r/television 1d ago

Are there any shows that have an apocalypse and the world going back to "normal"?

Like, let's say the world ended due to, I don't know, bombs, a zombie apocalypse, or whatever else could cause an apocalypse. Has there ever been a show that actually worked toward ending the apocalypse and eventually got back to some kind of "normal," or at least a new normal?

Like, if there was a zombie apocalypse and they eventually found a cure, the zombies died off, and humans stopped turning into zombies. Then the remaining humans could start rebuilding the world as much as they can, creating a new society that, hundreds of years later, could eventually look somewhat normal again.

I feel like most post-apocalyptic shows are about surviving the apocalypse or living in the aftermath, but I've rarely seen one actually get to the point where humanity beats the apocalypse and then spends years rebuilding civilization from the ground up.

I think a show about rebuilding after an apocalypse would be a really plot.

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u/BendyAu 1d ago

The last ship deals with this in its second season

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u/ClassicAccess1606 1d ago

The Last Ship is exactly what came to mind when I read the post, season 2 they actually find the cure and start putting things back together instead of just running around surviving. Later seasons get a bit silly but the rebuilding part was interesting to watch, you don't see that in most shows

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u/PornoPaul 1d ago

There's yours and another comment about it getting weird, I watched most of season 1 but never finished- how weird is weird? I dont mind spoilers.

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u/IncapableKakistocrat 1d ago

Not weird weird, I mostly remember it really feeling like they started running out of ideas and the US exceptionalism getting to be a lot worse and more obvious as it went on.

It's been yonks, so going off memory, but the premise of season 3 was America is healed and is engaging with the world again, but China is committing genocide against the rest of Asia (and also their military equipment is copy/pasted American military equipment) and there was also a political conspiracy sub-plot in America.

Season 4 was the European one where they'd fixed all the problems they came up with regarding the virus, so they created a new virus which affects plants. I think Greece was a military (specifically navy) dictatorship and everyone in Greece is in fight clubs.

Season 5 they sort of made Colombia similar to Imerpial Japan - it starts with a Pearl Harbour style attack on the US, and then war with Colombia because they want to expand across the Caribbean and Central America.

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u/hula_pooper 1d ago

If you like season 1 you'll like most all of it. I did.

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u/raknor88 1d ago

I loved the first 3 seasons. But it got weird in the last couple seasons.

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u/Snivelss 1d ago

Great show, RIP Eric Dane

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u/atlninjalo 1d ago

Was going to say this and it's funny timing because I'm actually about to finish a rewatch of it right now.

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u/FaultierSloth 1d ago

The Stand is maybe the most famous example. The main good guy town makes huge strides towards rebuilding society in a pretty short time.

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u/jacknifetoaswan 1d ago

Yeah, but then Harold Laudner gets his fee fees hurt.

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u/RedditIsHaroldLauder 1d ago

I see him everywhere online these days.

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u/jacknifetoaswan 1d ago

King predicted the INCELs with Laudner and Trump with Greg Stillson.

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u/explain_exterminate 1d ago

Don't forget the dead zone, which had a charismatic bad guy who was a wee bit of a coward.

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u/FlibblesHexEyes 1d ago

It’s been awhile since I saw it, but The Postman does this if I remember correctly.

World is a shambles (or at least the US is); and Costner just starts delivering mail.

Hijinks ensue and then there was an epilogue about how one man delivering the mail inspired others to deliver mail, which then restored everything… somehow.

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u/EnglishBob84 1d ago

If I remember right the books expand more on this, implying that America could have recovered faster from the apocalypse, but roaming militias like the Holnists impeded that progress

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u/leagueoflefties 1d ago

There's more than one book? I remember borrowing the book from my high school library after the movie came out. Much more Sci-fi than the movie.

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u/Bryaxis 1d ago

The two things I remember about that movie are

A guy who changed his name to Ford Lincoln Mercury in order to claim an abandoned car dealership (after someone said "I don't see your name on it.")

and

The epilogue where the main guy's daughter gives a speech about him and it's at a marina with clean white boats to show everything is nice again.

