2 out of 5

Created by: Karl Schaefer and John Hyams

covers season 1

Black Summer isn’t actually that bad of a zombie show.  It captures the feeling of absolute hopelessness better than most – that realization that no help is coming; making it feel very real that you’re not equipped to handle the world ending – and has an interesting shambling approach to its narrative, flitting from character to character and letting them die when they’re plotline deems fit.  It’s also not a great show by any means, not doing a single thing with that hopelessness vibe, nor finding any unique point of view for these various horror character types (e.g. the weak character; the wily character; the proud parent; etc.), and in a media universe now fully stocked with this kinda stuff (in a post Walking Dead world), just being ‘not that bad’ is even less of a selling point than it already sounds.

A far and away prequel to the wonderfully tweaked Z Nation, that show’s referenced ‘black summer’ was known to be when shit officially went South, and so our Z creators have now offered up eight episodes showing that, but stripped of any humor and, alas, most of the personality that made Z a fun watch even when it was spinning its wheels for some new, random way to milk the apocalypse for entertainment.  We’re loosely following Jaime King as she tries to reunite with her daughter in a MacGuffin safe haven the army has set up, and while I sort of appreciate the show going with a whole zero-context approach – we’re not really told much about the status of things, beyond seeing that zombies are running around, we haven’t really figured out to shoot them in the head yet, and that the militant types ‘protecting’ people are very trigger happy – that tactic also renders everything we’re watching rather inert after a pretty engaging first episode.  Trying to leave room for a narrative when you’ve structured your show to be without one leads us down some dumb blind alleys where it’s not clear why we should give a fig about a character, and then soon enough they’re dead anyway and we’re stumbling to our next set piece.

To counter this, the show was very purposefully designed to be streamed, and – for better or worse – this works.  Split into little snapshot vignettes, you’re easily strung along to satisfy a ‘okay, let’s see what happens next…’ curiosity, and when it becomes clear that whatever that is will likely not be any different than what’s come before, you’re on to the next vignette.  Once you make a decision to walk away, though, there’s not much there to entice you back.

As far as zombo things that take place in the modern era, there’s not much excitement happening.  Black Summer can feel a gap in you’re programming if you’re diehard for the undead, but it’s incredibly easy to skip as well.