Zoo (TV series)

Zoo
Series Intertitle
Genre	Drama Thriller
Based on	Zoo by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
Developed by	Josh Appelbaum André Nemec Jeff Pinkner Scott Rosenberg
Starring	James Wolk Kristen Connolly Nonso Anozie Nora Arnezeder Billy Burke
Theme music composer	John Carpenter
Composer(s)	Chris Tilton
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	13 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Jeff Pinkner Josh Appelbaum André Nemec Scott Rosenberg Michael Katleman James Mangold Cathy Konrad James Patterson Bill Robinson Leopoldo Gout Steve Bowen
Running time	42 minutes
Production company(s)	Midnight Radio Tree Line Film James Patterson Entertainment CBS Television Studios
Release
Original network	CBS
Picture format	1080i (HDTV)
Original release	June 30, 2015 (2015-06-30) – present
External links
Website

Zoo is an American drama television series based on the 2012 novel of the same name by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge. The series premiered on June 30, 2015, on CBS, and concluded the 13-episode first season on September 15, 2015. On October 2, 2015, Zoo was renewed by CBS for a second season, which is set to premiere on June 28, 2016.

Plot

Violent animal attacks upon humans are occurring all over the world. Jackson Oz, an American zoologist and his Kenyan friend, Abraham, a safari guide, as well as a Los Angeles reporter, a quirky veterinary pathologist, and a French intelligence agent all seek to investigate the mysterious pandemic as the attacks become more coordinated and ferocious.

Cast

Main

• James Wolk as Jackson Oz
• Kristen Connolly as Jamie Campbell
• Nonso Anozie as Abraham Kenyatta
• Nora Arnezeder as Chloe Tousignant
• Billy Burke as Dr. Mitch Morgan
• Josh Salatin as Logan (season 2)
• Alyssa Diaz as Dariela (season 2)

Guest

• Brian Tee as Philip Weber
• Tamara Tunie as Brenda Montgomery
• Bess Armstrong as Dr. Elizabeth Oz
• Tamlyn Tomita as Minako Oz
• Jay Paulson as Leo Butler
• James DuMont as Dr. Humbolt Swinney
• Simon Kassianides as Jean-Michel Lion
• Scottie Thompson as Sheriff Rebecca Bowman
• David Jensen as Victor Holman

Recurring

• Ken Olin as Professor Robert Oz
• Henri Lubatti as Gaspard Alves
• Marcus Hester as Evan Lee Hartley
• Carl Lumbly as Delavenne
• Geoff Stults as FBI Agent Ben Shaffer
• Madison Wolfe as Clementine Lewis
• Anastasia Griffith as Audra Lewis
• Gonzalo Menendez as Gustavo Silva
• Michael Scott as Enzo
• Yvonne Welch as Gabriela Machado
• Steven Culp as Clayton Burke
• Xander Berkeley as Ronnie "Dogstick" Brannigan
• Warren Christie as Ray Endicott
• Jayne Atkinson as Amelia Sage

Episodes

Season 1 (2015)

