Death Valley: Difference between revisions

''Death Valley'' is a Live Action half-hour [[Black Comedy]]/[[Horror]] show on [[MTV]]. It revolves around the UTF (Undead Task Force), a branch of the Los Angeles Police Department that deal with [[Vampire|Vampires]], [[Werewolf|Werewolves]] and [[Our Zombies Are Different|Zombies]] in the San Fernando Valley. A year before the series began, these supernatural monsters suddenly appeared in the Valley for no known reason, forcing its inhabitants to adapt to their suddenly shifted lives.

 

 

* Captain Frank Dashell: A minor [[Cloudcuckoolander]] who also seems to [[Anything That Moves|have a sexual interest in every member of his team]], Dashell recognizes that there are times to quiet down and do his job when the situation becomes serious.

* Officer Joe Stubeck: The oldest member of the UTF, he has a wife and two daughters and tries to help and assist the populace [[Straight Man|with professionalism and an honest urge to make the world a better place]].

* Officer Billy Pierce: Stubeck's partner, he is preoccupied with [[Quip to Black|looking good for the camera crew]] and having [[Man Child|sexy and action packed adventures]].

* Officer Carla Rinaldi: The no-nonsense member of the team, Carla [[Boom! Headshot!|would rather deal with zombies quickly than mess around]]. She has adapted to most of the new supernatural world and is no longer either excited or terrified by monsters, treating each encounter with the blase of experience. Captain Dashell believes her to be Hispanic, which she has refuted [[Ambiguously Brown|without elaboration]].

* Officer John "John-John" Johnson: Carla's partner, John [[Batter Up|is always extremely excited when it is time to take down a zombie.]] However, his glee for breaking zombie heads has gotten him into trouble more than once, and he also discovers early on that he has zombie problems in his personal life.

There is also a recurring team of camera men and sound engineers that form a minor supporting cast, frequently in the background and the edge of the screen when the officers are in the field. Unlike most mockumentaries, the crew of the [[Show Within a Show]] are often dragged into the action, sometimes assisting the officers in their adventures and even getting killed in the line of duty.

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* [[Action Survivor]]: John-John and Carla only begin to give their sound guy respect when he survives a zombie attack without being bitten. Throughout the series he occasionally pitches in to help in fights, once even hitting a zombie with his boom mic and commenting that it even sounded cool.

* [[Adult Fear]]: Stubeck is a father of two little girls, and he spends a lot of time worrying what is going to happen to his kids as they grow up. Each time he encounters a woman in a demeaning or dangerous job he tries to discover what happened in their life to force them to this, and how he can help them get out of it.

* [[Mind Control]]: The vampires are rumored to be able to control zombies, potentially explaining where the horde of zombies came from during the hijacking of the four blood bank trucks.

* [[The Mole]]: Captian Dashell is convinced the vampires have a mole at the UTF station and assigns Stubeck to figure out who it is. After reviewing the video footage he discovers that {{spoiler|the mole was the camera guy who filmed the footage.}}

* [[Mood Whiplash]]: For all that the show is a comedy, it is still about a life and death struggle against supernatural evil and normal crime. The joking officers get sober pretty quickly once their personal lives and people they love are dragged into the violence.

* [[My Name Is Not Durwood]]: Captain Dashell spent the first five episodes mispronouncing Kirsten's name. First he simply mistook it for "Kristen," but when she corrected him he tried to get it right and began inserting random letters (Including at least one 'G') on each new try. He finally got it right in episode six, but he was so preoccupied with work he did not even notice that he had done it, or how much it obviously meant to her.

* [[New Meat]]:

** When two regular LAPD officers are temporarily sent to the Valley to help with a prisoner transfer, it quickly becomes clear that they are completely untrained for handling zombies.

* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: A bomb strapped to a zombie turns out to be a dud. Then a pissed off Jon-Jon kicks the zombie and the bomb starts beeping again.

* [[Police Brutality]]: In general, excessive force is allowed against vampires and zombies without repercussion due to the nature of the perpetrators. Sometimes the characters go a little further than is necessary.

** When Captain Dashell learns his niece, Natalie, is dating a vampire [[It's Personal|he drags the vampire into the sun and roughs him up a bit]]. When putting him into the back of his police car he instructs the vampire to watch his head, [[Sarcasm Mode|as he does not want to be sued]].

* [[Rewind, Replay, Repeat]]: Steuback is trying to figure out who broke into the armory so he is watching footage of the captain changing the security code for the armory door. His gut tells him that The Mole obtained the code by watching the captain enter it but the footage does not show anyone else present. He keeps replaying the recording over and over till he realizes that {{spoiler|since the footage came from the documentary crew filming in the station, the other person present was the camera man.}}

* [[Rhetorical Question Blunder]]: When Billy is upset that Stubeck implies that following a blood donation truck to a hospital was his idea, Stubeck asks if Billy is also taking credit for the delicious milkshake that he got at McDonalds earlier that day. Billy says that yes, he is, since it was his idea to get a milkshake, and Stubeck admits that he is right.

* [[Sticks to the Back]]: John-John has a holster on this back for a baseball bat, which he carries [[Batter Up|in case of zombies]].

* [[Straight Man]]: Joe Stubeck, who treats everybody he encounters (Including vampires) with courtesy and an honest will to help. This includes trying to get the people he arrests to turn their lives around instead of continuing their cycle of crime and incarceration.

* [[Swiss Cheese Security]]: The vampires somehow manage to take all the guns and ammo out of the armory of a police station. Since the station seems to be manned around the clock, at least one of the police officers should have noticed something. {{spoiler|It is revealed that the perpetrator was the cameraman filming the documentary, who had filmed Capain Dashell entering armory (And thus knew the access code) and could enter and leave the station without raising suspicion}}.

* [[Take That]]:

** In a [[Call Back]] to when they were trapped in a van by zombies, when the UTF station itself is attacked by zombies Carla tells John-John that she will book a hotel room if they do manage to survive.

** When the entire cast is trapped in a zombie siege the members begin to list their life regrets, which ultimately devolves into listing specific sexual fantasies that they never got to fulfill. Kirsten then says that she just wishes she ''had'' sex; she had never met the right guy at the right time.

* [[Your Head Asplode]]: It turns out vampires ''can'' control zombies, and can also cause their heads to explode at will.

* [[You Were Trying Too Hard]]: Captain Dashell only correctly pronounced Kirsten's name, after trying for five episodes, when he was too busy with paperwork to notice what he was saying.

[[Category:Horror Series]]

[[Category:Zombie Stories]]

[[Category:TV Series]]