The world is a scary place right now. While the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t quite the zombie apocalypse, it sure feels like it. The virus is highly communicable, people are hoarding canned food and toilet paper, and individuals avoid the infected like they're the undead.
Again, COVID-19 isn’t quite the zombie apocalypse. But you are stuck inside and forced to become very familiar with your television set. Remind yourself how good you have it and enjoy the fictional trials and tribulations of those dealing with the “real” undead by perusing our list of the best zombie TV shows available to stream right now.
The Walking Dead
Streaming on Netflix and YouTube TV
Created by: Robert Kirkland, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard, based on their comic book.
Cast: Andrew Lincoln, Danai Gurira, Melissa McBride, Norman Reedus, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Ross Marquand, Khary Payton, Ryan Hurst
The gold-standard of zombie TV shows, The Walking Dead has (so far) sustained ten seasons, two spinoffs (Fear the Walking Dead and The World Beyond, coming soon) and a handful of upcoming TV movies. The show focuses more on the humans surviving in a world overtaken by zombies, but worry not – there are still tons of zombies in every episode, and lots of impressive zombie deaths.
Fear the Walking Dead
Streaming on Hulu
Created by: Robert Kirkman and Dave Erickson
Cast: Alicia Debnam-Carey, Lennie James, Colman Domingo, Ruben Blades, Garret Dillahunt, Jenna Elfman, Maggie Grace
Fear the Walking Dead is supposed to take place in the first few days of the zombie apocalypse, and it did – at first. Unfortunately, it squandered this opportunity by showing us the first few days, then jumping ahead several weeks, when the army had fenced off neighborhoods and started bombing cities. In its five seasons, it has now caught up with The Walking Dead in the timeline. The stories themselves are hit and miss, so proceed with caution with this show.
Santa Clarita Diet
Streaming on Netflix
Created by: Victor Fresco
Cast: Drew Barrymore, Timothy Olyphant
Set in picturesque Santa Clarita, California, the Netflix original series Santa Clarita Diet follows a married pair of real estate agents. The wife, seemingly inexplicably, becomes undead, and she must be fed a healthy diet of human flesh to remain undead – as opposed to dead-dead.
Pushing Daisies
Not currently streaming
Created by: Bryan Fuller
Cast: Lee Pace, Anna Friel, Chi McBride, Kristin Chenowith, Swoosie Kurtz
The sweet, family-friendly zombie show Pushing Daisies follows a pie-maker and his unusual gift: he has the ability to raise the dead with only a touch. If he keeps them alive for more than a minute, someone or something else must die to keep the balance. If he touches them again, they die permanently. The pie-maker teams with a private investigator to bring corpses back to life in order to solve their murders and collect on reward money. The meat of the show, however, follows the pie-maker as he is reunited with his childhood sweetheart – who has been murdered. He can’t bring himself to kill her permanently.
iZombie
Streaming on Netflix
Created by: Chris Roberson and Mike Allred, based on their comic book
Starring: Rose McIver, Malcolm Goodwin, Rahul Kohli, Robert Buckley, David Anders
Based on the comic book series of the same name, iZombie follows Liv, a medical resident who is turned into a zombie. She still retains her human side as long as she eats brains on occasion, so she takes a job in a morgue to fulfil her appetites. When she eats brains, she is able to see flashbacks from the deceased’s life, which allows her to help police solve murders. It’s like a less adorable version of Pushing Daisies.
Z Nation
Streaming on Netflix
Created by: Karl Schaefer and Craig Engler
Cast: Kellita Smith, DJ Qualls, Keith Allen, Michael Welch, Mario Van Peebles, Henry Rollins
Set several years after the zombie apocalypse, Z Nation follows Murphy, a Navy prisoner who was given an experimental vaccine that made him (almost) immune to zombie bites. His skin sheds and appears to be dying, but he can apparently control some zombies and doesn’t devolve into mindless flesh-eating. Murphy is the world’s best hope at solving the zombie crisis and he travels with a group of survivors to get to the world’s last known, functional CDC lab.
Black Summer
Streaming on Netflix
Created by: Karl Schaefer and John Hyams
Starring: Jaime King and Justin Chu Cary
Set in the same world as Z Nation, but in the first few weeks of the zombie apocalypse, the Netflix original series Black Summer focuses on a mother and her search for her daughter during the deadliest, most dangerous time in the zombie pandemic.
Kingdom
Streaming on Netflix
Created by: Kim Eun-hee and Yang Kyung-il, based on their webcomic
Cast: Ju Ji-hoon, Ryu Seung-ryong, Bae Doo-na, Kim Sang-ho, Kim Sung-kyu, Kim Hye-jun
Based on a webcomic, the Netflix original series Kingdom is unique in the zombie TV subgenre in that it is set in the 1500s, during Korea’s Joseon period. A “plague” has set across the country, causing the undead to rise and terrorize the kingdom. The king has been stricken with the virus, and the crown prince must save the kingdom – and his father – from both the plague and an attempted coup.
The Returned
Streaming on Amazon Prime
Created by: Fabrice Gobert
Starring: Anne Consigny, Frédéric Pierrot, Clotilde Hesme, Céline Sallette, Samir Guesmi, Grégory Gadebois, Guillaume Gouix, Jérôme Kircher
The premise for The Returned is chilling. In a small country town, the dead mysteriously come back to life with no knowledge that they were dead or that any time passed. Rather than the dead returning with an appetite for brains, they seem to bring with them strange occurrences: power outages, the sudden depletion of the town’s water supply, and mysterious marks that appear on the bodies of the living and the dead. This French series was remade into an American series that only lasted one season.
Dead Set
Streaming on Netflix
Created by: Charlie Brooker
Starring: Jaime Winstone, Andy Nyman, Riz Ahmed, Chizzy Akudolu, Liz May Brice, Warren Brown, Shelley Conn, Beth Cordingly, Adam Deacon, Kevin Eldon, Raj Ghatak, Kathleen McDermott, Davina McCall
What would happen if the zombie apocalypse happened during the filming of Big Brother, the reality show that locks a dozen strangers in a house, with no knowledge of what is going on in the world? This is the premise of Dead Set, a British mini-series that was filmed in the actual Big Brother house. It is an interesting combination of reality-meets-fiction, as former Big Brother cast members appear in cameos throughout the five-night event. A Brazilian version of the show, set to be called Reality Z, is currently underway.
Glitch
Streaming on Netflix
Created by: Tony Ayers, Louise Fox, and Adam Hill
Cast: Patrick Brammall, Emma Booth, Genevieve O'Reilly, Emily Barclay, Ned Dennehy, Aaron L. McGrath, Sean Keenan, Daniela Farinacci, Hannah Monson, Andrew McFarlane, Rodger Corser, John Leary, Luke Arnold, Rob Collins, Pernilla August
The Australian drama Glitch sees seven people rise from the dead, in perfect health but with no memory of who they are or what happened. The show follows a local policeman who discovers the seven in the cemetery, and he struggles to keep the case secret while trying to figure out what happened to these people.
In the Flesh
Streaming on Amazon Prime
Created by: Dominic Mitchell
Cast: Luke Newberry, Harriet Cains, Marie Critchley, Steve Cooper, Emmett J Scanlan, Emily Bevan, Stephen Thompson, Wunmi Mosaku, Gillian Waugh, Kevin Sutton, Gerard Thompson, Ricky Tomlinson, Kenneth Cranham, Steve Evets, Karen Henthorn, David Walmsley
The BBC series In the Flesh is actually set several years after the zombie uprising, and the world has begun to return to normal. The army has prevented a full-fledged zombie apocalypse, and they have “scienced” their way out of it by creating a medication that can turn the zombies back into productive members of society. This, of course, comes with its own set of complications, mainly discrimination against those with Partially Deceased Syndrome.
The Last Kids on Earth
Streaming on Netflix
Created by: Max Brallier, based on his book series
Cast: Nick Wolfhard
Based on a book series by Max Brallier, the cartoon The Last Kids on Earth follows a 13-year-old orphan, Jack, who becomes a hero when his town is overrun by zombies and he and his friends must save their town. With guest voices from genre favorites like Bruce Campbell, Keith David, Mark Hamill, Catherine O’Hara, and Rosario Dawson, there is something for everyone in this animated series.
Ash vs. Evil Dead
Streaming on Netflix
Created by: Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi, and Tom Spezialy
Cast: Bruce Campbell, Lucy Lawless, Ray Santiago, Dana DeLorenzo
Set about thirty years after the events from Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead, Ash Williams is back and fighting the forces of evil in the Starz series Ash vs. Evil Dead. After failing to destroy the Necronomicon, Ash becomes its de facto “caretaker.” Unfortunately, during a drink-and-drug-fueled date, he reads from the book and releases Deadites on the world once more.
Game of Thrones
Streaming on HBO
Created by: David Benihoff and D.B. Weiss, based on the books by George R.R. Martin
Cast: Sophie Turner, Kit Harrington, Maisie Williams, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Lena Heady, Emilia Clarke, Peter Dinklage
As far as I’m concerned, the White Walkers in Game of Thrones, led by the Night King, are zombies. The pallid, ghastly creatures are the reanimated dead, and they turn anyone they come across. Much like traditional zombies, they can only be killed in a very specific way: with dragonglass or Valyrian steel. White Walkers do not seem to eat human flesh, but if they kill you, you will turn. One of the many, many storylines in Game of Thrones involves defeating the White Walkers before they take over the world.
Masters of Horror Episode “Homecoming”
Streaming on Tubi
Created by: Mick Garris
Cast: Beverly Breuer, Jason Emanuel, Thea Gill, Ryan McDonnell, Terry David Mulligan, Robert Picardo, Jon Tenney
Masters of Horror was an anthology series that featured the best names in horror making hourlong films. “Homecoming,” directed by Joe Dante, dealt with soldiers who died in the Iraqi war rising from the dead, demanding their right to vote. They insist they will vote for whoever will end the war, but the current administration has no plans to end the war. Instead, they rig the results so they win. This leads to all soldiers, from all wars, rising from the dead.
The Simpsons
Streaming on Disney+
Created by: Matt Groenig
Cast: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria
Throughout The Simpsons’ “Treehouse of Horror” Halloween episodes, there have been plenty of appearances of zombies. In “Treehouse of Horror III,” Bart and Lisa accidentally raise the dead after they attempted to resurrect their dead cat. In “Treehouse of Horror XIII,” Lisa convinces the town to get rid of their guns, leaving them defenseless when the dead rise from their graves. And in “Treehouse of Horrors XX,” a new burger at Krusty Burger causes the town to turn into zombies. In a non-Halloween episode, “Days of Future Future,” grown-up Lisa is married to Milhouse, and when he succumbs to zombie-ism, she discovers their marriage is more fulfilling.
Community Episode "Epidemiology"
Streaming on Netflix and Hulu
Created by: Dan Harmon
Cast: Joel McHale, Alison Brie, Chevy Chase, Yvette Nicole Brown, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Donald Glover, Jim Rash, Ken Jeong
A fantastic episode of a genius series, the Season 2 episode of Community "Epidemiology" takes place during a Halloween dance at Greendale Community College. The dean serves expired military meat, which causes the students to become zombies, and the show embraces its inner zombie movie.