Dead Set: Charlie Brooker's Underrated Zombie Satire Before Black Mirror

Before he created Black Mirror, Charlie Brooker brought a horde of zombies to the set of Big Brother in Dead Set, a post-apocalyptic satire of reality TV. In the decade or so since Netflix acquired Black Mirror from Channel 4 and turned it from a little British cult hit to a global phenomenon, Brooker has become a household name.

But he’s been around for a long time. Before he created Black Mirror, Brooker was a well-known satirist and cultural critic, featuring on sketch shows, review shows, and panel shows. A couple of years before Black Mirror premiered and redefined Brooker’s career, he perfected his blend of sharp satire and dystopian horror in an underrated zombie show.

What Is Dead Set About?

In many ways, Dead Set is a precursor to Black Mirror. This is where Brooker refined the combination of horror tropes and topical satire that would make Black Mirror so revolutionary. Dead Set’s zombie apocalypse takes place during a taping of the British reality show Big Brother, in which a bunch of strangers are forced to live under the same roof.

It’s an ingenious satirical combo. The whole point of the Big Brother House is to cut a group of people off from the outside world and surveil the breakdown of the social veneer. When the social veneer breaks down in the outside world and the contestants are really trapped in there, the tensions come to a boil.

We see this Big Brother zombie apocalypse play out through the eyes of Kelly Povell, a runner on the Big Brother set played by Jaime Winstone, and her boyfriend, played by an early-career, pre-Four Lions Riz Ahmed. Despite its satirical premise, Dead Set does satisfy as a zombie show, with all the requisite thrills and bloodshed.

Dead Set Is A Shrewd Satire Of Reality TV

Underneath all the zombie bloodshed, Dead Set is a shrewd satire of reality television. It’s the best spoof of Big Brother since the Extras Christmas special, but it also examines the phenomenon of reality TV on a broader level. It highlights the voyeuristic nature of reality TV by mixing it in with found-footage horror.

The appeal of Big Brother is to see people stuck in a building together, so Brooker takes that to the extreme and puts the contestants in disaster lockdown. Dead Set should’ve gotten a resurgence in popularity after Black Mirror became a global sensation, but the series is still waiting to be rediscovered (and its satire has only gotten more relevant in the social media age).