"Dead Set": Who Wouldn't Want to Watch the "Big Brother" Housemates Get Eaten?

Big Brother is a reality show franchise started in the Netherlands in 1999, and since expanded into the U.S., Canada, Britain, and other markets.  Basically you put a lot of random people in a house, cut off all contact with the outside world, and record their actions, hoping that they will do a lot of bitching, fighting, and screwing.  In some countries you compete in various challenges.  Every week one of the players is kicked out, based on a vote (by viewers in Britain, by the housemates in the U.S.)

Housemates are encouraged to lie, cheat, deceive, sabotage, and betray each other, conjuring up grand Machiavellian strategies,the snarkier the better., to become the last person standing  In other words, you're watching people being nasty to each other, just in case one of the guys takes his shirt off. I lasted for five minutes.

But what if you could watch them all get eaten by zombies?

That's the premise of Dead Set (2018),a British horror series that happened to air right after the last season of Big Brother, and use the same set.








The housemates are:
1. The bullying, homophobic Marky (Warren Brown, left)

2. Drag queen Grayson

3. Angel, his bff

4. The shy, timid Joplin

5. Tough-as-nails Veronica

6. Charismatic Space

7. Dimwitted Pippa

The zombie attacks begin very quickly, causing chaos all over Britain in just a few hours.  The production crew notices that something is wrong first, Riz (Riq Ahmed) is actually trapped far away after a zombie attack, and spends the series trying to get to the studio to reunite with his girlfriend.

Since the housemates are cut off from contact with the outside world, they don't notice until the next day, when the camera crew starts attacking them. What follows is basically a season of Big Brother, with the usual lying, cheating, and betrayal, except with life or death challenges: trying to get medical supplies or food, trying to leave the house to head for rescue boats from France.  And when you are betrayed by your fellow housemates, you are eaten by zombies instead of being kicked out of the house.

Spoiler alert:  at the end of the "competition," only one of the housemates is left alive, but they are stuck in a control room surrounded by zombie hoardes,so probably not for long.

At least the drag queen dies a hero.