Syfy has struck gold with their new show Z Nation. The first episode debuted September 12, 2014. I had recently seen the show on Netflix while trying to find something good to binge and I am so happy I gave this show a chance. The show is placed several years after the zombie virus has swept across the world. An assorted group of strangers are left with the mission of transporting the only person, Murphy, known to survive from the infection which makes him the world's last hope at creating a vaccine. The last functioning viral lab is in California but the group is in New York.
The amazing thing about this show, that separates their zombie narrative from others like The Walking Dead, is their progressiveness with having a black woman be their lead, when in most fantasy/Sci-fi stories black people are rarely seen. Also there is great character development, not being afraid to kill off characters, creativity with zombies, and refreshing dialogue with comedic relief. In this show they give “mercy” to the zombies they kill in order to remember the humanity that was once there. Also there’s an on-going joke throughout each season where somehow the group ends up destroying or vandalizing a national treasure from before the world went to hell. When these moments happen their leader, Lt. Warren, says “If anyone asked…” and the group says together “We were nowhere near ‘blank’”. Thus far they’ve destroyed the Liberty Bell, the biggest cheese wheel was rolled to get rid of a few zombies, they dumped thousands of zombies in the Grand Canyon and kidnapped the last sitting president of the United States of America, who’s already a zombie.
In each season the group meets crazier and crazier people and crazier and crazier obstacles that are pretty realistic as they try to travel across the country to drop Murphy off safely. They’ve had to fight cannibals in order to free one of their new group members and religious nuts who believe zombies are the second coming and stop a nuclear reactor from blowing up. But this show is on the Syfy network so they push the boundaries further than just killing zombies. Murphy has the ability to control and speak to zombies because of the vaccine he was given in season one. Someone could say, “That’s cheating! The Walking Dead doesn’t have a zombie whisperer, they have to actually fight off zombies.” Well that’s when Syfy comes in and pushes the zombie narrative further. At some moments Murphy’s ability is like a cheat code but the zombie virus doesn’t remain the same throughout this show. Not only does the virus adapt like most real world viruses do, radioactive zombies are introduced to the show. These zombies are called blasters and are able to run, jump, climb and one bullet to the brain doesn’t always kill them instantly. The most important thing is that Murphy can’t control or reason with these zombies at all, they viciously hate him.
This show has a refreshing take on the zombie narrative and has a little bit for everyone if they decide to give it a chance.
