'Z Nation' review: Dumb, gory show adds nothing to zombie formula

Harold Perrineau leads a band of humans struggling to survive in a world full of zombies in the first episode of "Z Nation," a new series produced for the SyFy Channel by the Asylum, the studio behind "Sharknado." less Harold Perrineau leads a band of humans struggling to survive in a world full of zombies in the first episode of "Z Nation," a new series produced for the SyFy Channel by the Asylum, the studio behind ... more Photo: Oliver Irwin, SyFy Photo: Oliver Irwin, SyFy Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close 'Z Nation' review: Dumb, gory show adds nothing to zombie formula 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

Z Nation: Drama series. 10 p.m. Friday on SyFy Channel.

The question to ask about the SyFy Channel's new series "Z Nation" isn't whether it's human or zombie, but rather, why does SyFy Channel waste so much time and money making junk like this?

Created by Karl Schaefer, and produced by the "Sharknado" folks at the Asylum, the 13-episode "Z Nation" premieres Friday.

The premise is as stale as rotting flesh: In a post-zombie-war world, humans try to survive. Mark Harmond (Harold Perrineau, "Lost") and his second in command, Charles Garnett (Tom Everett Scott, "Southland") are trying to get a group of human survivors to California. Their mission is to transport the only known survivor of a zombie attack to a lab where a vaccine could be developed from his antibodies to immunize humans against being turned into flesh-eating zombies.

The humans are being guided away from potential zombie attacks by Citizen Z (DJ Qualls, "Legit"), a computer hacker.

The only thing the show has going for it, if you're into this sort of thing, is excessive gore. But the thing about any level of gore in film and TV is that it reaches the excessive level very quickly. That means you have to have something else in your product to hold viewer attention, and "Z Nation" doesn't.

It quickly settles into a pattern of predictability. Anytime you see a zombie who appears to be dead, expect it to pop back to half-life and take a chunk out of the nearest available human. Because Asylum is behind it, I suppose you'd expect some over-the-top humor, but there isn't a lot of it. And what feeble titters are attempted just seem entirely out of place.

The wanderers find an adorable abandoned baby and decide to take it with them to California. Of course, the baby turns into a zombified Chucky Jr., and Perrineau's character tries to lure him out of hiding by saying, "Here, baby, baby baby. Come to papa."

Yes, that would be called a spoiler if there were anything of even minimal quality here to spoil.

Even for SyFy, this is Grade Z television.