That’s the question that’s inherently on everyone’s minds when they even hear about a new zombie television series that pulls from George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead. What can it possibly do or say that hasn’t already been exhausted in Black Summer, Z Nation, iZombie, Santa Clarita Diet, last year’s COVID-inspired The Bite, or the hundreds of episodes of content that exist within the still-growing Walking Dead connected universe.The amount of horror that’s taken a bite out of this undead archetype has become as plentiful as a horde of zombies. This doesn’t mean that this material should be off the table, but it just makes it increasingly important to have a unique perspective and do something different with zombies. To be clear, it’s absolutely fine to just be an entertaining zombie series that’s high in the body count, heavy in the gore, and not interested in being anything deeper, but it still needs to work and have a point of view. Romero’s original films had a natural social commentary subtext built into them. Not everything needs to be multi-layered high art, but in a genre that’s over-bloated in both television and film it’s imperative for Day of the Dead to not just become yet another zombie show. Day of the Dead is busy and bloody, but it struggles to find a distinct voice among the sea of undead groans.Day of the Dead Season 1 Download
Day of the Dead’s depiction of the start of a zombie outbreak in small-town Mawinhaken focuses on six strangers who are united through this disaster and right from the in media res introduction the series telegraphs that it’s not interested in breaking fresh ground with its zombies. Both the Bowmans and McDermotts are classically frayed families whose stresses get accelerated through this terrible apocalyptic tragedy, yet it manages to unite them and leave them off stronger than ever before. Day of the Dead often gets a little too invested in the teen melodrama and angst, which reduces this material to more disposable content that feels juvenile and driven by adolescent impulses. Episodes get lost in unnecessary, ancillary plotting like shotgun weddings and disapproving parents, stealing a keg for a party, local elections, and pressure to lose virginity.