Trivia / Dead Set

• Deleted Scene: While how Pippa was infected was never explained in the show, a deleted scene revealed that Pippa was killed by her zombified mother, but it was cut to give more impact to the moment Space sees Pippa's zombie in the final episode.
• Inspiration for the Work: Charlie Brooker said that the basic idea for the series came about in 2004, as he watched 24 and commented: "I'm enjoying this, but these terrorists are just ridiculous. They're like waves of Space Invaders. They might as well be zombies". Following this, he imagined an apocalypse occurring during the filming of Big Brother and cited the Big Brother House as an excellent place to hide during a zombie apocalypse.
• No Budget: Filming was restrictive due to budget constraints. Some extras were redressed to play different zombies due to the cost of the contact lenses used as zombie eyes; and the scene in the second episode where Alex and Riq's car breaks down was originally meant to be an explosive car crash.
• Reality Subtext:
  • Some of the Eviction Night scenes used the genuine Big Brother compound, borrowing the crowd from Belinda's eviction in Big Brother 9, to add authenticity to the sequence, complete with Davina holding a prompt card with the fake Big Brother season's logo on it.
  • Unfortunately, this also means that both the compound door and area where Pippa means Davina both have the Big Brother 9 'smashed eye' motif, instead of the ring eye version used minimally during Dead Set.
  • Several Big Brother production assets are used, including snatches of the Big Brother theme during eyecatches, during the first episode's fake recap of the days up to Eviction Night.
• What Could Have Been: Charlie Brooker's original concept for the final episode was to have been set six months after the outbreak. It was scrapped due to budget constraints.

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