Dead Set - E4 Big Brother Zombie thing!

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Davina looks to be not dead! Dead cert for the climax.

If you're able to ignore everyone's obvious expectations of the satirist who wrote the show, it improves out of sight.

Davina McCall's knickers (Autumn Almanac), Friday, 31 October 2008 10:14 (fifteen years ago) link

i have no idea who Brooker is, perhaps that's why i'm enjoying it.

Ant Attack.. (Ste), Friday, 31 October 2008 10:17 (fifteen years ago) link

http://unseenscreen.com/

You all absolutely have to do this, it's brilliant.

Davina McCall's knickers (Autumn Almanac), Friday, 31 October 2008 10:20 (fifteen years ago) link

when i said i had low expectations, i meant because of the trailer really and that it was BB. I thought it would have a much lower budget tbh, i'm quite surprised at how good the effects have been.

Ant Attack.. (Ste), Friday, 31 October 2008 10:21 (fifteen years ago) link

I liked the actual proper horror ick of Alex getting beheaded against the utterly weird sight of Comic Relief Bastard Producer filleting Grayson and Angel while going slightly loopy. I do wish I'd waited and watched it in movie-length though. Also, it is v.v. gory for a relatively mainstream show, which people seem to be forgetting through tons of "not enough BB satire" Brooker expectation.

ailsa, Friday, 31 October 2008 10:22 (fifteen years ago) link

bah i'll have to wait until i get home to view that site

Ant Attack.. (Ste), Friday, 31 October 2008 10:24 (fifteen years ago) link

big brother has turned us into zombies. I got this insight from the metro. Satire is wasted.

Autobot Lover (jel --), Friday, 31 October 2008 10:26 (fifteen years ago) link

Eldon referred to it slightly last night, equating the zombies need to get to the BB house as "this is like a church to them", which somehow also parodies Dawn ot Dead when they refer to the zombies returning to the shopping mall because it was a familiar place, i guess.

Ant Attack.. (Ste), Friday, 31 October 2008 10:32 (fifteen years ago) link

That unseen web link is brilliant btw.

Ant Attack.. (Ste), Friday, 31 October 2008 12:30 (fifteen years ago) link

I thought the zombies up against the gates were a bit reminiscent of the baying hordes on eviction nights as well.

ailsa, Friday, 31 October 2008 12:33 (fifteen years ago) link

What a rubbish ending!

MaresNest, Friday, 31 October 2008 22:32 (fifteen years ago) link

Very disappointing, no twist, no coda, nothing.

Autobot Lover (jel --), Friday, 31 October 2008 22:33 (fifteen years ago) link

great ending!

final installment made it a quality piece of work as opposed to mildly amusing zombie diversion. thought the producer screaming "go on, eat me" was a bit much, but that was redeemed by the spinal chord, which made me laugh.

well done. satire kept to a minimum for a most part, which is good. big brother conventions really played into it at the end, but in a serious way, which I think was the right choice.

Gukbe, Friday, 31 October 2008 22:34 (fifteen years ago) link

no twist, no coda makes it better!!! x-post

Gukbe, Friday, 31 October 2008 22:35 (fifteen years ago) link

Aye, was very bleak. Convincing The Actor Kevin Eldon of his lack of real-world popularity in a choosing-sides battle was a bit too DO YOU SEE for my liking, but otherwise it was pretty good overall.

ailsa, Friday, 31 October 2008 22:39 (fifteen years ago) link

Hmmm, well as I said at the beginning of the thread, I've always thought zombies were rubbish. If it had been a one-off I wouldn't feel so cheated. So that's the satire, event TV is often a non-event. Should have read a book instead. Clever.

Autobot Lover (jel --), Friday, 31 October 2008 22:40 (fifteen years ago) link

You should have waited and watched it tomorrow in one long film-length version instead.

ailsa, Friday, 31 October 2008 22:43 (fifteen years ago) link

yeah, I should've. Oh well!

Autobot Lover (jel --), Friday, 31 October 2008 22:44 (fifteen years ago) link

i think zombies are great. i prefer the slow moving ones to the fast moving ones, because there is a degree of "false sense of security leading to hopelessness", and surely the terror of no hope is the scariest thought of all.

it was on par with recent theatrical zombie films, shaun of the dead aside, which is a complement considering the budget. shakey-cam and faster shutter speeds were excused because of the budget, but the (restrained) cleverness and solid horror makes up for it.

I suppose a brief round-up of my thoughts on the zombie films I've seen recently might help understand my thinking:

Dawn of the Dead (remake): Brilliant opening 15 minutes gives way to a solidly, and occasionally brilliant, directed film. Not terribly clever in any way, especially compared to the original, but enjoyable.
28 Days Later: though not technically zombies, I'll count it. It was okay, but the "WE ARE TEH EVIL" ending was far more DO YOU SEE than anything in Dead Set.
28 Weeks Later: Reliance on shaky-cam aside, not bad, though ridiculous plot developments hampered in the end (YOUR FATHER IS IN THE TUBE TOO???)
Land of the Dead: Coasted on Romero's past work, not that great on it's own. Starting to form thoughts and a new breed of intelligence half-interesting, but poorly executed. Still, compared to
I Am Legend: Final half of film (the "zombie" stuff) very poor indeed.