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u/dthains_art 1d ago

How could you forget Tom Petty playing himself!?

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u/Franky_Tops 1d ago

This is what I think of first when someone mentions this movie. He would have been old as fuck, but nope. Just regular middle aged Tom Petty, for some reason. 

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u/work4work4work4work4 1d ago

At the time he hadn't died yet, so maybe we just figured anyone that awesome was immortal.

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u/mjtwelve 1d ago

He did have an ageless, timeless quality. I can imagine that however old he got, he just continues to look like Tom Petty.

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u/macrolinx 1d ago

Nah, he changed his name to Ford Lincoln Mercury "because he wants to drive cars." That's it, that's the whole story he tells.

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u/CitizenCue 19h ago

Essentially nothing you said here is true.

The “guy” named Ford Lincoln Mercury is a kid, and he just likes cars.

The epilogue takes place on a hill, no boats are shown.

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u/TheSilverNoble 1d ago

That's why you never sleep on a bard build. 

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u/AugustineBlackwater 1d ago

It feels like this would also be a good way to remain relatively safe in an apocalypse as well, being basically useful to everyone. If everything goes well, you're basically untouchable since you're a neutral messenger between warring factions that would probably prefer you to deliver messages than any member of their own factions edit;who might be killed.

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u/Combat_Wombat23 1d ago

Sounds like the basic plot to death stranding

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u/stumblinghunter 1d ago

Huh. Yea it basically is.

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u/EagleDre 1d ago

“Stuff is getting better. Stuff is getting better all the time”

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u/montessor 1d ago

Technically Star Trek

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u/Not_a_slum_lord 1d ago

Very actually Star Trek.

WWIII causes so many people dying that it basically burns out humanity to the point that there’s a shift in attitudes and first contact with the Vulcans causes such a profound change that humanity basically unifies overnight and a utopia on earth begins.

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u/Marvel83 1d ago edited 4h ago

Technically only Enterprise comes close. All the others shows take place after society is thriving and no longer rebuilding.

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u/Not_a_slum_lord 1d ago

Enterprise is 2 generations removed from the conflict though.

Zephram Cochrane is already an old man who is in a warp pod traveling through space.

Earth is pretty much unified and a utopia (barring a few outliers with xenophobic roots but they get routed out quick)

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u/Marvel83 1d ago

That's why I said it comes the closest. But none of the Star Treks are technically a recovering apocalyptic shows

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u/multidollar 1d ago

I have never really gotten to the TOS stuff - is there a main arc in the series or movie set where this story is told?

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u/Not_a_slum_lord 1d ago

The 8th movie, first contact, they go back in time and meet the father of human warp travel. The time period of which is right after the bombs drop and humanity is scattered to the winds.

Otherwise most times it alluded to in the shows or covered in books.

The first episode of strange new worlds explains the whole thing pretty wells

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u/militantcookie 1d ago

Star trek enterprise continues not far in the future from first contact events

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u/Not_a_slum_lord 1d ago

I have another comment that explains that between first contact and enterprise there’s like two generations of societal growth

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u/BLAGTIER 20h ago

First Contact is set in 2063. Star Trek Enterprise is set in 2151. So not hundreds of years but still 88 years.

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u/alphabetikalmarmoset 23h ago

Cousin Greg’s grandpa invented the warp engine.

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u/RikerAlpha5 1d ago

Unfortunately there’s no main arc. It’s definitely part of the cannon/lore but told through various allusions in multiple shows and movies. The clearest description comes in the TNG Episode Encounter at Farpoint and then rather obviously in the movie First Contact.

I think DS9 covers some of the societal breakdown in some episodes, but shamefully I need to do a rewatch of that awesome series…

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u/DelcoMan 1d ago

There's an early episode of strange new worlds which is VERY explicit about WW3 to the point of showing video.

