The UK media is reporting that the Mary Whitehouse descendant Mediawatch is upset at the BBC’s plans to broadcast – post watershed – a new supernatural drama series about exorcism.

Apparitions, created by and starring Martin Shaw and produced by Lime Pictures, apparently includes a scene of a man being flayed alive in a gay sauna and another of the exorcism of Mother Teresa. Sounds like a laugh a minute.

Of course there are even worse offences to public decency in the show. According to Mediawatch-UK director John Beyer: “They’ve got people sitting on crucifixes. It will cause very serious offence.”

Yeah, right.

Shaw is quoted as saying: “I’m not going to pretend this is the most positive show on Earth. We’re talking about the end of all things but the message is that love conquers all.”

Oh dear, I do hope they don’t ruin it with a happy ending.

I don’t know about you but I’m really looking forward to Dead Set, the new mini-series where the inhabitants of the Big Brother house face a horde of zombies. E4 have organised eight preview showings at towns across the UK (mainly England) and are running a competition to win free tickets:

Win Dead Set premiere tickets

The final preview showing is in London on Sunday 26th October so I’m guessing that the show will air on TV the week after that.

If you feel like I do about the TV show Big Brother then the idea of the set being invaded by an army of flesh-eating zombies sounds like a great idea. The news that UK show host Davina McCall is one of the victims is a definite bonus!

This is all part of Dead Set, a new five part mini-series coming soon to TV channel E4. Dead Set is written by journalist and comedy writer Charlie Brooker. According to Brooker:

“Dead Set isn’t an out-and-out comedy, but an unashamedly populist horror-thriller with blackly comic undertones. Think 24 with zombies. And housemates. And gore.”

Brooker quotes Romero’s 1978 Dawn of the Dead as inspiration, pointing out that the BB house is an aspirational symbol for today’s society in much the same the shopping mall was in the 1970s.

No official word as to when the programme will be shown, if you find out before I do please let me know in the comments. Until then, here’s a trailer: