I want to own up to something right away: I was predisposed to laugh at CBS's summer action/drama/kookoopants series Zoo. I find the idea of a menace-driven show called Zoo inherently hilarious, in part because "zoo" is a word made up of exactly two sounds, both of which are naturally comedic. Phonetically, the word "zoo" is funny. So if you yell "Zoo!" and show me a picture of a terrifying animal, I still have a hard time being terrified.
Honestly, you could probably put a real shark in my real bathtub, and the best way to distract me from the danger and get me laughing would be to yell, "ZOO!" (Don't do this, though. I would, I'm pretty sure, somehow wind up not getting my security deposit back.)
Zoo, based on a novel by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge, begins — and, as with everything I tell you about the show in the next little while here, I promise this is true — with a man asking his curious, unsettled dog, "What's the matter, boy?" The man is played by the gloriously charming James Wolk, late of Mad Men and the famously insta-canceled Lone Star, and his name is — wait for it — Jackson Oz. Well, of course it is. I suspect in the first draft, it was something like Rugged O'Scruffington, and somebody just went, "Mm, tone that down, but only about five percent."
Jackson is a safari guide in Botswana, and when his rugged o'scruffy dog alerts, Jackson comes to check things out, but then he assures his dog that there's nothing to worry about. "It's OK, there's nothing out there," he tells the dog, who somehow refrains from rolling its eyes. Apparently, Jackson has never read a science fiction novel. Unusually alert dogs are the noise in the woods that turns out to just be (whew) birds: they mean disaster is nigh. NIGH, I SAY.
We know that Jackson is a friend to the animals as well as a cool dude because he blasts James Brown on a boombox to frighten away a rhino before a mean poacher can get him. (Poacher: "I have a valid license to hunt that rhino!") But we know that the animals are not going to be a consistent friend to Jackson, because the voice-over waxes philosophical (sort of) about the way that man has dominated other species for a very long time and then asks: "What if, all across the globe, the animals decided 'no more'? What if they decided to fight back?"
...ZOO!
Meanwhile, back in Los Angeles, two obnoxious, be-suited dudes, one of whom has a creepy mustache, are griping about women and urinating on dumpsters in an alley when they are attacked by escaped zoo animals, so let's be honest: so far, so good. But it turns out the animals first attacked their keeper, who was probably not at the time urinating on a dumpster or insulting anyone, so now we have to be more concerned. That's an actual sad science-fiction novel animal situation. More to the point, though, what we're really circling here is the fact that the animals are, you know, ganging up on us. Real animal attacks are not funny, obviously, but an intercontinental animal conspiracy is quite different.
In our other story, ace reporter (well, "reporter") Jamie Campbell (Kristen Connolly) is somehow the only person who seems to be interested in pursuing the story of two men being eaten by lions in the middle of the city, which shows a considerable lack of respect for the bloodlust that would in all likelihood arise in such a situation. It turns out that Jamie believes lions are eating people because the zoo changed meat suppliers, and the new meat supplier is owned by a company that also owns the paper, so that is really too bad for her, especially if she eats at work in the cafeteria. (She is also secretly sleeping with some middle manager type at her office, because she is a female journalist in a movie or television show, so secretly sleeping with someone with power over her career is a given.)
Jamie eventually connects with the zoo's veterinary pathologist (whom she calls the animal coroner, in case we don't understand why he stores dead animals under sheets in his office). The two of them form a couple that will go out and try to fight the animals in Los Angeles, while Jackson Oz Weatherbeaten Canteen McGillicuddy and the blonde French lady he has met along the way continue trying to survive once it turns out that — as always — the dog was right. As nature intends in films such as this, you will see the blonde French lady literally cower behind Jackson as he stares down a lion, because she likes purses and lipstick and he likes cars and football! Or something.
Premium television is a wonderful thing. I couldn't be more pleased that serious dramas and thoughtful, prickly comedies are thriving. But on the other hand, they really don't run enough legitimately bonkers television anymore, and if they can't do it in the summer, when will they do it? There is a place in my heart for a show where a guy looks at the front of a malfunctioning truck and says, "It seems that the lions got to the radiator."
(This is where, were I explaining this out loud, I would get very excited, gesticulate wildly, and probably yell "HASHTAG SUMMER HASHTAG GOOFY HASHTAG ZOO!")
I want you to understand, again, that the conceit here seems to be that there is a worldwide animal conspiracy that extends from the largest animals to the most domesticated ones.
A worldwide. Animal. Conspiracy.
And there is, at the close of the pilot, a moment in which you are meant to be menaced by what may literally be the funniest menacing shot I have ever seen on television, albeit unintentionally so, I think, probably.
In short: ZOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
