There must be an industry term for this style of television writing; it requires you to pay attention to every scene and everything that the characters say, so that you can form an idea of the world that the writer is creating. This is refreshingly challenging for the TV viewer who is accustomed to the plodding pace of The Walking Dead, for example. In The Flesh takes advantage of flashbacks to fill in the story as the relationships among the characters are slowly filled in. It's engaging to watch, but sometimes a bit disorienting.
The show hints at themes without overtly addressing them; for example, when a member of the HVF shoots the old woman, is it murder? No, because she's already dead. But was she the same person after she returned home? This is why Jem relentlessly needles Kieren, unconvinced that he is the same person that she grew up with. Also, will Kieren get older, or will he always stay the same age? After returning home, Kieren's younger sister is now his older sister. Will millions of PDS sufferers forever wander the earth, watching generations of normal people grow old and die before them, including their family? Can PDS sufferers reproduce? These ideas are ripe for exploration.
There are some odd but funny scenes: Amy and Phil sleeping together, Kieren's odd dining habits, Kieren looking into his own grave, the PDS social worker bit, Kieren & family playing the game of Life, Amy's hilariously inappropriate small talk, the processing center, "rotters" in the amusement park, Kieren's bizarre makeup to make him look "normal", etc. This show accurately portrays what would happen if zombies were repatriated into their communities, and it does it with an authentic, hometown feel, and all the paranoia and anger from the villagers that you might expect.
For all its good points, the show is sometimes manipulative and sappy, for example at the end when the father recounts finding his son, dead, in the cave, and father and son embrace; what should have been an emotionally crushing moment comes off as weak, especially with the father standing there blubbering. It doesn't work. But this show is so well-written that I was happy to learn that BBC green lit a second season; theses are characters that I want to learn more about, especially the colorful and irreverent Amy.
I expect the Syfy channel will probably create their own version and it will be predictably watered down and sucky.
