A Very Slow Apocalypse: Zombie TV

This chapter examines the role of the zombie within TV horror both in terms of a long established tradition of monster-of-the-week through to the increasingly prevalent place that the zombie plays within contemporary serialised television. This chapter challenges the dismissal of television as an appropriate space for horror and the political allegory often associated with Romero’s zombie films, by presenting a series of case studies in which the TV zombie serves such as narrative and thematic purpose. In particular it considers how the serialized nature of television, exemplified by the soap opera format, is well suited to the zombie narrative in which closure is traditionally denied. It also serves to structure the nature and function of allegory within the televisual zombie format. Case studies include: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, The Walking Dead and In the Flesh.