BBC Three
You’ll be glad to know that after the events of the first series of In The Flesh things have settled down quite a bit. Certainly enough for Ken (Ricky Tomlinson) to take his grandson on a train journey where he explains the importance of rotter tolerance. They’re just like you or I he counsels, only dead. But say who are these Sisters of Mercy looking young fellows snorting Blue Oblivion and quoting the Book of Revelation? I hope they paid the appropriate fare – the End of Days doesn’t mean the end of civic responsibility. The point becomes moot when the chalk faced goons begin chomping on commuters. Ken’s a fat sack of shit so he’s the main course of the 13 who eventually end up as chow for the zealots. All of a sudden Jimmy Savile isn’t the most dangerous thing on British trains.
Back in Roarton Kieren (Puke Blewberry) is pulling pints at the Legion while wistfully thinking about moving to Paris where they’re probably OK with eating brains. With his parents witlessly spouting therapy speak and his thick sister PTSDing like old shit-for-brains on The Crimson Field he could probably do with a change of scenery. Zombie radical teeds the ULA (Undead Liberation Army) arrive in the form of nausey Amy (Emily Bevan) who is banging their charismatic leader Simon (Emmet Scanlan). Hymen declares himself one of the twelve disciples of the Undead Prophet which sounds like exactly the kind of eye rolling religious whatevery that did for Caprica.
New in the town is freshly elected Pro-Living MP Maxine Martin. She carries around a child’s toy train which she looks at wistfully – she’s probably a paedo. She presses the flesh among the great unwashed, takes out a feisty cadaver with a power drill before sassing Reverend Deadhater to death. Who says politicians can’t make a difference?
Maxine takes out a feisty cadaver with a power drill before sassing Reverend Deadhater to death. Who says politicians can’t make a difference?
That dipshit Gary (Kevin Sutton) hunts rabids in the woods for a meagre bounty and his loss of status since the uprising leads him to drink and running his mouth with other Human Volunteer Force veterans in the Legion. When Amy and Hymen roll up all gothed up to the nines the confrontation is as inevitable as it is uneventful, Hymen holding Gary in a playground headlock while Gary unsuccessfully attends to retaliate with a wedgie.
It’s all starting to look like a particularly tense Bauhaus reunion and Kieren has seen enough. He walks out on the job and yanks out his passport and heads for Paris. Yeah like the budget can stretch to that.
I mean, the show’s not bad or anything but fundamentally, who gives a shit?
The verdict: Remembering your love is nothing without you in the flesh.
Marks out of 10: 6