Dead Set

A zombie outbreak is happening outside, and the residents of the Big Brother house are among the last people to realise. Dead Set takes that joke seriously enough to become a nasty, fast-moving horror story rather than a sketch about reality television.

Charlie Brooker's premise gives the survivors a peculiar advantage and a substantial disadvantage: the building was designed to isolate them, but not to help them deal with anything real. The production staff are hardly better prepared. Jaime Winstone provides a practical centre while the surrounding personalities remain magnificently unsuited to cooperation.

The programme commits to its horror. The comedy does not mean the danger is harmless, and the effects are deliberately gruesome. Its short run keeps the situation moving before the central idea needs much embellishment.

For viewers who enjoy Brooker's darker instincts in Black Mirror, this earlier project is worth seeking out. Expect fewer speculative explanations and considerably more immediate panic. The television satire and the survival story are most effective when neither pauses to explain the other.