The Walking Dead Meets Snowpiercer In Michael Bay's 5-Part Sci-Fi Series

Published Aug 24, 2026, 4:30 PM EDT Zach Moser has been writing for ScreenRant since 2022, covering movies, classic TV, and streaming TV. His areas of expertise cover a wide range of genres with a particular interest in horror and drama, and the conversations around the TV and film industry. When he's not covering the latest film releases or chronicling the latest season of a new show, he's writing humor pieces for McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Slackjaw, and Points In Case or working on short stories and his second novel. If Michael Bay helped produce a science fiction TV series that was part-The Walking Dead and part-Snow Piercer, it would look a little something like this. The Walking Dead is no doubt one of the most important TV shows of the 21st century. It may not be the best, or anywhere close to the best, but its influence is massive. Along with a huge franchise of spinoffs and other multimedia, so many series have followed The Walking Dead's storytelling style, emulating how it stretched its plot for years. Several shows have tried their hand at a version of the story, combining it with other conceits and twists. The Last Ship is a 2014 TNT series based on the 1988 novel of the same name by William Brinkley that ran for five seasons until ending in 2018. At the start of the show, a global pandemic kills over 80% of the world's population, leaving only a few pockets of survivors dotted across the globe. One of these pockets is the crew of the USS Nathan James, a U.S. Navy destroyer ship, who are out on a research expedition when the world goes dark. Safe at sea, though needing to occasionally return to land for fuel, the USS Nathan James makes it their mission to find a cure for humanity. Like The Walking Dead, The Last Ship finds a lot of drama in the world after the apocalypse. The virus is bad, but even more dangerous are the societies that rise up once the dust settles. Combined with the claustrophobia and harsh rules of Snowpiercer, with the main cast secluded to a boat, The Last Ship proves itself an interesting action drama worth the watch. The Last Ship Is A Thrilling Action Drama MovieStillsDB The Last Ship has a large team of executive producers and producers, including, notably, Michael Bay, who serves as an executive producer. Bay's involvement has seemed to result in a series that is more than capable of handling big action set-pieces, more at home in a movie than even a TV show. It's a globetrotting series, and while it's mostly confined to the hulls of the ship, the storyline jumping from place to place makes the series feel bigger than it may otherwise. Not every season of the show is as strong as the other, but that comes with the territory for these kinds of shows. It can be a soap opera and melodramatic in one moment, and then like a Michael Bay action film in the next. Those two qualities don't always mix for the best results, but they do keep the series from feeling dull and lethargic. You never know which way the story is going to go, or in which direction. The Last Ship also ends on its own terms. Five seasons is ample time to get to the bottom of the mysteries the show presents, but it's also a short enough period that you don't become exasperated with the unending storylines, something that rankled The Walking Dead viewers for years. While The Last Ship may rightfully not have the same cultural cache as The Walking Dead, there are still a lot of unique aspects of the series that make it an interesting entry in the long line of Walking Dead imitators that have arrived in the years since the zombie show premiered. Release Date 2014 - 2018-00-00 Network TNT Directors Paul Holahan, Jack Bender, Peter Weller, Michael Katleman, Bill Roe, Sergio Mimica-Gezzan, Bobby Roth, Brad Turner, Greg Beeman, Jann Turner, Jonathan Mostow, Kenneth Fink, Mario Van Peebles, Michael Nankin, Olatunde Osunsanmi, Tim Matheson, Nelson McCormick, Reza Tabrizi, Anton Cropper, Mairzee Almas Cast Rhona Mitra Dr. Rachel Scott Writers Onalee Hunter, Jill Blankenship, Mark Malone, Hiram Martinez, Nic Van Zeebroeck, Katie Swain, Ira Parker, Cameron Welsh, Josh Schaer, Jessica Butler, Jorge Zamacona, Michael Sussman, Quinton Peeples, Anne Cofell Saunders Creator(s) Hank Steinberg, Steven Kane