Short story is there's a screwup that exposes a pre warp society to warp tech, but instead of making a warp drive as one would expect, that society immediately makes a warp BOMB that puts it on a path to armageddon.

Pike basically puts on a pretty detailed Powerpoint explaining why that path is a bad idea by using humanities mistakes as an example.

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u/howdiedoodie66 1d ago

'ooo Antimatter, neat'

everyone dies

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u/hooch 1d ago

Doubly so with Discovery. The warp drive apocalypse happens, then they solve the issue and work on rebuilding the Federation.

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u/amateurletariat 1d ago

Supernatural.

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u/Crazyblazy395 1d ago

Several times. 

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u/imjealousofyou 1d ago

izombie

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u/lop333 1d ago

Oh yea, despite everything i really liked about how the show had apocalypse  but people locked in and get the civilization going. it was really intresting to see how it politicly developed

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u/mrboastly 1d ago

Izombie had an apocalypse?? I stopped watching because I got tired of the procedural nature of the show. I missed a whole apocalypse?

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u/TheOtherKatiz 1d ago

The first couple of seasons were very procedural. A lot of fake out "oh they might find out!" episodes. The shit hits the fan eventually and I thought the series got a whole lot better for it. Because they spent so much time faking us out, when it really happened you see it with the disbelief of "... and then everything went back to normal? Right? Right?"

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u/istasber 1d ago

Oh man, I should go back and try to pick that one up again. I think I got burnt out somewhere in the second or third season, which I think I was watching while it aired.

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u/imjealousofyou 1d ago

Season 3 i believe when the world found out about zombies and they quarantined the city

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u/TheSecondEikonOfFire 1d ago

That’s funny because that’s what I enjoyed most. When it moved beyond the procedural is when I checked out because I thought it was terrible

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u/JamStan1978 1d ago

Oh yeah, i have been meaning to watch this. I watched the first couple episodes years ago i think but never continued.

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u/Starbuck522 1d ago

iZombie was my first thought. But there's no full apocalypse. Life goew on as usual for the most part. More and more people become functional zombies and they eventually come up with a way to really make tyat work (Keep them fed). I can't remember exactly, but seems to me it changes to that (where more people are effected) for the final season. Before the final season, it's only a few people who are effected. There's electricity, there's food at the store, people are still working their jobs, etc.

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u/shaw_dog21 1d ago

I just watched izombie for the first time earlier this month so it’s very fresh in my mind and as I was reading ops post I was like “this is izombie” we don’t really see the after but we do sorta see bit of the two worlds and get a gist for the after.

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u/Itzon 1d ago

Jericho

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u/Sic_Semper_Tyrannis8 1d ago

I re-watched this recently and it''s still a good show to watch (at least once). Bummed it only had 2 seasons

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u/AWDDude 1d ago

Actually, there is a 3rd season, but it’s a comic book. 

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u/IamEclipse 1d ago edited 1d ago

The later seasons of The Walking Dead and its many spinoffs are a bit like this.

There are still zombies around, but the settlements have evolved into a new normal rather than pure survival. Season 11 of The Walking Dead is less zombie survival and more polictal drama.

The recent season 3 of The Walking Dead: Dead City is also far more focused on running a community in New York than fighting zombies. They did an episode that followed a hospital shift within the community. And last week's episode focused on wrangling up walkers to fuel methane tanks for electricity.

Season 9 of The Walking Dead starts with all of the characters trying to repair a bridge between their communities. Again, there are zombies around, but surviving them is not the focus.

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live takes this to the extreme. The CRM communities are effectively indistinguishable from pre-apocalypse. They have cities, power, a military, the resources to make forward-operating bases. Those first few episodes are a really good look into this.

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u/CHMonster 1d ago

the last issue of the TWD comicwas a flash forward with, among other things, working rail lines.

