Review Guide:
Episode 1.01 Pilot - Review & Advanced Preview
Episode 1.02 Fracking Zombies - Review
Episode 1.03 Philly Feast - Review
Episode 1.04 Full Metal Zombie - Review
Episode 1.05 Home Sweet Zombie - Review
Episode 1.06 Resurrection Z - Review
Episode 1.07 Welcome to the FU-Bar - Review
Episode 1.08 Zunami - Review
Episode 1.09 Die Zombie Die...Again - Review
Episode 1.10 Going Nuclear Review
Episode 1.11 Sisters of Mercy Review
Episode 1.12 Murphy's Law - Review
Z Nation - Pilot - Review
Z Nation is a mess right from the beginning. You get thrown right into the apocalypse without any knowledge of how it happened or what the hell is going on.
The first thing we see is Lieutenant Hammond played by Harold Perrineau, he is trying to extract some civilians from what I believe looked like a prison. There are about two dozen zombies trying to break through, and Hammond leaves one man to fight them off in case they break through. Why wouldn't he just tell the soldier to go with him, he obviously wouldn't be able to hold them all off, unless he was Rambo or something. Hammond Says, "Save your ammo" which is funny because they seemed to have unlimited ammo throughout the first episode.
Hammond is given the task of transporting Murphy to a CDC in California, as he is the key to finding the cure, after surviving being bitten by a zombie. He gets given a drug which makes him survive the attack. We don't actually find out what they gave him, and why it saved him and not the other two prisoners that took a dose.
We also have Citizen Z, who is at an army base; he is a message relayer who gives instructions to Hammond to help him get Murphy to California. He is their "eyes in the sky". I wonder if he will get off the base and join the team at some point during the season. Something that keeps bothering me is, if there is a zombie apocalypse, why is there still functioning electronics?
In all honesty nothing much happened in the pilot, we met the characters individually, and then the majority of the episode was spent in one area, where they were meant to be scavenging for food and supplies. A scene that should have taken about 5 minutes took about 20. The pilot was all over the place and if I wasn't reviewing this show I probably would have switched off within the first 10 minutes.
When they get to this place, Hammond decided to go and check to see if it was the army. He saw a Zombie under a car, he shot this zombie in the back and it died. It was a stupid scene, Zombies only die from shooting it in the head, and one suddenly dies from a shot to the back. I don't think so. Note to writers, you have to destroy the brain.
They then split up to search the building. Addy, Mack, and Doc come across a woman named Cassandra who is in a cage surrounded by zombies. The three of them finally used silent weapons such as the crowbar, although it looked shockingly bad how none of the zombies turned around and started to attack them, they just focused their attention on Cassandra. This would not happen; the Zombies are attracted to human flesh and if there was a living human next to a zombie they would attack, not stand there. We see Garnett and Murphy held up in the building with a baby they find in a car on arrival. A horde of zombies breaks through one of the doors, and Garnett (in slow mo) takes them out with a hammer. This was nicely done, which made me forget about how bad the show was. Until about 1 minute later, when Warren and Garret find out that the baby has turned into a zombie. It was probably one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen. The baby wasn't scratched or bitten by the zombie, and was still crying when Garnett took out the horde. So how on earth did it turn? Do the writers even think this through or do they just throw things at you and expect you to go along with it.
Speaking of the baby, it later with the help of another zombie kills Hammond. When Garnett and Warren couldn't kill the baby after it turned. They ran outside to the others. Instead of leaving it, which any sane person would do, they decided to have a heart which you should never have in an apocalypse as it only gets you killed. The group decided to show mercy to the baby by killing it. Only it wasn't them who went in to kill it, but Hammond as Garnett seemed to be having an emotional breakdown at the time "You need to pull it together" Hammond says. We saw Hammond spend the next 5 minutes on our screens go round in circles searching for this baby.
He went back around to where he first entered and got jumped on by a zombie, and then ultimately was bitten by it and the baby who finally showed up. What made me laugh was how none of the others came to his aid when he was shouting, only when he was actually dead. It was such a cheap and tacky death that it meant nothing. To top that scene of it took five of them to shoot 1 baby, a zombie eating Hammond and a decapitated Hammond. They sprayed like they had all the ammo in the world, probably because on this show you do. They even kept shooting after they had already killed the three zombies; it was like a scene from a cheap movie. The final scene we see is of Citizen Z, which at that point I didn't care what he had to say, I just couldn't wait for the credits to roll. He says they need to get Murphy to California, which we already knew. He was just confirming to the survivors something that Hammond had told them, as they all had doubts. At the very end, we get a speech from Citizen Z, in what was probably one of the cheesiest speeches I've ever heard, you literally couldn't care any less about what he was saying. The thought I had in my mind was "CREDITS CREDITS CREDITS". I know one thing for sure; at least the second episode couldn't get any worse. Could it?
Summary
Z Nation was probably one of the worst pilots I've ever seen, with its cheesy dialog to its unrealistic nature. As the episode progresses scenes start to get worse and worse, with stupid outcomes to things that shouldn't be thought about at all. The characters felt as if it wasn't the end of the world, but your typical day where you would make moral decisions. The episode felt cheap and tacky from the start and looked even worse the second time viewing it.
As always , thank you for reading! Let me know in the comments what you thought of the episode!
