The basic idea behind Babylon Fields is zombies, but not your bog standard brain munching, slow moving, arms extended, falling over things, zombies. By golly no. These zombies (for reasons unknown) return from the dead, fully thinking, and return to their loved-ones, former homes and previous life.

A male cop with a fancy for one of the female officers is first to hear of something strange happening. As he discovers that the dead are rising he realises that one of the risen is, more than likely, his wife! Not only that, but a happy house of mother and daughter are shocked to find that the former father/husband is back and is just as abusive now as he was before his death. And this is where it takes a twist.

No, I didn't leave town...

As two zombies discuss their deaths, one from cancer, the abusive husband/father finds out that his wife told people that he’d left town. Fumbling through things in a closet he comes across an axe head which just happens to fit the gaping hole in the back of his head, so now we have him on the hunt for his murderer (aka: wife, we assume) since we also find out he was a former cop.

"I went to try and find my parents, but there's some Puerto Ricans living there..."

So not only are the zombies trying to go back to having a ‘normal’ life, they’re also (in some cases) hellbent on revenge.

But that’s about as much as we’ll ever find out, as the show was canceled by CBS. Apparently due to the lead character receiving a kiss from his undead wife, aka: necrophelia

Necrophelia! Run for your undead lives!!!!

I call it a lame excuse as this could have been a good show with, quite literally, hundreds of potential characters, from many different eras in time, wanting to know how they died, get revenge or just keep on living.

Shame on you CBS, this could have been good!

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

You can watch a clip from the pilot on YouTube:

Werewolf ran for only 29 episodes (commonly known as Series 1) and was then cancelled, series two – sadly – never materialised.

Ted is Eric’s room mate, unfortunately Ted is also a werewolf. One night Ted tells his story to Eric and asks Eric to shoot him with his new gun, loaded with silver bullets. Eric eventually does kill him, but not before he’s accidentally bitten by Ted. Now Eric is werewolf and the only way to rid himself of the curse is to track down and kill the originator of the bloodline. But Eric is on trial for Ted’s murder so there’s a bounty hunter after Eric.

OK, so the story and acting isn’t going to get it any oscars, but what about the effects? They’re actually pretty damn good for a cheap 80′s TV show. You might have heard of the fx guy before.

None other than one Mr. Rick Baker!

and he's the good guy!

Yes, THAT Rick Baker, he of American Werewolf in London. On short notice and short budget he cranked out a pretty damned ugly pair of werewolves. Pair? Yep, y’see we get to see the bloodline originator transform too!

Yes, you get to see some facial distortions and what-not...

It’s a shame it didn’t run longer as I’m sure it would have been a cracking TV series. All the good TV shows end prematurely while the crap lingers on like a bad smell. It’s never even been giving a DVD release as apparently they couldn’t get the rights to use some of the songs that’s in the show. So, for now we’ll have to do with some dodgy downloads of the episodes. Thank God someone managed to capture them all for posterity sakes!

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars <– really a 2.5, but giving it a +0.5 for showing plenty of bad 80′s clothing and hairstyles at the beginning.

For more information on Werewolf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolf_%28TV_series%29

• Ronnie’s top tip for another criminally cancelled show, Brimstone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brimstone_%28TV_series%29

A quick clip from the pilot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTkuYOTQPvc