This pilot splits us into two storylines
Firstly we have Jackson Oz who leads safaris in Botswana.
His dad was a famous professor, Robert Oz, who theorised that animals would
rise up (involving a “defiant pupil”) and kill off humanity because humanity was
doing such a shit job of looking after the planet that they weren’t going to
die out because we couldn’t maintain a stable ecosystem. He committed suicide
and was widely discredited and, presumably, his ghost is out there somewhere
being enormously smug. I rather think smug ghosts would be more annoying than
poltergeists
Anyway, Jackson and his friend Abraham are leading safaris when the Ominous happens. I give props for giving us lots of very spooky and ominous lead ins without dragging it out too far. After all, anyone watching this show knows the premise: animals rising up to kill people. When people go missing on a safari, it’s not exactly rocket science to figure out what happened. So points for raising tension and not dragging it out to the point where I’m yelling “A lion better eat someone soon!”
Which is what happens, the lions have eaten everyone except tourist Chloe and are now stalking them – they seem to get Abraham
I admit, this annoyed me muchly – I did a double take to
see if they were really going to kill off the pilot’s most prominent POC so
soon – but it turns out he’s only injured (and he’s credited for 15 episodes so
I guess he lives and has just been temporarily plot boxed). This leaves Chloe
(who conveniently drops into the conversation that she’s single, just in case
we were worried we wouldn’t have straight romantic tension at the end of the
world) and Jackson running away from lions in lots of tense, but good action
scenes. Jackson also gets to tell us about his dad.
He ends up being arrested because earlier he meddled with
a hunt. I suspect human authorities arresting him won’t be top of anyone’s
priority list soon.
The second storyline happens in Los Angeles where some
guys have been eaten by lions that have escaped form the zoo. In comes plucky
journalist Jamie Campbell. She is sure that the lions running amok is caused by
their food being changed and coming from biotech company Rayden
Unfortunately for her, the company that owns Rayden also owns her newspaper and her boss is Not Pleased about her naughty blogging activities flinging all kinds of accusations against the company. Not even sleeping with senior journalist Ethan (this end of the world WILL have straight romantic tension!) can save her job. He’s a bit of an arse anyway and she’s not that into the relationship – or getting her job back
She’s still chasing Rayden and the cause of the lions
running amok which, she points out due to doing some decent research, is nearly
unheard of and zoo lions don’t just randomly kill people. She tells this to
Mitch, the gawky, anti-social animal pathologist who has been examining the
lion’s bodies and will now team up with her for some more investigating (we’re
really insistent on this, there WILL be straight sexual tension on this show! We
even had a phone number gag – and the awkward antisocial one who is actually
hot is definitely going to get some, it’s a TV rule).
He doesn’t buy the idea that changing the lion’s diet can
really make that much difference – but he does help her investigate and finds the
answer to another mystery. A whole lot of cats have disappeared – and he finds them.
Ominously gathered in a pack around a soon-to-open summer camp. It’s like an
army of adorable fluffiness.
I’m intrigued but wary… wary
because this looks a lot like a mystery show and ye gods have we been burned by
those things before. Random shit happens, no-one knows why and you never
ever ever ever will.
I’m not entirely sold on the idea that animals rising up
is all that menacing. When it comes down to it, we, humanity, are REALLY good
at killing things. We’re regularly wiping out entire species entirely by
accident (and have wiped out more than a few in purpose at that).
Honestly, you want to sell menacing to me? Don’t show me
angry lions. I’m pretty sure we could drive lions to extinction in a week if
humanity wanted to. Show me rats. Show me ants. Show me killer pigeons. Show me
cockroaches. Show me the animals we have fought tooth and nail to TRY and
exterminate but they’re thriving despite our best efforts – those I’m afraid
of.
