The mind struggles to imagine how Channel 4’s new six-part drama Generation Z was commissioned. I picture it as being a bit like Alan Partridge’s “Monkey Tennis”. The meeting was going badly. No one wanted whatever it was that its writer/director Ben Wheatley originally had in mind, and so the pitches grew ever more desperate until, just as he was about to be shown the door, he blurted out the fatal words: “OK then, what about a show with zombie old people who feast on the blood of teenagers?”
Around the table, heads lifted slightly. Yeah! Sounds satirical. Could be quite funny. Our viewers are pretty fed up with dastardly pensioners with big houses and gold-plated pension pots. In a notebook, someone began to scribble names. Sue Johnston? Robert Lindsay? Or – genius! – maybe Anita Dobson’s free…
And so it came to pass that this tedious abomination was made. In Danbury, a small English town, an army truck has spilled its dubious load: some kind of viral chemical weapon. In Whitehall, crack teams scramble to sort the situation, but it’s too late. The elderly, the first to be infected (it’s like Covid, see?) are already awol, having eaten their carers and bust out of their retirement homes into the woods, and they’re finding their situation highly energising. No more imprisonment in front of the telly in a room that smells of farts, and no more memory loss. They are, however, very hungry. Satiety is impossible to achieve in a zombie state. One grabs a snack: a wandering cockapoo, the innards of which an old guy devours faster than you can say Complan.
The virus spreads fast. Cecily’s (Sue Johnston) posse in the woods – think Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, but with elasticated waistbands and comfy shoes – is only the beginning. Elsewhere in Danbury, Janine (Anita Dobson) is attending to her dustbins when an old man approaches and sinks his teeth into her arm. Oh no. Now she’s infected too! Finding herself with a newly raging appetite, she rings her granddaughter Kelly (Buket Komur) and asks her to deliver food. Kelly arrives bearing lasagne, which Janine promptly eats with her hands, béchamel all over her chin. But it’s no good. “There’s no meat in this,” she growls. Poor Janine. We’ve all been there, love. Was it Charlie Bigham’s or Tesco?
I’ve no idea what else to tell you. (And no, none of what I have described is played for laughs.) The plot is so one-thing-after-another, it might as well have been made up on the spot. The teenagers who abound – if they’re lunch, they’re also, I’m guessing, the only ones who can see off the rampaging wrinklies – are all somewhat troubled. One has incel tendencies, and is in possession of a crossbow. It’s not enough to save Kelly (for whom he has the hots) from Janine. Another doesn’t like his mum’s boyfriend, who’s played by the gay butler from Downton Abbey (Robert James-Collier) and is a trainee drug dealer. Johnny Vegas is in it (his character’s mum is Janine – he’s broke, and fed up with all the boomer holidays she takes. So is Robert Lindsay, as a cannabis-growing conspiracy theorist (or something, I forget). At one point, one of the pensioners eats a badger, which is going to be pretty upsetting for Anita Dobson’s husband, Queen guitarist Brian May. Look away, Brian!
If you’re a neat-freak like me, you’ll be vaguely disturbed by the sight of Sue Johnston with scarlet mush all over her face. But it’s probably about the only thing you will feel, save for boredom. You’d have to be a child not to see the state-of-the-nation metaphors in this nonsense; they’re so crudely drawn it’s mortifying. Old people are neglected, but they’re also greedy monsters. Young people are struggling, but they’re also gormless enough to listen to misogynistic influencers. After two episodes, I couldn’t take any more. I hope they all die, young and old. Having scoffed everyone else, Anita Dobson, the last surviving human in Danbury, could then starve to death inside an army cordon, pleading for moussaka as she goes. But in truth, I’ll never know, unless some crazy person actually watches till the end and fills me in.
[See also: Is Britain ready for “assisted dying?”]
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This article appears in the 30 Oct 2024 issue of the New Statesman, American Horror Story