R4z0r Gr1nd3r

Okay... If you go to the special olympics to watch 100m you don't expect to see someone break Bolt's record. Same here... It's from the people that brought you every bad knock off and Z Nation. First off is the producers... The Asylum make bad movies. Nothing else to say on that. But Z Nation... Wow... I am not a huge Zombie/Horror fan as it's always cliched and predictable! Its mostly either OTT gore or jump scares with bad choices and questionable coincidences. But Z Nations actually tries to shake things up and actually proves The Asylum, when given budget, can produce wonderful things. Secondly... This is based in the same universe but during an event known as "black summer"... This is referenced a lot in Z Nation without going into detail... With grim looks and glances... In Z Nation Universe the event is one that proved to be humanity's darkest hour. Horrible things done in the name of survival. So where does that leave this show? If Z Nation is amazing how does this stack up? And the answer is a mixed bag. Some people are moaning expecting something amazing or inspired... Zombie flicks and TV shows rarely are. Z Nation broke that with amazing Characters and balancing comedy and thriller/horror. And unfortunately that is the problem with Black Summer. It has to be more dour. More serious... But the people behind it can't really do that... When you have a ex con that is immune to zombies and had turned blue like a smurf and has decided he wants his own half zombie and half human army that he can mind control it's kinda easier to accept plot holes. So is it bad? Well no. It actually does have some truly shocking moments, especially if you watch it all the way through. An episode called "alone" is genius... What if you were alone? The episode contains very little script and it unnerved me more than any of TWD. There is also a character that is deaf... Imagine being deaf in a zombie apocalypse! And it is that kind of thinking and ideas that keep this from being too tropey and cliched. The one caveat... The main Daughter and Mother are completely unlikeable and the writers seemed to want to make strong female characters but unfortunately fell into the trap of saying "woman can only be strong if man hurt her and she survive!" ... And by the end the daughter and mother, especially the mother, seem far worse than half of the supposed "really bad people" but then again... In Z Nation it does make out that Black Summer was when good people did awful unspeakable things to survive. So the summary? Well they are good! Better than the likes of Zomboat and Deadset. The feeling and the vibe sometimes reaching near the heights of Survivors, The Last Train and Z Nation. The one bright spark... There are NO boring episodes. No filler ones. If anything the first series seems to be 6 episodes that they cut into 8 so it means some eps are over 40 mins and some are 20 mins. It feels like they could only afford to film X amount with enough story for more episodes... It does mean the pacing gets extremely fast (especially first season) and there is none of TWD or Breaking Bad "fly swatting" episodes for the hipsters and pretentious t***s to wax lyrical about. It's all constant story and character progression... Sometimes at breakneck speeds (see Jamie King changing her morals over the space of 2 episodes)