UPDATING OCCASIONALLY (FOR NOW)

9 thoughts on “558 – Cotton Clad Calamity”

  1. Raznaak

    Yup, he’s a bastard XD

  2. Dr. Norman (not a real doctor)

    Are those pajamas available in XXXL in the gift shop?

  3. Otaku

    It’s been a while, so let me ask: Did we get a reason for him to WANT Susie dead? Not to backseat, but if we didn’t, I’m worried were about to move into “Stupid Evil” territory. Now, stupid happens, don’t get me wrong. It’s not bad storytelling for that to be the case here.

    You’ve just done a good job NOT having that be a driving factor, so the “Kill off the stars of my successful reality TV show.” seems shortsighted, otherwise. Oh, I guess I could be mistaken about the in-story reality TV show’s success. Like, if the company behind them is losing money, or they think a change in management at the ranch would make the whole thing more popular/profitable, then I can see the above scenario happening as well.

    I REALLY think I’m just forgetting something important, but that I don’t have time to deep dive to remind me of, hence the comment. >_<

    1. Deoxy

      It certainly has been stretched out over quite a while, but there have definitely been hints from quite near the beginning that whoever is running the reality TV show definitely wants her dead.

      But I certainly don’t recall any reason why.

      1. Clint

        Yeah it’s fair to not remember since it’s been a hot minute (many, many minutes) but if you feel like a refresher the most relevant bits would be the beginning of Episode 8 and the end of Episode 15. We haven’t explicitly spelled out exactly what The Exec means by his “side hustle” or who was on the other end of that phone call, though.

        I’m hoping that when the whole thing is eventually available it will make sense, or at least enough sense to have hung this narrative on.

        1. Otaku

          Thanks for the replies, Deoxy and Clint. Yeah, I’d totally forgotten about those things. Good to know!

  4. Evervigilant

    Seems about time for the two people who aren’t there to make a surprise entrance as the ace Susie didn’t even know she had.

  5. Scarsdale

    There’s still 3-5 people on her side that might be planning something. This guy is a megalomaniac with a god complex, so letting him think he’s the sharpest tool in the shed sets him up for a fall. Everything depends on those cameras, and I suspect their little stop over by the charging coffins had something to do with her actual plan, not the one the a-hole thinks it is.

  6. lyra

    Really enjoyed the opening of Zombie Ranch. I like the combination of the western setting with the zombie concept, it gives the story a really distinctive atmosphere. I’m a freelance illustrator and animator, and I’d be interested in seeing how some of these scenes could translate into motion, especially as a short animated teaser or character scene.

    If you’re ever interested in something like that, you can reach me here:

    IG: eve_verse_
    Email: [contact.lilaclines@gmail.com](mailto:contact.lilaclines@gmail.com)
    Discord: Lyralilac_

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*


 

558 – Cotton Clad Calamity
Posted on August 26, 2026 by Dawn

What would you call this? Armchair assassination? Merk-from-home?

Well, Suzie ain't dead (or undead) quite yet, so we'll just have to see if his gloating is justifiable.

Colonial times

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Clint

Right around the time we were starting up Zombie Ranch, Dawn and I became aware of a reality television show purporting to show how people might survive and thrive in the face of apocalypse. Not a zombie apocalypse, per se, but still presented as a global-scale disaster which would leave small groups of survivors isolated from outside contact, with minimal resources.

Despite being interested, we never got around to watching The Colony at that time. For one thing, our own scenario was one where the disaster happened years beforehand, instead of focusing on immediate aftermaths, but the main reason is that Dawn and I are just horrible at keeping track of television shows as they air, and as I recall at the time only a couple of the full episodes were available on the Discovery Channel website, with the rest being just partial clips. Tantalizing, perhaps, but ultimately just frustrating. I also wondered how feasible they could really pull off the idea of apocalyptic isolation while using a warehouse area near Downtown Los Angeles. Would sending “biker gangs” and other twists of fate at the survivors be compelling? Or just cheesy?

Three years later and the show has finally hit Netflix. We just finished watching the entirety of Season 1, and… yes, in my opinion, it was plenty compelling. The ‘volunteers’ (I guess maybe you can’t call them survivors for fear of comparison to that Other Reality Show) really seemed to buy into the reality of their situation, especially as the days wore on.

I underestimated just how isolating those all but abandoned areas between Downtown and the L.A. river can be… having a passing familiarity with them, I probably shouldn’t have. They’re industrial ghost towns smack in the midst of one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the world, which is a fascinating and sobering topic all in itself. I don’t know how much editing had to be done, but from a viewing perspective the illusions were maintained, with not even one single homeless person wandering through that wasn’t scripted by the producers to do so.

What really makes the show as well is the lack of competition in the concept. Yes, there is internal strife, especially as supplies dwindle and frustrations and tempers ebb and flow, but there is no motive for any of the volunteers to act against or undermine each other. There is no reward prize dangling at the end except the idea of survival and self-discovery. At the beginning there doesn’t even seem to be a set goal, with the producers eventually adapting to the colonists’ efforts to allow for a satisfying closure.

For that matter, the “challenges” are a far cry from those in most reality shows. There’s no host explaining what to do next; instead, it’s a mix of naturally occurring and scripted stimuli for the colonists to react to as they will. The first season starts with the group confined to an abandoned warehouse and scrapyard, with a few beginning supplies which quickly need to be supplemented. One of the early problems is one of water, and the desperation really hits home when they have to gather it from the L.A. River. I don’t even want to set *foot* in the L.A. River, especially at the portion they’re at, and these folks have to use it for sustenance? But they manage to quickly rig up a system to purify it to potability, and the ingenuity just keeps building from there. You will boggle at some of the ideas these people come up with, and you will boggle even more when they actually make those crazy ideas work. Well, at least I did.

And even with all that ingenuity, there’s always a sense of being one or two steps from disaster. If the curveballs don’t come from the environment, outside elements are introduced to keep the colonists on their toes. Two starving travelers come by to ask for food and water… do you turn them away? The route you got used to for scavenging is suddenly closed off… now what? Marauders threaten your supplies… how will you defend them?

I really shouldn’t go into much more for fear of spoilers. I know, I know, I’m the guy who contended that spoilers aren’t the end-all be-all of entertainment enjoyment, but I’ll admit, there’s a lot of events here that are probably best experienced in the same way the colonists must have experienced them.

It is a really good show, and not only that, I feel like I learned things from it, both on a technological and simply human standpoint. The Colony’s narrator often refers to it as “the experiment”. An experiment which, at the end of it all, shows just how resilient we can be.