Zombie TV: The Dead About to Rise

Todd Jepperson



Kids, get your living room furniture arranged and Homer Simpson style ass groves all warmed up for fall. And who doesn't enjoy some quality undead television?  I am obviously excited as we’ve got three big shows coming our way. By big, I mean I have no idea what the shows will be like. Everything is really preliminary at this point and we’ll just have to see how things turn out.

First up, we have something called Awakening coming to us from teen network sensation The CW (90210, Gossip Girl). Details, as of now, are few and far between; but, it seems like the show will coat-tail two sisters’ broiling hostilities during the beginning of the Zombie Apocalypse. I’d expect this show to be quite a draw for the ladies, and fellas, we’ll let you know who they cast as the two strong female leads.

Next, we have a project which was picked up recently by NBC titled Zombies vs Vampires which sets two cops in a world filled with animate cadavers; the catch? One of the cops is secretly a Vampire. The cops are assigned to a specific division of law enforcement whose task is to deal specifically with Zombie crime. Created by McG, the dude who brings us Supernatural (my favorite TV show of all time… if you throw away everything after season 1), this actually shows some potential. The thing that worries me; however, is that it’s a CW production. Expect heavy censorship and a timid approach to the Undead on mainstream network television.

Last, but certainly not least, there are very few details about a Sony Pictures Television show called Department Zero; a spinoff of Jonathan Maberry’s novel Patient Zero, which will chronicle the activities of the Department of Military Sciences. I assume this will contain Zombies; but, not have them as the central theme. Expect CSI meets the Walking Dead meets Sleeper Cell. All I know, from all my digging, is that the script was on the desk of ABC execs, and they passed on it to do another remake of Charlie’s Angels . . . Yeah, really. Anyway, I think we have some pretty reliable people who are eager to break the news to us as soon as there is any news to break; so we’ll let you know as soon as we can.

Let’s hope these shows are half as good as they could be. The CW has had some on and off luck, with me, in the past, and NBC gave us The Office. So all hope is not gone. If and when these shows hit the airwaves we’ll keep you in the know.