Syfy's The Walking Dead Replacement Falls At The First Hurdle

Z Nation Could Have Replaced The Walking Dead, But Fell At The First Hurdle

The Walking Dead's best possible replacement on Syfy could have been great, but ultimately fell at the first hurdle right at the very start. While zombies have been a popular horror monster since George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead, it wasn't until The Walking Dead that the undead saw a revitalization in modern times. The show inspired a number of other zombie stories that came after, bringing the genre back across various mediums worldwide.

One such series was Syfy's Z Nation. Produced by The Asylum, best known for the Sharknado film series, Z Nation takes place three years into the zombie apocalypse, with the undead virus having wiped out most humans. The show follows Alvin Bernard Murphy, an inmate at Maine's Portsmouth Naval Prison who was part of a government experiment in the early days of the outbreak. When the prison is eventually overrun, he's bitten multiple times, only to discover the experiment made him immune to the virus.

The show follows his travels with a group of survivors who want to take him to the last known CDC lab still standing in California. During their travels, Murphy slowly starts to transform into a zombie-human hybrid, capable of controlling some types of zombies while maintaining his own consciousness. However, he has a dark secret he's keeping from the group.

Z Nation ran for five seasons, from 2014 to 2018, before ultimately being cancelled by Syfy. While the show had a horror-comedy approach to the apocalypse that worked in its favor, it faltered in one major area that kept it from being as successful as The Walking Dead.

Z Nation Never Convinces You To Care About Its Characters

The Walking Dead's characters are its strongest aspect, with survivors like Rick Grimes, Daryl Dixon, and Maggie Rhee having major storylines that go beyond just surviving in the zombie apocalypse. There are multiple character arcs as they deal with the problems put in front of them, making for a compelling look into the psyche of normal people as they grow and change in abnormal circumstances.

However, Z Nation's approach to its characters is quite different. Instead of providing audiences with strong, memorable heroes, the characters are instead vehicles for the larger, horror-comedy-driven story being told. Murphy, Roberta Warren, and Simon "Citizen Z" Cruller don't have strong arcs that make them easy to care about. Instead, they're written rather flatly, with a lack of development that makes it difficult to fully care about them.

This may have been part of the show's point, however, as the series' biggest focus was on twists and turns in its story. However, it didn't make for a very compelling watch, since the lack of care put into the characters, their consistency, and their development made it hard to care much for the events that were unfolding.

Z Nation's Spinoff Is Way Better Than The Original Show

However, Z Nation did find some redemption in its spinoff series, the Netflix-original Black Summer. A prequel taking place during the early days of the apocalypse, Black Summer is a dark, horror-focused zombie series following an ensemble group of survivors. The main character, Rose, is seeking out her daughter, Anna, after they're separated during an evacuation in their city.

Black Summer is much better than Z Nation, with a major focus on its characters and numerous high-octane events that showcase how dangerous the zombie apocalypse really is. The show also doesn't have any direct connections with the Syfy zombie series, meaning it can be watched without any knowledge of the original show.

It's unfortunate that, despite having all the resources it needed to compete with The Walking Dead, it was ultimately Z Nation's fate to have weak characters and a bigger focus on story twists and turns. While Black Summer somewhat makes up for this, the original show's weak survivors make the goofier approach less entertaining, since there's very little to care about as events unfold.