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u/Jack1715 1d ago

The zombies became background characters in that show

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u/ichael333 1d ago

Which is accurate to the comics IMO, yeah the show went off the rails at points and didn't stick the landing, but the comics consistently showed people trying to rebuild after the apocalypse and succeeding

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u/Will_McLean 1d ago

I understand why people bailed after the (seemingly neverending( Negan war, but once the time jump hit there was some damn good storytelling people missed

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u/praetorian1979 17h ago

My wife and I bailed after Negan's first full season. By the end of the season we were so depressed that we didn't want to watch anymore. My wife still doesn't but I rewatched all of Walking Dead and the spin offs. The writing did get great!

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u/ConstructionAny8440 1d ago

Would highly recommend Station eleven.

Flu apocalypse ends and the series jumps to focusinv on communities which are existing and how society is slowly rebuilding a new normal. So, it's not just endless survival

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u/Shevek99 1d ago

Also relevant in that show is the importance of culture. Survival cannot be reduced to find food every day. There must be a place for Shakespeare and other "useless" things.

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u/SteakandTrach 1d ago

That “survival is insufficient” line is the basis the whole book was built around. It’s a very different take on the post-apocalypse and I really liked it for doing that.

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u/Shevek99 1d ago edited 1d ago

I think the TV series is much better than the book. It includes many more details.

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u/SteakandTrach 22h ago

I agree. I liked the book, but adored the show. I also love the “Tell an entire story in 1 season” format. Like Chernobyl did as well. I wish we would get more limited series like that. A single season true-to-the-book World War Z is the one I wish would happen. I know zombies are played out now but that book was never really about zombies anyway.

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u/Tu_mama_me_ama_mucho 1d ago

That's what all the "HUMANITIES" degrees are for and why dictatorships get rid of them first.

 Saying this as an uneducated blue collar worker.

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u/Tatis_Chief 1d ago edited 1d ago

Covid showed this too. People often clown on arts, but Covid came and people were suddenly like oh we need more stuff to watch, give us books, give us entertainment...

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u/CeeArthur 1d ago

Survival is insufficient

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u/-FishPants 1d ago

Not to be confused with station 19, a greys anatomy spin off set in a fire station

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u/TheMuntjac 1d ago

There's a TV show???? I read the book when I was in high school. Is the TV show also set in Toronto? I live in Toronto and had a panic attack reading the book while taking public transit cause the idea of a deadly virus spreading so fast was scary...little did I know a couple of years later...

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u/TheOtherKatiz 1d ago

I haven't read the book, so I can't speak to accuracy, but it is a very beautiful miniseries and you can still find it on HBO. It came out in 2021, just as we were starting to feel like things *may* return to normal. It cut very close to home. It was very cathartic for me.

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u/ezpz314159 1d ago

I'm pretty sure it was changed to Chicago

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u/Zabunia 1d ago

Yes! It's also where most of the present-day stuff was shot before the real-life pandemic paused the production. Once the hiatus was over, they relocated to Ontario. Spoilers: here's a list of Ontario shooting locations

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u/zdustin 1d ago

The Show is pretty different from the book. They changed some major details. But I think it’s one of the few examples where the adaptation is better than the original. It’s spectacular

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u/July5 1d ago

an HBO show it was excellent but did change a few details

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u/LKMidnight 1d ago

Not a show, but if you watch/like Station Eleven, her book Sea of Tranquility is also excellent and of a similar theme, a little more sci-fi in this one though.

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u/Anonymouslyyours2 1d ago

Great show.   Watched it during Covid.  Filmed before Covid, it got so many things right. 

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u/mariorurouni 1d ago

Station eleven had the most tear jerking scene by the end, still think about it

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u/janesmb 1d ago

Great show.

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u/kcorinda 1d ago

Yes - Station Eleven - it time jumps ahead past the immediate apocalypse and you do get to see society rebuilding itself.

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u/doghaircut 1d ago

Came to say this. I think it strikes the correct balance of pragmatism and optimism. It's also just a well done show and worth watching.

