And so it came to pass that one of the BBC's meagre attempts at Sci-Fi/Horror television actually got a second series. I wasn't overly impressed with the slow-moving In The Flesh when it made its 3-episode debut last year (strangely, it feels longer... both in the sense that I could have sworn there were more than three episodes, and that I was sure it was more than a year ago that it first turned up... but I neglected to comment on it at the time, so I must be wrong).
There seems to be a British way of doing Sci-Fi/Horror that's quite different from the American way and the European way (at least, if Les Revenants is anything to go by) and very few people ever successfully break that mold (Toby Whithouse/Being Human and Jack Thorne/The Fades being the two who spring to mind).
That said, I seem to recall seeing In The Flesh in a particular light when it first appeared and, having forced myself (and my very forgiving girlfriend) to watch the first episode of the second series last night, I believe my initial impression was wrong. I originally thought that the zombies were a clumsy metaphor for homosexuality, whereas now it seems far more likely that they are a more general clumsy metaphor for 'minorities'. I should, perhaps, have realised that my first assumption was wrong when the revelation that the main character, Kieren Walker (strangely not a reference to the zombies of The Walking Dead) was actually in love with another local boy who (possibly) shared his feelings but felt unable to act on them due to his reputation... I mean, who compounds a clumsy metaphor by adding something that blatant?
Um. Well, this episode opened with a great long lecture about tolerance and acceptance of 'people who are different', only for the lecturer and his young relative to become victims of the zombie equivalent of a pack of suicide bombers on a tram, complete with their prepared speech indicating that a section of the undead population was about to rise up to strike a blow against the infidel. Sorry, I meant 'the living'. Ahem.
The problem with this series is that all of the characters behave very predictably, according to the exigencies of the plot, rather than as if they are real people. Keiren, portrayed as weak and self-loathing, suddenly becomes violent toward a drunk local who has been taunting him and a couple of his acquaintances. The politician who turns up to befriend the (living) locals turns out to have a (not so) hidden agenda and goes sneaking after parish records. The local vicar - a hate preacher, no less - has hidden some of those records and has a heart attack at a critical moment, allowing the politician to make off with his records... they even had her run into the house to call for an ambulance and pause when she saw the book she was looking for, then slowly put the phone back on its cradle and leave the hate preacher to die. There was no reason for this cliché... they could just as easily have had her actually call an ambulance, then make off with the records, and only later reveal the full extent of her dark designs on the community.
Oh, and the preview for next week's suggests that - quelle surprise - Kieren is somehow integral to the plot.
Considering I have zombie dreams fairly often, it probably shouldn't surprise me that I had a zombie dream last night, even though they're not normally precipitated by things I've seen on telly or games I've played beforehand. Even more fun, this one started out with a bit about dodgy goings on at a boarding school and then suddenly metamorphosed into an even weirder version of In The Flesh, in which a mysterious cloaked figure walks around in his own personal swirling dust cloud, a 'rabid' Kieren was chasing a former friend around a set of back gardens while I hid in a (strangely empty) shed, and a group of young children were being led 'to safety', seemingly by following a trail of bubbles.
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