Plague in Britian... zombie or otherwise!
Dec. 1st, 2008 07:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
newnumber6No, this does not relate to any real news at all (and shame on you for being disappointed!). It's just I've watched two apocalyptic productions out of the UK recently. One is the first episode of Survivors, the remake of Terry Nation's miniseries from the 70s (or the miniseries based on his book at least, I'm not entirely sure which), in which a plague wipes out most of humanity. The second is "Dead Set", a zombie apocalypse miniseries... set around the (UK) Big Brother House (actually I saw the first ep a few weeks ago but got sidetracked by November and other stuff while I tried to track down the rest). A zombie apocalypse breaks out on "Eviction" Night, and the reality show contestants don't realize anything's gone wrong at first because they're isolated from the world and media. It sounds funnier than it is, but it is very good.
So let's start with Survivors, because I have less to say. It's only the first episode, and being such, much of it deals with the plague itself, rather than the aftermath. But it does a decent enough job in setting up the situation and the characters that I'm interested in coming back for more. Of course, I like apocalypse fiction and other media. A few Doctor Who alum make an appearance, and one of the main cast is someone who's currently odds on favorite to be the Next Doctor.
So, onto Dead Set. When I heard about the premise, I did kind of think they'd play it really satirical, almost comical, like Shaun of the Dead, but surprisingly no - there are certainly elements of satire, but it's dark satire, and most of the plot is played deadly serious, and frankly, it's both gorier and more disturbing in many ways than a lot of the more recent zombie films I've seen. One of the greatest things about it is actually using the Big Brother house and property and celebrity status. It's a tiny bit lost on me, personally, since I've only seen the US version, so I don't get all the in-jokes (like using the actual host and some prior contestants) but I have to give them big kudos for doing it. For example, I could never see this being remade in the US, at least not without it being about some made-for-the-movie reality show, like "Total Surveillance" or "Human Zoo" or "Do I Orwell For The Camera?" or something. And that's a shame, because really, it's the best way to do it. I mean, come on, a zombie Julie Chen... well, a more _violent_ zombie Julie Chen? Having fights over the Head of Household room and whether that means you're in charge? The US versions of the stock contestants? Plus the familiarity of the house itself. (I think I've just outed myself as a BB watcher. Shut up. It's on in the summer, and nothing's on in the summer, so it's okay to watch reality shows!) It almost wouldn't be worth doing unless you could actually use Big Brother, and I can't imagine the US company being that cool.
The cast, although a few of them are a little bland, are mostly enjoyable and to a fair degree aren't idiots, which is refreshing (of course, they are occasionally, as moments of idiocy are practically necessitated by zombie movies, particularly for climaxes). But they use well thought out plans for dealing with the situation.
If I had one complaint about it it would be that they use fast zombies. It's not a dealbreaker for me, but I generally prefer the slow ones. In Shaun of the Dead writer/star Simon Pegg's review of Dead Set he pretty much agrees and explains why better than I could (Dead Set writer Charlie Booker responds at the end of an unrelated editorial on the US election here if anyone is interested in the reasoning, and so I can forgive him for it and even agree that in some situations I might use fastish zombies, but I just slow zombies best.)
So, yeah, Dead Set is highly recommended for zombie fans. Or Big Brother fans who don't mind gore and swearing and brief nudity. Got me thinking about my old desire for a zombie apocalypse ongoing TV series.
I think they'd probably have to do it Lost style... right down to using regular flashbacks. Have people's general survival struggles contrasting as we learn more about them and how they came together. Maybe have the first season set in a small holed up location, and the season arc being the attempt to get to a better one. The second season could be at something like an army base or something which is relatively secure, but internal struggles threaten to tear them apart.
In other plague news, my cold was very painful over the weekend (and I felt a bit zombieish, except my cravings for human flesh stayed at about the usual level), but seems mostly better now. I thought I might suffer a minor setback from having to walk 45 minutes to work in cold rain this morning, but I had a bottle of OJ for extra vitamin C and bought some ginger beer, the magic cure all, on the way home, so that helped balance it out.
And, while I'm here, I suppose I should give a rundown of PerExWriMo (personal extra writing month). My goal was to write every day but wednesday, and on every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday do my quota of 2000 words a day (Monday and Friday I would be working on script format writing and other things which aren't easy to meter). I wound up with just over 38,000 words of metered writing, and I did write every single day (except Wednesdays when work and often comic day makes it implausible). So I suppose I could count it as a technical success. However, I didn't finish anything, wasn't really excited about most of what I wrote, and didn't write nearly as much on the non-metered writing as I hoped. I also didn't really get any 'new ideas' that caught fire in my imagination, as forced writing sometimes does. The closest I came was a desire to start a movie type script, weaving together many elements I enjoy reading in SF, but of course with my own plot, and I did start that, it taking up most of my non-metered writing time of the last half of the month. I'm kinda digging it conceptually but may not go anywhere, just another half-(or quarter, or 1-tenth)-finished project. We'll see. But now we're in December, which is my official month off from writing, where I only write if I feel _particularly_ inspired.