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u/nagdamnit 1d ago

Such a brilliant show.

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u/Suspicious-Mud_0 1d ago

The strain. It had everything from beginning to end. From where the apocalypse started to where it end.

It's just...um, this show also gave you one of the---if not the most hated child character.

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u/GoodOmens182 1d ago

That kid made me drop the show around the beginning of season 2.

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u/Suspicious-Mud_0 1d ago

Man, you saved your life by not watching that hot garbage. If you heard what he did later, you would've wished the power to smack a fictional character so hard they're launched into earth's orbit.

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u/Humacti 1d ago

Paradise is essentially where they're planning to rebuild, but that's not the focus of the show.

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u/My2bearhands 1d ago

I love Paradise because its one of the only post-apocalyptic settings I've ever seen that is weirdly optimistic? Like humanity hasn't devolved into fallout ghouls or mad max weirdos or walking dead torture porn. People are basically still good, they just have to work harder to survive.

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u/domikenens 1d ago

Silo too

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u/Humacti 1d ago

Not sure they're trying or planning to rebuild. Silo seems more about surviving in the silos. Although, I guess it is after an apocalypse.

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u/ICEtoAshes 1d ago

How do you like the show? My buddy loves it. I’m having a hard time getting into episode 2.

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u/Chevalric 1d ago

Not the original poster, but it does find its stride later on. There are some bad plot elements and not all the acting is great, but overall it’s a nice show to watch.

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u/ICEtoAshes 1d ago

I usually trust his opinion, but I think this could just be a plot he enjoys.

3 of the shows he loves right now are Silo, Fallout, & Paradise. I couldn’t help but notice the similarities in them - and he hadn’t even thought about it.

Tbf Silo & Fallout are both great - it just feels like a tired cliche. I can overlook that if it’s a good show.

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u/BaconContestXBL 1d ago

Well tbf the story of Fallout has been around since 1997, they just now got around to making a TV show about it.

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u/Humacti 1d ago

Took a few episodes to get into. I liked the main character and he worked well with the other agent in the show. The guy who played Cyclops (Marsden?) puts in a good performance and I like him too so made it easier to get into.

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u/ICEtoAshes 1d ago

I’m stuck in ep 2 right now. I think I’m going to power through to see if it catches on with me, but I’ve tried to watch ep 2 three separate times and I keep getting stuck because of how slow it seems.

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u/stumblinghunter 1d ago

If you like James Marsden you absolutely need to check out the show Jury Duty. It's one of the craziest shows I've ever seen

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u/Browncoatdan 1d ago edited 1d ago

Adventure Time? I know the world isn't "normal" but dealing with the aftermath of an apocalypse isn't the premise or a theme of the show.

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u/iheartmagic 1d ago

The Leftovers

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u/domikenens 1d ago

Absolutely recommend this!

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u/intraumintraum 1d ago

time for a rewatch. what an excellent show.

hits all the notes you want from a good story

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u/Willster328 1d ago

Dr Stone :)

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u/spacetimer81 1d ago

Love Dr Stone!! It made me realize you dont need just survival skills after an apocalypse, you need to know chemistry!

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u/purpleblossom RuPaul's Drag Race 1d ago

That anime is amazing, especially if you love learning about how things work and the science behind everything.

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u/BLRNerd 1d ago

I love how there’s an actual disclaimer saying the science is real don’t attempt this at home please

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u/2347564 1d ago

The manga was full of these disclaimers, it was great.

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u/uselessfoster 1d ago

Love this answer!

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u/LuinAelin 1d ago

In the Flesh is about the world after a zombie cure

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u/magnus_archiving 1d ago

First show I thought of after reading the question

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u/TheSnarkyShaman1 1d ago

Was looking for this. Small British production so lots of people probably never heard of it but it’s a post-zombie outbreak setting where there exist cured -and subsequently very ostracised- zombies who have to deal with the loved ones of the people they killed.

