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Black Summer

Discussion in 'Television Shows' started by Neuropyramidal, Jul 8, 2018.

  1. Neuropyramidal

    Neuropyramidal Well-Known Member

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    Oh mylanta......

    https://www.spoilertv.com/2018/07/black-summer-syfys-z-nation-getting.html?m=1

    In addition to the spin-off show, Syfy has also released a prequel comic to Z nation, also entitled Black Summer

    A prequel set in the world of Syfy and Asylum's #1 scripted hit zombie series Z Nation, Black Summer is as bad as the apocalypse gets. A worldwide drought and famine when most of the surviving population dies and turns zombie. As the remnants of humanity cling to existence, fan favorite Charles Garnett returns to send a new team on a desperate new mission: Retrieve a possibly untouched cache of the food substitute Soylent Z from Galveston, Texas. But when mission leader Israel Johnson and his small team arrive in Galveston, they'll face a threat unlike anything ever seen before in the zombie genre.

    The spin off series has a panel at SDCC this year.
     
  2. HungryZombie

    HungryZombie Active Member

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    Just watched the first 3 episodes. The show is amazing. Everything the walking dead should have been. After those episodes I need to shop watching for a bit to process. It was intense and re-watch worthy already.
     
  3. Neuropyramidal

    Neuropyramidal Well-Known Member

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    This show has been polarizing with critics and fans so far. People seem to love it or think its absolute garbage. I just finished the first 2 episodes and so far I'm somewhere in between, but I will say that I am enjoying it so far.

    Its a bit early to judge, but I'm finding some of the acting to be a bit B-ish. About the level you expect from a TWD Webisode. I'm liking the overall plot so far [I enjoy it when fiction jumps back and forth between several groups of people instead of just following a sole group right off the bat], and I like some of the randomness that you would expect to see during the chaos, like the guy

    So far, my preliminary 2-episode score is about 7.7/10. The same story with a few stronger actors might be as high as 8.5. For me, its no TWD, but its pretty entertaining with its randomness and good pacing, and so far its a few steps better than Z Nation.
     
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  4. DavidDavidaon

    DavidDavidaon Active Member

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    Watched two and a bit episodes.
    Did not like it.
    Characters seem to have IQs in the single digits. Very one dimensional.
    Maybe it gets better as it goes on, though I just couldn't.

    There's just lots about it I didn't like (spoilers for episodes 1 and two ahead)



    ---------------------------------
    Things like the "best out your seatbelts on" said very loudly.
    The Asian girl (who speaks very little English does so immediately) the old lady (Barbara?) doesn't do a thing and as a result immediately gets sent through a car windshield five seconds later. They were in a car chase for a good few minutes and nobody thought about buckling up until it became a plot point?

    Blonde lady's husband just turns into a zombie, chases her up a chain link fence (which, despite apparently holding on to for dear life her hands aren't cut, not a scratch. Those fences are rough on hands, barbed wire (which she didn't cross) notwithstanding) then a complete stranger (who later turns out to (maybe) be an extremely shady individual) shoots her husband repeatedly and finally shoots him in the head. Instead of running to her husband (who died less than a minute ago) she walks up to the stranger, right past her dead husband who she had been begging to "go on for their daughter" minutes before doesn't give her dead husband a second look and hugs the complete stranger. The mind abounds.

    A group gets chased and hunted in a school, by schoolkids, who have apparently just been left behind (WTF); Barbara had said she had survived six weeks, so it's safe to assume that's when it started. Yet the kids are running a school in a lord of the flies style set up, though they're heavily armed and better organized than the other group.

    Nobody is armed, unless you count the above schoolkids. And I'm not even talking about firearms even. I mean, the average adult is intelligent enough to know that they can get a broom handle (or a long straight sapling, though in a suburban area there will be plenty of floor brushes and mops) some rope and a long kitchen knife and lash that onto the end of the broom handle to make a spear that will extend your fighting range by about 5 feet (more if you make an actual pike/spear out of a sapling longer than 6'5") which would be very useful if, say a zombie was charging you down.
    Schoolchildren had figured this out.
    The best the grown ups could think of was a hammer.
    A hammer. Out of all the things from chair legs to chainsaws; a hammer You could have hammered nails through a chair leg with that and had an improvised mace!

    Then there's "oh well she's dead, let's just help the people that got her killed" and the total lack of shits the cast seem to give.