So yes, Dead Set was decent and worth the time. Probably would better all together, or possibly in two parts, but still.

Gukbe, Friday, 31 October 2008 22:53 (fifteen years ago) link

would be better*

Gukbe, Friday, 31 October 2008 22:54 (fifteen years ago) link

For me, this got better and better during the run and final ep was easily the best, primarily because I'm a sucker for a good, horrible downbeat ending. In full agreement that the last ep took it past being just a fun satirical chomp-chomp show and into something a bit more substantial. I had no real expectations of this, despite liking Brooker's columns a great deal, and was more than pleasantly surprised. The overall tone put me in mind of Day of The Dead ie. gorier than "Dawn of...", bleaker, with more of a sense of creeping dread and doom. Good stuff.

Bill A, Saturday, 1 November 2008 00:15 (fifteen years ago) link

Top ending. So nice to see the obvious outcome actually happen in one of these stories.

Davina McCall's knickers (Autumn Almanac), Saturday, 1 November 2008 07:29 (fifteen years ago) link

I really, really dug this. Nice one.

James Morrison, Monday, 3 November 2008 00:52 (fifteen years ago) link

ooh gukbe's exhortations have changed this from an ignore to a dl for sure

pls excuse my challopprobrium but I'm not normally into the cult of zombies but I'll def give this a go now

czn (cozwn), Monday, 3 November 2008 00:58 (fifteen years ago) link

Yeah, I'm not normally a zombie chap either. What I liked about it was, it was basically 'what happened in the Big Brother house when the events shown in 28 Days Later started'. Of course, if you didn't like '28 Days Later' you may not enjoy it so much.

James Morrison, Monday, 3 November 2008 02:32 (fifteen years ago) link

Yeah, 'cept Brian Belo hadn't won it then.

Davina McCall's knickers (Autumn Almanac), Monday, 3 November 2008 03:11 (fifteen years ago) link

ok glol at the scottish girl saying "was tht davina?" and "omg you killed davina"!

czn (cozwn), Monday, 3 November 2008 15:25 (fifteen years ago) link

"You bastards!"

?

Mark G, Monday, 3 November 2008 15:29 (fifteen years ago) link

ahhh just realised why the scots girl is so good; it's her from morvern callar

czn (cozwn), Monday, 3 November 2008 15:29 (fifteen years ago) link

i suppose i'd better watch this now...

Background Zombie (CharlieNo4), Monday, 3 November 2008 15:54 (fifteen years ago) link

fkn hell ain't half gruesome

czn (cozwn), Monday, 3 November 2008 16:03 (fifteen years ago) link

one month passes...

Dead Shit

the next grozart, Tuesday, 16 December 2008 11:57 (fifteen years ago) link

It's taken a month to come up with that?

Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, 16 December 2008 13:00 (fifteen years ago) link

Dick Set

chap, Tuesday, 16 December 2008 13:07 (fifteen years ago) link

i bought it on DVD expecting great things. Instead I got something that provided very little that hasn't already been covered by Shaun of the Dead or 28 Days Later between them, except not as funny as the former, nor as exciting as the latter. Once the initial "look it's Davina McCall going rabid insane" and "LOL TV producer doing a dump in a bucket" thing has subsided there's very little left to hold the attention. Whole episodes go by without anything happening, the character behaviour is off (why does Kevin Eldon open the zombie gate at the end?). And the funniest line in the show is "he ate an egg" (or something like that). I like Charlie Brooker's columns, and NAthan BArley was great, but what was the point in this?

the next grozart, Tuesday, 16 December 2008 14:17 (fifteen years ago) link

As iterated by someone else in the other thread; I do wish, in a satirical zombie 'thing', that someone would go "fuck me; zombies", and the failure of Brooker to do so makes him a poor man's Simon Pegg.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Wednesday, October 29, 2008 5:32 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://rocktimists.blogspot.com/2008/10/current-affairs.html

Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, 16 December 2008 14:20 (fifteen years ago) link

well that blog post was on the money.

what gets me is the pointlessness of it all. there have been something like at least three hand-made zombie films shot in our locale over the last five years, and without subverting that genre it's the same idea done on a bigger budget with the inclusion of Big Brother. I had high expectations from the online teaser which made it look like a very clever gore movie, but really it's no different from the aforementioned student movies.

the next grozart, Tuesday, 16 December 2008 14:54 (fifteen years ago) link

The last episode was quite good.

chap, Tuesday, 16 December 2008 14:56 (fifteen years ago) link

It was all a bit pointless

Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Tom D.), Tuesday, 16 December 2008 14:59 (fifteen years ago) link


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