Dr Who and the Waters of Mars

Thankfully, Dr Who and the Waters of Mars was not a disappointment. I mean, not even David Tennant's irritating overacting wrecked the episode.

Of course, the story's total poppycock. Set in a red tinted quarry in deepest darkest Wales, the first Mars colony (Bowie Base) taps into alien water that takes over people's bodies and turns them into zombies. Albeit zombies with a case of badly chapped lips. After a bit of chasing, a lot of water (who'd have thunk water could be sinister?) and some hairy moments, we are forced to ponder the fatalism of history. It turns out the base leader, Captain Adelaide Brooke (Lindsay Duncan), has a granddaughter who will invent light speed and open the galaxy for human colonisation. But here's the catch. In the timeline, Brooke and her crew die in a nuclear explosion that also destroys 'The Flood', and it is her death that inspires her granddaughter to pursue her career.

Aware of this the Doctor avoids intervening and is all set to leave them to die. But in a change of heart he brings back the TARDIS and whisks the survivors back to Earth just before the auto-destruct erm, destructs.

Then we're hit with the philosophy. The Doctor, with a glimmer of megalomania in his eye more or less proclaims himself God, realising that he can control the laws of time rather than being shaped by them. The "you die today" declarations he made earlier to Brooke are now blithely dismissed. He feels exhilarated that he's snatched a historical figure from her fate, after saying he'd only chosen "little people" of no consequence before. But he soon comes to his senses after Brooke returns to her house and shoots herself, ensuring only the details of the timeline and not their consequences are changed.

And that's it really. If you fancy a spot of ideology critique you could say that despite itself The Waters of Mars reconfirms the 'great man' theory of history. Brooke herself may attack the Doctor at the end for arbitrarily deciding who is important and who is of little consequence, but still her suicide ensures the timeline plays out as it should (of course, you could say the Doctor himself is the very exemplar of such a great man, outside of history and yet possessing a greater knowledge of it than those who inhabit it, but I digress).

Wanky cultural readings aside, this episode was actually good and made up for the abomination that was Dr Who and the Planet of the Dead. But whether the Christmas Special delivers the jollies remains to be seen. But whatever the case, no doubt this blog will cast an eye in its direction.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Hope comrades don't mind me taking a quick time out from super serious class struggle blogging to afflict this on you. I saw it this morning on Crooked Timber, and to say it has tickled me much is a slight understatement. Behold the blurb:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she's soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Complete with 20 illustrations in the style of C. E. Brock (the original illustrator of Pride and Prejudice), this insanely funny expanded edition will introduce Jane Austen's classic novel to new legions of fans.

You can pre-order Pride and Prejudice and Zombies here.

Whatever next? A werewolf remix of Daniel Deronda? Great Expectations vs the Martians? Sounds bloody brilliant anyway.

Are there any "updated" classics and mash-ups you'd like to see?

Dead Set

Can you imagine getting cut off from the outside world for up to 90 days with only odious house mates, the cameras and Big Brother's occasional edicts for company? Can you then imagine the deep unease if the alarms, the deliveries and the cameras stopped? Is it a power cut? Have terrorists bombed Elstree Studios? Is there a plague? Have we gone to war? Has Britain been engulfed by a zombie holocaust? Well, in the nightmare scenario to have emerged from the brain of Charlie Brooker, the latter is exactly what's happened. Dead Set imagines a Britain overwhelmed by hordes of the flesh eating undead. And these aren't your slightly comical stiff-with-rigor shuffling zombies either. As Brooker notes in his interview, since 2002 (i.e. since the release of 28 Days Later), zombies have learned to run.

When you're dealing with zombies, you can't help but be derivative. It is now canonical that you kill the living dead by shooting or stabbing them in the head. Also a recurring theme is survivors finding secure sanctuary from the undead, which, in this case, is the Big Brother house. Then you're allowed a brief moment to relax, to enjoy the smug superiority of humanity over the dim-witted zombies, until it all goes horribly wrong and someone leaves a door or gate open, or hatches a foolhardy escape plan from nice secure location to the zombie-infested wilderness. Perhaps humans aren't so smart after all.

I'm not going to outline the plot. If you want more read about it here, or better still, why not watch it? As mini-series go, it's excellent.

Needless to say, you can't really have zombies without a nod to satire, a golden rule of the zombie genre forgotten by the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake. And Charlie Brooker being Charlie Brooker couldn't resist having a few swipes at the Big Brother format. The zombies gathered at the studio gates, the spectacle of a zombiefied Davina McCall feasting on human flesh, their blank stares into monitors, all of it is pretty straightforward. As Brooker says, "while you could spend your time watching it thinking ”Mmmmm, yes, a satirical point”, most of the time you're going to be thinking ”Help! Here come the zombies!“ It's kind of a scary romp, first and foremost. It's not a chin-stroking exercise."

