'Day of the Dead', Season 1 (2021)


It's not just zombie books that I will hunt down and read... I've also made it a life's work of mine to watch all the zombie films and TV shows as well, the good ones and the bad ones (particularly the bad ones...) I've fallen well behind in watching anything with 'Walking Dead' in the title, and 'Z-Nation' come to think of it, but there's no hurry, I'll get there in the end. In the meantime...

I've been ill all weekend so not a lot of reading happened (ok, no reading happened at all) but what did happen was my treating myself to the first season of Sy-Fy's 'Day of the Dead' and working through the ten episode run over the weekend. Now here's a show that I've had my eye on for a while, but haven't been able to watch until it turned up on Prime Video, and I'll be honest, I don't think I've heard a single good thing said about it. Now I've got some natural bias towards zombie TV shows, and anything that has 'Day of the Dead' in the title, so you'll see a little positivity here. Bloody hell though, 'Day of the Dead' made it hard for me to like it...

Day of the Dead follows a group of strangers trying to survive the first 24 hours of an undead invasion. This ode to George A. Romero's famous flesh-eaters reminds us that sometimes all it takes to bring people together is a horde of hungry zombies trying to rip them apart.

Before we get into the show itself, lets clear something up. When a blurb says things like 'inspired by' or 'an ode to', it's safe to say that this stretches as far as a little acknowledgement that you've called your show the exact same title as a classic. That's what has happened here, apart from the names of a couple of characters there's nothing linking the show to the original movie. Even the title is more '24 hours in the zombie apocalypse' (and I liked that approach) rather than anything about the movie.

Once you realise that there's actually no real basis for comparison between the TV show and the movie, the show definitely becomes an easier watch and that's where the fun begins.

If I had to sum up 'Day of the Dead' in one line, I'd say that it's a lot of fun but also that it really needs to make up it's mind about what it wants to be, zombie horror or a zombie comedy horror. Or does it want to be a zombie comedy horror that also pokes a bit of fun at the woke guy just trying to do the right thing? Yep, they went there and it wasn't as funny as they wanted it to be. I won't lie, the jokes did make me chuckle but they jarred when placed up against the regular zombie horror moments. And it was the same the other way round. Luckily, this is only the case for a few episodes and then it's like you can hear 'Day of the Dead' say, 'You know what? Lets drop the comedy and just stick with zombies.' That was the moment I stopped playing on my phone and started watching in earnest. And even then...

Even then, the teen angst on display kind of got in the way of some useful discussion about why zombie zero was down the hole in the first place (and it is worth keeping an eye open for that conversation). It was dealt with fairly sharpish but even so...

The good news though is that when 'Day of the Dead' shakes off it's issues and keeps things simple, it's a perfectly serviceable zombie show with all the ingredients you need to make said zombie show a good one. People learning to work together in order to win through? There are loads of them on show here with particularly memorable characters in Lauren, Paula (the Mayor) and Jai; all people with a journey to take that is kicked off by the zombie uprising.

And those zombies... I really liked them, capable of delivering a whole lot of gore and just different enough to keep the show interesting.

There's even a huge shop for everyone to hide in, the twist being that it is incredibly poorly stocked and there's no way that people can do anything with it other than make a stand. Which makes for some interesting moments in the last few episodes...

I've got a whole load of work to catch up, in the morning, so I'm going to leave it here for now. 'Day of the Dead' is full of problems but when it wrestles free of these, it becomes an admittedly lightweight zombie horror but one that is very easy to watch. Would I watch it again? You know, the next time I'm full of cold, I can see myself having this on in the background to take my mind off it. It's that kind of show :o) Having said all that though, I won't be too surprised if there is never a Season 2...

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