Zoo - First Blood (Pilot) - Advance Preview: "The animals take over"

Premiering in a week, is CBS' latest summer addition Zoo. Along with returning series Under the Dome and Extant it rounds out a slew of unique concepts that CBS would never air during the regular season, but that the network instead opts to try out in summer. Ratings for Under the Dome's first season went through the roof, but waned during the second season, although they were still reasonable for summer television. Extant has seen pretty soft ratings in season 1, and I was surprised it was renewed for another season. Neither of the two returning shows have the benefit of having critical acclaim, so that doesn't help either. The question is: how will Zoo fare among them? I can't predict ratings, but I can tell you something about the show's pilot. CBS has been kind enough to send us a screener of the pilot, so here I am trying to give you an impression of what it looks like without giving too much away.

In case you haven't heard by now, the show is based on the novel of the same name by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge about a wave of violent animal attacks all over the globe. Basically the show asks the question: what if the animals that, for years, we have locked up, experimented on and whatever else suddenly decided to fight back and take over? The pilot starts with a flashforward in Botswana, where we meet Jackson Oz (James Wolk) and Abraham Kenyatta (Nonso Anozie), two of our main characters. They find an abandoned car in the middle of the savanna, which has blood all over it. Something happens and we go back to six hours earlier to Kituko Safari Camp. It turns out Jackson and Abraham offer safaris in Botswana and they live in that camp. The two friends go to Abraham's cousin Simon, who is running things at a different safari camp. However, once there, they learn that something horrible has happened. Jackson and Abraham then head over to the savanna, leading to the aforementioned opening scene.

Meanwhile, two lions escape from a zoo in Los Angeles and kill three people. This piques the interest of LA Telegraph journalist Jamie Campbell (Kristen Connolly), who thinks a change in the lions' food had something to do with them attacking people. She also suspects that the director of the zoo might know something more. During Jamie's research, she comes across animal veterinarian Mitch Morgan (Billy Burke). Mitch, who is investigating the bodies of the dead lions, is someone who prefers the company of animals over that of people. He is initially reluctant to work with Jamie, but the two later team up to research the strange animal behavior.

The premiere episode goes back and forth between Jamie and Mitch in Los Angeles and the three other regulars in Botswana. In addition to Jackson and Abraham, the third character appearing in the Africa part is Chloe Tousignant (Nora Arnezeder). Chloe is a tourist on one of the safaris and we meet her at about 20 minutes into the episode. The rest of her tour group has been attacked and now she's running for her life. In fact, from about half-way in the episode, the Africa part is pretty much non-stop characters running for their lives.

I consider the pilot a good start to an exciting new series. There is no time wasted in getting to the story, as it soon becomes clear that the show is about animal attacks. In this episode, we only see animal attacks in Los Angeles and Africa, but since the description of the series says that attacks will be global, I suspect we will soon hear of or see other places where animals start behaving strangely. It is safe to start the animal attacks in these two places and then build further upon that in future episodes. The division of screen time between the two locations is fair and gives a certain balance to the episode. On the character side, we get some hints at our characters' backstories but nothing major yet. I think the show is primarily story-driven, but I believe it's important to develop interesting characters in the midst of its story.

Something that I personally really loved in this episode was the scenery. Obviously we get to see a lot of the open savanna in Africa and I think it's beautiful to see. There is also some irony in that. While we see one of nature's most beautiful places, it hides animals that attack people in a gruesome manner.

A few other teasers from the pilot episode:
-The screener I've seen starts with a voiceover. And no, it's not like a superhero show voiceover that starts with "My name is". I'm also not sure if the voiceover is just for the first episode or if it will be featured in subsequent episodes as well.
-One of the characters' lives is pretty much in limbo when the episode ends.
-There is a mystery in the pilot that concerns cats that have gone missing. Where are they and what are they doing?
-If you have seen the promotional photos, promos and posters for the show, you will have noticed that they all focus on an animal's eye. There is actually a significance to that pupil that you see. The details will be explained in the episode.
-Throughout the episode, we hear bits and pieces about Jackson's father, who had some theories about strange animal behavior.
-During a safari, Jackson and Abraham encounter some illegal animal hunters. They later turn up at a surprising moment in the episode.

Zoo premieres Tuesday, June 30th at 9/8c on CBS. Watch a promo for the show below. Will you be watching Zoo? Tell us in the comments if you will and what your expectations are from the series.

About the Author - Daniel van der Veer

Daniel van der Veer is a Dutch university student studying Psychology. On SpoilerTV he is a reviewer of NCIS, The 100, Stalker, Madam Secretary and the upcoming show American Odyssey. He also enjoys LOST, Arrow, NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, Nikita, The Blacklist, Scorpion and How To Get Away With Murder.

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