Dead Set [2008] (DVD)

Hmmmm After wowing everyone in TV land with his witty and insightful criticism - which, make no mistake, he can do better than practically anybody - Charlie Brooker moves onto Drama/Comedy/Splatter/Horror, which showcases the many things he can't do, such as dialogue, plot, tension, story, etc. What we get is a re-hash of scenes from various zombie movies (many of them lifted wholesale), and some heavy-handed satire on familiar Brooker themes. So, producers and media people in general are always egomaniacal monsters, runners (for some strange reason) are always paragons of moral virtue, (as they are in Nathan Barley and Screen Wipe, almost as if they haven't chosen this career for themselves and would just as soon be nurses or aid workers), and - get this! - BB contestants are thick and self-obsessed. Brooker once described Nathan Barley's thoughts as "ultraviolent tedium" and that's the phrase that came to mind when watching this. Shock and awe for people who get their news from Metro and their opinions from Heat; a massive let-down for the rest of us.

Well made series This was a well made and well put together production. Recently bought it on DVD and some of the SFX is well made considering that it was a reasonably low budget. I'm not going to give ANYTHING away, but all I can say is WELL DONE to all the cast and crew.

Great shame its not true for big brother contestants This is simply brilliant. what should have happened was the program should've been the other way round with the inmates trying to bite the zombies. It would have been better for everyone if they did stay zombies as zombies are much more intelligent, better looking and proberly have a better sense of hygeine than normal big brother inmates. Anyway it is original and apart from not having any major jokes in it, it has its moments of greatness. I mean what could be better than seeing a zombie eat Divina McCall. Shame its a fiction program. And also seeing all of those brainless, stupid utter clots that inhabbit the big brother house be, as usual completely unaware of anything and then get eaten its great. Example that stupid scottish inmate that got evicted, she got eaten and was proberly the only person in the history of zombie films or zombie anything that came back as a zombie more intelligent than she was as a human. Its great most of the stupidness is true as well. well about big brother anyway.

Nihilistic Masterpiece People asking rudimentary questions such as "what caused the outbreak in the first place" and "why don't zombies attack one another" are spectacularly missing the point of the whole genre, and would do well to remember that those answers are never as much fun as the questions anyway. Dead Set magnificently uses many conventions of the Big Brother format (such as the darkened camera runs surrounding the house or the exterior control over the environment) to heighten tension and offer realistic reasons for plot development. Anyone looking for a message to take away from Dead Set could do worse than saying that reality tv is turning us all into blank-eyed insatiable fame-hungry zombies. Anyone else can simply enjoy this nihilistic masterpiece for what it is - an extremely worthwhile and satisfying entry into a genre that's been done to (un)death.

Great Idea but full of Clichés... WARNING!!! SPOILERS!!! I'm a big fan of Brooker (his Guardian column, Screenwipe, Nathan Barley etc) and was really looking forward to this but by the end of Episode 5 I was kinda disappointed... The story was full of the usual zombie genre clichés and I was really hoping Brooker would deliver something fresher than that. We had the old reliable 'someone's been bitten, let's go out for supplies' routine, the 'lone idiot who endangers the group', the 'I have to go after her I love her' bit, and the classic 'left alone with the infected person'... been there bitten that.... Now don't get me wrong it was still fifty times better than most of the garbage on TV these days bar a very few great shows but I was just hoping for a bit more.... All in all good but a missed opportunity. Fingers crossed HBO or someone like it will give the amazing "The Walking Dead" comic series the television serial treatment; done right that would be incredible!