The CWStill think the CW is full of cheesy rom coms and teen shows?
First of all, that's offensive because there's nothing better than a good high school drama. But second of all, it's 2016 and there are not one, not two, but three DC superhero shows on the network's lineup.
The network's newest drama, Containment, is a Walking Dead-esque thriller, and yes, it will terrify you. When an unidentified deadly disease breaks out in the center of Atlanta, the government decides to cordon off the section of the city with the exposed patients—trapping 4,000 people inside. The disease spreads quickly through exposure to bodily fluids (coughs, sneezes, etc.)—essentially, the zombie plague, except people don't turn into zombies at the end. (Instead, a sexy cop trapped inside the cordon has to incinerate the victims' bodies while skillfully wearing a tank top. Come on, it is the CW, after all.)
"It's like Walking Dead minus zombies, but in an urban environment, which is terrifying," star Chris Wood, the aforementioned sexy cop whose biceps will leave you breathless, tells E! News ahead of his new show's premiere. "Except everyone has a horribly gruesome, painful, slow death."
Wood, who previously guest-starred on The Vampire Diaries as the villainous Kai—a dude so evil he murdered his own sister and the twin babies she was carrying on her wedding day, then put the show's heroine under a sleeping spell that will only allow her to wake up once her BFF dies—plays reluctant hero Jake, the de-facto head of law enforcement inside the cordon who takes orders from his sergeant BFF on the outside, Lex (David Gyasi).
"He's the kind of person who, if he's aware of something he's doing, or has to do, he freezes up," Wood explains. "So when Lex says, 'Go lead these cops. Go be in charge of this. Go do this. You're in charge,' he freaks out. … But if you put him in a situation where something happens, his instinct, his first reaction, is to do the right thing. Like all of us in a lot of ways, his psyche, his brain gets in the way."
You'll see Jake grow into his role as the 13-episode series goes on—or at least grow resigned to his fate—but there's one thing Wood hasn't done, surprisingly: Become a germophobe.
"I look at airplanes and people sneezing next to me very differently," he says. "I look at coffee shops, you know when you go to the part that's sort of the buffet, where you can grab the lids and the sugar? You see people wipe their nose and grab a lid, and you're like, 'That is going to touch my mouth in a second. Before you were here, there was probably someone who did that right before right before you, and they could have been exposed to [anything].' When you live in the world of the show, you carry that awareness with you. It doesn't make us all germophobes, I don't think, but it does make our imaginations go to that."
Press play on the video above for an exclusive first look at the new series, and tune in to Containment on Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on the CW.