TV Titanics: Z Nation Season 1

TV Titanics returns! So decided to tap into a zombie fueled bit of goofy because...well I really cannot sit through The Walking Dead. So damn chatty and not enough zombie skull cracking. Stop reminiscing of things and places gone by,Grimes!!! Okay moving on or this will be a Walking Dead rant. Instead let's talk about 3 years after the zompocalypse tearing the US a new one and the survivors are picking up the pieces. Charged with a mission to journey through zombie infested towns to get a cure to California, our reluctant heroes trudge on. This is Z Nation Season 1.

Knew we shouldn't have eaten at Red Robin.

Produced by The Asylum (Almighty Thor, 2012: Ice Age, Battle of Los Angeles, Nazis at the Center of the Earth, Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, Rise of the Zombies, Social Nightmare and Alone for Christmas) home of the modern day mockbuster with sneaky titles similar to the features they are attempting to cash in on got in bed with Sy-Fy to create a series to either rival or simply competition in the zompocalypse stories, films and TV already out there. 3 years have occurred since the outbreak, The US is a wasteland of consumer products, bands of vehicles, good decent folk, raiders and even the odd gathering of cannibals.

RAD ZOMBIE!!!!

For a small group of survivors, a Special Forces Lt. Hammond (Harold Perrineau of Romeo + Juilet, Lost, Blade the Series, Transit, Sons of Anarchy, Zero Dark Thirty, Constantine, Goliath and Criminal Minds) and his prisoner Murphy (Keith Allan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek: Enterprise, Air Collision, Social Nightmare, Zombie Night and Rise of the Zombies) have fled from one of the major infestation sites at the lost of Hammond's men covering their escape. Arriving in Upstate New York, Hammond meets a group of survivors made up of civilians and some National Guard, he tells these people he needs help to bring Murphy to California.

Captain Garrett (Tom Everett Scott of That Thing You Do, An American Werewolf in Paris, Dead Man on Campus Bloodline, Enemies Closer and The Last Word) and Lt. Warren (Kellita Smith of The Bernie Mac Show, King's Ransom, Feel the Noise, Conspiracy X, The First Family and Z Nation) are iffy about this as they gather up stragglers from their crew when the entire encampment is attacked by water logged zombies popping out of the lake. Knowing their settlement has been completely overrun, our small group decides to hoof it with Hammond and Murphy.

You goin' down, cameraman!!!

 

Joining on this zany quest is drug chemist Doc (Russell Hodgkinson of Big Fish, We Go Way Back, ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction, Mystery Case Files: The 13^th Skull, Grimm, 21 & Over, A Bit of Bad Luck and 7 Minutes) Ballbat wielding melee momma Addy (Anatasia Baranova of 7^th Heaven, Veronica Mars, Rise: Blood Hunter, The Darkness II, Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z and Z Nation) her crackshot boyfriend Mack (Michael Welch of Star Trek: Insurrection, Hey Arnold!, Joan of Arcadia, Stargate SG-1, Day of the Dead, The Riches, Twillight, Unrequited and Criminal Minds).

Meanwhile in the Antartic, NSA Communications Specialist Simon or Citizen Z (DJ Qualls of Road Trip, Cherry Falls, The New Guy, Comic Book Villains, Last Day of Summer, Supernatural, Perception and Z Nation) has complete access to every existing satellite, relay station, cameras and social media and no authority to tell him he can't do that, he leads the team to locations that last he checked have anything from supplies to less stinky fleshbags roaming about. His task is to not go mad from loneliness and keep the survivors up to date on weather changes, zombie uprise and any human elements that may be completely bat shit crazy.

Along through Philly our crew encounters a young woman name of Cassandra (Pisay Pao of Simply Fobulous, Your Lucky Day, Door to Door, NCIS: Los Angeles, and Z Nation) left in a cage surrounded by the deaders and she joins up with them on their moderately insane quest. With limited resources, raiders, zombies and freak weather our people have their work cut out for them.

Will the team get Murphy to California?? What awaits them at the next town or even next state?

