By Jared Curtis
‘Survive the Night’ brings the scares
I’ve been waiting for the right cable channel to pick up a zombie-based TV show and finally FX has answered my prayers. The channel behind some of the wildest shows on TV (“The Shield,” “Rescue Me,” “Sons of Anarchy” and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”) has gone above and beyond, letting executive producer George A. Romero run the show. “Survive the Night” (Sunday, 9 p.m.) is a story of a world gone mad — a zombie outbreak has spread across the globe and only a few survivors still roam the earth. The story follows Duke (Thomas Jane), a small town cop leading a group of survivors to Vermont, where a barricaded town is said to exist. Every day they live is another blessing (or in some characters’ minds a curse), and they struggle to find the necessary supplies while fighting off countless attacks from zombies and gangs of outlaw scavengers. The show really works with tons of scary and gory suspense, along with a lot of interesting and intertwining story lines, plus the walking dead in “Survive the Night” are livelier than most broadcast sitcom stars.
‘The Other Island’
Tuesday, 9 p.m. (ABC)
As the end of “Lost” draws near (May 23, in case you want to set your DVR), ABC has been pumping out copycat shows left and right to draw fans to a new show. But instead of making something new, “The Other Island” just expands the myth. Starting in the 1970s, we see the idea of the island come to fruition as a large-scale communal research compound where scientists and free thinkers from around the globe can research meteorology, psychology, parapsychology, zoology, electromagnetism and a sixth discipline known as utopian social. We get to meet the originals only seen in clips from orientation films and flashbacks including Dr. Marvin Candle, Alvar Hanso, Gerald and Karen DeGroot and Horace Goodspeed. Will “The Other Island” provide plenty of answers? Probably not, but for fans of “Lost” it will fill a void like no other, at least until they make a buddy-cop spin-off featuring James Ford and Miles Straume. CV
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