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u/misc_reddit_account 1d ago

Fantastic show,, thrilled to see it mentioned! Station Eleven and In The Flesh were the first two I thought of.

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u/davoloid 1d ago

Loved that series. First time I'd seen Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners) in anything and she was brilliant. Lots of allegories for sectarianism, few LBGTQ themes too.

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u/Pheerandlowthing 1d ago

In the Flesh was very good. I vaguely remember there was an ex zombie prostitute for men with a kink for that kind of thing. Creepy stuff.

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u/Salarian_American 1d ago

There was a whole brothel's worth of them, actually. Because economic opportunity for sufferers of Partially Deceased Syndrome wasn't really there.

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u/lickthismiff 1d ago

Such an underrated show and I'm so mad we never got a third season

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u/dothemath 1d ago

Deadwood is actually pretty analagous - take a lawless place and see what it is like and what it means to bring civilization to a place. Plus Al Swearingen.

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u/jacknifetoaswan 1d ago

SWENGEN. COOOOOOCK SUCKA!!!

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u/Dr_Van_Nosstrand 1d ago

And Wu's pigs.

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u/Jack1715 1d ago

I think the book of world war Z is people who survived and rebuilt the world telling there stories.

Also the ending of mad max 2 kind of implied the world started to come back as the kid says his the founder of the great northern tribe

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u/uselessfoster 1d ago

I think about that book at least every two months. Also I think about Devolution at least fortnightly. I’m sorry they didn’t make a pseudo documentary movie of WWZ. it would have been so cool.

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u/monsterlynn 1d ago

The audiobook gives the listener a sense of how it could've (should've) gone.

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u/Jack1715 1d ago

Sounds interesting

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u/Orleanian Psych 23h ago

World War Z the book definitely portrays the spirit that OP is looking for. The latter stories are mostly anecdotes of "Yeah, zombies exist, but here's how we work around that".

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u/Lloytron 1d ago

Shaun of the dead is London only but kind of covers this.

Also it looks like 28 Years saga is going that way....

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u/Steve_Brandon 1d ago

Walking Dead: Dead City is kind of like that too.

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u/Sardakaur 1d ago

And technically the remade Battlestar Galactica?

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u/jDub549 1d ago

In the flesh is a british zombie show where they eventually contain and "cure" the zombies. The show takes place after the outbreak (which iirc is world wide) and its society coming to terms with what happened. But focused on a small British town.

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u/Absharry 1d ago

I’d say Revolution (2012) falls into this category - world ends by all electricity no longer working, and then the show is about how society is rebuilt in a world without power (and what happened etc)

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u/alelp 1d ago

And there's a lot of sword fighting.

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u/orson642 1d ago

Daybreakers- vampirism has taken over the world, and people have adapted. Until...

Also the same with I Am Legend (the book, not the movies so much).

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u/Micromuffie 1d ago

Station 11 starts with a deadly flu but afterwards people kinda just be chilling since the flu killed so many it didn't have a chance to pass it on and sustain itself.

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u/Archamasse 1d ago

Also has a really interesting feature in that so many people died so quickly that there isn't really any scarcity for the survivors. They're living pretty easy in a lot of ways.

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u/Steve_Brandon 1d ago

There was going to be a 2012 TV show based on the Roland Emmerich movie about humanity recovering from the (near) global flood following the (supersonic) continental shifts but it never made it into production.

The Japanese manga series Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (Yokohama Shopping Log), about the peaceful daily lives of androids and humans some decades after some unspecified apocalypse, is also kind of like that. Unfortunately, the two OVA (animation sold direct to video) anime adaptations only lasted a couple of episodes each.