But I'd like to offer an alternative reading, which, like all readings, is a tenuous exercise, but is still a half-way plausible one. You could argue Dead Set is all about ruling class anxiety. Our masters, who were once so sure of themselves that even their official ideology trumpeted capitalism, red in tooth and claw, are now no longer certain. The economic shockwave came out of nowhere and knocked them all for six. Politicians' ritual invoking of deregulatory voodoo economics has only succeeded in reanimating Keynes, a figure whose body of thought they previously regarded a stinking corpse. Some have been bitten by the Keynesian bug (New Labour above all) and indecently abandoned the previous orthodoxy. Others remain huddled around neoliberalism's coffin, hoping it won't be long before they can break open the casket. All look to the future with a degree of fear and uncertainty.

Dead Set works through this nightmare. Big Brother stands in for the place the ruling class occupies. Like the bourgeoisie, Big Brother contestants and senior production staff expect to be the centre of attention. The public duly votes to evict their least favourite nominee while the real decisions, the real power, the manipulation and the edits are done away from the public gaze. But on eviction night, the occasion when Big Brother publicly celebrates its hubris, nemesis strikes and the studios are overrun by the living dead. They become an abattoir. Zombies are uncontrollable, unreasonable, single minded, and totally thick. The aura of Big Brother, the circus that once kept millions in its thrall, has lost its power. The shabby, smelly masses are now out for blood, their blood. The survivors holed up in the house are able to erect defences against the mass, which successfully holds the gibbering horde at bay for a short while. But they cannot keep the tide back. No matter how clever or ingenious they are, their better organisation is fractured by internal bickering and scheming. It is only a matter of time before the zombies of the working class are feasting on bourgeois flesh.

Dead Set not only taps into the anxiety of getting overrun by the dangerous but simple-minded mass, it shows the bourgeoisie the fear of their superfluity. Zombies are clearly violent. The presence of the living sends them into paroxysms of bloodlust. Safety is only guaranteed if one lives in a gated community. But when the remaining housemates become zombie fodder and everyone is (un)dead, a strange calm descends upon the land. Zombies shuffle around the trappings of bourgeois civilisation, their unblinking eyes wide open in almost innocent wonder at their surroundings. The hierarchy and power of Big Brother is gone and all is left is a new society of sorts, one achieved only by them coming together as a collective and using their numbers to sweep the old order away. Life (of sorts) goes on without the bourgeoisie/Big Brother. There is no more violence and no more suffering. Zombie communism is the order of the day.

I Am Legend

Any resemblance between this film and the novel of the same name is entirely coincidental. Perhaps the blurb should be clear this is really a remake of 1971's The Omega Man. It means anyone hoping some of the beauty of Richard Matheson's original making its way into this is going to be disappointed. There's not even any vampires! The following does include some spoilers, so be warned.

This isn't to say I Am Legend is a bad film, taken on its own terms. The premise is simple. A new cancer treatment engineered by a Dr Krippin (ho, ho) is going through medical trials with a 100% cure rate. Unfortunately, the viral agent used mutates into a highly infectious pathogen that ends up killing 90% of those infected. It turns out only 1% of the human race is immune, but the other 9% have regressed to hyperactive flesh-eaters that hunt and feast on survivors. Enter Lt. Colonel Robert Neville (Will Smith), who elected to stay behind on Manhattan Island after it was quarantined, to try and find a cure using his own blood as a basis. By day he forages through the city for supplies while the infected sleep, and by night he withdraws to his fortified compound.

The result is a film that romps through its 100 minutes or so. Its not taxing on the brain as, with most big budget Hollywood productions, it allows the CGI and cinematography to create a real spectacle that dazzles rather than provoke deep thoughts. The scenes of Will Smith racing around a deserted and weed-strewn New York are breathtaking, though lacking the menace of the London of 28 Days Later. Generally speaking, the infected lack the horror of the aforementioned film too. Blood-lusting running zombies coming for you are scary, but not bald and grey men churned out of computers. Still, the pace of the film and the appeal of the plot make it entertaining enough, and it is a must for anyone who (like me) find last man on Earth-type scenarios compelling.

I Am Legend has been read as s War on Terror allegory. For instance, this reviewer notes

Western medicine takes a virus (a bad thing) and manipulates it so that it can fight cancer (a worse thing). Sort of like Western military forces arming jihadists (which they regard as a bad thing) so that they'll fight communists (which they regard as a worse thing). And then the built-up virus - the bad thing - mutates into something much worse than cancer, and it turns on its creators. And this starts where? That's right: In New York, which everyone in the movie keeps calling Ground Zero. And some poor schmoe who didn't start the problem has to try and fix it. But even if he comes up with a cure ... they [the infected] are just going to keep coming ... destroying the civilised world and - here's the kicker - either killing everyone they come into contact with or converting them into monsters just like themselves. And the only solution is to shoot them dead - or withdraw behind metal walls, into a fortress-like homeland.