With shows like The Walking Dead, The Strain, iZombie and Fear the Walking Dead, it is nice to see a show not taking itself serious all the time but creating new strains of zombie like these speed freak zombies that were taking massive doses of pills, rad zombies thanks to a power plant unattended. The characters are diverse, the story lines can have some funny episodes but they also include some of the more darker aspects of the human psyche. Any Zombie Post Apocalypse fans should enjoy this. I hesitate to shoot this through a time hole so the Incognito Cinema Warriors XP crowd can enjoy this but in the year 20XX, zombies so y'know too much art imitating life. I'll just send them Zone of the Dead instead.

Adrian Paul Week: Deadly Descent

A fine hello there and greetings for Day 5 of Adrian Paul Week. Well we have seen some thrills, chills, spills and more of Paul's tone body than I am comfortable with. I am delving into a realm though I am not thrilled with and no it is not some gay porn with an Adrian Paul lookalike. Fool me thrice and all that. This time I speak of a channel that once entertained me to no end and then like its programming, its name changed and yes I speak of the Siffy Channel...I mean the SyFy Channel.  And what would be the icing on the cake for that Sy Fy Saturday movie but a creature feature with Adrian Paul???? Sayeth whaaaaat??? Finally the cherry on top , a yeti movie. This is Deadly Descent.

You kids settle down in the back or I am pulling over and we can just wait.

Filmed in Bulgaria, our film has 6 alternative English titles so already I am getting sweet, sweet vibes there my friends. Two guys go hiking in the remote mountain range and engage in idle chatter. One tires and the other heads up. Suddenly the rope goes taunt, slack then falls to the ground "Pete, you okay?" is now classified as extremely dumb question. Pete's buddy Brian (Chuck Campbell of In the Mouth of Madness, Jason X, Stargate: Atlantis and Sanctuary) makes a hybrid of terrified beyond rational fear and "O" face to what I can only describe as a creature of CGI that looks like a mixture of the Nightmare Creatures PC/Console game in 1997 and a dino dropping. That is one big pile of sh*t.

Cut to tense typing on a laptop and pseudo-industrial music, GPS mapping and equipment montage as Brian is... alive? Huh?? Looking like a man on a mission maybe he has something to prove to our poop yetis. Flying Brian over in this very remote mountain range is our pilot former Special Forces Mark Foster (Adrian Paul of... oh for crying out loud I think we have some idea what he has done.) Brian strapped with a Glock 20 wants to find out once and for all what really happened to his father after all... this three minutes lapse. Mark not thrilled about dropping Brian off, does his level best to not interfere with a man and his destiny to be yeti poops.

Must...not...look at cleavage.

Some time lapse skiing and a wee bit of decent composure by reality TV music producer Christopher Holden (Dinner, The Amazing Race, Toddlers and Tiaras and Weed Country) Brian follows the lightest tracks I have ever seen laid in the snow. I swear a gaggle of rabbits made that impact.

Waking bright and early Brian's sister Nina (Lauren O' Neil of The Bill, The Symmetry of Love, The Domino Effect, The Humpersnatch Case and Perseveration) realizing she cannot get in touch with Brian senses danger and gets Park and Rescue right on the case. Will that be enough? Nina reaches out to her brother's old unit and his buddy Rick (Nicholas Boulton of Firma, Doctor Who, Heroes and Villains, Doctors and Dragon Age: Origins) present a lot of exposition about Brian and the war days. Mark wanders in the bar and drops enough elucidation on his own chopper experience and how tight he and Brian are. He was the best damn pilot until... the accident. So to sum up, we have one guy missing, an impeding storm and more subplots floating around than a school of piranha salivating over the cow with the broken leg. Rick volunteers his old crew to go search for Brian but with the storm on the rise and the creatures roaming about, who can say if they will find Brian in time?

A few critiques now. I am supposed to buy that have of these fresh faced, manicured boys are soldiers? Watching them do weapons and equipment check brought tears of laughter to my eyes. They look so pampered and delicate, I feared for the giggles to reach up again. The constant flinching while firing guns.  It looks like little kids playing Army.  Beyond a firearms instructor, no one sprung for a drill instructor for cover, carry and concealment.  No flanking or proper defensive and offensive posturing and a bloody civvie is tell you this!!!!!

While our Search and Rescue guys are clearly locals of Bulgaria and have been horribly dubbed over they have some decent moves on the slopes no doubt. Dielsport and Columbia winter wear must have just made mad bank off of this POS.

Yeah this was the death of painful stick beatings.

Man, those honey badgers look pissed!