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BBC Three's 'I Survived a Zombie Apocalypse' just the new Big Brother?

Basing any prior knowledge on the flashy, awe grabbing advert for the new reality T.V. show on BBC Three, I survived a Zombie Apocalypse, one had hoped that the show would be just as existing as the advert was.

Hope thrived on the idea that putting regular people into such a scenario would bring out the best and worst qualities in an amusing, secretly recorded non-scripted way.

Seeing the show finally pop up on BBC IPlayer gave cause to drop everything else just to watch it. The opening credits infused the idea, based on the long growing suspicion that radio waves are bad for our brains in some as of yet unknown way, the possibility that heightening these waves to far could cause serious neurological damage, and in this case cause the feared 'Zombies'

It was all very flashy, clever and almost believable, well that is until the people started pulling in. There clips bringing you back to the sad reality that is British society, the fact that these people would be instructed in carefully pre-planned ways to follow pre-arranged tasks a major disappointment.

However staying strong one continued to watch the show till the end, only to be left dissapointed and confused.

Throughout the episode the 'zombie' make-up was very well done, the extras playing them where fantastic, making noses which surely left their throats sore but which caused hairs to rise. The set and the apparent computer technology, even the background story where also well crafted.

The let down was the Big Brother approach and feel to the entire thing. Big Brother, a show that was extremely popular in it's time, and seems to make a come back with every passing year has been one of these reality T.V. shows that many have tried, and failed to replicate in different settings. In this particular show however they aren't trying to replicate it, they've almost taken the entire idea and just dumped it in a new landscape. A depressing conclusion to draw for those hoping, based on the adverts, for a proper zombie reality thrill.

Before the show was up teenage flirtations where already flying, a bossy mother like character had already formed, and the pretty but stupid curse had spread faster than the zombie contagion.

The two of the younger of the men decided to go out on a 'life threatening' challenge, the disappointment in this was not that only two of the ever growing group went, nor the fact that the scene they entered was rather unbelievable, and a failing based on the rest of the sets and make-up. No the disappointing fact was that they where told where to go, what to get and virtually how to get it (thanks to an arrange of rather large and obvious signs), rather than placing people into an apparent survival situation and actually expecting them to survive on their own merit, possibly with the occasional prod in the right direction, the show Big Brother by instructing 'survivors', not a large jump from big brothers 'house mates', through a radio system, again in a not-so-different style from Big Brothers large red couch and camera.

The entire tone of the piece held a Big Brother attitude that one was neither hoping for or expecting, and which completely destroyed any possibility of excitement or true amazement into the average persons skills and ability when put into such a scenario.

Whether the show is to be as popular as the phenomenon that was Big Brother is yet to be seen.

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