Written by Old Bluffer 18th May 2006

Christopher Eccleston plays Major Henry West perfectly, as a well spoken, confident and ruthless British officer.
He has protected his men from being infected with the deadly "rage" virus, secured a large stately home as a base and ringed the floodlit grounds with tripwires and landmines. Any infected that try to attack are therefore gunned down with military precision.

The squaddies under his command though are largely rabble, and the collapse of civilisation has hit them hard. To stop them giving up hope (and in some cases committing suicide), West has painted them as the new founding fathers of society. To achieve this, they of course need women to give birth to the next generation of stiff-upper-lipped-brits. To locate uninfected women isn't easy however, and his solution is actually rather good. He broadcasts a looped radio message, promising salvation and even an answer to the virus if people make their way to his base.

This is actually a rather noble idea, but West is also twisted in his own way, and has decided that if any women aren't willing to go along with his breeding (and morale boosting) plans then they will have to be forced. He rationalises this by convincing himself that it is the only way humanity can rebuild. One of his brighter men, Sergeant Farrell, has pointed out to him that the virus can't have infected the entire planet, as it only speads by blood contamination and there must be plenty of isolated communities that are unaffected, but this falls on deaf ears. West sees himself as a Warrior King in a new Era of Human History, and if he and his followers have to rape every nubile young woman that he can find to achieve this then so be it!

The squaddies seem more interested in dressing the girls up than actually breeding with them.


So, when Jim, Selena and Hannah are brought to West by the soldiers, they are initially understandably relieved. West is charming, and reassures them in his clipped British accent that they are now perfectly safe with him and his men defending the mansion. He even gives them hope for the future, in the form of one Private Mailer, a soldier who has been infected with rage but kept alive by West for further study. Mailer has been chained outside for weeks without food, and it is unequivocably clear that he is not a happy bunny.
West enjoys using his chained pet to show how calm and calculating he is by tormenting him just beyond the length of his chain:

"He's telling me he'll never bake bread, plant crops, raise livestock. He's telling me he's futureless. And eventually, he'll tell me how long the infected take to starve to death."

All of this is technically correct, but West's smug analysis is also telling the audience that he is going to get his comeuppance in a spectacularly vicious way.


A grand British Army tradition - the Regimental Zombie.

Sure enough, Jim takes exception to the fact that his two female companions are going to be kept as sex slaves for the rest of their life, and is condemned to death by West. But in a moment of rare miscalculation, West assigns his dumbest private to be part of the execution squad, and in the ensuing mayhem Jim escapes.
It is at this point that Jim's character arc is catapulted into orbit, as he becomes a fearless, half naked warrior with a sense of reckless strategy that would make Attila the Hun blush.
After various high jinks outside in the rain, where he easily outwits trained military, Jim legs it back to the mansion and releases Private Mailer. This would be a brilliant tactic had he wanted to kill everyone in the building, but it is somewhat questionable when we consider that he actually just wants to rescue two unarmed females.
As noted though, Jim is now utterly fearless, and is happy to wait for Mailer to storm through the house, savagely shredding anyone that gets in his way.
Eventually, Jim stumbles into his two women and they try to escape in their London taxi cab.
Major West is of course waiting for them inside, and it looks as if they'll have to fight their way free again.


Hannah knows how to deal with annoying backseat drivers...

Young Hannah saves the day though, and calmly (she's been drugged by Selena to make her impending violation less traumatic) reverses the taxi towards the pursuing Private Mailer, who obliges by smashing the rear window and dragging West out for a practical demonstration on alternatives to baking bread and planting crops.