I am an ardent fan of zombies. I watch zombie movies. I read zombie fiction. I dream about zombies. A small to medium part of me even sort of wishes for a Zompocalypse. I watch Walking Dead (although any red-blooded American with an ounce of good taste watches it too). So when I heard about this show I was excited. Not because I thought it was going to be anything special, but simply because it's about zombies, man. I'll take all the content I can get.
Two episodes in, here are my thoughts: A lot of the dialogue is wooden. The characters are cliché, but likable. Still, more time should be spent on developing them and making the audience really care. They're exposing some back story a bit at a time, but I wish they would have put more into it in the beginning. I don't mind waiting a while before head shots and z-swarms. The budget obviously isn't huge, but they do a lot with what they have and it's easy to forget they don't have AMC money. And, actually, there are some pretty cool situations and ideas. You can tell there is a group of dudes behind this saying 'wouldn't it be cool if...'. A little more consistency would be nice; One second zombies run at people soon as they see them and they're battling swarms. Then, a few scenes later, people casually jog through groups of Z's who barely even notice them.
Still, Z Nation is no worse than a decent low budget zombie flick. If you don't particularly like zombies then you'll probably think it's awful. However, as a huge fan of the genre, I can't really complain about getting an hour long decent low budget movie every week. I wish they would have gotten it right from the start, but hopefully Scyfy gives the show long enough that they listen to the fans and learn some lessons. Also, it's definitely not a rip-off of TWD. It has done well not to try to emulate it, though there is a nod to it in the first episode. Another plus is that it has fun with the genre. TWD is awesome, but it's all doom and gloom, while Z Nation is often more light-hearted and silly.
tl;dr - If you're not a fan of the zombie or apocalypse genre, you can probably live without it. But if you love Zeds like me, it's not the worst thing to spend your time watching. I'll stay tuned weekly.
Two episodes in, here are my thoughts: A lot of the dialogue is wooden. The characters are cliché, but likable. Still, more time should be spent on developing them and making the audience really care. They're exposing some back story a bit at a time, but I wish they would have put more into it in the beginning. I don't mind waiting a while before head shots and z-swarms. The budget obviously isn't huge, but they do a lot with what they have and it's easy to forget they don't have AMC money. And, actually, there are some pretty cool situations and ideas. You can tell there is a group of dudes behind this saying 'wouldn't it be cool if...'. A little more consistency would be nice; One second zombies run at people soon as they see them and they're battling swarms. Then, a few scenes later, people casually jog through groups of Z's who barely even notice them.
Still, Z Nation is no worse than a decent low budget zombie flick. If you don't particularly like zombies then you'll probably think it's awful. However, as a huge fan of the genre, I can't really complain about getting an hour long decent low budget movie every week. I wish they would have gotten it right from the start, but hopefully Scyfy gives the show long enough that they listen to the fans and learn some lessons. Also, it's definitely not a rip-off of TWD. It has done well not to try to emulate it, though there is a nod to it in the first episode. Another plus is that it has fun with the genre. TWD is awesome, but it's all doom and gloom, while Z Nation is often more light-hearted and silly.
tl;dr - If you're not a fan of the zombie or apocalypse genre, you can probably live without it. But if you love Zeds like me, it's not the worst thing to spend your time watching. I'll stay tuned weekly.
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