Z Nation has been on my watch list for a while and after watching the first episode last night I can swiftly remove it.
Z Nation takes place during a zombie apocalypse and initially follows Lt. Mark Hammond (Harold Perrineau) as he transports Murphy (Keith Allan), who may be the only person that can save the human race, to a lab in California with the help of Citizen Z (DJ Qualls). Along his travels he encounters a group of survivors including Sergeant Charles Garnett (Tom Everett Scott) and Lieutenant Roberta Warren (Kellita Smith) who decide to aid him in his quest. If you hadn't already noticed I love zombie fiction and even the stuff I admit isn't quite good *cough*Fear The Walking Dead*cough* I make attempts at watching more than one episode. That isn't the case with Z Nation. I did wonder if it was because The Walking Dead has ruined any zombie show for me but I've come to the realisation that that is not the case, Z Nation is just plain bad.
The premise isn't the most original that we've seen in zombie fiction, or in any television or film that has a wide spread virus. We've seen the lone survivor, the only person that has the information to save the world and make personal sacrifices while doing so, funnily enough he/she (usually he) gains help along the way. Z Nation takes this premise and does exactly nothing to make it interesting, it just takes the same path that we've seen time and time again but does nothing to break the mould. Even I Am Legend is more enjoyable, it has essentially the same premise but it's landlocked which in theory should be less interesting but we deal with the protagonists loneliness and despair before him meeting other survivors. Z Nation does nothing of the sort, the show just lays out their goal with no firm plan and adds a slew of characters that don't seem to have any value in the series.
I can see that Z Nation is attempting to make the show more about the survivors rather than the quest as the survivors are who we are having to watch on a weekly basis. The series is making attempts to build character archetypes by borrowing from existing fiction to make the characters interesting enough to keep hold of the viewers attention, but the fact that I have the large cast list up to help me write this shows it hasn't worked. Murphy is the bad guy who has the weight of the world on his shoulders but he's selfish, he doesn't want the responsibility of it but the viewers are supposed to root for him to alter his perceptions about humanity and work for the greater good. I don't care. Charles Garnett has clearly suffered a great loss, one that has made him softer and makes it difficult for him to kill these zombies and I'm supposed to wonder whats happened to him and hope that he is able to take the reigns of the group. Don't care. In fact one of the only characters that I semi-liked was Mark Hammond and that's saying something because that character was blander than bland. The only reason I had any ounce of affection for him was because of his strive to complete his mission but other than that he had no personality to him, nothing outside his job.
Another issue I took with the show was it's special effects. I understand that it's a show that's developed by SyFy, a network known for their shockingly bad television films, but I just can't stand how cheap it looks. A prime example was a zombie baby that was featured in the pilot, it was laughably bad. Literally. I was supposed to be watching a suspenseful sequence of events but I was laughing out loud. This is only one of many examples in the pilot episode, the others would be too numerous to go into at length. Shows are supposed to spend A LOT of money on their pilot episodes because that is the episode that has to grab an audience so it's likely the best the show is going to get, at least in its first season anyway. It's nice to attempt something but if you know you don't have the money to make it look at least decent then don't try, if it wasn't for the baby there was a chance I'd continue. A slight chance.Not all of it was bad though as there was one character I did like enjoy, the enigmatic Citizen Z. Z is helping the survivors help save the human race and we know almost nothing about him, yet he was my favourite. I may be biased because I love the seemingly ageless DJ Qualls and I had given up all hope with the show until the final moments when he popped up on screen talking into a microphone. The thought that went through my head was mainly "WTF" and then I thought that maybe I could carry on with the series just because of him. Then I woke up and decided against it, life is short and I can't afford to waste any more of it on Z Nation.
It wasn't a complete waste of time though, I have finally watched a series about zombies where they are actually called zombies. Again, not enough to keep me going.
Live Long and Blog!
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