I’ll admit that, when this new zombie series premiered on Syfy, and I saw that Harold Perrineau and Kellita Smith were both listed as leads, I was curious; and so I checked it out to find Perrineau actually was running the show, almost essentially playing the “Rick” role in that other much more popular zombie TV series on AMC, “The Walking Dead.”

SPOILER ALERT! But then, as you can probably guess, his character is killed off rather early in the series (at the end of the very first episode actually), and, well, I just stopped watching altogether. I knew it was too good to be true. BUT, what I didn’t realize was that, eventually, Kellita Smith’s character would emerge as the group’s leader. I only found this out when I was looking for new TV series to binge-watch on Netflix (or was it Amazon), and remembered that I didn’t finish this one, so I started from the beginning and watched the entire first season – which is when I saw other characters die (as you’d expect in a zombie apocalypse TV series), and Kellita Smith’s character evolve, becoming the de facto leader of the group; a nice surprise. END SPOILERS.




However, I never returned for the second season, nor the ongoing 3rd season, so I can’t speak to Kellita Smith’s character’s evolution since season 1. I’ll leave that to those of you who’ve been following the series to share in the comments section below.

SyFy has renewed “Z Nation” for a 13-episode 4th season that will premiere in 2017, the network announced yesterday.

Currently airing its third season, the series has been a ratings winner for the network, drawing over a million viewers per episode on average.

Synopsis: “‘Z Nation’ starts three years after a zombie virus has gutted the country, as a team of everyday heroes must transport the only known survivor of the plague from New York to California, where the last functioning viral lab waits for his blood. Although the antibodies he carries are the world’s last, best hope for a vaccine, he hides a dark secret that threatens them all. With humankind’s survival at stake, the ragtag band embarks on a journey of survival across three thousand miles of rusted-out post-apocalyptic America.”

It’s not of the caliber of “The Walking Dead” I should note; it’s more like a cheaper knockoff. After all, it hails from production company The Asylum (responsible for other knockoffs of Hollywood fare; they also are the company behind those horrible, but, for many, entertaining “Sharknado” movies).

But I found “Z Nation” mostly watchable (again, I’ve only seen the first season); a delightfully ridiculous series that works as a show to binge-watch while doing other things.

By the way, Kellita Smith plays Roberta Warren, who is an ex-National Guard, weapons pro (she’s effective with both a gun and a blade which she carries in a belt), and is tough and fearless.

The first 2 seasons of the series are available on Netflix, for streaming subscribers looking for a new series to binge-watch.

A trailer for the ongoing 3rd season embedded below: