For more than a decade, The Walking Dead has been the defining TV show of the apocalyptic genre. The AMC series turned Robert Kirkman's comic series into an enormous cultural phenomenon, following survivors as they search for safety in a world overrun by the undead. Although its long run eventually took the story far beyond what made the early seasons so compelling, The Walking Dead set the standard for post-apocalyptic shows that few other series have managed to match.
One of the biggest reasons The Walking Dead is so popular is that zombies are only part of the problem. The AMC show focuses just as much on what happens to people when law and order disappear, forcing its characters to make impossible choices about trust, family, morality, and survival. Another zombie series captures that same sense of desperation while taking an even more brutal approach to the apocalypse. And, it's time that the criminally overlooked Black Summer be mentioned alongside The Walking Dead.
The Walking Dead begins when former Sheriff's Deputy Rick Grimes wakes from a coma to find that civilization has collapsed. After finally finding his family, Rick becomes part of a constantly changing group of survivors who travel through Georgia and eventually the United States, encountering walkers, rival survivor groups, settlements, and increasingly dangerous threats. Over the course of 11 seasons, what started as a relatively simple story about surviving a zombie apocalypse eventually became an enormous saga about rebuilding society and deciding what kind of people its survivors wanted to become. After the original series ran for 177 episodes, the wider universe has expanded with six spinoffs, each focusing on different stages of the apocalypse.
The Walking Dead's biggest achievement is its characters. Rick, Negan, Glenn, Daryl, Michonne, Carol, and countless others gave the apocalypse an emotional weight that went far beyond just killing zombies; the series could easily spend an entire episode watching its characters argue about how to deal with a new threat before suddenly turning that tension into a brutal survival sequence. Its best and most compelling seasons also understood that the scariest part of an apocalypse isn't necessarily the walkers; instead, there are numerous genuinely disturbing scenes that detail what desperate people could become when there are no rules. Even the AMC producers confirmed that the characters are The Walking Dead's best asset, which goes a long way to explaining why fans have remained attached to the Walking Dead universe for so long.
Black Summer takes place during the early days of a zombie apocalypse, following a collection of strangers who are thrown together as society collapses around them. At the center is Rose, a mother who is desperately trying to find her daughter, Anna, but Black Summer is constantly shifting its focus between different survivors as they attempt to navigate a world where even reaching the next street can become a fight for their lives. There's no established safe zone or functioning society waiting in the distance; the Black Summer characters are simply trying to stay alive while the life they know falls apart in real time.
Black Summer doesn't give its characters any protection. Its zombies are fast, aggressive, and can turn an ordinary encounter into a frantic chase almost immediately. The series also doesn't give its survivors the luxury of knowing who they can trust, with other desperate humans seeming just as dangerous and unpredictable as the undead. Though Black Summer sees a group of survivors banding together, its episodes frequently split the story between different groups and perspectives. That fractured structure creates a chaotic, nightmarish feeling that makes Black Summer considerably more intense than other zombie shows.
Black Summer is a prequel spinoff of Z Nation and has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 85%.
The biggest similarity between Black Summer and The Walking Dead is that neither are really about zombies. Both shows use the apocalypse to strip their characters of the normal systems that keep society functioning, forcing them all to decide who to trust and how far they're willing to go to stay alive. The difference is that Black Summer concentrates heavily on the immediate aftermath of the outbreak, akin to The Last of Us's early episodes, while The Walking Dead eventually had the luxury of exploring politics, communities, and the possibility of rebuilding.
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