The worst TV series opener I can ever remember seeing

jamesplegg

The reviews of Zoo on IMDb raised my curiosity about the series, as it was obvious that some people really loved it, whilst others hated it with a passion. So I decided to check it out. Unfortunately, it turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. For me, since I live in Africa, the most disappointing this was that the portrayal of the apparent location (Botswana) was sad, laughable, embarrassing and abhorrent all rolled in to one. I just checked through previous reviews and noticed that others picked up on the same thing. The producers are clearly not bothered enough even to make the slightest effort to make things make sense. I get it that this is fiction - great. Still, as others have pointed out, you would never even dream of having an American-based series where you announce in bold letters - Mexico - to highlight the location, and then show a picture of the Empire State building and have the rest of the scene in NYC. It's crass ignorant rubbish. You wouldn't accept it in North American. Don't allow it to be acceptable elsewhere. Although I just go to the first episode, I see that there is a similar issue with the Slovenia scene. Please, people watching these programmes have gone through Kindergarten level geography, and these kinds of gross misrepresentations just go to spoil what would otherwise be a really interesting fiction tale. For Africa, just do it in Kenya, call it Kenya and use Kenya actors for the required characters. Duhhhh! As it is, we have BOTSWANA highlighted as the location, pictures of hunting on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro (in Tanzania, but also seen from neighbouring Kenya), and a West African (probably Nigerian) actor with a strong West African accent speaking broken Swahili. Honestly, it was just laughable. Of course, the bad guy hunting the rhino is an Asian (in cahoots with the bad guy African cops!). Ironic that the real hunters, such as the guy that slaughtered Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe, are mostly from the US.

There are so many great series coming out of the US at the moment. This is absolutely not one of them. If you like brainless, stereotyped, prejudiced and ignorant action - this could be your thing!

score 1/10

jamesplegg 6 August 2015

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3292377/