Posted in: Current News, TV | Tagged: channel 4, generation z

Generation Z – A Zombie TV Drama That's Fun For All The Family

Screening highlights for Generation Z, Channel 4's zombie TV comedy/drama with Anita Dobson, Sue Johnston, Johnny Vegas, and Robert Lindsay.

Last night, I went to a screening of the first episode of Generation Z. A new zombie TV drama from comedy writer, Doctor Who director and filmmaker Ben Wheatley for Channel 4 that's currently available to premium Channel 4+ subscribers but will go all-access in the UK on Channel 4 and the 4 app on Sunday. Very much an ensemble show, including the point of view of the zombies themselves, it sees a number of elderly Brits turned into cannibalistic re-energised monsters and their families, focusing on the parents and their children, with their own competing lives in the small fictional English town of Dambury.

The elderly-turned-zombies are played by the likes of Doctor Who and EastEnders' Anita Dobson, The Royle Family's Sue Johnston, The World's End's Paul Benthall. The parents include Ideal's Johnny Vegas, Fall Of The House Of Usher's T'Nia Miller, and Slow Horses' Chris Reilly. And the kids, including Titans' Jay Lycurgo, Our House's Buket Komur, The Nevers' Viola Prettejohn, Trainspotting 2's Lewis Gribben, with GBH's Robert Lindsay and an older man who managed to stay uninfected by staying off the grid, and Spaced's Michael Smiley running the military operation in response.

Asking questions of Generation Z

The evening saw many of the cast turn out for the screening, including the Q&A below, with Johnny Vegas giving the greatest value on stage as he returned again and again to his own plans to survive a zombie apocalypse by getting to the machete shop by the big Sainsburys in Richmond which is, apparently at times, just staffed by the shop cat. Anita Dobson has been going to comic conventions for the first time thanks to Doctor Who and talked about looking forward to seeing how people will dress up as characters from the show, especially Paul Benthall's episode-stealing scene in which he turns a cockapoo inside out. His wife, actor Janine Duvitski from Waiting For God, was most concerned about what her fellow dogwalkers would think of them come Monday morning. I think that scene will be a stand-out conversation piece for many come morning, especially Anita Dobson launching herself from above into a glass table. And all spoke highly of absent writer/director Ben Wheatley.

Making a zombie show for all the family intentionally provides a rich intergenerational experience. A family with older kids, admittedly, and by making the zombies fully intelligent elderly adults, with newfound strength and speed, and a desire to eat meat, but having the switch in their brain that would stop them from eating people, family, friends or strangers switched off. It's closer to Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrow's Crossed or George Romero's The Crazies rather than a traditional zombie take. It's also very much a post-pandemic zombie show, with the government in firm control issuing commands to stay in homes, instantly reminiscent of that time, but also incompetent and lacking in knowledge over what was actually going on

Ben Wheatley also uses a lot of military reports, typing out over the visuals with stellar effect, setting up both a timeline and spatial awareness for the audience, when this is happening, where this is happening, and how fast and furious, which gives the whole story and character arcs, and space in which to play out. It's basically captions from comic books. Ben apparently has a massive comic book collection that dwarfs my own, and I was told he was trying to sell a good chunk of it during production. But that really helped the character scenes to know when and where they were and how they related geographically to everything else that was going on. The relationship between the younger characters played by Jay Lycurgo and Buket Komur, especially as realised multi-layered teenagers as literal young adults, complex with a lot of stuff going on, transcending the stereotypes that the marketing seems to have for them. With Lewis Gribben as an Andrew Tate devotee who provides great comic relief and the use of Chekov's Crossbow. And for the older folk, Susan Johnston is a super leader of the care home residents who now have a new lease of life, even if it means others losing theirs. The idea of the elderly feasting on the young while the middle-aged look on with incompetence speaks to all sorts of concerns with society, where money is spent in society, who wins, who loses and what people might have to do to fight back.

The evening was catered with the most zombie-esque food and drinks. Given some of the decapitated digits scattered through the scran, one might call it a finger buffet. Take a look below. 

Generation Z is currently available for streaming in the UK on the 4+ subscription and will be free-to-air on the 4app from Sunday, September 27th. It will also air on Channel 4 at 9 p.m. US and Canadian broadcasts have yet to be announced. The cast of Generation Z will also be attending this weekend's MCM London Comic Con.

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