Dead Set: Part 5

 "This makes you the winner of this year's Big Brother".

That quote up there... yeah, it's an empty prize, but aren't they always, zombie apocalypse or no? Blimey, this is far more Hobbesian than I remembered. Utterly, splendidly bleak.

The dark catalyst of a character is, of course, Patrick- a toxic boss and an utter wanker, a liability in normal ligfe but absolutely impossible in a situation of base under siege. This isn't a message of conformity or that individualism is bad; the group are diverse, different and act as a democracy. But the Patricks of this world have no time for the collective. Here, his pointless escape will open the gate and risk everyone. He has to die, as decent people must realise. It's horrible.

Worse, we have Joplin- weak, pretentious, not as clever as he thinks, the perfect pause. And so things degenerate into utter hopelessness. Kelly's heroic last stand consists of just an immediate short scream. We end with a landscape of only zombies and cameras. Metaphor much?

Wow. Zombie apocalypse? Thatcher's children stand no chance. Simply superb.

Dead Set: Part 4

 "I mean, don't forget, this place used to be like a church to them."

Things are hotting up. The Big Brother house is under siege by zombies who are quite blatantly lampshaded as cheerfully blatant metaphors for consumers of celebrity culture. This cheerfully winks at us, knowing that it isn't very clever. But so much else here is.

At last Pippa and Patrick get out to the others, and Patrick- surely based on real producers Charlie Brooker may have encountered: he says, after killing zombie Davina, "I hired her. I can do what I want." And his effect on the group is immrediate, profoundly obnoxious, alienating and clearly making no friends, which may not be very clever in the long run. Yet he's ruthless, makes the hard choices, and you can see how he got where he is.

Meanwhile, we have Riq, the decent romantic, and Alex, the hardened cynic who, in the end, sacrifices her life for romance hoped for vicariously. The characterisation, darkly witty humour and encroaching sense of threat are approaching perfection.

Dead Set: Part 3

 "I'm only on the front cover of Heat!"

These episodes following the first are only twenty minutes long and the whole thing isn't obviously structured in an episodic way. Was it originally planned as a TV film? Never mind, this is good stuff, mixing typical zombie tropes with good characterisation and social commentary.

Thus we get to see the scary, pointless, power tripping behaviour of the police once society has collapsed, interesting to see on the day when a scathing report into the Met is published. Concepts like looting are now meaningless. We hear, via the radio, that France is swiftly following the UK to zombie apocalypse.

Yet there's still time for Joplin to show himself a perv and a coward as well as a pseud. For Patrick to poo his pants, yet indeed. And for the pathetic laddishness of Marky to be contrasted with the loving joy of Riq discovering Kelly is alive. Humanity is often pathetiuc, yet there is hope. This is very, very good and, oddly, far less bleak than Brooker's later Black Mirror despite the premise.

Doctor Who: Praxeus

“That’s why you smell of dead bird!”

That was rather good. Not, perhaps, up there with last week or Spyfall, but at last this season has given us a story of the week that is more than “quite good”. This was a solid tale, and not only because it looked amazing- well shot and looking far more e pensive than it actually was.

I’m reminded of The Enemy of the World in how this story flits from location to location- in this case Chile, Hong Kong and Madagascar- in a story that can feel somewhat bewildering. Perhaps the story struggled to squeeze everything into its running time but I’m nevertheless impressed with how the supporting cast were well fleshed out, the Doctor gets to be extremely Doctorish, the regular cast are all given lots to do while being shown to be awesome, and the story is actually about something- the scary amounts of microplastics we are releasing into our world.

The plot is rather daring, beginning with the TARDIS crew split up on various missions and allowing the TARDIS itself to link the various strands. Yet this allows each regular character to have a little development- especially the arguably neglected Yas- and shows how far each of them has come since they started travelling with the Doctor. We get to see an international and pleasingly diverse cast. We even get a sympathetic and three dimensional same sex relationship where, at the last moment, the more three dimensional of the two narrowly escapees a heroic yet cliched death. Phew.

Also, it’s interesting to have the baddie be a deadly alien pathogen for once, and for the sentient alien antagonist to be using humans as lab rats in a desperate attempt to find a cure. As stories of the week go this feels new, experimental, expanding what Doctor Who can do rather than fitting into an established story type like “celebrity historical” or “base under siege”. No, this may not end up as one of my all time favourites, but it’s well conceived, well scripted and well made. At last the stories of the week this season give us something impressive that’s more than “quite good”. And, after last week, it’s good to be reminded that you don’t need loads of continuity to redefine what this programme can be capable of.