Z Nation, Episode 1: Puppies and Kittens

Watching “Z Nation” is almost like someone took the most annoying parts from 2013’s “World War Z” and the 2004 “Dawn of the Dead” remake, turned it in to a FPS video game, and then the Asylum adapted it in to a TV show. I can just imagine the Asylum structured “Z Nation” purposely for the crowds that find “The Walking Dead” too wordy and serious, and just want bad ass apocalypse survivalists killing zombies. And surely, “Z Nation” delivers in that respect. It’s the very definition of zombie porn with limited focus on its human protagonists.

The pilot is an hour long with at least nine characters maximum, and I still know nothing about any of them. There’s the very brief look at Tom Everett Scott’s character and two of his friends running a small safe haven named Blue Skies camp. There’s a young girl named Addy with a really cool spiked bat, a middle aged hippy named Doc, a boring young man with a quick shot who is her boyfriend or brother named Mack, and Cassandra, a young girl who may or may not have committed a crime to get herself locked up in a cage. There’s also a young sniper who is seen throughout the episode, and is briefly introduced in the final scene. I literally know almost nothing about their personalities, their back stories, or what sets them apart from one another. Harold Perrineau is the only character with even the slightest shred of extrapolation and the writers seem to have no idea what to do with him.

During a massive release of a mysterious virus, most of America (and the world, likely) has been consumed by the infected. Said infected are running rabid zombies that consume human flesh, and all hope has seemingly been lost. Three years later at the Blue Skies camp, leader Garnett (Everett Scott) and his team come across ex-soldier Hammond (Perrineau) who claims to be on an important mission: he’s shipping the only human to have been bitten by a zombie and lived. And he may have the cure for the infection. The zombies are called Z’s, while the virus is called ZN, but there isn’t a lot of focus on zombies to prop up creepy or tense moments of survival. The zombies are, for the most part, like undead whack-a-moles prone to being shot and clubbed within a split second. The writers place little effort in the majority of the zombies, and yet the centerpiece of the entire episode is the finale where the group has to do battle with a lightning fast baby that’s turned in to one of the zombies, and is especially hungry for flesh.

So far, “Z Nation” seems geared for the portion of “The Walking Dead” audience that quit the series because all the talky bits hurt their heads. This series seems to be about zombie carnage first and foremost with the narrative as window dressing and nothing more. The performances stink for the most part, including from Kellita Smith, and Scott, both of whom try much too hard to play the hard boiled survivalists. I also find DJ Qualls’ character obnoxious, if only for the reason I think he’s been injected merely to hold the audiences hands through every episode. I do however want to see where the ace sniper is going, and I really found the trio of bat donning Addy, friend Mack, and older pal Doc charming. I am interested to see how they eventually fare.

“Z Nation” is crummy, and tedious, but I’ll give it two more episodes to really turn me around to its side. I just have a weakness for the post-apocalyptic sub-genre.