Black Summer (Netflix UK) upcoming S2

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Netflix Orders Z Nation Spinoff Black Summer With Jaime King

Netflix has ordered an eight-episode season of Z Nation spinoff, Black Summer, which will star Hart of Dixie actress Jaime King. Netflix currently holds the streaming rights of Syfy's Z Nation, a post-apocalyptic zombie show.

The Z Nation spinoff stars Jaime King as a mother torn from her daughter. King's character has to go on a "harrowing journey" to find her. While surviving alongside a small group of American refugees, she must "brave a hostile new world and make brutal decisions during the most-deadly summer of a zombie apocalypse". Schaefer and Z Nation writer John Hyams will serve as co-showrunners.

The news of a spinoff will raise the question of a possible crossover between Black Summer and Z Nation. If Black Summer proves to be a success, fans may eventually see King's character teaming up with Warren and her group

r/ZNation - There's going to be a "Black Summer" spin-off TV series
 
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Really good trailer that, looking forward to this!
 
despite how bad the last 2 seasons of Z Nation were before it got cancelled, I'm remaining quietly hopeful that this will be a big improvement when it starts streaming this week
 
Once this starts it will be interesting to see if this new series is just The Walking Dead MkII with a different new slant on it or if its just a plain rip-off.
 
Once this starts it will be interesting to see if this new series is just The Walking Dead MkII with a different new slant on it or if its just a plain rip-off.
The genre has so many crossovers, it's got to be difficult to come up with anything vaguely original. Will they walk, will they run etc...
The Walking Dead has turned into a Western to be 'new'.
A big part of the problem is nigh on everyone is familiar with zombies and as censorship has lessened this led to the fear associated has died too. All these seem to rely more and more on the bad human angle as somewhat the bigger threat.
I'll take a swiz though as I do enjoy this genre - particularly to eat to.
 
I watched the first couple of episodes last night... it's not going to win any awards for breaking new ground but I like how serious it is compared to Z Nation and I did find it very entertaining despite being derivative. I'll easily get through the next 6 episodes (there's only 8 eps, all around 35-45 mins) before the weekend's out.
To be honest, I think they've manage to come up with what I thought Fear The Walking Dead would be when that started. Seems pretty solid, albeit delivering nothing new at all so far after 2 eps, but that could all change very quickly before the short season ends.
The low episode count does seem to be keeping things focused at this stage.
If you're into this kind of thing I'd say it's definitely worth trying but don't expect much more than a repackaging of things we've all seen many times before.
 
I watched the first couple of episodes last night... it's not going to win any awards for breaking new ground but I like how serious it is compared to Z Nation and I did find it very entertaining despite being derivative. I'll easily get through the next 6 episodes (there's only 8 eps, all around 35-45 mins) before the weekend's out.
To be honest, I think they've manage to come up with what I thought Fear The Walking Dead would be when that started. Seems pretty solid, albeit delivering nothing new at all so far after 2 eps, but that could all change very quickly before the short season ends.
The low episode count does seem to be keeping things focused at this stage.
If you're into this kind of thing I'd say it's definitely worth trying but don't expect much more than a repackaging of things we've all seen many times before.

a bit of a weird one for me so far..... started watching ep.1 last night and was thinking "its a bit crap" but suddenly im 3 eps deep and wanting to know what happens next...... but i still do think its a bit crap... talk about confused! :D
 
a bit of a weird one for me so far..... started watching ep.1 last night and was thinking "its a bit crap" but suddenly im 3 eps deep and wanting to know what happens next...... but i still do think its a bit crap... talk about confused! :D

I know what you're saying; it's small scale, it lifts pretty much everything from somewhere else, it's got all the apocalypse tropes and character archetypes... but it doesn't seem to be trying to convince anyone watching it's in any way all shiny and brand new.
I like how there's no set-up, the start was definitely cribbing off Snyder's DOTD remake and just jumping right in. With something like this I don't feel the need to learn anything about the characters before things kick off, I prefer getting to know them through how they deal with this kind of thing, plus it puts pretty much all of them on the menu, at least at the start anyway.
 
