After a little break, “Fear Itself” is back with a new episode, “New Year’s Day”. First of all, I am extremely grateful that this episode rocks. While it does suffer from what’s becoming some flaws within this series (like twist endings), the level of shock and a film-like presentation is impressive.

Helen (Briana Evigan, “Step Up 2: The Streets”) wakes up early after a bad New Year’s Eve and slowly finds out the world has become ravaged by a zombie apocalypse. As she learns what happens, we see what lead to the night in which she and some friends become an estranged. The set up is simple, much like most of the episodes from this series, but this episode is written by the great horror comic writer, Steve Niles. I always felt Niles knows horror, but his version of horror isn’t original, it’s just a fun take on a certain horror sub-genre. I really liked his “30 Days of Night” and wish to see more of his work translated to film.

There’s a bit of a fun rush to see zombies stalk NBC airwaves. I love the zombie genre; I’m biased and I see anything that has a zombie in it. I’ve suffered through many bad zombie films, but this is neither bad nor great, luckily, it’s good enough to the extent that I hope “Fear Itself” takes off from this direction. The episode is directed by the “Saw” sequels head guy, Darren Lynn Bousman. He directs it fine, though some of the “Saw” film’s editing style to tension and action is here, but it’s not that distracting.

There’s a bi of gore, an honest-to-goodness decent twist ending, making this episode one of the show’s best. I’ve been lukewarm on the overall show, but this episode and a few others have given me hope the final half of season one will head out on a fun, scary note. We will see, but until then re-watch “New Year’s Day”, because while not a totally original idea, it’s executed well and yes, zombies rule.

See you all next week and remember to see “Fear Itself” on NBC and NBC-HD on Thursday nights at 9C/8E.