focussing on survival). There’s some romantic interest being implied between Space and Kelly, but otherwise there’s no emotional BS here.
The three jump into the van and drive away, with a really scary shot of one of the unrelenting zombies running behind them. You get a sense that these things just won’t stop chasing you no matter how far you get. Kind of like an uber-bloody-looking It Follows.
Overall, I really enjoyed this episode. It managed to avoid most of the snobbishness I was worried about from Brooker, and just told a really cool short zombie tale. People are trapped, it’s near-fatal to move from one safe space to the next, and the focus is very much on, how are we going to survive one day to the next? I’m glad that Riq’s story is set away from the Big Brother house as that prevents us from getting irritated by any of the self-absorbed characters’ antics, and gives us a better idea of what’s happening outside. Newsflash, things seem awful everywhere. And I like Kelly and Space’s relationship. They seem cool. Things are shaping up well for these twenty minute zombie show episodes (which, when you thing about it, really aren’t common), so I was excited to immediately jump straight into episode three…
Brooking The Vault 