I know what you're saying; it's small scale, it lifts pretty much everything from somewhere else, it's got all the apocalypse tropes and character archetypes... but it doesn't seem to be trying to convince anyone watching it's in any way all shiny and brand new.
I like how there's no set-up, the start was definitely cribbing off Snyder's DOTD remake and just jumping right in. With something like this I don't feel the need to learn anything about the characters before things kick off, I prefer getting to know them through how they deal with this kind of thing, plus it puts pretty much all of them on the menu, at least at the start anyway.

agreed.... i mean clearly im enjoying it... i wasnt sure if it was going to be a series of short stories set in a zombie apocalypse at 1 point (in fact had seen nothing about until it popped up on my netflix last night) so when i read on here this morning about it being a z-nation spin off it kinda sits in that nicely, although, i never did finish season 1 of that either (despite enjoying that and also thinking a bit naff).... :D
 
I watched the first two episodes last night. It's got a quite low budget feel to it and there aren't enough zombies roaming about, considering it's set over a month into the outbreak. There would be thousands roaming about by now if society had seemingly already pretty much collapsed and we only got to see one or two of them at a time but I did enjoy it.
There's no real plot and setting up of who the characters are, so far, but I liked that. The viewer is just thrown into the middle of the situation and all the confusion and brutality. I liked the constant tension, and the action scenes came thick and fast with a high level of violence. Any character could get killed off at any time. I also liked the little glimpses of horrible things going on that didn't have anything to do with the characters the show was following.
It's nothing groundbreaking but shows a slightly different spin to a scenario we have seen in numerous films and tv shows. I'll watch the remaining six episodes over the weekend.
 
ok, I watched the rest this afternoon, which wasn't hard as the whole thing's only something like 4 and a half hours. It's basically a 4 hour film that's been split up into episodes that vary in length from 40ish minutes to as short as 20 minutes in the case of the finale... but what a 20 minutes that one is. Jeepers.
Once I was a few eps in, I pretty much loved it. No way was I stopping before the end. I really liked the narrative structure where certain pivotal scenes play out multiple times from different character viewpoints, how it's hard to tell who the "main" characters really are so you can't second guess exactly who's going to live or die. The tension was just about constant the whole way through and the way it's shot puts you right there with the characters, there's a lot of handheld and steadycam work, which some viewers will absolutely hate but I didn't mind it at all, it added to the way a lot of it almost left me breathless.
It shouldn't be this good. And it should have just been released as the film it really is (and I believe there's a real barnstormer of a 2 hour zombie flick here if they took the scissors to it) because the story itself and the way it's told doesn't lend itself to episodic viewing well at all so it's unlikely many would stop if they're enjoying it.

I think the 3 main highlights for me were eps 5 "Diner", 6 "Heist" and 8 "The Stadium", they were standout sections, but the whole thing's decent. It's a no frills low budget production but it works and it does scale itself up a bit at the end. It's very derivative and borrows from many many other things but, again, it still works. I really liked it. I'll watch it a again, especially as you can pretty much do it in one sitting.
One thing I don't remember seeing done before was
seeing someone die and then turn into a zombie and they become the focus for a few minutes as the camera follows them as they go off and do zombie stuff. I'm pretty sure, but could be wrong, that bit was done in one continuous shot

come to think of it, there's a lot that seemed like it was done in long single takes.
I didn't know what to expect but I honestly didn't think it was ever going to be this good. It hits the ground running (literally) and apart from a handful of slow downs to catch their breath it's full on all the way through. It's kind of a zombie version of 24.
 