    Not to mention the constant black screens with white text, like we, the viewers are somehow incapable of understanding what is happening. Sure, it's fine for introducing the cast, but doing it every ten minutes or so is just lazy editing. It essentially spells "we didn't know how to-end and last scene and start this, so we're going to interrupt you with a three second black screen to make it feel like the story is more cohesive"

    I'm sure I'm missing out more bits, but I'll go with that.
    It's in no way the worst zombie show I've watched, but it's up there.
    Z nation (up until season 3-ish) was much more watchable (possibly due to the light hearted, not super serious plot) and that was made by The Asylum you know, the people who made masterpieces like "The day the world stopped" (released on the same day as "The day the earth stood still (Remake)" and "Mega shark vs Giant octopus" a long with a large number of similarly named C movies with a copy plot of A movies. Yet their zombie drama ranks.(significantly; though maybe due to it's use of humour) higher than "Black Summer"

    Am I missing something with this series? I checked out IMDB reviews and most people said it went downhill after EP2, however your input is appreciated.


    Edit
    It's kind of common knowledge that Netflix hire amateurs with few qualifications and little to no experience to direct and film their "Netflix originals", which must be terrible for the aspiring young directors who create an.awful movie (Titan comes to mind) or show due to Netflix' scattergun approach of "we hire cheap and if it sucks, it sucks, if it's good, we profit" the only people who lose out in terms of future career prospects are the people who get caught in this system, as their Frankenstein's monster of a movie/series will hang over them for the rest of their careers. Especially if it was their first production as first impressions count.
    Of course there will be good Netflix originals and the directors will be hired again, but the directors who failed to impress.
    Well they had better have a back up career or try filming in the adult industry where plot isn't exactly the strong point and the ending is always the same.
     
    #4 DavidDavidaon, Apr 13, 2019
    Last edited: Apr 13, 2019
  5. Neuropyramidal

    Neuropyramidal Well-Known Member

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    ok, I spent my Saturday evening binge watching the final 6 episodes [which took less time than I thought because some of the later episodes are only about 20 minutes long]....

    General spoilers and critique without specific details or death spoilers:

     
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  6. jiggeryqua

    jiggeryqua Active Member

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    Finished it today. My partner didn't bother with the last two episodes, and I only did so just in case they did something amazing.
    Unconcealed vague-ish spoilers ahead:

    They had done some interesting things, along the way, but a lot of it seemed deeply derivative and there were so many situations that TWD has already done better. Even the actors seemed like rough sketches of TWD universe characters - which peaked for me when Fake Madison killed Budget Morales. But I liked the multiple takes on the same scenes in the opening episode, and even the little bottle episode (though the diner group's approach to trying to take out the zombies wasn't as funny as I think we were supposed to find it).

    They did some dumb and annoying things too - there was a lack of cohesion, as though the creative minds had just tried to cram everything they could think of into the budget available. There was precious little character to the characters, and no real reason for the some of the character 'development' we saw. It felt like a student project.

    @Neuropyramidal, I think the side mission had been mentioned in the diner, but I'm not entirely sure how everyone else got in on the plan, nor did I really 'get' what it was or why it was an episode...and as I type that I realise it was so we could squeeze in the director's "totally awesome" idea about a zombie chasing someone through an improbably large air duct, and so the group could have enough weapons for the "super cool" finale (which had its moments, to be fair).

    I'm in for season 2, if it gets picked up...and if Netflix shell out for a decent scriptwriter...
     
  7. Neuropyramidal

    Neuropyramidal Well-Known Member

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    Yeah I think the building was the outpost that Manny mentioned briefly an episode or two prior. But the intricate Navy Seal plan they concocted was completely out of the blue, requiring intricate knowledge of the inner workings of the building including the duct system. And they would have had no possible way of knowing that the thick necked thug was going to lead them right up to the door where their buddies were waiting outside, and then leave them unattended so they could let William et al inside. I felt like I was watching an episode of Z Nation at that point.

    I agree, the show had a promising start in the first couple episodes, showing the chaos from multiple viewpoints. I was surprised. I actually watched the pilot twice and caught lots of little details I missed the first time. For instance you get to watch Lance's friend get attacked at least twice.

    And then those last 3 episodes...ugh. lol
     
  8. Dnae

    Dnae Well-Known Member

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    I watched the first episode. Shmeh. It will be one of those series that I watch from time to time when nothing else strikes my fancy or when no new videos of kittens and cats are trending on my youtube "recommended" list.

    BUT I did read that a second season of The Rain is slated for May 17!!
     
  9. HungryZombie

    HungryZombie Active Member

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    Well there's no accounting for taste...

    I kid I kid!!!
     
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