Dead Pixels is a British sitcom airing on E4 in 2019, created by Jon Brown and starring Alexa Davies, Will Merrick, Sargon Yelda, and Charlotte Ritchie. It also airs in the US on The CW.
Meg and Nicky are two flatmates in London who are hopelessly addicted to Kingdom Scrolls, an MMORPG, as is Usman, their American guildmate. Meanwhile, their flatmate Alison, confused by gaming culture and generally having much more of a social life, keeps trying in vain to push them into making healthier life choices, with little success.
A second series released in 2021, and is available to stream for free on All 4 (UK only).
This series contains examples of:
- Acquired Situational Narcissism: In "Patricide", Nicky's dad starts playing Kingdom Scrolls, giving Nicky the opportunity to kill him repeatedly. This gives him a massive ego boost.
- Alcohol-Induced Stupidity: In "Healthy Balance", Meg and Nicky are unable to log in to Kingdom Scrolls due to a software update, and become so desperate for a distraction that they agree to help Alison clean out the freezer, and then actually listen to her when she suggests that they develop a healthy balance between their gaming and their real lives. This leads to Nicky and Meg getting drunk, which in turn leads to them deciding to unplug the router and shove it into the freezer, while repeatedly chanting "Healthy balance!"
- Awful Wedded Life: Usman's gaming has put a strain on his marriage, to the point that his wife Zara forces him into marriage counselling. It also does not go well for Meg and Nicky when their characters get married in-game.
- Butt-Monkey: Russell is a naive idiot who is constantly exploited by the other players.
- Crack is Cheaper: After Kingdom Scrolls adds loot crates to the game, Nicky immediately becomes addicted to them, burning through his cash so quickly that he ends up selling his avatar to Russell to fund his addiction.
- Didn't Think This Through: In "The Chair", Nicky sells his avatar to Russell to get more money for loot crates. Both end up regretting the deal, as Nicky's new avatar is easy prey for other players, while Russell discovers that having a high-level character means that he attracts a whole lot of enemies that he's too incompetent to fight properly.
- Dulcinea Effect: In "Mission", Nicky manages to blunder into a small cult devoted to following Daisy Chainsaw around and worshipping her. Absolutely none of them have ever even spoken to her. When Nicky finally works up the courage to talk to her, he finds out that she's a normal woman who is utterly baffled (and a little annoyed) by all the attention she's gotten.
- Functional Addict: Despite spending almost every waking moment playing Kingdom Scrolls, Meg, Nicky, and Usman have all managed to hold down steady jobs. Usman is actually a pilot, and has a wife and kids.
- Funny Background Event:
- While Usman is talking about how his youngest daughter could start walking "any day now," she toddles merrily past in the background.
- When Usman is in the Seoul internet cafe talking about the "very heavy atmosphere" after one of the other gamers is taken away by ambulance, a player in the background gleefully shouts: "Yahooooo!"
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Meg and Nicky occasionally talk about where they are in their "series arc," and threaten to leave Alison "alone in your own show."
- May–December Romance: Russell ends up in a less-than-healthy relationship with Annette, an older woman.
- No Social Skills: Meg is so appallingly bad at socializing that she actually despairs when she gets promoted at work, because it means having to deal with more people.
- Online Alias: In Kingdom Scrolls, Meg, Nicky and Usman are known as Greta Longstocking, Morrick the Unwavering, and Popsicle My Butt.
- Only Sane by Comparison: While Alison isn't a video-game addict, she does sometimes demonstrate stupid behavior of her own. Her boyfriend Jay, for instance, happens to be married with kids, and while she insists that there's some sort of "mature" arrangement between her, her paramour, and his wife, it's implied that the arrangement is that she and the paramour are hiding their affair from his spouse. In the second-season finale, Alison's relationship with Jay collapses and Nicky and Meg get her hooked on Kingdom Scrolls in order to cheer her up.
- Only Sane Man: Alison has managed to avoid getting sucked into Kingdom Scrolls. Consequently, she's the only member of the main cast who's actually managed to have a normal life.
- Pædo Hunt: Russell's paramour Annette spends her free time stalking and humiliating paedophiles online.
- Playing Cyrano: In "Raid Boss", Alison reluctantly texts Greg on Meg's behalf in order to make Meg sound less socially inept. This ends up backfiring when Meg's in-person behavior and her own attempts to text Greg don't match the things Alison sent; Greg dumps Meg, complaining that she's giving him mixed messages.
- The Reveal: Throughout the first episode, Meg and Nicky communicate only via their gaming headsets. Not until the last few minutes is it revealed that they've actually been in the same flat the entire time.
- Series Continuity Error:
- In series one, we hear Usman's wife refer to their younger daughter as Kaitlyn. In series two her name is Freya.
- His older daughter also changes appearance and ages significantly in the supposed eight months between series one and two.
- In series one, Nicky and Meg have apparently been playing Kingdom Scrolls for two years. In series two, Nicky says fourteen years. "Flanks/Yams" explains it; they've been playing the franchise as a whole for fourteen years, but there have been multiple iterations of the game over the years and they've migrated their accounts to the most recent version.
- In series one, Russell works with Meg. In series two he doesn't, with no explanation. The attraction between him and Meg has also completely disappeared.
- Serious Business: Meg, Nicky, and Usman take Kingdom Scrolls very seriously, much to the bafflement of their non-gamer friends and family.
- Shown Their Work: The writers went out of their way to not get gaming lingo and conventions wrong, and what Meg and Nicky say are genuine terms and are reflective of gaming culture. For instance, in "Tanadaal", Meg goes on a nerd rant when she see's someone wearing some gamer clothing and trinkets, and asks them to name the last game they completed, and adds the qualifier and assertion that fully completing games on an emulator with save states doesn't count; a genuine argument in gaming and emulation circles online.
- Skewed Priorities: Nicky and Meg's gaming habit takes priority over every other aspect of their lives. In "Raid Boss", Meg finally scores a date with Greg, but spends almost the whole night waiting in a queue to fight a boss.
- Usman is actually worse; he repeatedly neglects his wife and children for the game, to the point that in the second-season finale, he leaves his wife alone while she's in labor in order to keep playing.
- Take That!: The series takes several potshots at Runescape and Fortnite, the former being derided as a refuge for geezers, and the latter being maligned for flooding the MMORPG scene with snot-nosed adolescents who care more about hanging out and goofing off than engaging with the lore or doing quests.
- Theme Naming: The writers seem very keen on names that end in -ara. We have Zara, Dara and Cara (Usman's wife, Usman's daughter, and Russell's mother, respectively).
- Time Skip: Season 2 opens eight months after the end of season 1.
- What the Hell, Hero?: In "Flanks/Yams", Meg finally calls Usman out for neglecting his wife while she's in labour.
- You Need to Get Laid: Alison keeps trying to convince Meg to put herself out there socially, as it's clear that Meg is sexually frustrated; Meg has referred to her sexual frustrations as a "genital Hiroshima".
