ALLY ROSS
Gore blimey… woke Channel 4 drama Generation Z is just EastEnders with zombies
Toxic, weak, cry baby masculinity is a recurring theme throughout the six episodes
A WOKE zombie drama is such an obviously terrible idea it guarantees two things immediately.
1) If you do make such a show, it will just turn into a gorier version of EastEnders, with a slightly higher body count but a similar number of the living dead lumbering around the set.
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And 2) Channel 4 will simply be too stupid to resist the temptation.
And lo, it came to pass, with an “all star” cast featuring Robert Lindsay, Johnny Vegas, Sue Johnston and Anita “Angie Watts” Dobson, whose presence merely reinforces the EastEnders comparisons.
This dawn of the duds operation, however, actually goes by the name Generation Z and is set in the fictional town of Dambury, where the deliberate release of a poisonous military gas, near a care home, has zombified a handful of the locals, who are as strikingly diverse and inclusive as the next advert break.
All the absolute wrong ’uns who have unleashed this hell, though, come from exactly the same demographic. They’re white and male.
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A startling hypocrisy which guarantees, from the start, I’m probably not going to be entirely on board with Generation Z.
Disapproving scowls
The political self-indulgence doesn’t end there, though.
Toxic, weak, cry baby masculinity is a recurring theme throughout the six episodes, along with approving nods towards the NHS and equally disapproving scowls aimed at Brexit, unconscious bias and this year’s compulsory baddie, Margaret Thatcher, whose bloodthirsty militarism back in the 1980s, we’re encouraged to think, caused this modern-day apocalypse.
It’s a tad ungrateful, I think, given that Channel 4 was the brainchild and creation of Margaret Thatcher.
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But, even if Generation Z wasn’t so distracted by its own political prejudices, it would still be a dreadful piece of crap in every technical way, from the hole-ridden plot (where are the police and the journalists?) to the horrendous continuity, which transports you from summer to winter and back to summer again, all in the space of the same scene.
None of this would matter too much in the course of a normal zombie drama, obviously, but Generation Z fancies itself as no such thing (it’s a satire, darling) and added one killer detail that ensured its failure.
EastEnders legend completely unrecognisable as she returns to TV in terrifying new role 36 years after leaving BBC soap
These zombies don’t just talk, they debate and pontificate about their place in society, like carnivorous fecking Guardian readers, then caper round the local woods in the nuddy and even have it off with each other, up against a tree.
A disturbing image, I’ll admit, but it destroys the entire point of a horror drama, which is to scare the bejesus out of its audience, to the point they cannot stop watching.
Generation Z has exactly the opposite effect.
Although the possibility clearly hasn’t occurred to Channel 4 types, who are issuing content warnings before, after and even during one of the ad breaks, which turned out to involve the disembowelment of an unfortunate Cockapoo called Mugsy, who went arse first and was then waved around, by the zombie, like a rabid Spit the Dog.
A scene that might have worked a bit better if the stunt Mugsy hadn’t very obviously been a toy dog.
Mind you, the fact rigor mortis had set in long before death meant Mugsy fitted in perfectly with the rest of the cast, who were either stiff with embarrassment or basic lack of animation.
I’ll leave you to guess which description best fits Anita, who’s zombified before she can tell anyone she’s married to Brian May or unleash her Freddie Mercury anecdotes, but the power of her response to getting partially eaten is quite something to behold.
Stench of death
“Ow. Ow. Hey, you. Oi, oi,” she mutters.
For the rest of the series, Anita must now amble through the woods, desperately searching for raw meat or her agent, while granddaughter Kelly says, “Nan’s acting a bit strange”, and viewers scream back, “You should’ve seen her in Call The Midwife”.
The stench of death, though, is genuinely over-powering and I’d like to think it’s the corpse of woke productions or Channel 4 itself, neither of which I’d miss.
However, I suspect it’ll just be zombie dramas that take the blame for this stinker and will have to be shelved for a few years.
Meanwhile, the march of the soap zombies through Dambury looked remorseless until, right at the close of Monday night’s episode, Anita Dobson tried to eat Johnny Vegas.
And as Harry Hill would say, good luck with that.
Bottle jobs of satire
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IT wasn’t political bias, all of the country’s gas-lighting left-wing comedians assured us, for 14 years.
It was simply down to the fact the Conservative Party was in power and they’d be just as savage once Labour formed the Government.
Well, that day has arrived, but the savagery, very conspicuously, hasn’t, despite all of the sleaze, corruption and incompetence surrounding our new administration.
