CBS has been carefully avoiding the zombie plague that’s slowly infecting television, including deftly sidestepping a Zombieland adaptation (that’s still in limbo) a few years ago. Maybe the network has grown tired of watching The Walking Dead break ratings records, or it just can’t sleep with one eye open anymore, but it’s finally given up and joined the horde by ordering its own zombie series. According to The Hollywood Reporter, CBS is adapting the zombie detective story, Dead Mann Walking, for the small screen.
Continuum creator Simon Barry will helm the project that’s based on Stefan Petrucha’s bestselling novel. Dead Mann Walking is set in the not-too-distant future and tells the story of Hessius Mann, who’s wrongfully executed following his wrongful conviction for (not) killing his wife. The good news is that the government can resurrect people (also known as “ripping”), and Mann is brought back to life. The bad news is that he’s now a zombie. But because even zombies care about their reputations, Mann vows to solve his wife’s murder, and stumbles upon a mystery involving dismembered zombies. He encounters some resistance from “livebloods,” i.e., humans, because zombies are “second-class citizens” in Petrucha’s fictional future.
The investigative angle will probably prompt CBS to go the procedural route, but at least it’s trying something kind of new (well, new to CBS). And the network did recently jump on the superhero bandwagon with Supergirl—what more do you want from it?