Santa Clarita Diet Season 1 Review

Santa Clarita Diet is for sure a different kind of comedy taking a serious deadpan look at becoming a zombie. The series follows a real estate husband and wife duo where the latter casually turns into a zombie. There's some mythos to it though the first season mostly focuses on getting used to one of them eating people and generally how they kill people for her to eat. The story focuses mainly around the core family of the mother zombie Sheila (Drew Barrymore), her go with it husband Joel (Timothy Olyphant) and their rebellious growing daughter Abby (Liv Hewson). Together the three get used to Sheila having to be fed and get into the business of killing people. This is actually where things pick up as each get into their roles and work on how to be sneaky with their murders. It's a funny way to look at things carrying that deadpan attitude where they just go with things having some serious approaches to hilarious tasks and I actually found Olyphant really nailed his part. The supporting cast was also great though limited, but used at the appropriate times for some extra comedic elements that worked well.


The show in being somewhat realistic is also incredibly gory and while this works at some points it wasn't done entirely well the whole way through. I did find the effects to be decent at most points though for example the first finger eating looked really fake. For the most part most of the show was hilarious as its type of comedy definitely hit the right notes striking a nice balance of seriousness despite the ridiculous actions that they were doing. There was also a good pacing with the episodes always forwarding the narrative while also having some side events going on. The structure of most episodes was well done, but the season does end abruptly which felt out of place. I'm not sure if it was a budget issue or if they weren't sure what to do as the whole thing just gets cut off mid-huge events taking place. It felt out of place considering that certain stories were cleared up well and then it just trailed off for whatever reason which was disappointing. This felt like most ideas were just touched upon without enough closure to have a cohesive season.

The Conclusion

Santa Clarita Diet was certainly a refreshing show providing great amounts of gore, an odd type of comedy and an entertaining time with likable leads. It was however drawn back by some story structuring issues along with an abrupt cut in the middle of the action leaving things too mysterious almost. The acting was solid from the cast with most of them really helping to build the setting though Barrymore at times seemed a tad too and into it coming across as wacky. It's an interesting binge and while it had some shortcomings, I'd love to see more and have it evolve into a larger gory time.

Review for Santa Clarita Diet at Home with Streamed Viewing

Rating Overall: 7.7