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	U.S. viewers (millions)
1	"First Blood"	Brad Anderson	Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec, Jeff Pinkner & Scott Rosenberg	June 30, 2015 (2015-06-30)	8.18
In Botswana, the American zoologist Jackson Oz rescues Chloe Tousignant from a lion attack. She seems to be a tourist from Paris but is in reality working as an intelligence analyst at the French Defense Department. Jackson's late father Robert was collecting evidence for an upcoming rise of the animals against mankind. At the Los Angeles Zoo, a lion keeper is attacked. Journalist Jamie Campbell is convinced this is caused by new food that was contaminated with pesticides from Reiden Global, a biotechnology company, and starts to investigate together with veterinary pathologist Mitch Morgan. Even ordinary pet cats behave strangely.
2	"Fight or Flight"	Michael Katleman	Jeff Pinkner & Scott Rosenberg	July 7, 2015 (2015-07-07)	7.67
Jackson's friend, safari guide Abraham Kenyatta, is attacked and then held captive by a group of lions. He is eventually rescued by Jackson, but there are more victims. Startled by this unusual behavior, Jackson's mother tells him to look for his father's rejected research results in Japan. Jamie and Mitch continue their investigation of strange animal behavior around the world and against Reiden. They also find unusual brain activity and hints of hive-like communication in the zoo lions. A man is led into an ambush by a dog owned by a hotel. Chloe returns to Paris and learns her ex-fiance is cheating on her with her sister. She is later approached by Gaspard Alves.
3	"The Silence of the Cicadas"	Chris Long	Denitria Harris-Lawrence	July 14, 2015 (2015-07-14)	6.56
Gaspard shows Chloe six men killed by dogs and asks her to help him investigate the strange animal behavior. In Japan, Jackson and Abraham fly to a radioactive island outside Fukushima, where Robert conducted his research. They are the only survivors when their plane crashes after a bat attack. They find horses that Robert had blinded, when they had developed defiant pupils and become violent. Jamie and Mitch travel to New Orleans to show their evidence to Senator Vaughn, head of the Environment Committee, but he turns them away because Reiden is too powerful. Afterwards, Gaspard recruits Mitch in a bar and brings them to Japan, where he also rescues Jackson and Abraham from the island. Everyone is introduced to Mr. Delavenne, who also believes the animal pandemic has started. In Mississippi, Evan Lee Hartley, a death row inmate, escapes when wolves attack the prison.
4	"Pack Mentality"	David Grossman	Bryan Oh	July 21, 2015 (2015-07-21)	6.69
On video surveillance of the prison in Mississippi, Hartley appears to be leading the wolf pack. FBI agent Ben Shaffer also investigates. Jamie finds a photo of Hartley together with Robert. Mitch and Abraham try to catch one of the wolves but are caught themselves, by Hartley. They escape when hunters shoot a wolf, and they examine the body in the hotel room for an infection. In Antarctica, a research station is attacked by bats.
5	"Blame It on Leo"	Steven A. Adelson	Jay Faerber	July 28, 2015 (2015-07-28)	7.09
In Alabama, Mitch finds a chemical signature in the bacteria from the wolf, that leads to one of Reiden's chemists, Leo Butler, a name Hartley had written all over his Bible. Jamie hacks into Reiden's database and finds that Butler was blackmailing them to compensate for damages caused by Reiden around the world. Together with Shaffer and Jackson, she finds Leo, who explains Reiden's success is based on the "mother cell," their special vector molecule, which is in all of their products, including human medication, plant herbicides and animal food. However, it has adverse side effects. Leo takes Jamie to retrieve the mother cell, but Shaffer tracks his cell phone GPS signal, and they are intercepted by Hartley. Chloe, Mitch, and Abraham travel to Rio to investigate diurnal bats, which local authorities plan to poison. The bats are attracted by electricity and create a power failure, so the group wants to draw the bats out of the city with a strong electric signal, but are held up by Gustavo Silva and his gang. In Boston, Mitch's daughter, Clementine, is having a seizure. Later, her dog Henry is hit by a car and needs expensive surgery to recover.
6	"This Is What It Sounds Like"	David Solomon	Carla Kettner	August 4, 2015 (2015-08-04)	5.95
In Paris, a bear roams through an apartment. In Rio, Silva holds Chloe and Mitch captive. The authorities are busy spreading poison against the bats (which does not work), so Abraham needs to find his friends, using his fists. Silva wants Mitch to solve the bat problem without using the cell phone antenna as bait, otherwise he will kill them, so Mitch builds an ultrasound signal. In Mobile, Alabama, Jackson notices on a photo that Hartley has the same widened pupils as the rogue animals. Hartley makes an optometrist inject a sample of the mother cell into his eye. Jackson, Jamie and Shaffer go after him but find him dead from the procedure. Shaffer steals the mother cell from Jamie, but Jackson catches him after discovering Ben killed the optometrist. In pursuit, Jamie shoots him dead. With the mother cell in possession, the full team of five reassembles at the airport.
7	"Sleuths"	Dean White	Denitria Harris-Lawrence	August 11, 2015 (2015-08-11)	6.69
Jamie obtains a fake passport so she can travel after killing Ben. In Paris, the bear caught in an apartment is just one out of a sleuth of four. Chloe's ex-fiancé Jean-Michel Lion is working with the local officials on the case. Jamie infiltrates Reiden's Paris office to hack into their accounting records. She wants to find out if Ben had been paid by Reiden so she won't need to hide from police anymore. Mitch examines the captive bear, which apparently fell into hibernation. At first, there are no signs of influence of the mother cell, but when the bear awakens its pupils have widened, and it has developed a thicker skin to deflect needles. Also, the DNA test shows changes with respect to an earlier record. Mitch hypothesizes that the mother cell leads to accelerated evolution, and the mother cell might be able to cure. Chloe, Jean-Michel, Jackson, and Abraham find the missing three bears in an old fortress, where the animals awaken from hibernation and attack. Jean-Michel is injured, but they find the bears' weak spot. Mitch contacts Clayton Burke from Reiden and offers him the mother cell, in return for a cure for his daughter Clementine.
8	"The Cheese Stands Alone"	Eric Laneuville	Jay Faerber and Scott Rosenberg	August 18, 2015 (2015-08-18)	5.85
A container ship runs aground along the coast of Massachusetts, near an island where Jackson lived as a child. The crew was killed by rats that have been feeding on the cargo of grains treated with Reiden pesticides. Thousands of bloodthirsty rats swim ashore and hide away in an abandoned hotel. The team is sent there to capture a male and female rat to check if the mother cell has accelerated their reproduction rate. Becky, a childhood friend of Jackson's and now sheriff, does not want to evacuate the island, as she believes there's no rat problem, and she does not want to spoil the tourist season. Abraham catches a male rat which gives birth but cannot nurse its pups. Jackson believes the rats have evolved to a hive organization, and they go after the rat queen. Mitch splits off from the group to visit his daughter and her mother in Boston. In New York, a horse gets out of control and gallops off, crashing the carriage in which it was pulling Brannigan, Ben's FBI boss. Ben's body is discovered, and Brannigan starts to investigate. Mitch visits Burke to obtain the cure for his daughter in exchange for the mother cell, and he sees Delavenne in Reiden's offices.
9	"Murmuration"	Michael Katleman	Bryan Oh	August 25, 2015 (2015-08-25)	6.18
In possession of the pills for his daughter, Mitch escapes from the Reiden building without handing over the mother cell and reunites with the group. He thinks he can use the mother cell to develop a cure against the mutations, but they need to find an animal that mutated without having had contact with Reiden's products. They decide Zambian leopards are their best option. Brannigan issues an arrest warrant for Chloe and Jamie. Delavenne is Reiden's head of global security and is ordered by Burke to retrieve the mother cell. Jackson and Chloe visit him to suggest that Reiden admit to having caused the animal mutations, but Delavenne refuses, an in response Jamie contacts her journalist friend Wilson Dupree. When they meet to hand over the evidence, Brannigan tries to arrest Chloe and Jamie, and they barely escape. Reiden threatens Wilson's newspaper with legal action, so Wilson backs out. Various bird species have learned to communicate with each other and start attacking. Mitch rescues his daughter and her mother from a bird attack, and gives them the medication. Burke orders Delavenne to have the group assassinated.
10	"Emotional Contagion"	Christine Moore	Jay Faerber	September 1, 2015 (2015-09-01)	6.02