Finished this last night. It's something of an oddity in that there's no gore or indeed much at all in zombie/human contact. You get the supposed bite scenes but they are pretty much distanced from view with no close ups, flesh tearing or anything of the like - almost like an old Vampire film -, with the head going to the neck, a scream/get them off and that's it.
The zombies rage around instead of slope about, infection can be seconds quick and all are infected in death.
It shares many traits of other works and has the usual lack of knowledge about zombies by all who waste tons of bullets with body shots and never seem to think to shoot the head - except I think for one woman who shouts to blast the head but everyone pretty much ignores this throughout. There's cars everywhere that appears particularly odd as surely everyone would've hit the freeway but, explained as being worse to use for road mobs and they're all drained or dead anyway. And electricity etc. is still up. But also confusing is that you have people begging lifts or to join others with incentives of food and yet the local supermarket is jam packed still with food and water but no takers. And I suppose most confusing is the sheer lack of zombies and people really but explained away as a zombie hoard 'nearby' and all people having gone to the stadium and/or downtown - what could go wrong hurding yourself?!
It's punctuated with annoying (to me anyway) titles for segments which I think spoiler it and has a crazy LFE boom which rattle the room for no reason with each punctuation - assuming you listen at decent volume - I imagine people with direct neighbours will love it.
But to the good (and there is a fair bit), it's totally character driven and there are characters to like and a fair number to pick from but not so many to get swamped. The segmentation lends itself to seeing how different ones are doing at the same time in their respective situations that eventually get blended back together as their paths cross.
It's shot more like a documentary at times, resembling a camera crew crew running about filming live and filtering back into drama and fortunately the camera work is pretty good generally and doesn't overdo that dancing camera work that misses some shots and causes viewer whiplash and annoyance.
Overall I found myself liking it's heavy character-led choices with action scenes. It's far from perfect but as a throwaway few hours you can pause and come back to it works and I actually surprised myself at liking the lack of reliance on gore/effects but a bit more than a head dip and supposed bite couldn't of hurt - so to speak.
 
I stumbled across this, three episodes in and I have to say it’s much better than the current Walking Dead series and Fear of the Walking Dead, Zombies are back...
 
First episode wasn't bad.
 
this show gets the adrenaline running!

long term survivors in this universe would all become super Marathon runners lol

+ no one even bothers carrying weapons!?
 
I like the fact that most of the survivors are not natural zombie killers and are comical in their attempts to actually kill one! I have the stadium episode to go, all in all a great mini zombie series
 
Are they characters in a game?

This show is made by 13yr old boys I think, all the characters are literally sharing the same brain cell.

I get its about the choices these people are making but it's just garbage.

They steal a load of rifles with no ammo, yet spray rounds everywhere despite none of them carrying any.

Its so just basic and dumb.

Alot of potential here, it's well styled and well filmed but such a bad story, lame characters and full of continuity errors.

3/10.
 
What’s going on with the sound in this. The foley artist is going mad. Even when just driving the car around the streets it sounds like bombs going off and earthquakes. Then when outside the car it’s quiet. This is watching in Atmos.
 
Well it's been a long time coming, delayed I'm guessing due to Coivd but seems finally the wait is over!




Only 8 episodes :(
 
It's here :thumbsup:
First episode still got it!
I love the direction in this show. The intensity it creates never lets up. Some beautiful cinematography too.
 
Finished this in a binge and really enjoyed it overall.
Jaime King is scarily cold in her near psychotic murderous determination to keep her daughter safe at all costs. So much so, that she is pretty unlikable for such a long stretch, that by the time any humanity breaks through, it's questionable as to whether some will be prepared to see her as just.
There's decent character development for some in this, it twists about enough to keep you engaged and wanting to see what fate has in store and there are some very strong set pieces with the different groups
However, for me, it has a rather baffling set up in a thriller/horror ride, in that it jumps from a now setting but then dumps to flashback chapters and you get to see how some got to where they are now. This rather bemused and annoyed me at times; insofar as it removed any real build up jeopardy for several of the character chapters, as you knew they were going to survive to that point and gave away what could happen next. Maybe some viewers will take it as respite but I felt it detracted from edginess.
The overarching thing I did like; was that this doesn't shy away from how low people will go to survive, in literally near comic pushing of other supposed friendlies into harm's way to divert their own possible ill fate.
The camera play and close up nature of shots may peeve some again though, as it can get over wobbly, off-shot and/or simply far too close at times in not just confused action shots.
Black Summer reminded me how far The Walking Dead franchise has fallen from making zombies the main threat, to that of humans. This, though, manages the human-on-human threat with great effect over the entire series and, although some hate the raging berserker zombies, it works so very well here. One moment, for example, you can have a single running threat and the next, a guns drawn talking standoff interrupted;, from which all must choose to turn attention to the running zombie onslaught, that requires only headshots to stop the sprinting crazed attack. I also still liked the near instant turnaround to rager, that solidifies the impending must deal with threat to any death and so must be weighted in action by characters.
 

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