The Mad Death (1983) Episode 1
This three part BBC drama comes from the makers of ‘The Omega Factor’ and ‘Nightmare Man’. This is infoganda about Rabies. This has creepy opening credits. A French woman puts her Siamese cat out at night and a fox attacks it. Then she smuggles said cat into the UK in her fur coat so she can hang out with her lover. She walks right by a poster screaming: Rabies Is A Killer. Meanwhile a woman’s horrible dogs bite a child and nobody reacts in a vaguely hostile way. This has no character development.
Beware the nefarious common market that will bring hydrophobic mania! There is an atmosphere of bleakness and menace. People go into a paranoid frenzy at the idea of rabies. The French woman’s cat wanders off, is run over and eaten by a fox. She seems to have no emotional memory that she even had a cat. The fox is now a dribblesome infectee. The age old terror of rabies has finally broken through the UK’s costal defences.
An idiot American, Tom (Ed Bishop), sees said fox and takes it home because he is bloody diabolically moronic. He overlooks the ominous situation of the fox drooling and contacts rabies and faces an agonising death and a grisly succession of more deaths will soon be threatening to reach epidemic levels. Soon people will demand the carriers be exterminated no matter the emotional cost. This was devoid of any redeemable qualities. The BBC’s later ‘Smallpox 2002: Silent Weapon’ and ‘Dirty War’ were better. I feel judgey of the trite dialogue, blank looks of surprise, lack of intellectual repartee and bad acting.
Tom pets the drooling (and obviously drugged fox). His wife makes kebabs and then the fox goes mad and a fox puppet that could be Basil Brush attacks Tom’s car as shaving foam flies. Tom tries to run it over! But fails and it runs off. Then he goes and bites his mistress. Then Tom ends up in hospital and the moron medics can’t see what is wrong with him. Tom spasms and hallucinates and is scared of water and the gross grey hospital food. Ed Bishop goes all out doing fear of water and breezes.
This was based on the Nigel Slater novel and was a nihilistic program. The days before pet passports. A woman with a psycho boyfriend lurks. Women wear makeup that doesn’t match their skin tone so it looks like they’re wearing a poo mask. Nobody has a moral stance. Various discreditable gits rant at each other. The rabies outbreak may be an unsolvable situation and the nonsensical outbreak may be turning irreparable. This was okay despite the bad flat acting and terrible dialogue.
Best Lines:
“I’m not an office boy!”
“Well you’re behaving like one!”
“They’re supposed to smell that way.”
“You rough bastard.”
“You had a argument with a combine harvester.”
“Have you tried a corneal smear?”
“God that’s terrifying.”
“It’s not a pretty death.”
“Some imported animal.”
“A sort of animal’s world health organisation.”
“A bite or a graze of animal origin.”
“They don’t call rabies the mad death for nothing.”
“More power than Hitler.”
“It’s started.”
~
Brother, Can You Spare A Brain
The living dead are treated with nonchalance. Everyone is particularly unsympathetic. Liv has a moanfest. Nobody wonders about Liv’s hair or skin changing. There is nihilistic chaos and glaringly horrible people. The cop has ingrained hostility. Liv’s roommate is bulldog intense and won’t leave. Her ex, Major, is an ass and has no heart-melting tenderness. This was entirely tension free. TPTB seem to back away from the consequences of the storyline. David Anders plays another zombie and annoys and eats people and turns other people into zombies. This was anathema with acrimonious relations.
Best Lines:
“An entitled chick in a skater dress.”
“Doing drop-bys.”
“Gonna go somewhere you’re not.”
“I grave-rob. Super fun.”