The FBI has issued a public search for the members of the group. Before going to Zambia, Mitch needs an electroporator to examine the African animals for the mutation. Jackson suggests seeking help from Ray Endicott, an animal rights activist who has a troubled past, and from Abraham in Africa. In Clearwater, Florida, they all break into the zoo, where Mitch steals the device. Ray abducts some of the animals, planning to set them free, but is shot by zoo security, so Mitch has to operate on him. The behavioral change from the mother cell appears to have spread between the different animals while herded together in Ray's truck, making even the predatory animals friendly towards each other but hostile against humans. Ray forces the others to take the animals with them, but they escape on the way to the airport. Chased by police, the group barely makes it to their plane bound for Africa. Chloe is left behind and arrested by Brannigan.
11	"Eats, Shoots and Leaves"	Zetna Fuentes	Rebekah F. Smith	September 8, 2015 (2015-09-08)	5.73
The team arrives in Zambia and finds Ray's contacts killed by roaming leopards. At night, the leopards attack their camp and kill Ray. Jackson and Abraham find a den and take a cub, in order to examine its mutation and find a cure for the mother cell. When they are held up by rebels, Jackson is shot during the escape. In Virginia, Brannigan is driving with Chloe when his car is attacked, and he is shot. Chloe is abducted by Gaspard, who insists she reveal where the others are. When she refuses to tell him, he has her sister tortured, so Chloe lies, saying they are in India. Eventually, Delavenne frees Chloe and shoots Gaspard.
12	"Wild Things"	John Polson	Carla Kettner	September 8, 2015 (2015-09-08)	5.73
In Washington, Delavenne lets Chloe present her findings at a conference on the altered animal behavior, but the scientists believe the cause is a virus. Later they are approached by Amelia Sage, whose team is also investigating the mutations. Abraham, Mitch, and Jamie drive Jackson to the hospital in Harare, which is being evacuated because animals are attacking. A remaining doctor helps Jackson, and in the meantime they use the hospital's lab to produce the cure with stem cells from the Zambian leopard cub. When attacked, they lose the mother cell. The cure is tested on a dog that Abraham caught, and eventually it works. Soldiers sent by Chloe come to the rescue, but on the flight back, the plane is attacked by birds.
13	"That Great Big Hill of Hope"	Michael Katleman	Jeff Pinkner & Scott Rosenberg	September 15, 2015 (2015-09-15)	4.81
Several months have passed since the plane crash: The mutated animals have taken over the streets. While the others believe she is dead, Jamie was rescued by a fisherman who does not speak English, and she is trapped at his house. The others have signed non-disclosure agreements in exchange for immunity for their previous actions, and the government has indemnified Reiden in return for their cooperation to fight the mutation and the animals. Abraham is working as a bodyguard against the animals. Jackson and Chloe are working with Amelia Sage. On his way through town, Jackson is attacked and bitten by a dog. He plans to use mosquitoes to deliver the cure once they have it, but the remaining Zambian leopards were contaminated with Reiden's mutation. Jamie calls Mitch on a satellite phone after she discovers that the fisherman had also rescued the leopard cub from the plane crash and it is alive and healthy. The other four reunite and on their way take a boat trip to Jamie, when they encounter a large group of animals.

Production

In October 2013, it was announced that CBS had given Zoo "a rare pilot production commitment for a pitch originating from sibling CBS TV Studios." In July 2014, the series was given a 13-episode straight-to-series order and added to the network's summer schedule.

On October 2, 2015, the series was renewed for a second season, which is scheduled to start airing on June 28, 2016.

Casting

James Wolk was the first to be cast, in November 2014, followed later the same month by Nora Arnezeder and Nonso Anozie. The main cast was rounded out in January 2015, with Kristen Connolly and Billy Burke. In February, Geoff Stults was cast in a recurring role for a "multi-episode arc". In March, Carl Lumbly was cast in a recurring role.

In March, 2016, Josh Salatin and Alyssa Diaz were added to the cast as series regulars in season 2.

Filming

The series started filming in New Orleans in January 2015.

Broadcast

Zoo aired in Australia after fast-tracking each episode to air the day after the U.S. The series was simulcast in Canada, and it also airs in Britain.

External links

• Zoo at IMDb