So let's start with Survivors, because I have less to say. It's only the first episode, and being such, much of it deals with the plague itself, rather than the aftermath. But it does a decent enough job in setting up the situation and the characters that I'm interested in coming back for more. Of course, I like apocalypse fiction and other media. A few Doctor Who alum make an appearance, and one of the main cast is someone who's currently odds on favorite to be the Next Doctor.
So, onto Dead Set. When I heard about the premise, I did kind of think they'd play it really satirical, almost comical, like Shaun of the Dead, but surprisingly no - there are certainly elements of satire, but it's dark satire, and most of the plot is played deadly serious, and frankly, it's both gorier and more disturbing in many ways than a lot of the more recent zombie films I've seen. One of the greatest things about it is actually using the Big Brother house and property and celebrity status. It's a tiny bit lost on me, personally, since I've only seen the US version, so I don't get all the in-jokes (like using the actual host and some prior contestants) but I have to give them big kudos for doing it. For example, I could never see this being remade in the US, at least not without it being about some made-for-the-movie reality show, like "Total Surveillance" or "Human Zoo" or "Do I Orwell For The Camera?" or something. And that's a shame, because really, it's the best way to do it. I mean, come on, a zombie Julie Chen... well, a more _violent_ zombie Julie Chen? Having fights over the Head of Household room and whether that means you're in charge? The US versions of the stock contestants? Plus the familiarity of the house itself. (I think I've just outed myself as a BB watcher. Shut up. It's on in the summer, and nothing's on in the summer, so it's okay to watch reality shows!) It almost wouldn't be worth doing unless you could actually use Big Brother, and I can't imagine the US company being that cool.
The cast, although a few of them are a little bland, are mostly enjoyable and to a fair degree aren't idiots, which is refreshing (of course, they are occasionally, as moments of idiocy are practically necessitated by zombie movies, particularly for climaxes). But they use well thought out plans for dealing with the situation.
If I had one complaint about it it would be that they use fast zombies. It's not a dealbreaker for me, but I generally prefer the slow ones. In Shaun of the Dead writer/star Simon Pegg's review of Dead Set he pretty much agrees and explains why better than I could (Dead Set writer Charlie Booker responds at the end of an unrelated editorial on the US election here if anyone is interested in the reasoning, and so I can forgive him for it and even agree that in some situations I might use fastish zombies, but I just slow zombies best.)
So, yeah, Dead Set is highly recommended for zombie fans. Or Big Brother fans who don't mind gore and swearing and brief nudity. Got me thinking about my old desire for a zombie apocalypse ongoing TV series.
I think they'd probably have to do it Lost style... right down to using regular flashbacks. Have people's general survival struggles contrasting as we learn more about them and how they came together. Maybe have the first season set in a small holed up location, and the season arc being the attempt to get to a better one. The second season could be at something like an army base or something which is relatively secure, but internal struggles threaten to tear them apart.
In other plague news, my cold was very painful over the weekend (and I felt a bit zombieish, except my cravings for human flesh stayed at about the usual level), but seems mostly better now. I thought I might suffer a minor setback from having to walk 45 minutes to work in cold rain this morning, but I had a bottle of OJ for extra vitamin C and bought some ginger beer, the magic cure all, on the way home, so that helped balance it out.
And, while I'm here, I suppose I should give a rundown of PerExWriMo (personal extra writing month). My goal was to write every day but wednesday, and on every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday do my quota of 2000 words a day (Monday and Friday I would be working on script format writing and other things which aren't easy to meter). I wound up with just over 38,000 words of metered writing, and I did write every single day (except Wednesdays when work and often comic day makes it implausible). So I suppose I could count it as a technical success. However, I didn't finish anything, wasn't really excited about most of what I wrote, and didn't write nearly as much on the non-metered writing as I hoped. I also didn't really get any 'new ideas' that caught fire in my imagination, as forced writing sometimes does. The closest I came was a desire to start a movie type script, weaving together many elements I enjoy reading in SF, but of course with my own plot, and I did start that, it taking up most of my non-metered writing time of the last half of the month. I'm kinda digging it conceptually but may not go anywhere, just another half-(or quarter, or 1-tenth)-finished project. We'll see. But now we're in December, which is my official month off from writing, where I only write if I feel _particularly_ inspired.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 11:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 11:58 am (UTC)Wait, that's race horses.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 01:09 pm (UTC)But in general, it presumably has the same reputed medicinal qualities as ginger ale (which is a little more for upset stomachs I suppose) but it's stronger. Also, it burns going down (pleasantly) and the intensity of it does seem to have a slight sinus clearing effect, at least on me.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-02 01:11 pm (UTC)