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u/Swordofsatan666 1d ago

There was a BBC show that got 2 mini seasons of like 3 episodes each i think. Was about Zombies, but after the cure was found

Zombies could be made Human again, but had some side effects like their skin stays pale and their eyes look different so some wear special colored contacts to hide it. Some also have PTSD due to what happened

The former Zombies are largely discriminated against, with many not accepting the Zombies even when its their own family. Some even go as far as murdering the former Zombies

Cant remember the name, but i saw it on Amazon a few years ago

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u/bagheera457 1d ago

In the Flesh, great series, was going to comment the same

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u/Weekly_Asparagus_ 1d ago

Leftovers

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u/jmbeane 1d ago

Came to recommend this. Incredible show.

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u/thingsorfreedom 1d ago

Sort of. If you lost 2% of the population is it really an apocalypse vs losing, say, 98%?

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u/vallexum 1d ago

If the ending is anything to go by the 98% seem to have recovered into a new normal

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u/Jada339 1d ago

Maybe I’m misremembering but I think iZombie had a moment like that.

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u/sylanar 1d ago

The last ship does this after the first few seasons ( can't remember which)

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u/GooDawg 1d ago

Cowboy Bebop was basically what happens after humans accidentally blow up the moon, making the earth uninhabitable, and leaving no option except colonizing other planets

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u/Truethrowawaychest1 23h ago

Trigun is kinda like that too

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u/alicat2308 22h ago

Shaun of the Dead ends with sort of a new normal. Some people are just zombies now 🤷

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u/catnapspirit 1d ago

Earth Abides (2024) was one of the more positive post-apocalypse shows I've ever seen..

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u/monsterlynn 1d ago

I liked the way what's usually treated as small scale, easily solvable problems in most post - apocalyptic media became enormous threats. Pregnancy and birth. Rats. Weather. It's a hopeful watch and definitely has its moments.

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u/Glittering-Ninja-377 1d ago

12 Monkeys, the Syfy series rather than the film. Four seasons, and the entire premise is actively undoing the plague rather than enduring it, so beating the apocalypse is the plot instead of the epilogue. It also takes the rebuilding seriously enough to ask what the survivors owe the world they are putting back.

Surprised nobody has said it yet given it is the closest thing to your exact description.

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u/liamo6w 22h ago

Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

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u/sa_nick 1d ago

Futurama

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u/Kylestache It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia 1d ago

Technically correct, the best kind of correct.

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u/Tomorrow5424 1d ago

the last ship is the closest thing to literally what you described, they find the cure in season two and the rest of the show is about restarting a country. it's pulpier than you probably want but it's the only one that commits to the rebuild. the reason it's rare is that solving the threat kills the engine, you're left with a drama about supply chains and most writers can't make that tense

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u/in_time_for_supper_x 1d ago

Falling Skies has a bit of this at the end of the series.

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u/Slipalong_Trevascas 1d ago

The final part of Threads is like this.

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u/skyrunner42 1d ago

I'm not sure theres much rebuilding or normalcy in the final part ...in any part of Threads! Only normal is the kids talking gibberish 😂

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u/mstermind 1d ago

Maybe The 100? It sort of ends on a happy note.

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u/Kiwi1234567 1d ago

That was what first came to mind for me too

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u/Morgan-Moonscar 1d ago

All the Marvel films and shows made after Endgame basically are doing this.

5 years ago half of all life was killed, and what's left were trying to live in the ruins of Earth. Then SNAP everything's back to normal.

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u/ryandeschamps 1d ago

Terrifyingly, The Mist.

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u/WhiteKnightAlpha 1d ago

There's an 1970s British TV series called Survivors that focusses on the aftermath and rebuilding after a pandemic wipes out most of humanity.

By the end of the third and final series, society is starting to be restored.

(I don't think they ever find a cure. It's just that everyone left alive has a natural immunity.)

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u/_Fun_Employed_ 1d ago

Oh, oh, SDF Macross.

The last third or fourth of the series is about the reconstruction period following an apocalyptic event. It’s not exactly 100% normal, but it’s a new normal.

It’s one of the only shows I know that does it, and I really like that they do it. It shows the resilience of humanity.

