Zombie Fans Clash Over ‘The Walking Dead’ vs Netflix’s ‘Black Summer’

The arrival of Netflix’s dramatic Z Nation spinoff Black Summer has some online commentators [...]

By Cameron Bonomolo

The arrival of Netflix's dramatic Z Nation spinoff Black Summer has some online commentators pitting the freshly-released series against AMC's The Walking Dead and spinoff Fear the Walking Dead.

Set in the immediate wake of a societal collapse brought on by a widespread zombie virus outbreak, Black Summer centers on Rose (Jaime King), a midwestern mother who stops at nothing to reunite with her daughter when the two are forcibly separated.

Rose and other strangers are forced to band together in a desperate attempt to survive a harrowing journey and attacks from the reanimated undead, who unlike the slow-moving walkers seen in AMC's Walking Dead Universe, are fast-moving sprinters comparable to the running zombies seen in the Zack Snyder-directed Dawn of the Dead.

One Twitter user dubbed Black Summer "the poor man's Walking Dead," while another wrote this new series, backed by low-budget producing house The Asylum, "copied Fear the Walking Dead so hard."

While the premiere season of The Walking Dead was set towards the beginning of the zombie apocalypse — sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) was stirred from a coma about two months after the walker outbreak — Fear explored the earliest days of the collapse of society through the lens of high school guidance counselor Madison Clark (Kim Dickens) and family.

"The new series Black Summer on Netflix is just like The Walking Dead without the great story, acting, cinematography, character development and scenery," wrote one user. Wrote another, Black Summer is "like some dull plain oatmeal stuff ... like The Walking Dead with all the character drained from it."

But others write the more serious Z Nation spinoff is "scarier than the Walking Dead could ever be."

"Black Summer on netflix is intense," reads one tweet. "Basically a darker faster paced walking dead. Story isn't as good but [definitely] worth a binge."

"My word, Black Summer is making The Walking Dead look like a kids show after two episodes," another tweet reads. Others don't pull punches: "If you're sick of Walking Dead, Black Summer is your show."

Z Nation producer Jodi Binstock previously told SYFY the series was birthed out of creators John Hines and Karl Schaefer's desire to "do something very different in the genre that is extremely popular."

"You stand the chance of, 'Oh, that old trope, that old zombie thing, I'm done with zombies.' They wanted to do something different," Binstock said.

"John's philosophy is that one realistic zombie is far more terrifying than a horde of them coming at you. There's also the realism of what would happen if your husband turned into a zombie, or your child turned into a zombie. It's the real grittiness of that, and that's what Black Summer is. The way it's being shot is extremely unique too, and Netflix allows you to do that. Z Nation is more of a PG show and I would say that Black Summer is much more of an R show."

The eight-episode first season of Black Summer is now streaming on Netflix. AMC next debuts its fifth season of Fear the Walking Dead Sunday, June 2, ahead of The Walking Dead's Season Ten premiere expected to reach the network in October.

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