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I never warmed to the Walking Dead, its too melodramatic and up its own arse for my tastes. I am enjoying Z Nation though.

Basically its about a group of survivors taking the only known person who has survived a zombie bite to a lab in California in the hope of finding a cure. It has an obviously tiny budget but I find it really engaging, not least because all the main characters are likable, 'authentic' and unusually competent, the only character who does stupid things is understandably pathologically terrified of zombies.
Zombies tend to be easily killed when the survivors are prepared but deadly when unexpected and main characters are far from immune to death (which have all been unexpected so far).

Its well worth a watch.

I thought I read there was going to be a second season, although I'm not sure how give the finale of this one.

There is a second season filmed/being filmed although the first is only just over half way through in the UK, I think there are 4 more episodes to go.

My girl and I both loved it - just about every episode moves things forward and stuff happens. The characters are fun and most of them are cool.

Neither of us liked the Addy character much, and the only episode both us agreed on hating was the groundhogs day/dream episode, both because it heavily featured her and because that shtick is played out.

2nd season starts this week.

 agnosto wrote:
2nd season starts this week.

Yup, starts on Friday in fact.

I honestly found this series to be markedly mediocre. It wants to play itself off as a 'fun' serious, but mostly it's just hyper cheesy melodrama with occasional super grim sprinkles. The cheesy parts ruin the grim parts and the grim pats ruin the cheesy parts so I wasn't able to enjoy either of them. Then there was the really predictable conspiracy bits which just feel like the writers weren't even trying.

The show looks like something you'd find on cable access. Horrible.

Looking forward to it. We can't stand watching TWD where the entire plot for every episode is "Duh, let' do something really stupid!".

 LordofHats wrote:
I honestly found this series to be markedly mediocre. It wants to play itself off as a 'fun' serious, but mostly it's just hyper cheesy melodrama with occasional super grim sprinkles. The cheesy parts ruin the grim parts and the grim pats ruin the cheesy parts so I wasn't able to enjoy either of them. Then there was the really predictable conspiracy bits which just feel like the writers weren't even trying.

That sums it up nicely!

It is a truly horrible show.

 LordofHats wrote:
I honestly found this series to be markedly mediocre. It wants to play itself off as a 'fun' serious, but mostly it's just hyper cheesy melodrama with occasional super grim sprinkles. The cheesy parts ruin the grim parts and the grim pats ruin the cheesy parts so I wasn't able to enjoy either of them. Then there was the really predictable conspiracy bits which just feel like the writers weren't even trying.

Your talking about the Walking Dead, right? I haven't reached any conspiracy bits yet though.

The show looks like something you'd find on cable access. Horrible.

Well it does have a comparatively tiny budget, it looks good enough for what it is though.

 Alpharius wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
I honestly found this series to be markedly mediocre. It wants to play itself off as a 'fun' serious, but mostly it's just hyper cheesy melodrama with occasional super grim sprinkles. The cheesy parts ruin the grim parts and the grim pats ruin the cheesy parts so I wasn't able to enjoy either of them. Then there was the really predictable conspiracy bits which just feel like the writers weren't even trying.

That sums it up nicely!

It is a truly horrible show.

What, you don't think dinner theater-level acting and cable access production values teamed with writing quality right out of '70s live-action Saturday morning TV is a winning formula?

There are many examples of how geeks will watch and like anything so long as it's in their genre, but Z Nation has to be one of the finest. I gave it a couple episodes to try to find something redeeming in it, but it's just so bad that it falls flat. It reminds me of preseason football in that regard.

I think it's good for what it is, a low-budget show that hits every zombie movie trope in existence...still no zombie strippers yet though.

I haven't gotten into it yet, but I've only watched the first 5 minutes. The thing is, a really crappy zombie film can be great if it has the right je ne sais quoi.
Romero's films for example peaked at 'Dawn' only got worse as he got bigger budgets and more tools

My wife and I enjoyed it. It's stupid in a fun way, so we laughed the whole way through

 Boggy Man wrote:
I haven't gotten into it yet, but I've only watched the first 5 minutes. The thing is, a really crappy zombie film can be great if it has the right je ne sais quoi.
Romero's films for example peaked at 'Dawn' only got worse as he got bigger budgets and more tools

Some episodes are better/campier/funnier than others but I just appreciate how they're trying to fit as much stuff in the series as possible.

I like the promos for the 2nd season:

The worst part for me was that the first episode really did seem promising. I like that it played the more goofy side of zombies that you don't see in The Walking Dead.



If the entire series was like that, I'd have enjoyed it, but the series couldn't maintain that tone for more than one epsiode and it just started circling the drain as the season went on. The series just couldn't decide if it wanted to be the fun version of the Walking Dead, or the Grim version of Shaun of the Dead...

Meh, it's a funny take on the z-apocalypse? Was looking forward to a serious series...gonna skip it then.

It's not even really that funny!

 Sigvatr wrote:
Meh, it's a funny take on the z-apocalypse? Was looking forward to a serious series...gonna skip it then.

Its a serious as anything Zombie related is.

z nations a joke, I watched 3 episodes in. TWD and FTWD all the way!

Oh my god. Enough with the zombies already.

Z Nation did for Zombies what Sharknado did for Sharks: feth all.

I like it. It sucks, but I like it.

I like how it's set much further into the zombie apocalypse and it does things with the genre you don't see often.

 agnosto wrote:

I like the promos for the 2nd season

So, based at what happened in the last episode of season one...

 Sigvatr wrote:
Meh, it's a funny take on the z-apocalypse? Was looking forward to a serious series...gonna skip it then.

It's never really funny. But it initially (to me anyway) felt like it was trying to be "fun" in the sense that it wasn't shooting for grim drama of The Walking Dead, but rather to be a more adventurous kind of show. Unfortunately there were far too many grim bits in the second 2/3's of the season to really try and pretend that it was the 'fun' zombie show.

When I say I found something hilarious, I'm referring more to the "I know tropes and that's pretty funny now I'm grinning" kind of hilarious, not the 'lol my sides' funny.

 Breotan wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

I like the promos for the 2nd season

So, based at what happened in the last episode of season one...

Spoiler:

Do the zombies glow in the dark?

Not that I saw in the promo. I'm looking forward to more craziness tomorrow.

I also enjoyed it. I enjoy Campy. I also watch TWD but SCIFI puts out some cool series. Unfortunately all of the great ones get cancelled RIP Stargate and Eureka and WH13

Well to be fair, Stargate did have a ten year run and Eureka and WH13 had pretty much run out of fresh ideas.

Shows like Almost Human and Firefly on the other hand...

Agreed with Eureka. Great show that just ran it's course. I'm glad they stopped when they did. I just wish most shows would know when to do that.