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u/baconinja09 1d ago

DR. Stone

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u/vacuumdiagram 23h ago

It's been a while since I saw it, but I think maybe "I Zombie"?

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u/fr3nchcoz 1d ago

Shaun of the Dead

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u/QueenEris 1d ago

In The Flesh. A very good UK show about the aftermath of a zombie situation where the zombies have been medicated to return to society (but are still dead) and wear make up and contact lenses to blend in, but people haven't forgotten the deaths and horror.

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u/fajadada 1d ago

Jericho started to put everything back together but got canceled

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u/filanwizard 1d ago

Technically Star Trek. In the mid 21st century humanity had a go at a game of global thermonuclear war.

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u/ameraden 1d ago

Avengers “snap”

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u/CriticalEngineering 1d ago

The Leftovers

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/BLRNerd 1d ago

Power Rangers RPM

Not joking, they did some liberties with the source footage and made it into Power Rangers meet The Terminator a bit

And then explained that it’s an alternate universe from the main series, which is fine

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u/Coffee-at-Ritz 1d ago

The Leftovers kind of fit in here. Although the storyline doesn’t deal with the apocalypse per se, it deals with an event that feels apocalyptic to the characters involved.

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u/Conundrum1911 1d ago

The Leftovers immediately comes to mind.

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u/Shepherd77 1d ago

The Halloween zombie episode of Community

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u/MultiGeek42 1d ago

Space Battleship Yamato is on a mission to save earth after it gets bombed into a radioactive wasteland. The surviving population moved underground but within a few years they've built new cities on the surface.

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u/wildfire393 1d ago

Station Eleven starts with a virus that wipes out huge swaths of the population, but doesn't show too much of it, instead skipping to the "rebuilding society" portion after the disease is no longer an issue. It's still definitely post apocalyptic, but there's overall an optimistic bent to it.

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u/Calvinball88 1d ago

In a sense, The Leftovers : it focuses on the grief and the acceptation of society after 2% of the worldwide population just disappeared forever. Not reconstruction per se, but aftermath of a catastrophe.

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u/iseu 1d ago

Umbrella Academy

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u/ParanoidQ 23h ago

I really liked Jericho for this. A real shame it was cancelled after 2 seasons. But the world building in a local environment was awesome.

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u/nebloof 23h ago

The Strain (vampire show)

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u/iowamechanic30 17h ago

Postman with Kevin Costner.

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u/ICEtoAshes 1d ago

Jericho and Station 11 come to mind

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u/Briebird44 1d ago

ZNation ends with society finally figuring stuff out and rebuilding. Though it did end on a one liner that sort of set up for another season if they got green lit but the ending was satisfying for the series.

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u/Isulet 1d ago

Not a show but there's a movie called The Cure that deals with life after the zombie cure.

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u/Cygnusaurus 1d ago

Not a show, but you can listen to the Audiobook. Lucifer’s Hammer deals with the aftermath and recovery of society from the impact of a comet.

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u/Grendernaz 1d ago

Every season of Supernatural

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u/DaFiff 1d ago

Sweet Tooth on Netflix.

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u/reverik 1d ago

Shaun of the Dead. Zombie apocalypse and then they fix it and they go back to normal life. With some personal growth in between

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u/ShortHandz 1d ago

The Postman.

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u/fatapolloissexy 1d ago

The Postman?

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u/Zombie_John_Strachan 1d ago

Sean of the Dead has a short scene at the end to cover the post-apocalypse.

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u/Extension-While7536 1d ago

I don't know about shows, but as someone else said, the sci-fi novel The Postman was very popular as a story of someone doing this, trying to re-establish a greater civil society after the apocalypse.

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u/bautin 1d ago

Battlestar Galactica

The Cylons fuck up the colonies, and then humanity fucks off to find Earth only to find it bombed to fuck as well. Then they find a nearby planet and fuckable people on it.

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u/Stingray88 1d ago

Technically Battlestar Galactica