MTV was in a weird spot in 2011. The network was desperately trying to pivot away from the Jersey Shore era into scripted content that felt edgy but didn't take itself too seriously. That's how we ended up with Death Valley, a mockumentary-style horror-comedy that followed the Undead Task Force (UTF), a specialized branch of the LAPD. It was essentially COPS meets The Walking Dead, but with a lot more dick jokes and a surprising amount of practical gore.
Most people missed it. Honestly, that’s a tragedy because the show was way ahead of its time. While The Walking Dead was busy being miserable and bleak over on AMC, Death Valley was busy showing us what happens when a cop tries to read a zombie its Miranda rights.
The Chaos of the Undead Task Force
The premise is simple. One year before the show starts, vampires, werewolves, and zombies just... appeared in California’s San Fernando Valley. Nobody knows why. There’s no grand scientific explanation or brooding protagonist searching for a cure. They’re just there, like a pest infestation or a particularly nasty traffic jam on the 405.
The UTF is the thin blue line keeping the Valley from descending into total supernatural anarchy. You’ve got a crew of characters that feel like they walked off the set of Reno 911!. There's Captain Dashell, played by Toby Huss with an intensity that is frankly terrifying. There's also the duo of Billy and Joe, played by Bryce Johnson and Joe Lo Truglio.
Wait. Joe Lo Truglio.
If that name sounds familiar, it's because he went on to play Charles Boyle in Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Watching him in Death Valley is like seeing an alternate-dimension version of Boyle who is slightly more competent at killing monsters but just as socially awkward. The chemistry between the cast is what makes the show move. It’s fast. It’s snappy. It doesn't wait for you to catch the joke.
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It wasn't just about the laughs
What really caught people off guard back then was the special effects. You’d expect an MTV comedy to go cheap on the monsters. You'd expect rubber masks and bad CGI. Instead, the show leaned into high-quality practical effects. When a zombie gets its head blown off, it’s messy. It’s visceral.
The show understood a fundamental rule of horror-comedy: the stakes have to feel real for the comedy to land. If the monsters aren't scary, the cops looking like idiots doesn't matter. But because the zombies were actually threatening, watching a UTF officer get frustrated because a werewolf is "technically a citizen" during a full moon becomes hilarious.
Why Death Valley Got Cancelled (And Why It Matters)
The show only lasted one season. Twelve episodes. That’s it.
The ratings weren't even that bad, but MTV was going through a massive identity crisis. They were trying to find the next Teen Wolf, and Death Valley was just a bit too niche, a bit too gory, and maybe a bit too smart for what the executives wanted at the time. It ended on a massive cliffhanger that never got resolved.
Basically, we were left with a bunch of unanswered questions about the origin of the outbreak and the fate of our favorite incompetent lawmen.
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The Cult Following
Since 2011, the show has lived on through word-of-mouth. It’s one of those "if you know, you know" series. It paved the way for things like What We Do in the Shadows. The mockumentary format for supernatural entities is a trope now, but back then, it felt fresh.
- It treated monsters as mundane.
- It used the "found footage" shaky-cam style for comedy instead of just scares.
- It featured a pre-fame Caity Lotz (who later became a mainstay in the DC Arrowverse) kicking absolute ass as Officer Kirsten Landry.
Looking back, the show's DNA is everywhere in modern genre-bending TV. It wasn't trying to be prestige television. It was trying to be a fun, bloody half-hour of television that made you laugh while you were grossed out.
The Realism of the Ridiculous
One of the best things about Death Valley was how it handled the different monster types. Zombies were just "shufflers"—slow-moving nuisances that were mostly dangerous in groups. Vampires were the organized crime element, running brothels and drug rings. Werewolves were the unpredictable wild cards, usually just normal dudes who were incredibly stressed about their monthly "condition."
The writers, including showrunner Curtis Gwinn (who later worked on The Walking Dead and Stranger Things), treated the supernatural as a bureaucracy.
There's a scene where they have to deal with a "zombie kid" and the moral implications of it. In any other show, this would be a heart-wrenching moment of drama. In this show? It’s a logistical nightmare for the camera crew and the officers who just want to get to lunch. That cynical, blue-collar approach to the apocalypse is something we rarely see.
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Where Can You Watch It Now?
Finding the Death Valley TV series today is a bit of a scavenger hunt. It’s not always on the major streamers like Netflix or Max. Usually, it pops up on MTV’s website or digital storefronts like Amazon and Apple.
If you can find it, watch it. It’s a time capsule of a specific moment in the early 2010s when cable networks were willing to take weird risks. It’s 22 minutes of pure adrenaline and absurdity.
What to do if you’re a fan of the genre:
- Track down the DVD if you can find it; the behind-the-scenes stuff on the makeup effects is worth the price alone.
- Follow the cast on social media—many of them, like Tania Raymonde and Joe Lo Truglio, still speak fondly of the "chaos" of filming that single season.
- Check out Wellington Paranormal if you want something with a similar "supernatural cops" vibe, though it's much drier and less gory than its MTV predecessor.
The legacy of the show isn't in its longevity, but in its influence. It proved that you could do high-concept horror on a TV budget without sacrificing the "cool" factor. It was a show that didn't care about being liked by everyone, which is exactly why the people who liked it really loved it.
For anyone looking to dive into the series, start with the pilot. It sets the tone perfectly: a mix of heavy gunfire, bickering partners, and a zombie getting hit by a patrol car. It’s unapologetic, it’s loud, and it’s a reminder that sometimes the best TV is the stuff that burns bright and disappears too soon.
To get the most out of your rewatch or first-time viewing, pay attention to the background gags. The show is packed with small details in the "news crawls" and the graffiti that flesh out how the world has changed since the monsters arrived. It’s world-building through the lens of a handheld camera, and it’s brilliant.