You can gauge the extent of the lie, in fact, just by watching Have I Got News For You, where the same tired old faces still hit the same tired old targets, like Jacob Rees-Mogg, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock, none of whom are even MPs any more.
The other bottle job that was never in doubt, though, was Channel 4’s allegedly “anarchic” The Last Leg, where a heated discussion about the size of chocolate Celebrations tubs took precedence over pensioners’ Winter Fuel Payments on Friday, before host Adam Hills offered this pitiful surrender to our new lords and masters.
“We don’t want to be too harsh on Labour yet ’cos it’s only 115 days and the Budget’s next week.”
In which case, make way for someone who isn’t so cowardly, craven and compromised, ’cos you’ve just resigned as a political satirist.
INCIDENTALLY, if there are still one or two people who think this country isn’t utterly screwed, keep in mind the fact Impossible contestants were, on Monday, asked “a piece of which historic structure stands in the Vatican garden?”
And eight of the 21 dismissed options A) Hadrian’s Wall and B) Berlin Wall, in favour of option C) Max Wall.
Random TV irritations
LULU at her boastful, mid-Atlantic name-dropping worst on James Martin’s Saturday Morning.
The Shining’s little twin girls making a repulsive choice of Halloween fancy dress for Strictly’s Craig and Anton.
Good Morning Britain’s semi-literate caption cretins claiming King Charles has visited a country called “Somoa” and “Keir Starmer condems Israel”.
And Big Brother’s Dean framing his third unsuccessful attempt to spell coffee, in the diary room, as a question: “Is it just C.O.F.E?” No, it’s C.O.F.F. OFF.
Lookalike of the week
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THIS week’s winner is Dean from Big Brother and Mr Potato Head.
Sent in by Donald Sheridan, South London.
Unexpected morons in the bagging area
THE Chase, Bradley Walsh: “In 1827, George IV commissioned a painting of what long-necked mammal?”
Anthony: “Peacock.”
Bradley Walsh: “What does the OED define as a person who abstains from all food of animal origin?”
Kim: “A cow.”
Bradley Walsh: “A Glengarry is a hat most associated with what country of the UK?”
Matti: “Derby.”
Tipping Point, Ben Shephard: “The BBC radio drama The Archers is set in which fictional English county?”
Mike: “Dover.”
TV gold
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BEST show of the week, by some distance, was BBC2’s unforgettable Helmand: Tour Of Duty, featuring the amazing men of the Welsh Guards, who deserve far more than an hour of everyone’s time.
But it was brilliantly backed up by: BBC1’s masterpiece Industry getting the sad, funny, violent and brilliant ending series three deserved.
Ludwig’s BBC1 finale. The latest episode of Mortimer And Whitehouse: Gone Fishing. Kris Boyd’s hyperventilating meltdown on Sky Sports 3, following Aberdeen’s oh-so-sweet victory over Rangers.
And Colin Paterson’s epic Once Upon A Time In Hollywood BBC2 interview with Al Pacino where, in the interests of full disclosure, I should reveal I have seen one of these two men dancing on the table of a Dublin bar to Shakin’ Stevens’ This Ole House, after watching Scotland’s football team win at the Aviva.
And what a night that was, hey Al?
Great sporting insights
GARY NEVILLE: “It’s deja vu. But a different way round from before.” Theo Walcott: “I’m worried Arsenal will lose that flow freeing football.” And Clinton Morrison: “The header was the last kick of the game.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
THE vaguest hint of a pattern has emerged during recent EastEnders history.
Priya’s blackmailed Suki, who blackmailed Ben, who blackmailed Phil, who was blackmailed by Emma, Sam and Jack, who was, in turn, blackmailed by Phil and is now being blackmailed by Harry, who’s vaguely related to Billy, who blackmailed Ian, who was blackmailed by Dotty, but then blackmailed Karen, who was thinking about blackmailing Sharon, who was also being blackmailed by Mel and Linda, who’s just been blackmailed by Bernie, who also blackmailed Kathy, Stacey, Sharon, Suki and Denise, who was previously blackmailed by Ravi.
A turn of events which you might just hope would bring this endless cycle to a standstill, given most of the adult cast’s been involved in an extortion plot.
However, this week, Nish has started blackmailing Suki, who’s only just recovered from being blackmailed by Priya, who was blackmailed by Ranveer, who . . .
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(Repeat ’til fade.)
BB revelation of the series. Segun: “I didn’t start speaking until the age of five.” Or, as we must now think of them, the golden years.
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