Review: Z-Nation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_Nation

Oh Sy-Fy...

I love syfy. I've religiously watched many of their show, those of quality (BSG) and those of major suckatitde (Opposite Worlds). So when I heard they were dipping their toes into the zombie genre, I had to watch...of course.

Now, I don't watch Town of the Living Dead. I can only sink so far; I have some dignity left, but I will openly admit that I've allowed myself to be bitten by Z-Nation.

The show has a slew of positives and negatives, and it both wins me over and loses me completely every single Friday, so I guess it's time to weigh in on a review.


The "good" of SyFy's Z-Nation:

• Good special fx: The zombies are well executed as are the kills. Unlike in Defiance, which I stupidly love, there aren't moments where bad special fx remove you from the storytelling. They've hired good makeup artists and it shows.
• Good art direction: Love the bleak, colorless world they've created. I also love that it's reminiscent of Zombieland in so far as it makes clear the emptiness and isolation of the Central United States in a very realistic manner. Everything looks real, abandoned, and disturbing. That's essential when entering this genre.
• Originality: They introduce a lot of new ideas that I've never seen in zombie flicks before which is admirable considering that they could probably just follow the status quo and still entertain the new zombie fans. Hiding in morgue freezer cells to evade zombies? I'd never thought of that. Very cool. Nuclear facilities melting down? Someone else watched Life After People, I guess. Thank you for finally incorporating that reality into zombie material.
• Not creating "supermen": Aside from Murphy, who has special immunities but still remains painfully human, these are just regular people fighting against the dead. We don't have Navy Seals here, which makes the protagonists more relatable.
• Not shrinking from death: They kill their main characters...all the time. I've seen people online complain about this, but I think it's great. In the z-pocalypse, people would die on a fairly regular basis. It's only fair that we feel that as an audience. One of my favorite things about SyFy is that because they're not responsible to a mainstream audience, they can more or less do what they want. This plays out well in Z-Nation because it allows you to feel the real, imminent danger that would exist in the zombie apocalypse.
• Select actor performances: They're not all students of Juliard: that's evident. but you can't downplay the solid performances that some of the actors give. Specifically, the characters of Murphy, Doc, and 10k are very engaging. Murphy is a really interesting character, and one of the main reasons to keep watching week after week. He's truly dynamic and a lot of that should be credited to the actor, Keith Allan, for building a character that seems genuine.
• Honoring those who came before: We have a number of nods to seriously geeky horror shiz here. My favorite? The morgue in episode 9 (by far the best episode) is named after one of my favorite Vincent Price films, The Abominable Doctor Phibes.

  

  Murphy from Z Nation (http://www.nerdophiles.com/2014/10/10/z-nation-home-sweet-home-aka-znado/)

  
  

The "bad"of Z-Nation:

• Infringements of realism: At least once every episode, I'm struck with a "wait...what?" moment. It's like they don't even try to explain away things from time to time. In one of the earlier episodes, they randomly have a brand-spanking-new iPad with convenient footage of exactly the thing that they need to see. I have yet to find a reasonable explanation for this. And that's just an example. There are a number of times when they just assume the viewer is an idiot and throw in completely implausible pieces for seemingly no reason except, perhaps, lazy writing.
• Bad acting: While characters like Murphy or even Citizen Z (DJ Qualls) keep me watching, the vast majority of the side characters in each episode are total garbage. As someone who attended theater school, I know that there's better out there. It's annoying to be subjected to poorly portrayed new characters week to week. Even some of the main characters are painfully paper-thin, such as Addy (Anastasia Baranova). The only consolation for that is that no one hangs around for very long on this show, so you don't have to endure bad acting for long...until it's replaced by more bad acting.
• Lack of theme: This story wavers...a lot. As an English teacher, I'm left wondering "What's the message here? What should we learn or know?". Good writers and creators have a purpose, a message, that they hope to communicate to their reader or viewer. For example, Kirkman clearly has a message of "What does it take to retain humanity". Romero seeks to show us our own zombie-esque mannerisms, and, through his four "of the dead films" teaches us that we are, in some ways, no better than the dead. What does Z-Nation want to say? I'm not sure yet. At times, it feels like it's about to say something, but then it stops itself. I hope it can find a deeper message, some authorial intent, or else it'll just continue to be my cheap zombie fix to get me through until Sunday night.

Addy from Z Nation. I applaud them for making a normal-sized girl their "heart throb", but she's no emmy winner. (http://www.space.ca/)

So, what's the take away? I guess...watch it? It is rarely excellent (episode 9 being a true diamond in the rough), but every episode has something valuable and interesting. It's not a waste of time, but I'd be lying if I said it's great. It's not. But should you watch it? Yes. If only because I want to believe that it's going to be a little like Dollhouse, a show that started off rocky but found its stride in an amazing and intelligent way. Here's to being optimistic...and being a sucker for all things zombie.