Z Nation

Don't take the apocalypse too seriously. Break all taboos the genre has adhered to. Tell an insane story that gets completely out of hand, like Weeds once did. Include a handful of extremely likeable characters. Add trash. No, add Trash with a capital T.

Sounds good? Because it works for me!

This is not a TWD replacement or competition, certainly in its current state. Not that TWD is the epitome of excellence but the apparent lack of budget and mostly unknown actors give Z Nation a less professional finish.

Coming at a time when we are over saturated by all things Zombie, Z Nation seems to know that its not going to break any records or do anything groundbreaking and so doesn't try. Instead, what we have is a show where the makers are giving us a bunch of characters ( I cant even remember their names) who are knee deep in Guts and supremely confident in cracking the skulls of the Zombies and the whole thing is a 45 minute long gore fest with a bit of a back story.

I personally didn't want to get involved in another series where you have to love or loath a character, get involved in their love lives and generally care about them especially in another Zombie world so its quite refreshing to know that it doesn't matter who lives and who dies and judging by the carnage the producers don't care who lives or dies either.

After the first two episodes, I can say that it was fun and I will watch the third episode. Why? cos its a laugh in a visceral,gory and silly way.

Just don't expect a serious, well written and high budget TWD experience and you might have a bit of fun with it...

You can tell exactly what this show is about when Harold goes "God, I hate moral dilemmas." Not that I don't like Walking Dead and their special episodes, but by God, it's just refreshing to have people killing zombies without constantly wondering about the meaning of life and the universe and God and nihilism and every damn thing under the sun.

I was skeptical at first by the bad reviews, but this is Syfy doing what it does best. Cheap, good, pointless, meaningless fun.

I was like "Guy from Lost!"(Harold) "Aunt Wanda!" (from the Bernie Mac Show) "Russell!" (from Southland), and even the other actors who I have never seen before, had my interest from the jump. There's no frowdy-dowdy old woman, no rambling kindly farmer grandad with six semi-suicidal daughters. None of all that baggage. Everybody's in the now. There are people like "girl with spiked baseball bat", "old meth dealer", "emo-looking sniper boy", "Jon Hamm looking vagrant-convict-zombie-zombie cure".

Another thing it has going for it is the pacing. The events of the single pilot episode would take maybe a season and a half in TWD time. I don't see Z Nation wasting time on all the nonsense that TWD drags on over and over. No soul searching here, people! Just good ole zombie killing fun.

It's like 28 Days Later, meets Dawn and Shaun of the Dead, meets maybe From Dusk Till Dawn. I just frakking love it. It's like someone was watching TWD and thought, "You know what, this is nice and all, but what if it wasn't boring as all fvck? Like if maybe zombies were fun? You think maybe we could do that?"

Seasons 1-4 get a rating of 9 stars from me. I rate season 5 with 3 stars. This show has been funny and highly entertaining until season 5. One of the things that made this show so good was that the writers managed to find a good balance,keeping the political stuff to a minimum and there wasn't a lot of deep diving into emotional dilemmas. This season the writing is sappy and feels forced with lame lines about "who we want to become" and "not acting out of fear" blah blah blah. As if having legitimate concern about someone eating your brains is some sort of silly fear that should be scorned. The writing this season is terrible! The "Talkers" won't eat you if they get enough biscuits that contain human brains. The viewer seems to be expected to just accept this premise no questions asked. Who makes the biscuits and where are they getting brains from? And why aren't our characters having a moral dilemma with THAT?! In previous seasons anything that seemed stupid in the writing wasn't a problem b/c the show was so fun to watch. This season is nothing but a lame lecture.

I think the problem here is that everyone is comparing this show to the Walking Dead, which in my opinion, has failed the zombie genre. The first two episodes of this show had me on the edge of my seat and the graphics were quite good (obviously not HBO good). The zombies in the show are terrifying and yes some of the acting is a bit stiff but its SYFY, they do have a budget, and they're spending it on the right thing, graphics. Almost non-stop action is what propels the show and a new "smart zombie" spin is whats going to keep me watching. Im tired of watching zombies get speared through the holes of a fence, it's time to let the humans be the hunted! I highly recommend you give this show a try because in my opinion they're doing almost everything right and it could be one of the most thrilling shows to grace the airwaves in a while.