There is something to this argument, but that is not all that can be said. I would suggest I Am Legend says deeply conservative things about gender relations. The originator of the virus, Dr Krippin, is a woman. And just look, when a woman assumes a position of responsibility she happens to bring the human race to the edge of extinction. She obviously didn't know her limits, so it falls to a man to clear up her mess. In the evacuation of Manhattan, it's a faulty scan of his wife that leads to their rescue helicopter taking off late, leading to a mid-air collision and the death of Neville's family. At one point his dog, Sam (later revealed to be short for Samantha), disappears into a dark building full of infected - Will Smith has to rescue her and escapes narrowly with his life. Of all the infected to rampage through the film, who does Will Smith capture for his medical experiments? You guessed it, the only discernible woman from among their anonymous grey mass. When a couple of other survivors turn up (Anna, and a young boy, Ethan), she confesses it was a message from the great patriarch in the sky that brought them to New York and was spurring her on to a survivor's colony in Vermont. And of course, the agency of one man delivers the human race from the grim fate awaiting it. The film has nothing positive to say about women at all: they have to be subject to supervision by men, otherwise harm comes to themselves and/or others.

I Am Legend is a stunning example of 21st century movie making. But as a piece of social commentary, its message is stuck in the 19th.

Zombie Interlude

There was a bit of an undead fest on Channel 4 this weekend. We were treated to Star Trek: First Contact at Saturday tea-time. In case you're not a sad Trekkie this is the one where the cybernetic zombies known as the Borg go back in time in an attempt to assimilate the Earth. Luckily Picard and co follow them and soon put a stop to their evil machinations.

A lot of laughs were had later on in the evening with vampire flick Blade II , which was the funniest film I've seen in a long time. The action was over the top, the machismo utterly silly, and seeing Wesley Snipes getting kicked around by Luke Goss(!) is something I'll cherish for a long time. (Can anyone take Snipes seriously as an action hero after To Wong Foo?)

C4 served up Dawn of the Dead on Sunday night. Now, I freely admit I'm something of a wuss when it comes to zombie films. When I saw Day of the Dead at about the age of nine it terrified me. It was 11 years before I could bring myself to watch the original Dawn. It must have been the relentless shambling terror of a near indestructible enemy that struck fear deep into my delicate disposition. When I learned the remake (the version screened last night) featured zombies capable of running after you I thought there would be no way in hell I'd ever bring myself to watch it. Well, I did, and my what a bleak and miserable film it was. Whereas the original was loaded with satire and black comedy this was more of a conventional splatter horror with little in the way of social commentary and critique about it. Leaping acrobatic zombies might shit me up but I do like my make-believe to be a little bit plausible

Coincidentally I finished a novel on this very topic on Saturday. Having cooked up the spoof Zombie Survival Guide in 2004, Max Brooks came back last year with the super serious World War Z, a horror/sci-fi meditation on a post-zombie holocaust near future. Taking the standpoint of a globe-trotting journalist, the book mockuments a series of survivor stories - civilians, solidiers and politicians (bizarrely, Brooks claims Studs Terkel as an inspiration!). Unlike Romero's doom-laden tetralogy the living dead threaten but in the end fail to overwhelm humanity. After billions succumb and become the undead hordes, the US (of course) leads the way in developing strategies for dealing with 'zack', and slowly, brutally, the ghoulish menace is relentlessly whittled down to 'nuisance' levels.

In WWZ Brooks has thought about zombies from every possible angle. Not just in terms of how to fight them but has also had a stab at possible psychological and ecological impacts. Unlike Dawn zombies here are interested in all fresh meat, whether two-legged or four. The meditations on psychology are also quite intriguing for what is ultimately a pulpy novel. For instance alongside "normal" mental health issues related to the strains of war, he introduces 'quislings'; humans who've undergone a complete mental collapse and behave as if they were zombies themselves. Normal humans have trouble telling them apart but trust me, zack knows an easy lunch when it sees one.

There are a number of shortcomings. The characterisation is very ropey - it reads as if the same charcter is narrating different episodes of the war. When SFX reviewed it they gave it one star out of five for being tedious. As a long chain of very short slightly-samey vignettes it would be a chore to plough through in long sittings (I read it in snippets over a period of a couple of months). And last but not least the ridiculously common meme of redemption through recourse to the military permeates throughout. Though to be fair I doubt an appeal to class conscious zombies to turn their jaws on the real enemy would have much success.